Source: www.ibtimes.com --- Saturday, August 03, 2013
Nissan's much anticipated compact SUV Terrano is all set to take the roads in India on 20 August. ...
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Auckland Airport Auckland Airport to help sporting teams shoot for goldAuckland Airport Gold Medal Awards open today for applications and offer a total sponsorship fund of up to $30,000 for sports clubs, schools and Marae within the greater Auckland region.The Gold Medal Awards are available to sports groups, schools and Marae who wish to apply for assistance to support their sport or ...
New Zealand Police Northland Police response to the IPCA report into Shane Legg's injury.Northland Police accept the findings of the Independent Police Conduct Authority's (IPCA) report regarding the serious injury to Shane Legg following his arrest in April last year.About 9pm on April 24, 2012 Police signalled a car driven by Mr Legg to stop. The car had been clocked at ...
Auckland Council Cruise ship earnings could reach $150m in next 5 years With the addition of Shed 10, Auckland is on track to significantly grow earnings from cruise ship visits in the next five years says Mayor Len Brown. "Last season, we welcomed 100 cruise ships to Auckland, bringing $116 million into the region's economy," Len Brown said. "This has been our ...
Auckland Council 5 August 2013 Kids get ready to vote Auckland schools have three weeks left to give their pupils a voice at October's local body elections.Over 6800 children from 253 classes at 32 schools have already signed up to take part in Kids Voting 2013.With registration closing on Friday 23 August, teachers across the region are urged to make sure youngsters from years ...
New Zealand Police Waitemata Police seek witnesses to Silverdale crash At around 4.22pm on Thursday 1st August, Police attended the scene of a serious motor vehicle collision on the Hibiscus Coast Highway at Silverdale, opposite the BP Service Station. A 59 year-old male pedestrian was struck by two vehicles and critically injured. He passed away in Auckland Hospital from his injuries ...
Spike in house prices nationwide Auckland house prices rose for a third month in July as listings and sales jumped, according to Barfoot & Thompson, the city's biggest realtor. The average sale price rose 0.7% to $654,379 last month, adding to a 0.8% gain in June, the firm said. The median price fell to $585,000 from $590,000. A shortage of new homes in New Zealand's biggest city ...
A body has been found in a car at Taieri Ferry Road, near Waihola, this morning. Police say they are investigating to determine whether there are any suspicious circumstances. The body was found about ...
The manufacturer of Karicare is meeting with the Ministry for Primary Industries to understand why it has expanded its advice to avoid all of their Stage 1 and Stage 2 formula products. Nutricia says it has not received any new information from the diary giant that could indicate the contamination has stretched further than the three batches they recalled yesterday. Late last night, the MPI ...
The death of a toddler in south Auckland is a reminder of just how dangerous driveways can be, Safekids New Zealand says.The 18-month-old boy was run over outside an address in Otahuhu on Saturday afternoon and died in Middlemore Hospital.Safekids New Zealand director Ann Weaver says there hasn't been a drop in the number of children killed in driveway accidents.She told NZ Newswire four to ...
An elderly woman walking her dog in hills near Christchurch has gone missing and police are concerned for her wellbeing.Helen Thirza Cummack, 80, is understood to have been walking her cocker spaniel dog when she went missing near the Summit Road between Sumner and Lyttelton.Her car was found in the car park at Rapanui Bush at around 7.30am on Monday.Police say she has medical conditions.A ...
A Northland man suffered a broken back during his arrest because a police officer had handcuffed him and unnecessarily forced him to climb a fence, an investigation has found.However, while the officer had failed in his duty of care, it wasn't bad enough for him to face criminal charges, Independent Police Conduct Authority chairman, former judge Sir David Carruthers, says.Shane Legg, 28, ...
Fonterra will need to answer questions about the timing of its botulism scare announcement, but only after markets are reassured, the trade minister ...
The regulator says Auckland Airport's anticipated profits are not excessive after it was compelled to disclose information to the Commerce ...
NZX-listed issuers raised almost $1.46 billion last month, including Ebos Group's $149 million rights issue to fund its Symbion acquisition, the most in a month since December, though cash trading continued to slow after a flurry of activity at the start of the year.Listed companies raised some $954 million in primary equity and $504 million in dual and secondary equity across 17 events in ...
A young Dunedin rugby player is in a coma after collapsing during a game over the weekend. Kavanagh College halfback, Matthew Martin collapsed while putting the ball into a scrum in an under-18s game against Kings High School on Saturday. It's believed the 17-year-old sustained the injury in a tackle shortly before he lost consciousness. Kavanagh College deputy principal, Colin MacLeod, says ...
A Fiji Airways aircraft made an emergency landing at Auckland International Airport this morning. The plane, a 737-700, suffered an "engine defect" after take-off en-route to Suva. Flights have been delayed at Auckland Airport as a result. The plane landed safely, with emergency services in attendance. Catherine Jehly said there was a "loud banging on the right side of ...
Police and fire inspectors were called to a suspicious primary school fire in Auckland over the weekend. Just before 4:00am Saturday morning emergency services responded to a fire at the Pt Chevalier Primary School. The fire had caused extensive damage to several buildings at the school. Nobody was injured and the cause of the fire appears to have been deliberately started. As a ...
Haystac Big Buddy mentoring extends its work in Wellington thanks to Jetstar $30,000 grant $30,000 awarded to Big Buddy by the Jetstar Flying Start Programme Grant will expand Big Buddy in the Wellington region where demand continues to grow Hundreds of fatherless boys in the capital city to benefit from mentoring Jetstar today announced Big Buddy as the airline's sixth Flying ...
NZTA 5 August 2013 l NZ Transport Agency - Auckland Transport Agency hears community voice for new bridge Community feedback from both sides of Auckland's Manukau Harbour has made a significant impact on the next phase of the NZ Transport Agency's project to replace the Old Mangere Bridge.The Transport Agency has advertised tenders to design the new bridge and its Highway ...
St George's Hospital 2 August 2013 Christchurch's St George's Hospital announces redevelopment plans.St George's Hospital in Christchurch announced their plans for the redevelopment of hospital facilities today.Like many organisations in Christchurch, St George's suffered damage during the Canterbury earthquakes of 2010 and 2011.Working closely with Trengrove ...
Wel Networks 5 August 2013WEL Networks to Deploy 25,000 Smart Meters in Far NorthWEL Networks (WEL) today announced that it has signed an agreement with Top Energy and SmartCo to extend its Smart Network to their electricity distribution network in New Zealand's upper North Island. WEL, a member of SmartCo, will deploy a SilverSpring RF mesh smart network on Top Energy's ...
Christine Rose Time to 'Unblock the Gridlock' says Waitakere Council Candidate Christine RoseWest Auckland needs an urgent gridlock fix says newly declared Waitakere Ward Councillor candidate, Christine Rose. "Streets in the Henderson-Massey area are blocked to a standstill at times" she says. "Streets feeding into and including Lincoln Road, such as Central ...
Source: http://www.aucklandnews.net/index.php/sid/216239257/scat/0b75a2fd5e16e87e
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Llevamos algo m?s de un a?o con ?Diablo III? tanto en Mac como en PC, pero todav?a tenemos que esperar un poquito m?s para verlo en consolas, tal y como pas? con el primer ?Diablo? en PSone. En esta ocasi?n las agraciadas ser?n PS3 y Xbox 360, el pr?ximo 3 de septiembre en Espa?a.
M?s adelante har? lo propio en PS4, pero por lo pronto llegar? a esas dos consolas dentro de un mes. Una de las principales caracter?sticas de esta versi?n para consolas ser? la posibilidad de jugar con tres colegas en modo local, por si preferimos este m?todo cl?sico en vez del juego online, y es precisamente lo que vamos a ver ahora al detalle gracias a la gente de Penny Arcade.
Dos horas de juego a cuatro bandas, ni m?s ni menos. Toda una locura que nos servir? para comprobar qu? cambios ha experimentado el juego multijugador de ?Diablo III? trasladado al modo local. Como tener que pausar el juego cuando un usuario abre el inventario, entre otras cosas.
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The Windows 8 Secure Boot mechanism can be bypassed on PCs from certain manufacturers because of oversights in how those vendors implemented the Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) specification, according to a team of security researchers.
The researchers Andrew Furtak, Oleksandr Bazhaniuk and Yuriy Bulygin demonstrated Wednesday at the Black Hat USA security conference in Las Vegas two attacks that bypassed Secure Boot in order to install a UEFI bootkit -- boot rootkit -- on affected computers.
[ InfoWorld's expert contributors show you how to secure your Web browsers in the "Web Browser Security Deep Dive" PDF guide. Download it today! | Stay up to date on the latest security developments with InfoWorld's Security Adviser blog and Security Central newsletter. ]
Secure Boot is a feature of the UEFI specification that only allows software components with trusted digital signatures to be loaded during the boot sequence. It was designed specifically to prevent malware like bootkits from compromising the boot process.
According to the researchers, the exploits demonstrated at Black Hat are possible not because of vulnerabilities in Secure Boot itself, but because of UEFI implementation errors made by platform vendors.
The first exploit works because certain vendors do not properly protect their firmware, allowing an attacker to modify the code responsible for enforcing Secure Boot, said Bulygin who works at McAfee.
The exploit is designed to modify the platform key -- the root key at the core of all Secure Boot signature checks -- but in order to work it needs to be executed in kernel mode, the most privileged part of the operating system.
This somewhat limits the attack because a remote attacker would first have to find a way to execute code in kernel mode on the targeted computer.
The researchers demonstrated their kernel-mode exploit on an Asus VivoBook Q200E laptop, but some Asus desktop motherboards are also affected according to Bulygin.
Asus released BIOS updates for some motherboards, but not for the VivoBook laptop, the researcher said. He believes that more VivoBook models might be vulnerable.
Asus did not respond to a request for comment sent Thursday.
The second exploit demonstrated by the researchers can run in user mode, which means that an attacker would only need to gain code execution rights on the system by exploiting a vulnerability in a regular application like Java, Adobe Flash, Microsoft Office or others.
The researchers declined to reveal any technical details about the second exploit or to name the vendors whose products are affected by it because the targeted vulnerability was discovered recently.
The issue that makes the kernel-mode exploit possible was discovered and reported to the affected platform vendors over a year ago, Bulygin said. At some point, after enough time has passed, the public needs to know about it, he said.
Several other issues that can be used to bypass Secure Boot have also been identified and their disclosure is being coordinated with Microsoft and the UEFI Forum, the industry standard body that manages the UEFI specification, Bulygin said.
"Microsoft is working with partners to help ensure that secure boot delivers a great security experience for our customers," Microsoft said Thursday in an emailed statement.
Despite these vendor implementation problems, Secure Boot is still a huge step forward, Bulygin said. To install bootkits now, attackers first need to find a vulnerability that would allow them to bypass Secure Boot, while on legacy platforms there was nothing to stop them, he said.
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Rose quickly learned that he had an equally daunting task: keeping the Pirates compliant with NCAA measures that tracked athletes' academic eligibility and retention.
After four years of fits and starts, of penalties that included scholarship reductions, reduced practice time and postseason ineligibility, Rose believes that he finally has a handle on the team's classroom commitment.?I had to clean up, literally,? Rose said. ?I had to get rid of a lot of players and some coaches. I had to be smart. I had to hire coaches not just with an impressive r?sum?. I had to hire coaches who were going to be loyal, guys I could trust who felt like they had a vested interest in the program. The players see that. They see coaches who care about them. When I first started, we had coaches who said, ?I'm not going to baby-sit these kids.' I said, ?Yes you are.' Because they need us.?
Hampton football is back in the NCAA's good graces and eligible for postseason, due to a one-year improvement that moved the program above the penalty threshold. But Rose knows that he and the school must remain vigilant.
Despite steady progress overall on the APR front, Historically Black Colleges and Universities score consistently lower and are disproportionately penalized. Seventy-eight percent of Division I teams that scored below 900 on the APR, the cutoff for postseason eligibility, were from HBCUs, in the most recent data released earlier this summer.
Four of the 10 men's basketball teams in the Southwestern Athletic Conference are ineligible for the 2014 NCAA tournament due to poor performances. Waiver requests are pending.
?You need a certain number of academic coordinators, tutors,? Miller said. ?You need the appropriate type of study-hall environment. That's been cited over and over, that's the primary reason that most of them don't have the resources to be able to do all that's necessary. You run into difficulties, because if you don't have the appropriate staff, things can fall through the cracks.?
Norfolk State's men's and women's track teams and women's volleyball squad were penalized for the coming school year because of poor APR scores. The men's indoor team scored 866 and the outdoor team scored 867, resulting in postseason bans and reduction in practice time. The women's teams have reduced practice time after the indoor track team scored 876 and the outdoor track team 873. It was the first time either team had drawn penalties.
Miller cited a couple of factors for the teams' penalties: Several athletes left the program, causing the teams to lose points; the graduation rate fell below 50 percent. Had the graduation rate been above 50 percent, even with a low APR score, the Spartans would have avoided the penalty.
?It doesn't take a large number of individuals to leave your program or not be eligible, and that adds up very quickly,? Miller said. ?Overall, our graduation rates have continued to climb in athletics. That's a reflection of the purpose of the APR, to get more students to graduate, and that's what we've been doing. It just so happens that the track numbers were poor last time.?
The APR is one of the NCAA's more arcane statistics, designed to measure both retention and eligibility. A perfect score is 1,000 ? all scholarship athletes remain in school, all are eligible ? and most athletic teams fall somewhere between 900 and 1,000. A score of 925 equates to roughly a 50-percent graduation rate.
Under the NCAA formula, every athlete receiving scholarship aid gets one point for staying in school and one point for remaining eligible. Here's a sample APR calculation: Say a Football Championship Subdivision program has the maximum 63 players on scholarship. Fifty-eight players stay in school and are eligible. Two stay in school, but are academically ineligible. Three drop out, ineligible. That's 118 total points out of the maximum of 126. Divide 118 by 126 and multiply by 1,000. The team's score is 936.
Scores are calculated on one-, two-, and four-year averages. The NCAA will require increased scores in the coming years in order for teams to be eligible for postseason: a 900 four-year average or a 930 two-year average in 2013 and '14. In 2015, teams must earn a 930 four-year APR or a 940 two-year average.
?I think that we're moving in the right direction, and that's based on the overall numbers for our institutions,? MEAC commissioner Dennis Thomas said. ?There's been a commitment on the part of presidents and chancellors to activate a comprehensive program to continue to improve our APR and graduation rates.?
Thomas, who has served on numerous NCAA committees through the years, including as chair of the powerful Committee on Infractions, says that the governing body is sensitive to the challenges faced by HBCUs and other Division I programs with small budgets.
He pointed out that the NCAA has set aside money to provide funds for lower-resource programs struggling with APR compliance. Coppin State received approximately $900,000 over a three-year period, he said, while Norfolk State received $330,000 for academic support units.
The NCAA also routinely grants waivers and exceptions for HBCUs and other lower-resource programs if it appears that they're making progress academically in measures beyond the APR.
Source: http://www.dailypress.com/sports/dp-spt-apr-hampton-nsu-hbcu-20130803,0,7804634.story?track=rss
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Dropchord assigns ends of a line to each of a player's fingers and tasks them with gathering notes and dodging scratches. The game focuses on getting the highest score possible and its leaderboards encourage competitive play with friends. Dropchord's neon visuals pulse to the beat of its electronic soundtrack and switch styles with each song.
The game's Standard Mode moves players through stages while gradually adding new gameplay mechanics, while a Full Mix Mode supplies an endless session that gradually becomes more difficult.
Dropchord previously launched on PC and Mac for the hands-oriented Leap Motion.
Double Fine's Dropchord entrances iOS, Android and Ouya users originally appeared on Joystiq on Sat, 03 Aug 2013 19:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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*The advertised price does not include sales tax, vehicle registration fees, finance charges, documentation charges, and any other fees required by law. We attempt to update this inventory on a regular basis. However, there can be lag time between the sale of a vehicle and the update of the inventory.
EPA mileage estimates are for newly manufactured vehicles only. Your actual mileage will vary depending on how you drive and maintain your vehicle.
Before purchasing this vehicle, it is your responsibility to address any and all differences between information on this website and the actual vehicle specifications and/or any warranties offered prior to the sale of this vehicle. Vehicle data on this website is compiled from publicly available sources believed by the publisher to be reliable. Vehicle data is subject to change without notice. The publisher assumes no responsibility for errors and/or omissions in this data the compilation of this data and makes no representations express or implied to any actual or prospective purchaser of the vehicle as to the condition of the vehicle, vehicle specifications, ownership, vehicle history, equipment/accessories, price or warranties. 2007 GMC Sioux Falls, SD 2007 GMC Mitchell, SD 2007 GMC Albert Lea, MN
Source: http://www.verneide.com/2007-GMC-Yukon-Mitchell/vd/15766263
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Let?s take a look at the 2013 Jacksonville Jaguars and their schedule to see if they will go under or over their total of 4.5 wins.
The New GM for the Jacksonville Jaguars is David Caldwell and the new head coach is Gus Bradley. The return of Maurice Jones-Drew will be huge but the team still has major problems at quarterback as they are counting on Blaine Gabbert. The team did take Luke Joeckel in the NFL Draft to upgrade the offensive line and they added wide receiver Mohamed Massaquoi from the Cleveland Browns and they took a chance on Denard Robinson in the NFL Draft. The defense added Alan Ball and Marcus Trufant and it appears rookie Dwayne Gratz could be a good one.
Jacksonville Jaguars 2013 Schedule Analysis
The Jacksonville Jaguars open up with the Kansas City Chiefs in a game they can win and they then visit the Oakland Raiders in another game in which they should be competitive. The figure to lose in Week 3 at the Seattle Seahawks and it is hard to see them beating them winning any of the next five games as they play the Indianapolis Colts, St. Louis Rams, Denver Broncos, San Diego Chargers and San Francisco 49ers. They should be competitive at Tennessee and at home against Arizona but they figure to lose at Houston before a winnable game at Cleveland. They have a three-game homestand with games against Houston, Buffalo and Tennessee before they close at the Indianapolis Colts.
I think the oddsmakers have this total in NFL Futures just about right as I see this team going 4-12 or 5-11 in 2013.
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Aug 3, 2013 12:32pm
?I?m willing to work with Republicans to simplify our tax code for businesses large and small, but only if we take the money we save by transitioning to a simpler tax system and make a significant investment in creating good, middle-class jobs,? Obama said. ?We can put construction workers back on the job rebuilding our infrastructure. We can boost manufacturing, so more American companies can sell their products around the world. And we can help our community colleges arm our workers with the skills they need in a global economy?all without adding a dime to the deficit.?
At an Amazon warehouse in Chattanooga, Tenn., on Tuesday, Obama laid out his support for corporate tax reform?lowering corporate tax rates in exchange for Republican agreement on ending some business tax exemptions?along with new spending on infrastructure and education.
Read: Obama Offers GOP New ?Grand Bargain?
Republican leaders quickly panned his offer after the president made it on Tuesday.
Over the last week and a half, Obama has delivered a series of speeches seeking to re-frame the economic debate.
?I?ll keep laying out my ideas to give the middle class a better shot in the 21st century, and I?ll keep reaching out to Republicans for theirs. But gutting critical investments in our future and threatening national default on the bills that Congress has already racked up ? that?s not an economic plan,? Obama said in his weekly address, repeating an attack line used on his recent economic campaign trail. ?Denying health care to millions of Americans, or shutting down the government just because I?m for keeping it open ? that won?t help the middle class.?
Republicans, meanwhile, responded in their own address by criticizing the Affordable Care Act?commonly known as ?Obamacare??for incentivizing businesses to stop hiring and suppress weekly hours.
The Affordable Care Act requires employers to provide health insurance if they employ 50 or more people at 30 or more hours per week. The provision was designed to ensure employee coverage from large businesses. The requirement will take effect in 2015, after a one-year delay by the administration. Businesses who don?t offer that insurance will face penalties.
Republicans have pointed out that businesses on the cusp will be penalized for hiring more people and giving them more hours of work.
?If you employ 49 workers, there are no fines. But, if you add just one more employee, you?re hit with penalties,? Collins said. ?A school system in my state of Maine is already preparing to track and cap the number of hours that substitute teachers can work to ensure that they don?t work more than 29 hours a week. Fewer hours means less money in the teachers? paychecks and more disruption for their students.?
Republicans have sought to modify the ACA by shifting the requirement, mandating insurance for employees who work 40 or more hours per week at large businesses, not 30. In her address, Collins promoted her ?Forty Hours is Full Time Act,? a bill to enact that modification.
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WASHINGTON (AP) ? As the world gets warmer, people are more likely to get hot under the collar, scientists say. A massive new study finds that aggressive acts like committing violent crimes and waging war become more likely with each added degree.
Researchers analyzed 60 studies on historic empire collapses, recent wars, violent crime rates in the United States, lab simulations that tested police decisions on when to shoot and even cases where pitchers threw deliberately at batters in baseball. They found a common thread over centuries: Extreme weather ? very hot or dry ? means more violence.
The authors say the results show strong evidence that climate can promote conflict.
"When the weather gets bad we tend to be more willing to hurt other people," said economist Solomon Hsiang of the University of California, Berkeley.
He is the lead author of the study, published online Thursday by the journal Science. Experts in the causes of war gave it a mixed reception.
The team of economists even came up with a formula that predicts how much the risk of different types of violence should increase with extreme weather. In war-torn parts of equatorial Africa, it says, every added degree Fahrenheit or so increases the chance of conflict between groups? rebellion, war, civil unrest ? by 11 percent to 14 percent. For the United States, the formula says that for every increase of 5.4 degrees Fahrenheit, the likelihood of violent crime goes up 2 percent to 4 percent.
Temperatures in much of North America and Eurasia are likely to go up by that 5.4 degrees by about 2065 because of increases in carbon dioxide pollution, according to a separate paper published in Science on Thursday.
The same paper sees global averages increasing by about 3.6 degrees in the next half-century. So that implies essentially about 40 percent to 50 percent more chance for African wars than it would be without global warming, said Edward Miguel, another Berkeley economist and study co-author.
When the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change updates its report next year on the impacts of global warming, it will address the issue of impacts on war for the first time, said Carnegie Institution scientist Chris Field, who heads that worldwide study group. The new study is likely to play a big role, he said.
Hsiang said that whenever the analyzed studies looked at temperature and conflict, the link was clear, no matter where or when. His analysis examines about a dozen studies on collapses of empires or dynasties, about 15 studies on crime and aggression and more than 30 studies on wars, civil strife or intergroup conflicts.
In one study, police officers in a psychology experiment were more likely to choose to shoot someone in a lab simulation when the room temperature was hotter, Hsiang said. In another study, baseball pitchers were more likely to retaliate against their opponents when a teammate was hit by a pitch on hotter days. Hsiang pointed to the collapse of the Mayan civilization that coincided with periods of historic drought about 1,200 years ago.
People often don't consider human conflict when they think about climate change, which is "an important oversight," said Ohio State University psychology professor Brad Bushman, who wasn't part of the study but whose work on crime and heat was analyzed by Hsiang.
There's a good reason why people get more aggressive in warmer weather, Bushman said. Although people say they feel sluggish when they are hot, their heart rate and other physical responses are aroused and elevated. They think they are not agitated, when in fact they are, and "that's a recipe for disaster," Bushman said.
Experts who research war and peace were split in their reaction to the work.
"The world will be a very violent place by mid-century if climate change continues as projected," said Thomas Homer-Dixon, a professor of diplomacy at the Balsillie School of International Affairs in Ontario.
But Joshua Goldstein, a professor of international relations at American University and author of "Winning the War on War," found faults with the way the study measured conflicts. He said the idea of hotter tempers with hotter temperatures is only one factor in conflict, and that it runs counter to a long and large trend to less violence.
"To read this you get the impression, if climate change unfolds as we all fear it will, that the world will be beset by violent conflict and that's probably not true," Goldstein said.
"Because of positive changes in technology, economics, politics and health" conflict is likely to continue to drop, although maybe not as much as it would without climate change, he said.
Miguel acknowledges that many other factors play a role in conflict and said it's too soon to see whether conflict from warming will outweigh peace from prosperity: "It's a race against time."
___
Seth Borenstein can be followed at http://twitter.com/borenbears
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/study-hotter-temperatures-lead-hotter-tempers-204045345.html
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DALLAS (AP) ? Two North Texas men were indicted in a plot police say changed focus from having one man's wife deported into a planning her death.
The Dallas Morning News (http://bit.ly/17n87XZ ) reports the men were indicted Thursday by a Collin County grand jury. Steven Lee Gordon of Allen was indicted on a solicitation of capital murder charge while Robert Wayne Bass of Garland was indicted on conspiracy to commit capital murder.
Allen police say after Gordon posted a Craigslist ad requesting help to get his wife deported, Bass responded and the plan turned to murder for hire.
Bass remained jailed Friday on $500,000 bond. His attorney, Robbie McClung, told The Associated Press the evidence will show her client's innocence.
An attorney for Gordon, jailed on $100,000 bond, didn't immediately return a call.
___
Information from: The Dallas Morning News, http://www.dallasnews.com
McALLEN, Texas (AP) ? A South Texas business that helps the government recruit foreigners seeking U.S. visas in exchange for $500,000 job-creating investments is being investigated for running a possible Ponzi scheme, according to court documents shedding light on an industry that has boomed in recent years.
Search warrants indicate the FBI has been investigating USA Now Regional Center since at least early last year on suspicion of wire fraud, money laundering and transportation of stolen property. Federal agents searched the company's office and the owners' home in McAllen earlier this month.
USA Now is among hundreds of private businesses designated by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to recruit foreign investors to the "EB-5" investor visa program. The so-called regional centers ? which have proliferated amid the nation's economic downturn, but also attracted controversy ? offer investment opportunities to foreigners and then pool their money for development projects ranging from hotels to a Vermont ski resort.
The government's objective is to attract foreign capital and create jobs. But the investors are primarily interested in getting permanent U.S. residency for themselves and their families, and any financial gain from the investment is generally considered a bonus.
No charges have been filed in the McAllen case. The FBI declined comment, citing its ongoing investigation.
The company's attorney, Tony Canales, told The Associated Press that the FBI doesn't understand the business. "We think the government's wrong. We think we can explain it," he said Wednesday, declining to go into details.
Bank records obtained by the FBI show that on the same days investors transferred their $500,000 payments to USA Now, the money was routed through other bank accounts. Those accounts were used to buy a new Mercedes for the company's owner, pay off the owner's civil lawsuit settlement and at least once to repay an investor who wanted out, according to court documents filed this month in federal court in McAllen.
The FBI seized the Mercedes and a pickup truck that it said was purchased with an investor's money, the court records show.
The FBI agent leading the case wrote in his request for the search warrants that he believed it was "a scheme executed by employees of USA Now Regional Center to defraud foreign investors by using investors' funds for personal gain and other illegitimate manners without the investors' knowledge or approval." The agent labeled it a "Ponzi scheme," showing how money from one investor was used to make interest payments to others.
The investigation was first reported by The Monitor newspaper in McAllen.
Congress created the EB-5 program in 1990, and regional centers were added as a pilot program in 1992. Now, more than 90 percent of EB-5 applications are made through regional centers rather than through direct investment.
The advantage to using a regional center is that investors become limited partners without responsibility for managing the business, yet they receive credit for the jobs it creates. That means their investments could be in McAllen while they live in Miami.
There were only 11 of these government-sanctioned businesses nationwide in 2007; now, there are more than 300. The centers became popular sources of investment income for U.S. developers when traditional credit markets tightened during the economic downturn.
Each investment ? $500,000 in economically depressed areas, $1 million elsewhere ? must create at least 10 jobs. But the investment alone does not guarantee the visa.
The government traces the source of the funds to ensure they're legal and requires the money be at risk. Once the investment is made, the investor is eligible for two years of temporary residency. After that period, if the jobs are created and everything else checks out they can apply for permanent residency. The program is capped at 10,000 visas annually.
If the project isn't built and the jobs aren't created in the required time frame, investors will not get a green card. Depending on how the deal was structured, they may not get their money back. Plus, investors are on their own to judge the prospective projects.
There have been EB-5 debacles in California with a proposed sewage treatment plant, in a South Dakota dairy and a plant in Missouri to produce an artificial sweetener.
There are other investor-type visas, but not all offer permanent residency. Experts say the residency bonus is the primary draw, noting that other routes toward green cards can take many years.
USA Now operates from a suite of offices in downtown McAllen just a few miles from the U.S.-Mexico border. Christopher Bentley, a spokesman for U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, said Wednesday that applications could be temporarily held or processed during ongoing investigations, depending on the specifics of the case.
The company's director of operations, Marco Ramirez, was named in the search warrants and did not return a call for comment on Wednesday. But in a July 2011 interview with The Associated Press, he said the company was focusing on Mexican investors because of their proximity and the deteriorating security situation across the border.
"The biggest reason is security, 60 percent of the families that come through here have had a situation" such as extortion or kidnapping by organized crime, Ramirez said.
At the time of that interview, Ramirez said USA Now had nearly 200 investors and almost $100 million ? just four months after the company had been approved as a regional center by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.
The government does not release any information about the number of applications filed through individual regional centers nor the number of their clients who successfully obtain visas.
In October 2011, an AP reporter attended a seminar in Mexico City on investment opportunities presented by USA Now. About 45 Mexicans gathered at a luxury tower hotel in an upscale neighborhood to hear Ramirez pitch investment opportunities in South Texas that could earn them permanent residency.
Some wore suits, others were stylishly casual and toting hints of wealth such as iPads and iPhones. One young man asked if money from a trust fund could be used to make the $500,000 investment. Some of the attendees cited security concerns for wanting to both live and invest their money in U.S. rather than Mexico.
Ramirez pitched several opportunities that day including a high-rise condo project, a hospital and a retirement home. He said they charged $40,000 for the application process. When he asked the crowd how many were there "just for the investment," only one person raised a hand.
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Associated Press writer Larry Kaplow contributed to this report from Mexico City.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/texas-firm-recruiting-foreigners-visas-probed-230644849.html
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Cowboys head coach Jason Garrett with The Fan?s Ben & Skin (Photo by Ted Nichols-Payne, CBSDFW.COM All rights reserved)
OXNARD, Calif. (105.3 THE FAN) ? Dallas Cowboys Head Coach Jason Garrett stops by the 105.3 The Fan tent in Oxnard to chat with Ben and Skin. They discuss some of his philosophies and then give him the Terrifying Ten challenge, in which we see a different side of Coach Garrett.
(?2013 CBS Local Media, a division of CBS Radio Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
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Source: http://dfw.cbslocal.com/2013/08/01/cowboys-coach-jason-garrett-talk-with-ben-skin/
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With Google?s recent release of the updated Nexus 7 tablet at $229, a lot of comparisons have been made between it and other low priced tablets on the market. It sure seems like Google wants to put pressure on vendors to offer solid specs with affordable price tags for consumers. After all, this helps sell more devices, and that increases the potential market for Google services, which is where the search giant makes its profit. This isn't dissimilar to how the race-to-the-bottom in App Store pricing has commoditized software, which benefits Apple's hardware-centric revenue model. But it does prompt the question, will it force down prices, or catalyze a price war, such that nobody really makes any money on hardware? And if so, what will become of Apple's business model?
I?ll be the first to admit I can?t predict the future, but for right now, I?m mildly concerned that Google is making it hard for other to earn a buck. That said, I don?t see this destroying Apple. Instead, it could push the Cupertino computing giant towards gross margins on products that Wall Street thinks are more sustainable.
It is well understood that iPhone margins are closer to 60% while iPad margins are more in the 30% range. On a $499 full-sized tablet that works out to $150 of gross profit, and I think it?s quite reasonable to assume that a $329 iPad mini has gross margin dollars of $100 or less. Compare this to a $229 Nexus 7, which probably has gross profit dollars of zero. Or compare this to the Amazon Kindle Fire HD, priced at $199, which probably also has gross profit of about zero.
Jeff Bezos has been incredibly clear about his company?s goal to make money when people use the tablet instead of when they buy the tablet. Google?s strategy is pretty much the same. (Again, Apple has stated the same strategy when it comes to iTunes - to operate it at just above break-even.)
If Google and Amazon are selling tablets at close to break even, doesn?t this practically guarantee that Samsung?s Galaxy Tab 3 7.0 ($199 for 8 GB) isn?t very profitable either? The difference here is that Samsung needs to make money from selling hardware ... just like Apple.
Assuming I?m right in saying that all of the major Android tablet vendors are not making money on their 7-inch tablets, then Apple is the only tablet vendor that makes any significant profit. Even then, Apple?s gross profit contribution from iPad sales is down from the days prior to the existence of the iPad mini. I think we all realize Apple makes a decent profit on its low priced $329 tablet, but it pales in comparison to the full sized iPad.
Can Apple maintain it?s price differential on tablets? I think they can. It?s looking like the iPad is about $100 more than a similar-sized Nexus tablet ($229 vs. $329 and $399 vs. $499). The world is full of examples where people pay more based on perceived value, and user experience. I think Apple has created more compelling user experience for the average customer, and much more so for Mac customers. Please understand I?m not saying the iPad is better. I?m saying it?s a cleaner, easier experience for most consumers. The iPad also has a much better tablet-optimized app selection compared to the Google Play store, although Google?s store caught up with smartphone form factors, so it seems reasonable to assume they?ll catch up eventually on tablet form factor apps too.
Either way, I think Google has created a situation where Apple?s tablet margins are lower than they might otherwise be. But at the same time, I think these lower prices are causing enormous growth in the market. And that?s good for Apple, especially if they can achieve solid penetration into markets like education, healthcare, or other verticals where a tablet form factor helps automate processes, reduce error, eliminate paper, speed up business, etc.
So that?s tablets. But what about smartphones? Truth be told, that?s where I?m more worried. What?s stopping Google from causing the same damage to Apple?s smartphone margins? They already have the Nexus 4 at $349 (for 16 GB), which is much, much cheaper than an off-contract iPhone 5.
This hasn?t affected Apple?s pricing much yet, but I think that?s mainly because of carrier subsidies in developed markets (where the iPhone is so successful). The simple truth is that Apple?s carrier partners make awesome money attaching voice and data plans to smartphones. As long as customers are clamoring for the iPhone, and the current pricing lends itself for decent carrier profits, Apple can probably maintain its pricing.
But what if Google were to offer something like the Nexus 4 through carriers? I?m not saying they will. But if they did, it would put pressure on Samsung and Apple to drop prices. I suspect some Apple premium would still hold, but it wouldn?t fetch Apple 60% gross margins. Maybe margins on the iPhone would drop to 30%.
Long term, there is nothing wrong with earning 30% on a decent chunk of the smartphone market. In fact, at lower prices, Apple could probably compete much more effectively in more countries. Maybe those are two of the factors that have Apple, according to rumors, considering a less-expensive "iPhone 5C".
I think Apple has to be planning for continued pressure on smartphones, and it makes perfect sense for them to launch a lower cost iPhone in the near term. The smartphone segment is really the only major product line Apple has where pricing options are a function of device generation rather than feature spectrum. I think we all know that has to change.
The big question - what happens to Apple?s profitability? Does it shrink? Stay the same? Can it actually grow based on higher potential sales volume around the world?
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Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheIphoneBlog/~3/n3X--Q7KqmQ/story01.htm
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