FILE - This Feb. 18, 2013 file photo shows actress Ellie Kemper at the Vanity Fair and Juicy Couture Celebration for the 2013 Vanities Calendar at the Chateau Marmont in Los Angeles. NBC has ordered 13 episodes of a new singlecam comedy from multiple Emmy Award winners Tina Fey and Robert Carlock. Ellie Kemper is set to star. (Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP, File)
FILE - This Feb. 18, 2013 file photo shows actress Ellie Kemper at the Vanity Fair and Juicy Couture Celebration for the 2013 Vanities Calendar at the Chateau Marmont in Los Angeles. NBC has ordered 13 episodes of a new singlecam comedy from multiple Emmy Award winners Tina Fey and Robert Carlock. Ellie Kemper is set to star. (Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP, File)
LOS ANGELES (AP) — NBC says it's ordering 13 episodes of a new comedy created by Tina Fey and starring Ellie Kemper of "The Office."
The network says Kemper will play a woman who flees a doomsday cult and begins a new life in New York city. The actress had joined "The Office" as Erin the receptionist in the show's 2009 season.
NBC says Fey created the new series with Robert Carlock, who was an executive producer on her Emmy-winning series "30 Rock." The pair will join in writing the new comedy and serve as executive producers along with David Miner.
NBC says the new show, as yet untitled, is scheduled to debut in fall 2014.
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A California woman who served nearly two decades in prison for killing her pimp at age 16 was released on parole on Thursday, after becoming the face of a campaign to reform the treatment of young offenders.
Sara Kruzan, 35, left the Central California Women's Facility in Chowchilla before dawn, state Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation spokesman Luis Patino said in a statement.
Kruzan was taken to Orange County in Southern California, where she will live, and processed at a parole office, Patino said.
Earlier this week, when California Governor Jerry Brown, a Democrat, upheld her parole, the decision was hailed as a watershed moment by lawmakers and activists who had fought on her behalf for more than five years.
State Senator Leland Yee called Kruzan the poster child for a bill that became law this year, allowing offenders sentenced to life without parole for crimes committed before age 18 the chance to petition for a new hearing on their sentence.
Kruzan, who advocates say was raised by an abusive, drug-addicted single mother, said in a 2009 Human Rights Watch video that she was sexually assaulted at age 11 by George Howard, the man she would later kill.
Within two years, Howard had her working as a child prostitute. In March 1994, then 16-year-old Kruzan shot him to death in a motel room in Riverside, California.
Kruzan lost a bid to stand trial as a juvenile and a Riverside County jury found her guilty of first-degree murder.
A judge sentenced her to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
The Human Rights Watch video, in which she expresses remorse for the crime and describes her grim life as a prostitute, drew widespread attention to her case.
The year after the video was released, then-California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Republican, commuted her prison sentence to 25 years to life, which made her eligible to be considered for parole.
Earlier this year, the California Board of Parole Hearings found her suitable for release, sending their recommendation to Brown, who notified the board on Monday that he would not intervene to stop her from being released.
(Additional reporting by Dan Whitcomb; Editing by Scott Malone and Gunna Dickson)
Sandia's Katherine Guzman receives national Hispanic award for technical contributions
PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:
31-Oct-2013
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Contact: Mike Janes mejanes@sandia.gov 925-294-2447 DOE/Sandia National Laboratories
LIVERMORE, Calif. The Hispanic Engineer National Achievement Awards Corp. (HENAAC) recently named Sandia National Laboratories' Katherine Guzman one of its 2013 Luminary honorees. She received her award Oct. 5 at the 25th Anniversary HENAAC Conference in New Orleans.
"This is an incredible honor," said Guzman. "I remember going to the HENAAC awards ceremony as an undergraduate and looking up at the award winners with awe, never imagining that one day I might be considered for such an award."
Luminary honorees represent professionals in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics who initiate, collaborate, and lead key programs and research in their organizations. These individuals have made significant contributions to the Hispanic technical community as leaders and role models.
"Katherine truly embodies our core values," said Todd West, one of Guzman's managers at Sandia. "She consistently executes and leads high-quality work in the face of sometimes challenging and ambiguous environments. She manages effective teams and fosters an attitude of mutual respect. Her outreach activities are equally exemplary. In short, Katherine is an ideal role model for others considering a career in science, technology, engineering or math."
New tools, service and science
At Sandia, Guzman has distinguished herself with her work in the area of risk management. She played a key role in the development of SUMMIT (Standard Unified Modeling, Mapping, and Integration Toolkit), a new technology to enable emergency management personnel to seamlessly access information from diverse models and data coming from different sources. The creation of these tools is now enabling the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to rigorously plan for and exercise against highly complex disaster scenarios.
Guzman now leads a Sandia effort to better understand risk for DHS, work that could shape the way the nation understands and attempts to mitigate homeland security risk.
Guzman said science was part of her upbringing. "My father is a scientist and he raised me and my sisters the way he was raised to ask a lot of questions," she said "He spent a lot of time explaining to us the how and why of everything."
Her future in mechanical engineering became apparent at a young age. "I was always more interested in building furniture for my dolls than playing with the dolls themselves," said Guzman. "Making things was what fascinated me."
Guzman earned a B.S. at The University of Texas at Austin and a Ph.D. in mechanical engineering at the University of California, Berkeley. As both an undergraduate and graduate student, she found herself to be one of the few women and one of even fewer Hispanic women.
When it came time to consider where to begin her career, service was at the front of Guzman's mind. "My father served in the Peace Corps and my mother is a social worker, so I was raised with a very keen sense of making a contribution to the world," she said. "My dad is an agronomist and he felt that he, as part of a large community of scientists, was helping to solve world hunger through his work. That's a pretty noble cause to go to work for every day. So coming to Sandia was a natural choice because our work has true national impact."
Guzman is also driven by a personal passion to help minorities and women in science and engineering achieve their career dreams. As an undergraduate and graduate engineering student at two of the country's largest and most prestigious universities, she encountered very few female and minority role models and virtually no female minority role models. That is something she hopes to change with her work as a leader, mentor and keynote speaker.
Outside of work, Guzman stays busy with her husband and two young sons. "Balancing work with family and community is important to me," said Guzman. "I want to instill in my children the values I was raised with hard work, the value of education, the importance of community and respect for everyone."
###
Sandia National Laboratories is a multi-program laboratory operated by Sandia Corporation, a wholly owned subsidiary of Lockheed Martin company, for the U.S. Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration. With main facilities in Albuquerque, N.M., and Livermore, Calif., Sandia has major R&D responsibilities in national security, energy and environmental technologies and economic competitiveness.
Sandia news media contact: Mike Janes, mejanes@sandia.gov, (925) 294-2447
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Sandia's Katherine Guzman receives national Hispanic award for technical contributions
PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:
31-Oct-2013
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Contact: Mike Janes mejanes@sandia.gov 925-294-2447 DOE/Sandia National Laboratories
LIVERMORE, Calif. The Hispanic Engineer National Achievement Awards Corp. (HENAAC) recently named Sandia National Laboratories' Katherine Guzman one of its 2013 Luminary honorees. She received her award Oct. 5 at the 25th Anniversary HENAAC Conference in New Orleans.
"This is an incredible honor," said Guzman. "I remember going to the HENAAC awards ceremony as an undergraduate and looking up at the award winners with awe, never imagining that one day I might be considered for such an award."
Luminary honorees represent professionals in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics who initiate, collaborate, and lead key programs and research in their organizations. These individuals have made significant contributions to the Hispanic technical community as leaders and role models.
"Katherine truly embodies our core values," said Todd West, one of Guzman's managers at Sandia. "She consistently executes and leads high-quality work in the face of sometimes challenging and ambiguous environments. She manages effective teams and fosters an attitude of mutual respect. Her outreach activities are equally exemplary. In short, Katherine is an ideal role model for others considering a career in science, technology, engineering or math."
New tools, service and science
At Sandia, Guzman has distinguished herself with her work in the area of risk management. She played a key role in the development of SUMMIT (Standard Unified Modeling, Mapping, and Integration Toolkit), a new technology to enable emergency management personnel to seamlessly access information from diverse models and data coming from different sources. The creation of these tools is now enabling the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to rigorously plan for and exercise against highly complex disaster scenarios.
Guzman now leads a Sandia effort to better understand risk for DHS, work that could shape the way the nation understands and attempts to mitigate homeland security risk.
Guzman said science was part of her upbringing. "My father is a scientist and he raised me and my sisters the way he was raised to ask a lot of questions," she said "He spent a lot of time explaining to us the how and why of everything."
Her future in mechanical engineering became apparent at a young age. "I was always more interested in building furniture for my dolls than playing with the dolls themselves," said Guzman. "Making things was what fascinated me."
Guzman earned a B.S. at The University of Texas at Austin and a Ph.D. in mechanical engineering at the University of California, Berkeley. As both an undergraduate and graduate student, she found herself to be one of the few women and one of even fewer Hispanic women.
When it came time to consider where to begin her career, service was at the front of Guzman's mind. "My father served in the Peace Corps and my mother is a social worker, so I was raised with a very keen sense of making a contribution to the world," she said. "My dad is an agronomist and he felt that he, as part of a large community of scientists, was helping to solve world hunger through his work. That's a pretty noble cause to go to work for every day. So coming to Sandia was a natural choice because our work has true national impact."
Guzman is also driven by a personal passion to help minorities and women in science and engineering achieve their career dreams. As an undergraduate and graduate engineering student at two of the country's largest and most prestigious universities, she encountered very few female and minority role models and virtually no female minority role models. That is something she hopes to change with her work as a leader, mentor and keynote speaker.
Outside of work, Guzman stays busy with her husband and two young sons. "Balancing work with family and community is important to me," said Guzman. "I want to instill in my children the values I was raised with hard work, the value of education, the importance of community and respect for everyone."
###
Sandia National Laboratories is a multi-program laboratory operated by Sandia Corporation, a wholly owned subsidiary of Lockheed Martin company, for the U.S. Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration. With main facilities in Albuquerque, N.M., and Livermore, Calif., Sandia has major R&D responsibilities in national security, energy and environmental technologies and economic competitiveness.
Sandia news media contact: Mike Janes, mejanes@sandia.gov, (925) 294-2447
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
"Okay Google." Those Touchless Controls aren't just for the Moto X anymore -- they're now part and parcel of the Nexus 5. With today's unveiling of Google's (terribly leaked) Nexus 5, we're getting a first look at Android 4.4 KitKat on the handset, and that OS update comes with some significant ...
This undated photo provided by Housing Works shows a painting, which includes an addition to the scene by the secretive British graffiti artist Banksy. After buying a painting of a pastoral scene for $50, Banksy donated it back to the Housing Works thrift shop in New York where he bought it— but only after reworking it, adding a Nazi soldier to the scene. The 23rd Street Housing Works store is auctioning the painting. By Wednesday morning, Oct. 30, 2013, bidding reached $211,000. (AP Photo/Housing Works)
This undated photo provided by Housing Works shows a painting, which includes an addition to the scene by the secretive British graffiti artist Banksy. After buying a painting of a pastoral scene for $50, Banksy donated it back to the Housing Works thrift shop in New York where he bought it— but only after reworking it, adding a Nazi soldier to the scene. The 23rd Street Housing Works store is auctioning the painting. By Wednesday morning, Oct. 30, 2013, bidding reached $211,000. (AP Photo/Housing Works)
This Wednesday, Oct. 30, 2013 screen shot, made with permission from Housing Works, shows their website featuring a auction for a painting which includes an addition to the scene by the secretive British graffiti artist Banksy. After buying a painting of a pastoral scene for $50, Banksy donated it back to the Housing Works thrift shop in New York where he bought it— but only after reworking it, adding a Nazi soldier to the scene. The 23rd Street Housing Works store is auctioning the painting. (AP Photo/Housing Works)
NEW YORK (AP) — Bidding on a painting that British graffiti artist Banksy bought for $50 and altered has climbed to more than $310,000.
Banksy added a Nazi soldier into the pastoral scene after he purchased the painting at a Manhattan thrift shop. He donated it back to the 23rd Street Housing Works store on Tuesday.
The store put it up for auction the same day.
The auction ends Thursday at 8 p.m.
Proceeds will benefit Housing Works' homelessness and AIDS initiatives.
As he does with all his works, the elusive artist posted the image on his website. He titled it, "The banality of the banality of evil."
On Sunday, Banksy posted an essay on his website calling the design of the World Trade Center a "disaster."
NEW YORK (AP) — Young New Yorkers who want to light up will soon have to wait for their 21st birthdays before they can buy a pack of smokes after lawmakers in the nation's most populous city voted overwhelmingly to raise the tobacco-purchasing age from 18 to 21.
The City Council's vote Wednesday makes New York the biggest city to bar cigarette sales to 19- and 20-year-olds, and one of only a few places throughout the United States that have tried to stymie smoking among young people by raising the purchasing age. The council also approved a bill that sets a minimum $10.50-a-pack price for tobacco cigarettes and steps up law enforcement on illegal tobacco sales.
"We know that tobacco dependence can begin very soon after a young person first tries smoking so it's critical that we stop young people from smoking before they ever start," Mayor Michael Bloomberg said in a statement after the council's vote.
Bloomberg, a strong supporter of tough smoking restrictions, has 30 days to sign the bills into law. The minimum age bill will take effect 180 days after enactment.
The city's current age limit is 18, a federal minimum that's standard in many places. Smoking in city parks and beaches already is prohibited as it is in restaurants.
Advocates say higher age limits help prevent, or at least delay, young people from taking up a habit that remains the leading cause of preventable deaths nationwide.
But cigarette manufacturers have suggested young adult smokers may just turn to black-market merchants. And some smokers say it's unfair and patronizing to tell people considered mature enough to vote and serve in the military that they're not old enough to decide whether to smoke.
"New York City already has the highest cigarette tax rate and the highest cigarette smuggling rate in the country," said Bryan D. Hatchell , a spokesman for R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company, which makes Camel and other brands. "Those go hand in hand and this new law will only make the problem worse."
Another anti-smoking initiative pushed by the Bloomberg administration was previously shelved ahead of Wednesday's vote: forcing stores to keep cigarettes out of public view until a customer asks for them.
Newsstand clerk Ali Hassen, who sells cigarettes daily to a steady stream of customers from nearby office buildings, said he didn't know if the new age restrictions would do any good.
While he wouldn't stop vigilantly checking identification to verify customers' age, Hassen doubted the new rules would thwart determined smokers.
"If somebody wants to smoke, they're going to smoke," he said.
Similar legislation to raise the purchasing age is expected to come to a vote in Hawaii this December. The tobacco-buying age is 21 in Needham, Mass., and is poised to rise to 21 in January in nearby Canton, Mass. The state of New Jersey also is considering a similar proposal.
"It just makes it harder for young people to smoke," said Stephen McGorry, 25, who started smoking at 19. He added that had the age been 21 when he took up the habit, "I guarantee I wouldn't be smoking today."
WASHINGTON (AP) — Terrorists "found a second chance" to thrive in Iraq, the nation's prime minister said Thursday in asking for new U.S. aid to beat back a bloody insurgency that has been fueled by the neighboring Syrian civil war and the departure of American troops from Iraq two years ago.
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki told a packed auditorium at the U.S. Institute of Peace that he needs additional weapons, help with intelligence and other assistance, and claimed the world has a responsibility to help because terrorism is an international concern.
"They carry their bad ideas everywhere," al-Maliki said of terrorists. "They carry bad ideas instead of flowers."
The new request comes nearly two years after al-Maliki's government refused to let U.S. forces remain in Iraq, after nearly nine years of war, with legal immunity that the Obama administration insisted was necessary to protect troops. The administration had campaigned on ending the war in Iraq and took the opportunity offered by the legal dispute to pull all troops out.
Al-Maliki will meet Friday with President Barack Obama in what Baghdad hopes will be a fresh start in a complicated relationship that has been marked both by victories and frustrations for each side.
Within months of the U.S. troops' departure, violence began creeping up in the capital and across the country as Sunni Muslim insurgents, angered by a widespread belief that Sunnis had been sidelined by the Shiite-led government, lashed out. The State Department says at least 6,000 Iraqis have been killed in attacks so far this year, and suicide bombers launched 38 strikes in the last month alone.
"So the terrorists found a second chance," al-Maliki said — a turnabout from an insurgency that was mostly silenced by the time the U.S. troops left.
Al-Maliki largely blamed the Syrian civil war for the rise in Iraq's violence. In Syria, rebels — including some linked to al-Qaida — are fighting to overthrow President Bashar Assad.
Al-Maliki said he will ask Obama for new assistance to bolster Iraq's military and fight al-Qaida. The Iraqi ambassador to the U.S. said that could include speeding up the delivery of U.S. aircraft, missiles, interceptors and other weapons, and improving national intelligence systems among other things.
Iraqi Ambassador Lukman Faily did not rule out the possibility of asking the U.S. to send military special forces or additional CIA advisers to Iraq to help train and assist counterterror troops, but noted that if the U.S. doesn't provide the help, Iraq will go where they can, including China or Russia, which would be more than happy to increase their influence in Baghdad at U.S. expense.
The two leaders also will discuss how Iraq can improve its fractious government, which so often is divided among sectarian or ethnic lines, to give it more confidence with a bitter and traumatized public.
The ambassador said no new security agreement would be needed to give immunity to additional U.S. advisers or trainers in Iraq. And he said Iraq would pay for the additional weapons or other assistance.
A senior Obama administration official said Wednesday that U.S. officials were not planning to send U.S. trainers to Iraq and that Baghdad had not asked for them. The administration official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to brief reporters by name.
U.S. officials were prepared to help Iraq with an approach that did not focus just on military or security gaps, the administration official said. The aid under consideration might include more weapons for Iraqi troops who do not have necessary equipment to battle al-Qaida insurgents, he said.
Administration officials consider the insurgency, which has rebranded itself as the Islamic State of Iraq in the Levant, a major and increasing threat both to Iraq and the U.S., the official said.
U.S. and Iraqi officials see a possible solution in trying to persuade insurgents to join forces with Iraqi troops and move away from al-Qaida, following a pattern set by so-called Awakening Councils in western Iraq that marked a turning point in the war. Faily said much of the additional aid — including weapons and training — would go toward this effort.
Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., who opposed the U.S. troop withdrawal in 2011, said Iraq likely would not get the aid until al-Maliki, a Shiite, makes strides in making the government more inclusive to Sunnis. "The situation is deteriorating and it's unraveling, and he's got to turn it around," McCain said Wednesday after a tense meeting on Capitol Hill with al-Maliki.
Al-Maliki's plea for aid is somewhat ironic, given that he refused to budge in 2011 on letting U.S. troops stay in Iraq with legal immunity Washington said they must have to defend themselves in the volatile country. But it was a fiercely unpopular political position in Iraq, which was unable to prosecute Blackwater Worldwide security contractors who opened fire in a Baghdad square in 2007, killing at least 13 passersby.
James F. Jeffrey, who was the U.S. ambassador in Baghdad when the U.S. troops left, called it a "turnabout" by al-Maliki. He said Iraq desperately needs teams of U.S. advisers, trainers, intelligence and counterterror experts to beat back al-Qaida.
"They could mean all the difference between losing an Iraq that 4,500 Americans gave their lives for," said Jeffrey, who retired from the State Department after leaving Baghdad last year.
Nearly 4,500 U.S. troops were killed in Iraq between the 2003 invasion and the 2011 withdrawal. More than 100,000 Iraqi were killed in that time.
___
Follow Lara Jakes on Twitter at: https://twitter.com/larajakesAP
President Barack Obama gestures while speaking in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington, Monday, Oct. 21, 2013, on the initial rollout of the health care overhaul. Obama acknowledged that the widespread problems with his health care law's rollout are unacceptable, as the administration scrambles to fix the cascade of computer issues. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)
President Barack Obama gestures while speaking in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington, Monday, Oct. 21, 2013, on the initial rollout of the health care overhaul. Obama acknowledged that the widespread problems with his health care law's rollout are unacceptable, as the administration scrambles to fix the cascade of computer issues. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)
WASHINGTON (AP) — Just two weeks after President Barack Obama saw his Democratic Party put up an unyielding front against Republicans, his coalition is showing signs of stress.
From health care to spying to pending budget deals, many congressional Democrats are challenging the administration and pushing for measures that the White House has not embraced.
Some Democrats are seeking to extend the enrollment period for new health care exchanges. Others want to place restraints on National Security Administration surveillance capabilities. Still others are standing tough against any budget deal that uses long-term reductions in major benefit programs to offset immediate cuts in defense.
Though focused on disparate issues, the Democrats' anxieties are connected by timing and stand out all the more when contrasted with the remarkable unity the party displayed during the recent showdown over the partial government shutdown and the confrontation over raising the nation's borrowing limit.
"That moment was always going to be fleeting," said Matt Bennett, who worked in the Clinton White House and who regularly consults with Obama aides. "The White House, every White House, understands that these folks, driven either by principle or the demands of the politics of their state, have to put daylight between themselves and the president on occasion."
Obama and the Democrats emerged from the debt and shutdown clash with what they wanted: a reopened government, a higher debt ceiling and a Republican Party reeling in the depths of public opinion polls.
But within days, attention turned to the problem-riddled launch of the 3-year-old health care law's enrollment stage and revelations that the U.S. had been secretly monitoring the communications of as many as 35 allied leaders, including German Chancellor Angela Merkel. And with new budget talks underway, Democratic Party liberals reiterated demands that Obama not agree to changes that reduce Social Security or Medicare benefits even in the improbable event Republicans agree to increase budget revenues.
The fraying on the Democratic Party edges is hardly unraveling Obama's support and it pales when compared to the upheaval within the Republican Party as it distances itself from the tactics of tea party conservatives. But the pushback from Democrats comes as Obama is trying to draw renewed attention to his agenda, including passage of an immigration overhaul, his jobs initiatives and the benefits of his health care law.
The computer troubles that befell the start of health insurance sign-ups have caused the greatest anxiety. Republicans pounced on the difficulties as evidence of deeper flaws in the law. But Democrats, even as they defended the policy, also demanded answers in the face of questions from their constituents.
"The fact is that the administration really failed these Americans," Rep. Allyson Schwartz, D-Pa., told Medicare chief Marilyn Tavenner at a hearing this week. "So going forward, there can be just no more excuses."
In the Senate, 10 Democrats signed on to a letter seeking an unspecified extension of the enrollment period, which ends March 31. "As you continue to fix problems with the website and the enrollment process, it is critical that the administration be open to modifications that provide greater flexibility for the American people seeking to access health insurance," Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., wrote.
Another Democratic senator, Joe Manchin of West Virginia, has called for a one-year delay in the requirement that virtually all Americans have health insurance or pay a fine.
On Thursday, White House chief of staff Denis McDonough, Tavenner and the White House's designated troubleshooter for the health care web site, Jeffrey Zients, were meeting privately with Senate Democrats to offer reassurances.
Democrats who have talked to White House officials in recent days describe them as rattled by the health care blunders. But they say they are confident that the troubled website used for enrollment will be corrected and fully operational by the end of November.
The spying revelations also have created some tensions between the administration and Democrats. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee and until now a staunch supporter of the NSA's surveillance, called for a "total review of all intelligence programs" following the Merkel reports.
She said that when it came to the NSA collecting intelligence on the leaders of allies such as France, Spain, Mexico and Germany, "Let me state unequivocally: I am totally opposed."
In the House, Rep. Jan Schakowsky of Illinois, a Democratic member of the House intelligence committee, complained that the intelligence committees had been kept out of the loop about the collection of data on foreign leaders.
"Why did we not know that heads of state were being eavesdropped on, spied on?" she asked Obama administration intelligence officials on Tuesday. "We are the Intelligence Committee. And we did not -- we didn't know that. And now all of us, all of us, are dealing with a problem in our international relations. There will be changes."
With Congress renewing budget talks Wednesday, liberals have been outspoken in their insistence that Democrats vigorously resist efforts to reduce long-term deficits with savings in Social Security or Medicare. Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, an independent who usually votes with Democrats, has been the most outspoken, saying he fears a budget deal will contain a proposal in Obama's budget to reduce cost-of-living adjustments for Social Security and other benefit programs.
Obama, however, has proposed that remedy only if Republicans agree to raise tax revenue, a bargain that GOP lawmakers involved in the discussions made clear they would reject. Moreover, leaders from both parties as well as White House officials have signaled that in budget talks, they are looking for a small budget deal, not the type of "grand bargain" that would embrace such a revenue-for-benefit-cuts deal.
Still, many liberals warn that such cuts aren't palatable even if coupled with additional revenues.
"The idea, the notion that we're going to solve this problem or it's going to be OK if we were able to raise revenue and cut this thing back at the same time, it just isn't going to fly outside of Washington," said Jim Dean, chairman of the liberal advocacy group Democracy for America.
Follow Jim Kuhnhenn at http://twitter.com/jkuhnhenn
Audio for this story from Tell Me More will be available at approximately 3:00 p.m. ET.
The Obama administration is defending the Affordable Care Act over its faulty website, and reports that Americans are losing insurance coverage because of the law. To sort out the truth from the rumors, host Michel Martin speaks with Mary Agnes Carey of Kaiser Health News and technology developer Clay Johnson.
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) speaks on Friday during the Republican Party of Iowa's Reagan Dinner in Des Moines.
Scott Morgan/AP
Sen. Ted Cruz, the Texas Republican and Tea-Party darling, was in Iowa Friday headlining a fundraising dinner for the state Republican Party. It was Cruz's third visit to Iowa in as many months, but this time was different.
It was his first time back since the government shutdown and his 21-hour, anti-Obamacare talkathon that preceded it — events that catapulted him from junior senator to a conservative hero and household name.
Iowa, of course, is the state that kicks off the presidential contest every four years with its first-in-the-nation caucuses.
Cruz is often discussed as a potential candidate in 2016, so it's no surprise he got a standing ovation as he was introduced to the crowd of 600 Iowa Republicans who gathered for the state party's annual Reagan Dinner.
Perhaps more surprising, the clapping only lasted 40 seconds, and the reception was more polite than electric. A week ago, Cruz got an eight-minute standing ovation upon his return to Texas.
Bucking The Party While Calling For Unity
In Des Moines on Friday, Cruz started by talking about his very long speech on the Senate floor.
"Twenty-one hours is a long time," he said. "I mean, that's almost as long as it takes to sign up on the Obamacare website."
It's not hard to find Republicans willing to openly criticize Cruz and his effort to defund the health care law. It was destined to fail, they say, a huge mistake that tanked Republican popularity and could have long-term consequences for the party.
In his speech, Cruz blamed his fellow Republican senators for the failure, but then turned his remarks to the need for unity.
"We need to come together, and let me tell you, growth and freedom are principles and ideals that unify the entire Republican Party," he said.
This is exactly what Betsy Sigler came to hear. Sigler is a pediatrician and mother of three, and says she would have kept that standing ovation going a whole lot longer if she had her way.
"I love Ted Cruz," she says. "We're smarter than what the media's trying to play us for. Nobody's divided. We all want freedom, we all want liberty and we want our rules followed. I think we're ready to stand together and fight for that."
But What's Cruz Really Doing In Iowa?
After the event, Cruz talked with reporters, and was asked the obvious question for politicians with possible presidential aspirations: What are you doing in Iowa? Cruz's answer: He was invited.
Asked more bluntly as he was leaving whether he was laying the groundwork for a potential presidential run, Cruz looked at the reporter and just kept walking.
Dennis Goldford, a professor of politics at Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa, thinks the answer is clear.
"Nobody comes to Iowa for the weather," Goldford says. "Now we have pretty good food, and Iowans are very nice people, but you're always suspicious when potential presidential candidates show up in the state of Iowa."
It may be too early to admit presidential ambitions, but it isn't too early to visit, says John Stineman, a public affairs consultant with deep roots in Iowa Republican politics.
"Any candidate will come during the '14 (election) cycle to help raise money, and that's how they start to plant seeds," Stineman says. "So, he's doing all the things that a prospective candidate does."
Cruz encouraged everyone in Friday's audience to get out their cell phones and text their support, building a database of supporters and potential donors that could come in handy if he decides to run for president in 2016.
Are you the kind of ham who likes to be a part of the show? Does the sound of free tickets strike your fancy? Most importantly,do you like to work hard and have fun? Then you just might be a candidate to volunteer atEngadget Expand New York!
We're taking over the Jacob K. Javits' Convention Center in New York City for four full days, November 7-10 (though the 7th is for us to prepare,and the 8th is open just to press). We're looking for a small army of folks to cover one or more of these shifts:
Thursday - 2pm to 6pm (One day ticket for Saturday or Sunday included.)
Friday - 8am to 6pm (Weekend pass included.)
Saturday and Sunday - 9am to 6pm (Weekend pass included.)
As a volunteer,we'll likely ask you to help out with tasks such as:
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WASHINGTON (AP) — Nearly two years after pushing out the U.S. military, Iraq is asking for more American weapons, training and manpower to help fight a bloody resurgence of al-Qaida that has unleashed a level of violence comparable to the darkest days of the nation's sectarian conflict.
The request will be discussed during a White House meeting Friday between Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and President Barack Obama in what Baghdad hopes will be a fresh start in a complicated relationship that has been marked by victories and frustrations for each side.
"We know we have major challenges of our own capabilities being up to the standard. They currently are not," Lukman Faily, the Iraqi ambassador to the U.S., said in an interview with The Associated Press. "We need to gear up, to deal with that threat more seriously. We need support and we need help."
He added: "We have said to the Americans we'd be more than happy to discuss all the options short of boots on the ground."
"Boots on the ground" means military forces. The U.S. withdrew all but a few hundred of its troops from Iraq in December 2011 after Baghdad refused to renew a security agreement to extend legal immunity for Americans forces that would have let more stay.
At the time, the withdrawal was hailed as a victory for the Obama administration, which campaigned on ending the Iraq war and had little appetite for pushing Baghdad into a new security agreement. But within months, violence began creeping up in the capital and across the country as Sunni Muslim insurgents lashed out at Shiites, angered by a widespread belief that Sunnis have been sidelined by the Shiite-led government, and with no U.S. troops to keep them in check.
More than 5,000 Iraqis have been killed in attacks since April, and suicide bombers launched 38 strikes in the last month alone.
Al-Maliki is expected to ask Obama for new assistance to bolster its military and fight al-Qaida. Faily said that could include everything from speeding up the delivery of U.S. aircraft, missiles, interceptors and other weapons, to improving national intelligence systems. And when asked, he did not rule out the possibility of asking the U.S. to send military special forces or additional CIA advisers to Iraq to help train and assist counterterror troops.
If the U.S. does not commit to providing the weapons or other aid quickly, "we will go elsewhere," Faily said. That means Iraq will step up diplomacy with nations like China or Russia that would be more than happy to increase their influence in Baghdad at U.S. expense.
The two leaders also will discuss how Iraq can improve its fractious government, which so often is divided among sectarian or ethnic lines, to give it more confidence with a bitter and traumatized public.
The ambassador said no new security agreement would be needed to give immunity to additional U.S. advisers or trainers in Iraq — the main sticking point that led to U.S. withdrawal. And he said Iraq would pay for the additional weapons or other assistance.
A senior Obama administration official said Wednesday that U.S. officials were not planning to send U.S. trainers to Iraq and that Baghdad had not asked for them. The administration official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to brief reporters by name.
U.S. officials were prepared to help Iraq with an across-the-board approach that did not focus just on military or security gaps, the administration official said. The aid under consideration might include more weapons for Iraqi troops who do not have necessary equipment to battle al-Qaida insurgents, he said.
Administration officials consider the insurgency, which has rebranded itself as the Islamic State of Iraq in the Levant, a major and increasing threat both to Iraq and the U.S., the official said.
U.S. and Iraqi officials see a possible solution in trying to persuade insurgents to join forces with Iraqi troops and move away from al-Qaida, following a pattern set by so-called Awakening Councils in western Iraq that marked a turning point in the war. Faily said much of the additional aid — including weapons and training — would go toward this effort.
Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., who opposed the U.S. troop withdrawal in 2011, said Iraq likely would not get the aid until al-Maliki, a Shiite, makes strides in making the government more inclusive to Sunnis.
"If he expects the kind of assistance that he's asking for, we need a strategy and we need to know exactly how that's going to be employed, and we need to see some changes in Iraq," McCain said Wednesday after a tense meeting on Capitol Hill with al-Maliki. "The situation is deteriorating and it's unraveling, and he's got to turn it around."
Al-Maliki's plea for aid is somewhat ironic, given that he refused to budge in 2011 on letting U.S. troops stay in Iraq with legal immunity Washington said they must have to defend themselves in the volatile country. But it was a fiercely unpopular political position in Iraq, which was unable to prosecute Blackwater Worldwide security contractors who opened fire in a Baghdad square in 2007, killing at least 13 passers-by.
James F. Jeffrey, who was the U.S. ambassador in Baghdad when the U.S. troops left, called it a "turnabout" by al-Maliki. He said Iraq desperately needs teams of U.S. advisers, trainers, intelligence and counterterror experts to beat back al-Qaida.
"We have those people," said Jeffrey, who retired from the State Department after leaving Baghdad last year. "We had plans to get them in after 2011. They can be under embassy privileges and immunities. They will cost the American people almost nothing. They will, by and large, not be in any more danger than our State Department civilians. And they could mean all the difference between losing an Iraq that 4,500 Americans gave their lives for."
Nearly 4,500 U.S. troops were killed in Iraq between the 2003 invasion and the 2011 withdrawal. More than 100,000 Iraqi were killed in that time.
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Follow Lara Jakes on Twitter at: https://twitter.com/larajakesAP
Cars decorated for Halloween wait for kids to come by for "trunk-or-treating" in Beloit, Wis. The event is seen as an alternative to sending kids door to door for candy.
Stephanie Lecci/WUWM
Cars decorated for Halloween wait for kids to come by for "trunk-or-treating" in Beloit, Wis. The event is seen as an alternative to sending kids door to door for candy.
Stephanie Lecci/WUWM
The parking lot of Messiah Evangelical Lutheran Church in Beloit, Wis., is filled with dozens of costumed kids hungry for candy at an early Halloween event.
But the princesses and Iron Men aren't yelling "trick or treat." Instead, it's "trunk or treat" — and that's because these kids, rather than going door to door, are going from car trunk to car trunk. Each car is decorated with a theme.
Pastor Jason Reed says his church likes to focus on the fun — rather than freaky — parts of Halloween.
A family plucks candy from one of the cars at the "trunk or treat" event in Beloit, Wis.
Stephanie Lecci/WUWM
A family plucks candy from one of the cars at the "trunk or treat" event in Beloit, Wis.
Stephanie Lecci/WUWM
"I know a lot of Christian denominations think that Halloween's from the devil, all this and that," he says. "For what it's worth, if the kids are going to have some fun making fun of the devil, then let them, and if they're going to get some candy out of it, wonderful. And if we're going to have fun laughing with them, spectacular."
It's that discomfort with some of Halloween's themes that first led churches to start trunk-or-treat events in the late 1990s, according to Halloween historian Lesley Bannatyne.
"A trunk or treat became a very gentle and kind and child-friendly way to deal with the fact that the church didn't approve of Halloween," Bannatyne says. "It's very similar to Halloween, and you don't give away any of the great stuff like costumes and candy, but you can control it and keep away the imagery that you don't like."
And Bannatyne says trunk or treats are a safer alternative than going door to door.
"The biggest danger to children on Halloween night is traffic, and so trunk-or-treating takes that away completely," she says. "There are no moving cars, all the cars are parked and ... you get to control whose car is there, so you know who's giving your children candy."
She says that's why the trend is catching on with more than just religious groups.
A Boys and Girls Club in California, cities in Florida and Iowa and even police and fire departments in Minnesota have participated in trunk or treats.
At IDEAL School in Milwaukee, teacher Jennifer Carter says she'd never heard of trunk-or-treating until a PTA parent got the idea from her church four years ago.
Now the annual event allows Carter's students to celebrate Halloween, while being respectful of families that don't.
"In fact, it's called trunk-or-treat night, it's not called Halloween night," she says. "Now, obviously, it has many connotations to it ... but it is very much done in a respectful way, though, that families are well aware [of], and ... they do not have to participate, obviously, because it's an afterschool event."
Milwaukee parent Fiona Nicolaisen says having her children go door to door can be tricky in an urban area.
"In Milwaukee here, a lot of the trick-or-treating is during the day," Nicolaisen says. "So trunk-or-treating at night is a nice way for my kids to know what it was like when I used to go out trick-or-treating in the dark."
So while millions of doorbells across the country will still be ringing on Thursday, more and more kids will instead be hitting up decorated car trunks in their search for treats.
Cole Miller scored a big win at UFC Fight Night 30 last weekend, as the American Top Team featherweight worked his way to a unanimous decision win over Andy Ogle. Since Miller had lost three of his last four fights heading into the October 26th scrap, a defeat may have ended the fighter’s UFC run, which dates way back to 2007.
While Miller doesn’t contest the fact that his job may have been on the line versus Ogle, he doesn’t believe he’s 2-2 in his last four bouts. The reason being that Miller doesn’t think the judges got it right when he was handed a split decision loss versus Nam Pham, or more recently at UFC FN 26 when he lost by UD to Manny Gamburyan (which many folks believe should have been stopped in Miller’s favor to begin with after round one).
Thus, this is why Miller blasted judges in his post-fight interview with Joe Rogan last Saturday, and why “Magrinho” made the following comments while appearing on the latest edition of “The MMA Hour” (comments via MMA Fighting.com).
“I knew I had to win,” Miller said. ”I’ve kind of been up and down, but I’ve only been up and down because of what some 50 and 60-year-old judges have said about my fights. If you actually went back and looked at them, as far as I’m concerned, this is four wins in a row.”
“They’re not even qualified to be making the calls they’re making,” Miller added while referring to judges. “That’s kind of disgusting and that’s really unfortunate in our sport, because it changes the whole landscape of our sport. When you have unqualified people judging mixed martial arts, it changes the way that mixed martial arts is actually fought, because fighters are now adjusting their styles to please people that don’t know anything about our sport.”
“I love this sport,” Miller continued. “I really do. And I want to see it make progress. I don’t want to see it regress. With the judging in mixed martial arts, and how coaches are coaching the fighters, and how fighters are manipulating and molding their styles to please people that know nothing about MMA, it makes the sport regress.”
It’s certainly not the first time a fighter has fired away at the status-quo in terms of judging, and even if you don’t believe it’s as dire as Miller says, improvements need to be made. Particularly in situations where, as Miller alluded to, fighters are given rounds for just maintaining the top position rather than inflicting damage.
Stay tuned to MMA Frenzy.com for all your UFC news and coverage.
Front-Page Photo Credit: Gary A. Vasquez-USA TODAY Sports
Barnes & Noble is one of several stores that have refused to carry Amazon Publishing's books.
Karen Bleier/AFP/Getty Images
Barnes & Noble is one of several stores that have refused to carry Amazon Publishing's books.
Karen Bleier/AFP/Getty Images
When it comes to book publishing, all we ever seem to hear about is online sales, the growth of e-books and the latest version of a digital book reader. But the fact is, only 20 percent of the book market is e-books; it's still dominated by print. And a recent standoff in the book business shows how good old-fashioned, brick-and-mortar bookstores are still trying to wield their influence in the industry. You might even call it brick-and-mortar booksellers' revenge.
At the center of this story is Amazon, and it's no secret that there's little love lost between the traditional book world and the giant online retailer: Publishers and booksellers think Amazon wants to put them out of business. When the Justice Department brought suit against Apple and five major publishing companies for price fixing, a lot of people in the book business were apoplectic: They firmly believe that if an antitrust lawsuit should be brought against anyone, it's Amazon.
So many within the industry are happy to look for any weakness they can find when it comes to Amazon. Recently, they found it in Amazon's decision to not just sell books, but also publish them.
About two years ago, Amazon hired a well-known literary agent, Larry Kirshbaum, to launch the New York branch of their fledgling publishing business, which until then had been based in Seattle. This was seen as a big move because New York is the capital of the publishing business, and Kirshbaum was a major player there. Everyone figured he could use his clout to attract big-time authors to Amazon's trade publishing brand, and everyone was watching very closely to see what happened.
And that's where the revenge part of this story comes in. A lot of booksellers said enough is enough: Not only is Amazon trying to take over the retail side of the book business, it's also going to take over publishing? Some independent bookstores decided they wouldn't carry Amazon Publishing's books and, even more importantly, Barnes & Noble — the country's biggest bookstore chain — and some big-box stores followed suit. Neither Amazon nor its authors expected that kind of backlash, and a couple of pretty big Amazon releases never really took off.
That's where things stood last week when the news broke that Kirshbaum was leaving Amazon to become a literary agent again. His departure was widely viewed as a sign that Amazon Publishing could be in trouble, done in by the likes of Barnes & Noble. Amazon quickly stepped in to say that reports of the demise — or near demise — of its publishing business were greatly exaggerated. In fact, Amazon says it plans to expand its New York business.
Jeff Belle, vice president of Amazon Publishing, says the publishing house's business model isn't dependent on big-box stores like Costco and Target, or on selling books outside its own platform. (It's certainly true that Amazon has cornered the online bookselling business and dominates the e-book market.)
But powerful as it may be, some writers really do want to see their books on the shelves of certain stores. And those authors might be inclined to stick with traditional publishers. So, even in this digital day and age, the bookstore still has some clout.
Showing up in sleek fashion this morning (October 30), the controversial Lindsay Lohan went to a business meeting in New York City.
Looking ready to work, the 27-year-old wore a coat with a fur hood over a white blouse, and concluded her chic look with sexy black skinnies and tall black boots.
Lindsay's meeting was reportedly concerned with the beginning of her very own documentary series for the OWN network.
In related news, the "Anger Management" starlet posed for some racy swimsuit photos, taken by photographer Tyler Shields. She captioned the photo, "@thetylershields come to #nyc."
FILE - This is a Friday, May 18, 2012 file photo of President Barack Obama, right, greets President of the European Commission Jose Manuel Barroso on Barroso's arrival for the G8 Summit at Camp David, Md. The backlash in Europe over U.S. spying is threatening an agreement that generates tens of billions of dollars in trans-Atlantic business every year _ and negotiations on another pact worth many times more. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak, File)
FILE - This is a Friday, May 18, 2012 file photo of President Barack Obama, right, greets President of the European Commission Jose Manuel Barroso on Barroso's arrival for the G8 Summit at Camp David, Md. The backlash in Europe over U.S. spying is threatening an agreement that generates tens of billions of dollars in trans-Atlantic business every year _ and negotiations on another pact worth many times more. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak, File)
French President Francois Hollande addresses the media at the European Council building in Brussels, Friday, Oct. 25, 2013. Migration, as well as an upcoming Eastern Partnership summit, will top the agenda in Friday's meeting of EU leaders. (AP Photo/Michel Euler)
BRUSSELS (AP) — The backlash in Europe over U.S. spying is threatening an agreement that generates tens of billions of dollars in trans-Atlantic business every year — and negotiations on another pact worth many times more.
A growing number of European officials are calling for the suspension of the "Safe Harbor" agreement that lets U.S. companies process commercial and personal data — sales, emails, photos — from customers in Europe. This little-known but vital deal allows more than 4,200 American companies to do business in Europe, including Internet giants like Apple, Google, Facebook and Amazon.
Revelations of the extent of U.S. spying on its European allies is also threatening to undermine one of President Barack Obama's top trans-Atlantic goals: a sweeping free-trade agreement that would add an estimated $138 billion (100 billion euros) a year to each economy's gross domestic product.
Top EU officials say the trust needed for the negotiations has been shattered.
"For ambitious and complex negotiations to succeed, there needs to be trust among the negotiating partners," EU Justice Commissioner Viviane Reding said Wednesday in a speech at Yale University.
At the very least, the Europeans are expected to demand that the U.S. significantly strengthen its privacy laws to give consumers much more control over how companies use their personal data — and extend those rights to European citizens, maybe even giving them the right to sue American companies in U.S. courts.
The Europeans had long been pressing these issues with the Americans. But since former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden began to leak surprising details on the extent of U.S. surveillance in Europe, the European demands have grown teeth.
"I don't think the U.S. government can be convinced by arguments or outrage alone, but by making it clear that American interests will suffer if this global surveillance is simply continued," said Peter Schaar, the head of Germany's data protection watchdog.
One sanction the European Union could slap on the U.S. would be to suspend the Safe Harbor deal, which allows American businesses to store and process their data where they want. It aims to ensure that European customers' data are just as safe as in Europe when handled in the U.S.
By signing up for the self-reporting scheme supervised by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, U.S. companies gain the right to move data about their business and consumers back and forth between the EU and the U.S. as needed.
Without it, U.S. firms would face either a lengthy and complicated case-by-case approval procedure by European data protection authorities, or a technological nightmare of having to ensure that European data is stored and processed only on servers within the 28-nation bloc. That would be costly and in some cases impossible — and could force U.S. businesses to stop servicing European customers.
"There is really no viable alternative in the near-term," said Chris Babel, chief executive of San Francisco-based TRUSTe, which helps American firms get Safe Harbor certification from the U.S. Department of Commerce.
He estimates that U.S. companies would face tens of billions of dollars in lost revenue and additional costs to redesign their technological infrastructure.
Facebook and Microsoft declined to comment on what a suspension of Safe Harbor would mean. Spokespeople for Google, Apple and Amazon could not immediately be reached.
Of course, any suspension would hurt Europe as well, just as the 28-nation bloc is emerging from a recession. Consumers and businesses would find themselves without U.S.-based services from flight-booking websites to email providers.
Options available to the EU include suspending or ending the agreement, or demanding that the United States enact more powerful data protection laws that include substantial fines for companies that don't keep data safe.
Germany, Europe's biggest economy, said Wednesday that it wants to see changes in Safe Harbor.
"We share the opinion that the Safe Harbor agreement needs significant improvements," Interior Ministry spokesman Philipp Spauschus said.
U.S. Federal Trade Commission chief Edith Ramirez said Safe Harbor has nothing to do with the surveillance scandal, and urged Europeans not to damage what she called a commercial agreement that works well.
"It cannot be right ... to conflate the distinct issues raised by the use of personal data to advance private commercial interests and to protect national security," she said Monday in Brussels.
But the EU's Reding made clear that the status quo is not an option.
"The existing scheme has been criticized by European industry and questioned by European citizens: They say it is little more than a patch providing a veil of legitimacy for the U.S. firms using it," she said Tuesday in Washington.
Her agency is reviewing Safe Harbor and will present its results by the end of the year. The EU Commission could suspend the agreement or seek amendments to it rather easily, without the usual lengthy procedures of having to seek approval from all EU member states or the European Parliament.
An even bigger battle looms over already contentious free-trade talks between the world's two biggest economies. Trade volume between the United States and the European Union totaled 800 billion euros last year.
Reding warned this week that the lack of data privacy safeguards in the U.S. could "easily derail" the talks, which resume in December and are expected to be concluded within a year.
It appears certain that as part of the negotiations the EU will insist on tougher U.S. data protection in line with new European laws.
That legislation lets users instruct companies to fully erase their personal data — the so-called right to be forgotten — as well as limiting user profiling, requiring greater transparency from companies and mandating prior consent. Plus they contain stiff fines for violations.
"Otherwise, the European Parliament may decide to reject" the EU-U.S. free trade deal, Reding said.
The most significant action taken in Brussels so far has been a vote by the European Parliament urging Europe to stop sharing bank transfer data with U.S. law enforcement in terror investigations.
But that resolution would need approval from the European Commission — and from all 28 national governments, a long and uncertain process.
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Frank Jordans and Geir Moulson contributed reporting from Berlin.
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Follow Juergen Baetz on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/jbaetz
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"Okay Google." Those Touchless Controls aren't just for the Moto X anymore -- they're now part and parcel of the Nexus 5. With today's unveiling of Google's (terribly leaked) Nexus 5, we're getting a first look at Android 4.4 KitKat on the handset, and that OS update comes with some significant ...
