John Kasich, the Republican governor of Ohio, has done some surprising things lately. First, he did an end run around his state’s Legislature — controlled by his own party — to proceed with the federally funded expansion of Medicaid that is an important piece of Obamacare. Then, defending his action, he let loose on his political allies, declaring, “I’m concerned about the fact there seems to be a war on the poor. That, if you’re poor, somehow you’re shiftless and lazy.”
Obviously Mr. Kasich isn’t the first to make this observation. But the fact that it’s coming from a Republican in good standing (although maybe not anymore), indeed someone who used to be known as a conservative firebrand, is telling. Republican hostility toward the poor and unfortunate has now reached such a fever pitch that the party doesn’t really stand for anything else — and only willfully blind observers can fail to see that reality.
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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]
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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 ...
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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 ...
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