Three dozen indicted in Atlanta cheating scandal

ATLANTA (AP) ? Juwanna Guffie was sitting in her fifth-grade classroom taking a standardized test when, authorities say, the teacher came around offering information and asking the students to rewrite their answers. Juwanna rejected the help.

"I don't want your answers, I want to take my own test," Juwanna told her teacher, according to Fulton County District Attorney Paul Howard.

On Friday, Juwanna ? now 14 ? watched as Fulton County prosecutors announced that a grand jury had indicted the Atlanta Public Schools' ex-superintendent and nearly three dozen other former administrators, teachers, principals and other educators of charges arising from a standardized test cheating scandal that rocked the system.

Former Superintendent Beverly Hall faces charges including conspiracy, making false statements and theft because prosecutors said some of the bonuses she received were tied to falsified scores. Hall retired just days before the findings of a state probe were released in mid-2011. A nationally known educator who was named Superintendent of the Year in 2009, Hall has long denied knowing about the cheating or ordering it.

During a news conference Friday, Howard highlighted the case of Juwanna and another student, saying they demonstrated "the plight of many children" in the Atlanta school system.

Their stories were among many that investigators heard in hundreds of interviews with school administrators, staff, parents and students during a 21-month-long investigation.

According to Howard, Juwanna said that when she declined her teacher's offer, the teacher responded that she was just trying to help her students. Her class ended up getting some of the highest scores in the school and won a trophy for their work. Juwanna felt guilty but didn't tell anyone about her class' cheating because she was afraid of retaliation and feared her teacher would lose her job.

She eventually told her sister and later told the district attorney's investigators. Still confident in her ability to take a test on her own, Juwanna got the highest reading score on a standardized test this year.

The other student cited by Howard was a third-grader who failed a benchmark exam and received the worst score in her reading class in 2006. The girl was held back, yet when she took a separate assessment test not long afterward, she passed with flying colors.

Howard said the girl's mother, Justina Collins, knew something was wrong, but was told by school officials that the child simply was a good test-taker. The girl is now in ninth grade, reading at a fifth-grade level.

"I have a 15-year-old now who is behind in achieving her goal of becoming what she wants to be when she graduates. It's been hard trying to help her catch up," Collins said at the news conference.

The allegations date back to 2005. In addition to Hall, 34 other former school system employees were indicted. Four were high-level administrators, six were principals, two were assistant principals, six were testing coordinators and 14 were teachers. A school improvement specialist and a school secretary were also indicted.

Howard didn't directly answer a question about whether prosecutors believe Hall led the conspiracy.

"What we're saying is, is that without her, this conspiracy could not have taken place, particularly in the degree that it took place. Because as we know, this took place in 58 of the Atlanta Public Schools. And it would not have taken place if her actions had not made that possible," the prosecutor said.

Richard Deane, an attorney for Hall, told The New York Times that Hall continues to deny the charges and expects to be vindicated. Deane said the defense was making arrangements for bond.

"We note that as far as has been disclosed, despite the thousands of interviews that were reportedly done by the governor's investigators and others, not a single person reported that Dr. Hall participated in or directed them to cheat on the C.R.C.T.," he said later in a statement provided to the Times.

The tests were the key measure the state used to determine whether it met the federal No Child Left Behind law. Schools with good test scores get extra federal dollars to spend in the classroom or on teacher bonuses.

It wasn't immediately clear how much bonus money Hall received. Howard did not say and the amount wasn't mentioned in the indictment.

"Those results were caused by cheating. ... And the money that she received, we are alleging that money was ill-gotten," Howard said.

A 2011 state investigation found cheating by nearly 180 educators in 44 Atlanta schools. Educators gave answers to students or changed answers on tests after they were turned in, investigators said. Teachers who tried to report it faced retaliation, creating a culture of "fear and intimidation," the investigation found.

State schools Superintendent John Barge said last year he believed the state's new accountability system would remove the pressure to cheat on standardized tests because it won't be the sole way the state determines student growth. The pressure was part of what some educators in the system blamed for their cheating.

A former top official in the New York City school system who later headed the Newark, N.J. system for three years, Hall served as Atlanta's superintendent for more than a decade, which is rare for an urban schools chief. She was named Superintendent of the Year by the American Association of School Administrators in 2009 and credited with raising student test scores and graduation rates, particularly among the district's poor and minority students. But the award quickly lost its luster as her district became mired in the scandal.

In a video message to schools staff before she retired in the summer of 2011, Hall warned that the state investigation launched by former Gov. Sonny Perdue would likely reveal "alarming" behavior.

"It's become increasingly clear that a segment of our staff chose to violate the trust that was placed in them," Hall said. "There is simply no excuse for unethical behavior and no room in this district for unethical conduct. I am confident that aggressive, swift action will be taken against anyone who believed so little in our students and in our system of support that they turned to dishonesty as the only option."

The cheating came to light after The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported that some scores were statistically improbable.

Most of the 178 educators named in the special investigators' report in 2011 resigned, retired, did not have their contracts renewed or appealed their dismissals and lost. Twenty-one educators have been reinstated and three await hearings to appeal their dismissals, said Atlanta Public Schools spokesman Stephen Alford.

APS Superintendent Erroll Davis said the district, which has about 50,000 students, is now focused on nurturing an ethical environment, providing quality education and supporting the employees who were not implicated.

"I know that our children will succeed when the adults around them work hard, work together, and do so with integrity," he said in a statement.

The Georgia Professional Standards Commission is responsible for licensing teachers and has been going through the complaints against teachers, said commission executive secretary Kelly Henson. Of the 159 cases the commission has reviewed, 44 resulted in license revocations, 100 got two-year suspensions and nine were suspended for less than two years, Henson said. No action was taken against six of the educators.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/3-dozen-indicted-atlanta-cheating-scandal-214241949.html

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Fall in gas prices could spur Easter travel in NC

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) -- AAA Carolinas thinks a 16-cent drop in gas prices and a forecast of pleasant weather could lead motorists to do some traveling during the Easter weekend.

Since peaking at $3.80 on Feb. 22, the average cost of a gallon of gas in North Carolina has fallen to $3.64.

This year, the increase occurred earlier than usual, rising 58 cents from $3.22 on Dec. 20 to $3.80 on Feb. 22, before trending back downward.

The Fayetteville area has the highest-priced gasoline in North Carolina at $3.68. The least expensive gas in the state is in High Point at $3.56.

Although the Easter holiday isn't traditionally a heavy travel weekend, many North Carolina schools are on spring break, which increases traffic congestion and demand for gas.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/fall-gas-prices-could-spur-151331023.html

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Mate choice in mice is heavily influenced by paternal cues

Friday, March 29, 2013

Mate choice is a key factor in the evolution of new animal species. The choice of a specific mate can decisively influence the evolutionary development of a species. In mice, the attractiveness of a potential mate is conveyed by scent cues and ultrasonic vocalizations. Researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology in Pl?n investigated whether house mice (Mus musculus) would mate with each other even if they were from two populations which had been separated from each other for a long time period. To do this, the researchers brought together mice from a German population and mice from a French population. Although to begin with all the mice mated with one another randomly, the hybrid offspring of French and German parents were distinctly more choosy: they showed a definite preference for mating with individuals from their father's original population. According to the researchers, this paternal imprinting accelerates the divergence of two house mouse populations and thus promotes speciation.

In allopatric speciation, individuals of a species become geographically isolated from each other by external factors such as mountains or estuaries. Over time, this geographic separation leads to the sub-populations undergoing various mutations, and thus diverging genetically. Animals from the two different sub-populations can no longer successfully reproduce, so two new species evolve.

To find out what role partner selection plays in such speciation processes, Diethard Tautz from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology and his colleagues conducted a comprehensive study on house mice ? the classic model organisms of biology. "To investigate whether there are differences in the mating behaviour of the mice in the early stages of speciation, we caught wild house mice in southern France and western Germany. The two populations have been geographically separate for around 3,000 years, which equates to some 18,000 generations," says Diethard Tautz. Due to this geographical separation, the French and German mice were genetically different.

The Pl?n-based researchers created a semi-natural environment for their investigations ? a sort of "Playboy Mansion" for mice. The research enclosure was several square meters in size and was divided up using wooden walls, "nests" made out of plastic cylinders, and plastic tubes. It also featured an escape tube with several entrances, which led into a cage system nearby. "We constructed the enclosure in such a way that all animals had unimpeded access to all areas, but thanks to the structural divisions were also able to create their own territories or retreat into nests," explains Tautz. "The escape tube was a control element. If the mice retreated to it only very seldom ? as was the case in our experiment ? then we could be sure there was no overpopulation in the central enclosure."

In this central enclosure, the French and German mice had both time and space to mate with each other and reproduce. "At first, all the mice mated with each other quite randomly. But with the first-generation offspring, a surprising pattern emerged," says Tautz. When the first-generation hybrid offspring of mixed French and German parentage mated, they showed a specific preference for pure-bred mates whose "nationality" was that of their father only. "There must be some kind of paternal influence that prompts the hybrid mice to choose a mate from a specific population, namely that of their father," concludes the biologist, based on the results of his study. "This imprinting must be learned, however, meaning that the animals must grow up in the presence of their fathers. This was not the case for the original mice, which were kept in cages for a time after being caught."

"We know that mice use ultrasonic vocalizations to communicate with each other and that particularly in the case of male mice these vocalizations can reveal signals of individuality and kinship. We believe that, like birdsong, the vocalizations of the males have a learned component and a genetic component," says Tautz. Therefore, French and German mice really could "speak" different languages, partly learned from their fathers, partly inherited from them. Individual mice thus have a mating preference for mice that speak the same language as they do.

The French and German mouse populations had evidently been geographically separated long enough for preliminary signs of species differentiation to be apparent as regards mating preferences. In addition, another aspect of mating behavior also sped up the speciation process.

Although mice have multiple mates, the researchers found evidence of partner fidelity and inbreeding. The tendency to mate with relatives fosters the creation of genetically uniform groups. When both occur together, this accelerates the speciation process.

In a next step, Diethard Tautz wants to find out whether the vocalizations of the mice play the decisive role in paternal imprinting, or if scent cues are also involved. Furthermore, the biologist wants to identify the genes that are involved in mate selection.

###

Inka Montero, Meike Tesche and Diethard Tautz: "Paternal imprinting of mating preferences between natural populations of house mice (Mus musculus domesticus)", Molecular Ecology (2013), doi: 10.111/mec.122271;

Max-Planck-Gesellschaft: http://www.mpg.de

Thanks to Max-Planck-Gesellschaft for this article.

This press release was posted to serve as a topic for discussion. Please comment below. We try our best to only post press releases that are associated with peer reviewed scientific literature. Critical discussions of the research are appreciated. If you need help finding a link to the original article, please contact us on twitter or via e-mail.

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Source: http://www.labspaces.net/127520/Mate_choice_in_mice_is_heavily_influenced_by_paternal_cues

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Demi Lovato returning as 'X Factor' judge

NEW YORK (AP) ? Fox network says Demi Lovato is returning as a judge of "The X Factor."

The singer-songwriter will be back alongside series creator Simon Cowell when the singing competition begins its third season this fall.

Although calling Lovato "really, really annoying," Cowell said he enjoys working with her. She joined the panel of judges last year.

Thursday's announcement comes as the panel is being revamped. Britney Spears and record producer Antonio "L.A." Reid departed after Season 2.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/demi-lovato-returning-x-factor-judge-190349422.html

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Banks win dismissal of most rate-rigging claims

NEW YORK (AP) ? A group of banks including Bank of America and JPMorgan Chase have won dismissal of most of the claims in private lawsuits alleging that they rigged a key interest rate.

U.S. District Judge Naomi Reice Buchwald in New York dismissed antitrust claims brought against the banks by a group of plaintiffs that included the City of Baltimore and some pension funds. The plaintiffs alleged that they had suffered losses because the banks had manipulated the London Interbank Offered Rate, or LIBOR.

The judge said that while the banks had already paid billions of dollars of penalties to government regulatory agencies, private plaintiffs had to satisfy many requirements which governments didn't.

LIBOR is the rate banks use to borrow from each other ? and it is critical. The rate indirectly affects the cost of loans that people pay when they take out loans. It provides the basis for trillions of dollars in contracts around the world, including bonds and consumer loans ? such as when consumers buy a home or car.

It is a self-policing system and relies on information that global banks submit to a British banking authority.

Cities and municipal agencies in the U.S. have filed a flurry of lawsuits against some of the banks that set the LIBOR. They have sought damages for losses they say they suffered as a result of an artificially low rate, which depressed the value of bonds and other investments pegged to the key interest rate.

Last fall a U.S. watchdog found that government-controlled mortgage giant Freddie Mac and its larger sibling Fannie Mae together may have lost more than $3 billion on their investments from banks' rate-rigging.

Last week Freddie Mac sued JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Citigroup and 12 other big international banks in federal court in Alexandria, Va., claiming the lenders rigged the key interest rate, causing the lender to incur huge losses.

Two big British banks and Switzerland's largest have been fined hundreds of millions of dollars for manipulating LIBOR by U.S. and British regulators.

Calls placed to attorneys for plaintiffs in the case were not immediately returned.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/f70471f764144b2fab526d39972d37b3/Article_2013-03-29-Banks-LIBOR/id-c2e0c072576f4112bee3d2bb1f0e7585

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Obama Calls for Infrastructure Spending ? for the Fifth Time in Five Years

Speaking Friday in Miami, President Obama called for $21 billion in new national infrastructure investment. This is a strong break from past years ? when he called for the creation of an infrastructure bank in the autumn.

RELATED: Five Best Wednesday Columns

In 2009, the newly elected president had his only success in getting Congress to approve money for infrastructure. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act ??the stimulus bill ??allocated tens of billions to highways, rail, and transit improvements. At the time, The New York Times hailed the deal, but with a caveat.

By one measure, the public- works spending in the stimulus package exceeds the promises President Obama made as a candidate. But by another, it falls short. ?

[I]t does not create the national infrastructure bank he had called for to set national priorities and get big projects done.

That infrastructure bank is the key element of Obama's pitch for public investment. In short, it would create a new government entity to evaluate projects and issue bonds for their construction, leveraging an existing pool of money. But in 2009, Obama couldn't make the sale.

RELATED: We Have a Debt Limit Deal: Now What?

Nor could he in any year since. The infrastructure bank came up in September, 2010, as part of a request for $50 billion. He called for it in September 2011, as part of a Jobs Act proposal that would, again, put $50 billion into infrastructure. He called for it last February, when he revived the idea of the Jobs Act ??and, of course, last fall on the campaign trail.

RELATED: Who's Economy Is It Anyway?

During its election-year review of the president's campaign promises, Politifact labelled the infrastructure bank a "broken promise". Though that's not Obama's fault. It's Congress's fault. Only Congress can approve the creation of such an entity, much less authorize $21 billion in spending. And besides one fit of generosity in 2009, they've been reticent to do so since.

RELATED: Poll: A Slight Majority Still Blames George Bush for Economy

The ostensible reason Obama unveiled his initiative now is that he will unveil his complete budget on April 10, for which today was meant to act as a preview. But there may be another reason ? that he's hoping to capitalize on his reelection and on the surprising disarray and acquiescence that the GOP has shown so far this year on tax cuts and funding for Hurricane Sandy relief. At what CNN called a "campaign-style event", Obama brought pressure on the House Republicans. NBC reports:

On Friday, Obama dinged Republicans for disapproving of blanket ?government spending? but privately lobbying for infrastructure projects that create jobs ? and boost their political popularity ? at home.

?I know that members of Congress are happy to weclome projects like this in their districts,? Obama said. ?I know because I?ve seen them at the ribbon cuttings.?

Obama's used that joke a lot before, too.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/obama-calls-infrastructure-spending-fifth-time-five-years-185725316.html

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Boston Mayor Menino will not seek sixth term: Boston Globe

BOSTON (Reuters) - Boston Mayor Tom Menino, a Democrat who has run the city for almost two decades, will not seek a sixth term, the Boston Globe reported on its website Wednesday night.

Menino will announce his decision at a Thursday afternoon news conference, the newspaper said. Staff at the mayor's office could not be reached for immediate comment.

The 70-year-old mayor was hospitalized for a month last year for a virus and back pain that cut short an Italian vacation.

A decision not to seek re-election would set the stage for Boston's most competitive mayoral race since 1993, when Menino first won the office.

So far, only one candidate, city councilor John Connolly, has declared an intention to run, though observers said aspirants may have held off jumping into the race, waiting to see if Menino would seek re-election.

(Reporting by Scott Malone; Editing by Philip Barbara)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/boston-mayor-menino-not-seek-sixth-term-boston-024857747.html

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Johnny Depp to do live 'Lone Ranger' online Q&A

LOS ANGELES (AP) ? Johnny Depp will answer fans' questions about "The Lone Ranger" in a live online session.

Disney announced Thursday that Depp and co-star Armie Hammer will discuss the anticipated adventure film on April 17 after showing 20 minutes of exclusive footage to about 400 fans at a Las Vegas theater.

Director Gore Verbinski and producer Jerry Bruckheimer also will participate in the session, which is to stream live on Yahoo Movies and Livestream.

Fans outside of Las Vegas can submit questions for "The Lone Ranger" team through Twitter and watch the film's trailer online. The extended footage, though, is just for those in Las Vegas.

The promotion coincides with the annual CinemaCon convention, where Disney is expected to offer a similar presentation for theater owners. "The Lone Ranger" releases July 3.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/johnny-depp-live-lone-ranger-online-q-094810388.html

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Video: Is Geno Smith worthy of top 10?

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Source: http://nbcsports.msnbc.com/id/21134540/vp/51350305#51350305

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Google Play movies now available in India and Mexico

Google Play's book collection opened up in India and Mexico just a few weeks ago, and now Mountain View's movie hoard is available in both countries on the web and through the content's Android app. It's no coincidence that the video service has gone live this week either -- we reckon that Page and Co. would love to see folks pair their new Nexus 7 slates with their favorite flicks. To get your mitts on the application, hit the second source link below.

Update: In another addition for Indian users, Gmail is ready to support six Indic languages in featurephone browsers: Bengali, Gujarati, Kannada, Marathi, Tamil, and Telugu.

Filed under: Google

Comments

Source: Google Play (Google+), Google Play Movies & TV (Google Play), Gmail

Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/MtNNmbC5HGY/

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What People are Saying About Anti-Aging | A Mom in Red High Heels

• ?Please don?t underestimate the effects of your lifestyle on your skin. Dr. Gerstner tells her patients that the most important things they can do for their skin are to wear sunscreen, not to smoke, to maintain a healthy body weight, and not to yo-yo diet. ?A full, round face is youthful. Go back to your high school yearbook and look how full your cheeks were,? she says. ?A think, guant face will make you look old.? (source)

• ?Our skin reflects our?state of health?and much of what we want the world to know about us.? Nina Jablonski, anthropologist and author of Skin: A Natural History. (source)

• ?Ninety-five percent of wrinkles are due to sun exposure,? says Doris Day, M.D., assistant clinical professor of dermatology at New York University Medical Center. (source)

• ?Beautiful young people are accidents of nature, but beautiful old people are works of art.? Eleanor Roosevelt

So what are you going to do to be a beautiful old person who is like a work of art?

Here?s an idea to get you started:

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Source: http://amominredhighheels.com/people-saying-antiaging/

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Beyond the Firewall: Why Business Intelligence Matters To Advertising

?Data Driven Thinking? is written by members of the media community and contains fresh ideas on the digital revolution in media.

Today?s column is written by?Khurrum Malik, CMO at?eXelate.

Advertisers who fully grasp the interplay between ad tech and Business Intelligence (BI) will maximize customer lifetime value in the accelerating digital world. Here's why.

In the late '90s, relational databases and the advent of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) laid the foundation for today?s BI industry. Players like Siebel, Oracle and even JD Edwards pushed enterprises to capture and retain data about their customers to grow their base. Then came a need to analyze and report customer information with BI tools like Cognos and Crystal Reports.

Fast forward to today?s BI market. ?One sees a thick ecosystem of software (Microstrategy, IBM, Alteryx, Domo) and services (Accenture, Deloitte), providers who are chasing a multibillion-dollar market dedicated to helping businesses analyze and optimize performance.? BI has evolved from simple reporting to predictive analytics, ?demonstrating a hunger to answer as many customer questions as possible ? all behind or at the firewall.? It is important to note that a majority of this spend is controlled by enterprise CIOs who are dedicated to maximizing the value of technology investments, but who are also sometimes at odds with CMOs.

Enter the ad tech and digital advertising ecosystem, built to fulfill the needs of the CMO ? specifically, the needs of advertisers to improve awareness, consideration, and eventually acquisition of customers through digital channels.? When a potential customer is in the awareness and consideration phase, ad tech nudges the customer forward to acquisition.? But this ecosystem must realize it is only part of the customer journey.? With billions of dollars being spent on improving digital funnel performance from customer awareness to consideration to acquisition, companies across the ad tech industry are wondering if there is more they can do to meet the needs of advertisers worldwide ? and not just play outside the firewall.

Imagine a major wireless company; let?s call it Horizon Wireless.? Horizon?s marketing team wants to acquire as many customers as possible, retain them as long as possible, and grow (upsell, cross-sell) their customers ? all to maximize customer lifetime value.? In order to meet these goals, Horizon utilizes the ad tech ecosystem to raise awareness and drive consideration for potential customers; however, once Horizon acquires customers, BI plays a larger role in retaining and growing them.

So why should advertisers care about BI?? Three major reasons pop out:

1. Size Matters ? The Business Intelligence market isn?t going away.? With analysts sizing the market anywhere from $12B to $30B-plus and growing at double-digit rates, BI will continue to capture enterprise budgets and deepen relationships with both the CIO and, increasingly, the CMO.
2. Expansion ? Almost all BI players are recognizing the ad tech impact and utilizing legacy BI/enterprise data with ad tech smart data to drive smarter decisions and accelerate the customer journey.? Why not take first-party customer conversion data and use that to seed online third-party smart data, more effectively targeting many potential customers?
3. New Advantage ? Companies that can lay out a strategy and execution plan which demonstrates the right mix of ad tech and BI interplay are poised to flourish, capturing the mindshare and budgets of CIOs and CMOs worldwide.

Some companies are already positioning to take advantage of this trend:

1. Software/SaaS ? Industry leaders like Microsoft, Adobe and IBM already see this dynamic and are investing within and outside the enterprise to accelerate the customer journey. Another example is Salesforce?s move to purchase Buddy Media.
2. Services ? Players like Accenture and Deloitte are pushing their comfort zones beyond BI and analytics to help clients influence customers earlier in the customer journey.
3. Ad Tech ? Companies like comScore are bridging this gap with audience, advertising and digital analytics across the customer journey, while agencies like Merkle and R/GA are moving proactively to carve pre- and post- acquisition inroads with CMOs.? Industry giants like Facebook are already pushing across customer touchpoints by positioning themselves as a one-stop shop for awareness and brand growth.

The time for behind-the-firewall (BI) and beyond-the-firewall (ad tech) collaboration is here. Only those who can bridge the gap and accelerate the customer journey will survive the shifting digital landscape.

Follow Khurrum Malik (@trihoos) and AdExchanger (@adexchanger) on Twitter.

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Source: http://www.adexchanger.com/data-driven-thinking/beyond-the-firewall-why-business-intelligence-matters-to-advertising/

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New Tiger Reserve Established in India

Mar 26 (Reuters) - Leading money winners on the 2013 PGATour on Monday (U.S. unless stated): 1. Tiger Woods $3,787,600 2. Brandt Snedeker $2,859,920 3. Matt Kuchar $2,154,500 4. Steve Stricker $1,820,000 5. Phil Mickelson $1,650,260 6. Hunter Mahan $1,553,965 7. John Merrick $1,343,514 8. Dustin Johnson $1,330,507 9. Russell Henley $1,313,280 10. Kevin Streelman $1,310,343 11. Keegan Bradley $1,274,593 12. Charles Howell III $1,256,373 13. Michael Thompson $1,254,669 14. Brian Gay $1,171,721 15. Justin Rose $1,155,550 16. Jason Day $1,115,565 17. Chris Kirk $1,097,053 18. ...

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/tiger-established-india-214349555.html

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Big bang's 'afterglow' reveals universe to be a bit older, with more matter

The most detailed map ever made of the afterglow of the big bang has been unveiled, using data from the Planck space telescope. It largely confirms cosmologists' narrative for the birth of the universe, with a few adjustments.

By Pete Spotts,?Staff writer / March 21, 2013

This image released on Thursday shows the evolution of satellites designed to measure ancient light left over from the Big Bang that created our universe 13.8 billion years ago. From left, is NASA's Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE), the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP), and Planck, a European Space Agency mission with significant NASA contributions.

ESA Planck Collaboration/AP

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The most detailed map ever made of the afterglow of the big bang ? the primordial release of energy that gave rise to the visible universe some 13.8 billion years ago ? has been unveiled.

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The afterglow, a cosmic Rosetta Stone, provides a wealth of information on conditions in the early universe and its composition. And it reveals the seeds of structure that would eventually grow into the galaxies, clusters, and vast sheets and filaments of galaxies that populate the universe astronomers see today.

The data, unveiled Thursday, show a universe with slightly more matter and less "dark energy" than previously estimated, a slightly older universe, and one expanding more slowly than previously measured.

In key ways, the new map is providing a remarkable confirmation of the story cosmologists have compiled on how the universe came to be. But it's also displaying features that researchers are having a hard time explaining.

The inexplicable features could be the cosmological equivalent of an optical illusion, resulting from gravity's effect on the path of the afterglow's photons as they travel through space. Or the features could be embedded in the afterglow itself.

"Either possibility is fascinating," says Scott Dodelson, an astrophysicist at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Batavia, Ill.

But if the features truly are embedded in the afterglow, "that would be really important," he says, adding that it would lead to a better understanding of the processes that drove the early, exponential expansion of the universe.

For a fleeting moment some 10 nano nano nano nanoseconds after the big bang, the universe inflated at a stunning pace. In that fleeting moment, the cosmos expanded by 100 trillion trillion times, says Charles Lawrence, a researcher at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the US project scientist for Planck, the European Space Agency space telescope that made the measurements.

As early as 1946, theorists predicted that the big bang would leave a relic afterglow. But researchers didn't deem it detectable until 1964 ? about the same time two Bell Laboratory engineers were testing an exquisitely sensitive microwave antenna for telecommunications work.

The two unwittingly stumbled across the afterglow, formally known as the cosmic microwave background. They saw it as nuisance noise that wouldn't go away, no matter where in the sky the duo aimed the antenna. Cosmologists got wind of the measurements and checked them against theory. The results put the two engineers, Anro Penzias and Robert Wilson, on the fast track to Stockholm and a Nobel Prize in physics.

Planck is the third space telescope sent into orbit in the past 34 years to measure the cosmic microwave background.

The microwave radiation started out as white-hot light permeating a smaller, toastier universe made of a roiling soup of protons, photons, and electrons, cosmologists say. At the time, the universe was about 380,000 years old with temperatures of around 4,900 degrees Fahrenheit.

As the universe expanded and cooled, so did the radiation that traveled with it, until it dropped to microwave wavelengths and nosedived to about 2.7 degrees above absolute zero. The information cosmologists seek is recorded in subtle variations in temperature across the microwave sky on large and on small scales. Subtle is an understatement. Researchers are mapping variations on the order of 100 millionths of a degree.

Compared with its predecessors, Planck has an unmatched sensitivity to these changes and an ability to distinguish them across much smaller patches of sky. It is revealing the richest vein of information in the afterglow that cosmologists have ever seen.

"The latest results from Planck are breathtaking," writes Anais Rassat, an astrophysicist at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne, in an e-mail.

The results show that the universe is a little older than previous estimates ? 13.82 billion years old instead of 13.7 billion. Its composition has shifted a bit. Normal matter, which makes up stars, planets, and plants, is slightly more abundant than previous estimates. It makes up 4.9 percent of the matter and energy in the universe, rather than 4.3 percent. Dark matter, unseen but detected through its gravitational effects, is slightly more abundant ? up from 22.7 percent to 26.8 percent of matter and energy. Dark energy, which is speeding the expansion of the universe, makes up 68.3 percent of the cosmos's matter and energy, down from 72.8 percent.

These may seem like trivial adjustments, but they are not, says Martin White, an astrophysicist at the University of California at Berkeley and a member of the Planck science team.

"For the working cosmologist, a number of these shifts are significant enough that I feel as though an awful lot of people will be doing calculations and rerunning their computer simulations with the new numbers," he says. "These are not irrelevant shifts. These are quite important."

But the oddities in Planck's map may turn out to muddy the picture ? something scientists would eagerly embrace because if those oddities are embedded in the afterglow, "it could turn out to be a signature of exotic early-universe physics," Dr. Rassat says.

One such oddity appears as an unusually large cold spot in one hemisphere. Another shows up as a one hemisphere on the map being colder on average than the other. The warmer hemisphere seems to have the region of relative warmth aligned with the boundary between the hemispheres.

Some theories have predicted that the fluctuations in the microwave background should be randomly distributed across the sky ? in effect expressing no preferred direction. The notion of a lack of preferred direction in the universe, which appears to hold for observations over a range of spatial scales, is a cornerstone of cosmology.

So when the odd features cropped up in data from earlier missions, scientists took note. But it was unclear if the effects were imposed by the instruments used to make the measurements or whether the features were indeed from outer space. Between Planck and NASA's earlier WMAP microwave observatory, it's clear the features are in space and not in hardware, researchers say.

Members of the Planck team express confidence that the unexpected features they see are embedded in the afterglow itself.

Others argue that those features could yet be illusions. Gravity from large galaxy clusters or sheets of galaxies could have altered the path of photons as they traveled, making it look as though some regions of the cosmic microwave background were denser and hotter than others.

It could take time to sort out with confidence whether the oddities are real or illusions, suggests Fermilab's Dr. Dodelson. Data from new sky-survey programs should help. These surveys are designed in part to hunt for ever more-distant galaxies in the universe. As the data roll in, researchers will be able to get a better estimate the mass of the matter along the line of sight to these features, refine their estimates of the gravitational effect the mass has on passing photons, and calculate its contribution to the unusual features they see.

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/science/~3/0i3S-___hUY/Big-bang-s-afterglow-reveals-universe-to-be-a-bit-older-with-more-matter

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Italian court orders new trial for Amanda Knox

ROME (AP) ? Italy's highest criminal court ordered a whole new trial for Amanda Knox and her former Italian boyfriend on Tuesday, overturning their acquittals in the gruesome slaying of her British roommate.

The move extended a prolonged legal battle that has become a cause celebre in the United States and raised a host of questions about how the next phase of Italian justice would play out.

Knox, now a 25-year-old University of Washington student in Seattle, called the decision by the Rome-based Court of Cassation "painful" but said she was confident that she would be exonerated.

The American left Italy a free woman after her 2011 acquittal ? but only after serving nearly four years of a 26-year prison sentence from a lower court that convicted her of murdering Meredith Kercher. The 21-year-old British exchange student's body was found in November 2007 in a pool of blood in the bedroom of a rented house the two shared in the Italian university town of Perugia. Her throat had been slit.

Raffaele Sollecito, Knox's Italian boyfriend at the time, was also convicted, sentenced and later acquitted.

It could be months before a date is set for a fresh appeals court trial for Knox and Sollecito in Florence, which was chosen because Perugia has only one appellate court.

Italian law cannot compel Knox to return for the new trial and one of her lawyers, Carlo Dalla Vedova, said she had no plans to do so.

"She thought that the nightmare was over," Dalla Vedova told reporters on the steps of the courthouse. "(But) she's ready to fight."

He spoke minutes after relaying the top court's decision to Knox by phone shortly after 2 a.m. local time in Seattle.

Another Knox defender, Luciano Ghirga, was gearing up psychologically for his client's third trial. Ghirga said he told Knox: "You have always been our strength. We rose up again after the first-level convictions. We'll have the same resoluteness, the same energy" in the new trial.

Still, it was a tough blow for the former exchange student, whose parents have had to mortgage both their homes to raise funds for her lengthy, expensive defense.

"It was painful to receive the news that the Italian Supreme Court decided to send my case back for revision when the prosecution's theory of my involvement in Meredith's murder has been repeatedly revealed to be completely unfounded and unfair," Knox said in a statement.

Knox said the matter must now be examined by "an objective investigation and a capable prosecution."

"No matter what happens, my family and I will face this continuing legal battle as we always have, confident in the truth and with our heads held high in the face of wrongful accusations and unreasonable adversity," Knox said.

FILE - In this Sept. 26, 2008 file photo, American murder suspect Amanda Knox , center, is escorted by Italian penitentiary police officers to Perugia's court at the end of a hearing, central Italy. ... more? FILE - In this Sept. 26, 2008 file photo, American murder suspect Amanda Knox , center, is escorted by Italian penitentiary police officers to Perugia's court at the end of a hearing, central Italy. On Wednesday, Nov. 18, 2009 Rudy Hermann Guede, of the Ivory Coast, appealing his conviction for murdering British student Meredith Kercher in Italy, testified Wednesday that he heard the victim arguing with American defendant, Amanda Knox, in the case minutes before she was slain. Guede's appeals process began Wednesday even as the initial trial implicating American student Amanda Knox, of Seattle, and Knox's ex-boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, continued. (AP Photo/Pier Paolo Cito, files) less? ?

Prosecutors alleged that Kercher was the victim of a drug-fueled sex game gone awry. Knox and Sollecito denied wrongdoing and said they weren't even in the apartment that night, although they acknowledged they had smoked marijuana and their memories were clouded.

An Ivory Coast man, Rudy Guede, was convicted of the Kercher slaying in a separate proceeding and is serving a 16-year sentence.

Sollecito, whose 29th birthday was Tuesday, sounded shaken when a reporter reached him by phone.

"Now, I can't say anything," said the Italian, who has been studying computer science in the northern city of Verona after finishing up an earlier degree while in prison.

A local Italian news report quoted Sollecito's current girlfriend as saying he and Knox spoke by phone after the judicial setback and described him as being psychologically destroyed.

His lawyer, Luca Maori, said neither Sollecito nor Knox ran any danger of being arrested.

"It's not as if the lower-court convictions are revived," he said, noting that the Cassation Court didn't pronounce "whether the two were innocent or guilty. "

For those familiar by the U.S. legal principle of "double jeopardy" ? by which no one who is acquitted of a crime can be tried again for it ? the idea that Italian justice system allows prosecutors to appeal acquittals is hard to absorb.

Knox attorney Dalla Vedova dismissed the "double jeopardy" concern, insisting the high court ruling Tuesday hadn't decided anything about the defendants' guilt or innocence, but merely ordered a fresh appeals trial.

Knox still planned to talk with celebrity interviewer Diane Sawyer in a prime-time special to be broadcast April 30 to promote her new book "Waiting to Be Heard," according to ABC News.

Dalla Vedova said Knox wouldn't come to Italy but would follow the case from home. He said he didn't think the new appeals trial would begin before early 2014 and no date would be set for it until after the top court issues a written explanation of its decision, due in the next 90 days.

Whether Knox ever returns to Italy to serve more prison time depends on a string of ifs and unknowns.

"Questions of extradition are not in the legal landscape at this point," another Knox attorney, Theodore Simon, said on NBC TV.

If she is convicted by the Florence court, Knox could appeal that verdict to the Cassation Court, since Italy's judicial system allows for two levels of appeals ? by prosecutors and the defense alike. Should that appeal fail, Italy could seek her extradition from the United States.

Whether Italy actually requests extradition will be a political decision made by a future Italian government.

In the past, Italian governments on both the left and the right refused Italian prosecutors' request to seek extradition for the trial of 26 Americans accused in the kidnapping of an Egyptian cleric in Milan under the CIA's extraordinary rendition program. All 26 were tried in absentia, convicted and received sentences ranging from seven to nine years. Italy's new government will decide if it wants seek their extradition to serve the sentences.

If Knox is convicted and Italy requests her extradition, it would be up to U.S. authorities to decide whether they will send Knox to Italy. Dalla Vedova noted that U.S. authorities would carefully study all the case's documentation to decide whether she had received fair trials.

U.S. and Italian authorities could also come to a deal that would keep Knox in the U.S.

Years ago, the United States extradited an Italian woman convicted in a domestic U.S. terrorism case after reaching a deal that she would serve the rest of her sentence in her homeland. Italian authorities, however, released her from prison not long after she arrived home, citing medical reasons.

The appeals court that acquitted Knox and Sollecito had criticized virtually the entire case mounted by prosecutors, and especially the forensic evidence which helped clinch their 2009 convictions. The appellate court noted that the murder weapon was never found, said that DNA tests were faulty and that prosecutors provided no murder motive.

In arguing for the acquittals to be overturned, the prosecutor described the Perugia appellate court as being too dismissive about whether DNA tests were reliable on a knife prosecutors allege could have been the one used to slash Kercher's throat and DNA traces on a bra belonging to the victim, as well as tests done on blood stains in the bedroom and bathroom.

Whether that argument swayed the top court was unclear, said Dalla Vedova. Sollecito's attorney, Giulia Bongiorno, said the appeals court might have been "too generous" in ruling that the pair did not commit the crime, but was confident that Sollecito's innocence would be affirmed.

The court on Tuesday also upheld a slander conviction against Knox. During a 14-hour police interrogation, Knox had accused a local Perugia pub owner of carrying out the killing. The man was held for two weeks based on her allegations, but was then released for lack of evidence.

Her defense lawyers say Knox felt pressured by police to name a suspect so her own interrogation could end.

Because of the time she served in prison before the acquittal, Knox didn't have to serve the three-year sentence for the slander conviction. The court on Tuesday also ordered Knox to pay 4,000 euros ($5,500) to the man, as well as the cost of the lost appeal.

It was not known why the top court concluded the appellate court had erred in acquitting Knox and Sollecito and won't be until the Cassation judges issue their written ruling.

But Prosecutor General Luigi Riello, who urged the Cassation judges to overturn the acquittals, said he thought it could be significant that Knox's slander conviction was upheld. If the Cassation judges think "there is a link" between Knox's reason for fingering the pub owner and the murder, it could bolster prosecutors in the new Florence trial, he said.

In her statement, Knox took the Perugia prosecutors to task, saying they "must be made to answer" for the discrepancies in the case. She also said "my heart goes out to" Kercher's family.

The Kercher family's attorney, Francesco Maresca, called Tuesday's ruling "what we wanted" and relayed a message quoting the late woman's sister, Stephanie.

"To understand the truth about what happened that night is all we can do for her now," the family's message said.

__

AP writer Colleen Barry in Milan contributed to this report.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/italian-court-orders-trial-amanda-knox-104649972.html

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Experts: NKorea training teams of 'cyber warriors'

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) ? Investigators have yet to pinpoint the culprit behind a synchronized cyberattack in South Korea last week. But in Seoul, the focus is fixed on North Korea, which South Korean security experts say has been training a team of computer-savvy "cyber warriors" as cyberspace becomes a fertile battleground in the nations' rivalry.

Malware shut down 32,000 computers and servers at three major South Korean TV networks and three banks last Wednesday, disrupting communications and banking businesses. The investigation into who planted the malware could take weeks or even months.

South Korean investigators have produced no proof yet that North Korea was behind the cyberattack. Some of the malware was traced to a Seoul computer. Without elaborating, police said Monday that some of the malicious code also came from the United States and three European countries, South Korea's Yonhap news agency reported. But South Korea has pointed the finger at Pyongyang in six cyberattacks since 2009, even creating a cybersecurity command center in Seoul to protect the Internet-dependent country from hackers from the North.

It may seem unlikely that impoverished North Korea, with one of the most restrictive Internet policies in the world, would have the ability to threaten affluent South Korea, a country considered a global leader in telecommunications. The average yearly income in North Korea was just $1,190 per person in 2011 ? just a fraction of the average yearly income of $22,200 for South Koreans that same year, according to the Bank of Korea in Seoul.

But for several years, North Korea has poured money into science and technology. In December, scientists succeeded in launching a satellite into space aboard a long-range rocket from its own soil. And in February, North Korea conducted its third nuclear test.

"IT" has become a buzzword in North Korea, which has developed its own operating system called Red Star. The regime also encouraged a passion for gadgets among its elite, introducing a Chinese-made tablet computer for the North Korean market. Teams of developers came up with software for everything from composing music to learning how to cook.

But South Korea and the U.S. believe North Korea also has thousands of hackers trained by the state to carry its warfare into cyberspace, and that their cyber offensive skills are as good as or better than their counterparts in China and South Korea.

"The newest addition to the North Korean asymmetric arsenal is a growing cyber warfare capability," James Thurman, commander of the U.S. forces in South Korea, told U.S. legislators in March 2012. "North Korea employs sophisticated computer hackers trained to launch cyber-infiltration and cyber-attacks" against South Korea and the U.S.

In 2010, Won Sei-hoon, then chief of South Korea's National Intelligence Service, put the number of professional hackers in North Korea's cyber warfare unit at 1,000.

North Korean students are recruited to the nation's top science schools to become "cyber warriors," said Kim Heung-kwang, who said he trained future hackers at a university in the industrial North Korean city of Hamhung for two decades before defecting in 2003. He said future hackers also are sent to study abroad in China and Russia.

In 2009, then-leader Kim Jong Il ordered Pyongyang's "cyber command" expanded to 3,000 hackers, he said, citing a North Korean government document that he said he obtained that year. The veracity of the document could not be independently confirmed.

Kim Heung-kwang, who has lived in Seoul since 2004, speculated that more have been recruited since then, and said some are based in China to infiltrate networks abroad.

What is clear is that "North Korea has a capacity to send malware to personal computers, servers or networks and to launch DDOS-type attacks," he said. "Their targets are the United States and South Korea."

Expanding its warfare into cyberspace by developing malicious computer codes is cheaper and faster for North Korea than building nuclear devices or other weapons of mass destructions. The online world allows for anonymity because it is easy to fabricate IP addresses and destroy the evidence leading back to the hackers, according to C. Matthew Curtin, founder of Interhack Corp.

Thurman said cyberattacks are "ideal" for North Korea because they can take place relatively anonymously. He said cyberattacks have been waged against military, governmental, educational and commercial institutions.

North Korean officials have not acknowledged allegations that computer experts are trained as hackers and have denied many of the cyberattack accusations. Pyongyang has not commented on the most recent widespread attack in South Korea.

In June 2012, a seven-month investigation into a hacking incident that disabled news production system at the South Korean newspaper JoongAng Ilbo led to North Korea's government telecommunications center, South Korean officials said.

In South Korea, the economy, commerce and every aspect of daily life is deeply dependent on the Internet, making it ripe grounds for a disruptive cyberattack.

North Korea, in contrast, is just now getting online. Businesses are starting to use online banking services, and debit cards have grown in popularity. But only a sliver of the population has access to the global Internet, meaning an Internet outage two weeks ago ? which Pyongyang blamed on hackers from Seoul and Washington ? had little bearing on most North Koreans.

"North Korea has nothing to lose in a cyber battle," said Kim Seeongjoo, a professor at Seoul-based Korea University's Department of Cyber Defense. "Even if North Korea turns out to be the attacker behind the broadcasters' hacking, there is no target for South Korean retaliation."

___

Associated Press writer Jean H. Lee contributed to this story with reporting from Pyongyang, North Korea; Hyung-jin Kim in Seoul also contributed to this report. Follow AP tech writer Youkyung Lee at www.twitter.com/YKLeeAP and AP Korea bureau chief Jean H. Lee at www.twitter.com/newsjean.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/experts-nkorea-training-teams-cyber-warriors-050713868.html

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Florida Lotto jackpot rises to $13 million

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. -- The jackpot in the Florida Lotto game has grown to $13 million after no one matched the six winning numbers in the latest drawing, lottery officials said Sunday.

A total of 32 tickets matched five numbers to win $6,089.00 each; 2,336 tickets matched four numbers for $66 each; and 48,005 tickets matched three numbers for $5 each.

The winning Florida Lotto numbers selected Saturday: 6-11-13-24-35-53.

Source: http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/03/24/3304179/florida-lotto-jackpot-rises-to.html

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A diplomatic star is born in Chinese first lady

BEIJING (AP) ? Glamorous new first lady Peng Liyuan has emerged as Chinese diplomacy's latest star, charming audiences and cutting a very different profile from her all-but invisible predecessors on her debut official visit abroad to Russia.

A celebrated performer on state television, Peng featured prominently in Sunday's Chinese media coverage of husband and President Xi Jinping's activities in Moscow. The visit is Xi's first since he assumed the presidency earlier this month.

Peng watched song and dance routines at a performing arts school on Saturday, but did not join in as some media reports had suggested she might. Xi's trip continues this week with stops in Tanzania, South Africa and Congo, during which Peng is expected to hold other public events.

An internationally popular first lady could help soften China's sometimes abrasive international image and mark a victory in its so-far unsuccessful struggle to win over global public opinion.

At the same time, she could boost the popularity of the country's new leadership at a time when citizens are feeling increasingly alienated and are fed up with the ruling class's corruption and regal airs.

In recent years, the wives of China's top officials have traditionally gone almost unseen at home and attracted little attention while accompanying their husbands on state visits abroad.

That was in part a negative reaction to Mao Zedong's wife, Jiang Qing, who was widely despised and later imprisoned for her role as leader of the radical Gang of Four, which mercilessly persecuted political opponents during the chaotic 1966-76 Cultural Revolution.

Recently retired Premier Wen Jiabao's wife, Zhang Peili, became known for her role in the country's gem trade and was never seen in public with her husband. Meanwhile, Bo Xilai, one of China's most ambitious politicians, was brought down in spectacular style last year following his wife's involvement in the murder of a British businessman, setting off the country's nastiest political scandal in years.

Women in general wield relatively little power at the top of the Chinese power structure, with just two sitting on the ruling Communist Party's 25-member decision-making Politburo.

Peng's emerging high profile appears to be an extension of Xi's own confidence as he consolidates his control on power and presses a more assertive role for China in global affairs, said Steve Tsang, director of the China Policy Institute at Britain's University of Nottingham. Her training as a singer and stage performer offers the perfect preparation for such a role, he said.

"Peng is projecting a certain poise and confidence that Xi himself is carrying and he doesn't need to worry about what other (politicians) might think of her," Tsang said.

Peng's image was splashed across Chinese newspapers over the weekend, shown descending arm-in-arm with Xi as they descended from their aircraft after arriving in Moscow on Friday. Her visit to the arts school was carried by state broadcaster CCTV on its main Sunday news broadcast and reported in national newspapers.

The popular Beijing News tabloid ran a full page of items on Peng's appearances on Sunday, alongside a photo of her arriving at a speech Xi gave Saturday, dressed in an elegant Chinese-style silk tunic and skirt.

"In her role as first lady on this visit abroad, Peng Liyuan is exhibiting China's soft power," the paper quoted Wang Fan, head the Institute of International Relations at China Foreign Affairs University, as saying. "As a singer and artist and a long-term advocate for poverty relief and other causes, Peng has an excellent public image."

Much of the coverage focused on her personal style, with a report on the mass-market sina.com website noting with satisfaction that the black leather clutch she paired with the outfit was made to order by a Chinese firm in the southwestern city of Chengdu, a flattering contrast with prominent Chinese female politicians scorned publicly for appearing decked head to toe in foreign designer brands.

"In practical terms, this is an important show of support for China's domestic industries, but in the larger sense, it should raise national self-respect and confidence," read a posting on China's popular Weibo microblogging service left by Lin Zhibo, Gansu provincial bureau chief of the Communist Party's flagship newspaper, People's Daily.

Chen Li, a real estate agent from the central city of Changsha, said Peng was well-known for her modest ways and calm, dignified manner.

"She's known to be elegant and fashionable, but she's also very low-key and doesn't seem arrogant in the way that you usually associate with the wives of top leaders," Chen said.

Peng, 50, largely retired from public life after Xi was made China's leader-in-waiting in 2007, but in recent years has won new acclaim as an ambassador for the World Health Organization. Among the issues she has worked on are tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS ? diseases that still carry considerable social stigma in China.

She also made headlines last year by appearing alongside Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates as part of a campaign to discourage smoking, a high-profile cause in a country where about two-thirds of men smoke.

Peng is Xi's second wife, and the two are separated in age by almost two decades. While Xi's father was a leading revolutionary and former vice-premier, making his son a member of the "red aristocracy," Peng comes from relatively humble origins and joined the People's Liberation Army when she was 18. The couple has one daughter, a student at Harvard who remains out of the limelight.

While sometimes described as a folk singer, Peng holds the rank of PLA major general and is best known for her stirring renditions of patriotic odes, often while wearing full dress uniform.

Although her rank is largely honorary, her military status could lead to awkward questions, said University of Nottingham's Tsang.

"Sooner or later, someone is going to ask whether that's completely normal, even if she doesn't have any real military or political ambitions," Tsang said.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/diplomatic-star-born-chinese-first-lady-082435770.html

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An update on Iran?s nuclear program (Powerlineblog)

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Appreciating Web Hosting Needs In Web Development | Content for ...

Author: Steven Magill | Total views: 112 Comments: 0
Word Count: 673 Date: Wed, 20 Mar 2013 1:29 AM

How rich can you get if you have all the information necessary to maximize your online profitability? Nobody can really be certain but it makes sense to take a look at every business expense you have, including the price of your web hosting. This article will provide you with the information you need to find a good hosting service for a great price.

Do your own research to determine how long your hosting provider has been in operation. A company that has been operating for a long period will generally be able to provide better support as they already have more time to learn from experience and through technological adjustments. If issues or problems surface, the provider will have the first-hand experience in dealing with it. For common problems, they would have already setup some standard procedures in response.

It is not a good idea to register your business domain name with your web hosting company you choose, if you desire to own that domain long term. You can lose your domain name in the process if something happens to your web hosting company. Instead, it would be better for you to try using an independent site too keep your domain name.

Mobile web designs became popular with the rise of mobile devices with impressive online capabilities. This gave rise to web hosting sites that cater to this segment of the cyberspace. However, businesses must be cautioned that just because you like a company's designs, it does not mean you have to tie yourself up with them. There are sites that will let you use their tools in exchange for ads and other things you may be uncomfortable with. If you have the means to fund a better site, don't hesitate to do so.

Several add-ons that web hosts offer actually are of little value to the web presence of a business. Items like unlimited storage are not only useless, but also typically restricted by many hidden rules. For many people, these additional features only give the web hosting company additional profits from fees for upgrades that are really are not needed.

There is a vast options of web hosting companies out there but don't be nauseated by them. Companies pop up constantly offering lower prices and attractive packages. Don't allow yourself to fall for any of this hype. Go with your gut and narrow your list to a few good middle-of-the road options, then compare their services before selecting from the.

Do not opt for a web host on cost alone. If you are trying to build a mobile web site, it best to determine pricing would look with your specification. Although it's always good to find a great deal, you shouldn't simply select a host because of their affordability. Low price could mean lousy customer support or useless features that would be of no help for you to run your site successfully.

Before signing a contract with a web hosting company, always read the fine prints. Be aware of add-on charges which are not apparent and hidden a contract that are often too long to bother reading. Such costs can add up to your web hosting fees without you being explicitly made aware of it.

Before you sign up to a web hosting company, look out for hidden cancellation fees that may be buried in the agreement. Hosting services may eventually become unacceptable to you. When you try to cancel your service, you will be surprised by these cancellation fees. This tactic is quite common, especially for bargain-priced web hosting providers. Make sure you know the relative provisions of your contract before ending it quickly.

As shown in this article, there are many factors involved in the cost of web hosting as it is in web development as a whole. Consider which options are right for your business and choose which hosting service can best address your web presence requirements.

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1: Understanding Online Business Success

Starting a home based business to earn income online takes a significant amount of time and energy upfront to get things going. Not seeing results immediately can be discouraging and cause people to give up too early. In this article, we look at the process of starting a home based business and working through the frustrations to be there when the sales come flowing in.

by: Mike Christie on: Sat, 29 Sep 2012

2: Why You Need To Build Multiple Streams of Income For Yourself

Being an entrepreneur and earning multiple streams of income is a dream that many have, but in reality it does take some initial hard work to achieve this. Earning multiple streams of income is the wave of the future, and here are some tips and advice for you when you are looking for ways in which to do this for yourself.

by: Michel Maling on: Sat, 29 Sep 2012

3: What is Cyber Marketing And Why It Is So Important For The Success Of Your Website

Cyber marketing has now become an indispensable segment of e-commerce as well as the internet and World Wide Web related topics. Cyber marketing simply refers to a technique of attracting potential customers by advertising your products or services through such means as websites, emails, and banners.

by: WJaegel on: Tue, 18 Dec 2007

4: Article Marketing Strategy: Putting Together a "Class Schedule" For Your Article Topics

Businesses go to so much trouble when there is one sure-fire, simple, very inexpensive way to attract new clients to a business: Teach a free class. That is what article marketing is like. Your articles are just like free classes. You teach your target readers something helpful in your article. Your resource box then says, "If you enjoyed this article you can visit my website and apply what you have learned."

by: Steve Shaw on: Sat, 23 Apr 2011

5: The Best Way To Optimise Your Website SEO For Google Panda

If you want your SEO to work you now need to concentrate on appeasing Google Panda, and to do this you need to know what Google Panda's spiders/bots will be looking for. Find out here how to search engine optimise your website for the latest Google Panda algorithm, and achieve the success you deserve.

by: K Damian Qualter on: Mon, 26 Mar 2012

Source: http://www.content4reprint.com/internet-marketing/appreciating-web-hosting-needs-in-web-development.htm

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