Coast to coast, states brace for sequester shock

The sequester likely won't be the doomsday scenario that some had predicted, as the cuts will kick in gradually, but there is public frustration at Washington for not doing more, sooner. NBC's Kristen Welker reports.

By Berenice Garcia and Sofia Perpetua, NBC News

Sure, it?s got a weird name. But the effects of sequestration may hit all too close to home for some Americans if lawmakers allow the cuts to take full effect later this month. One day after President Barack Obama signed an order to cut spending by $1.2 trillion over a decade, NBC News takes a look at how people may feel the pinch from New York to Chicago to Los Angeles.?

New York
Young children in New York City?s most disadvantaged neighborhoods might be among those affected by sequestration as Head Start programs face a 5 percent cut, NBC New York reported. In the Brownsville section of Brooklyn, the SCO Morris Koppelman Center is the only Head Start program in an area where almost half of neighborhood children live below the poverty line. ?It?s extremely difficult and very frightening to think what will happen to the families and the children in the community,? Shana Hewitt, program director at the Morris Koppelman Center, told NBC New York.

Texas
Lone Star state schools, air travel, military operations and more stand to be trimmed, NBC Dallas-Fort Worth reported. The Texas state budget may lose $334 million in cuts to public education programs, and more than 285 schools stand to lose federal funding starting July 1 if lawmakers don?t come to an agreement. Special education, English language classes, nutrition programs, early child intervention and family protective services could also be hit. The Texas Education Agency alone may lose grants totaling as much as $167.7 million, according to NBC Dallas-Fort Worth.

Maryland
The military may see as much $100 million for operations vanish in Maryland, NBC Washington reported. Military facilities in Maryland may lose $95 million in base operations, and furloughs of civilian employees could result in a $359 million payroll reduction, according to a letter the Pentagon sent Gov. Martin O'Malley, the station reported. Outside defense spending, the Washington, D.C. Metro transit system could see a loss of $22 million between lost grants and decreased ridership.

California
Parents in California also worried about the potential impact on their young children as Head Start programs were trimmed, NBC Los Angeles reported. ?We can?t pay for it,? Ismael Lopez said of other preschool options for his son. ?Everything is so expensive.? Cuts to funding for schools, the military and disability services could total $500 million, and primary and secondary education may see a $87.6 million cut, according to NBC Los Angeles.

Robert Gibbs, a former White House press secretary, said that while the spending cuts are being called an Apocalypse by some, they may not be as bad as the hype. TODAY's Erica Hill interviews Robert Gibbs.

Connecticut
The budget cuts include slashing funds for the Federal Aviation Administration by about $600 million nationwide, NBC Connecticut reported. How much any resulting delays may cost airline passengers in travel time at the state?s airports won?t be known until the cuts settle in, said aviation consultant Ed Garlick. "We won't really know until we get into it. It could be minutes. It could be hours," he told NBC Connecticut.

Florida
Florida residents spoke out about their fears that the spending cuts may cast a cloud over the Sunshine State. ?I think people are going to be affected locally, and I think people need to be angrier than they are at the fact that Congress is not working together to serve us as people,? attorney Lynn Dannheisser told NBC Miami. Community hospitals and institutions of higher learning, including the University of Miami and Florida International University, may stand to see some of their funding dry up as a result of the cuts.

Chicago
Scott Air Force Base, a major employer in Illinois, could be hit hard by the cuts, according to NBC Chicago. Head Start programs in Illinois would likely be hit, too. "It's not just cold-hearted. It's stupid economic policy," said Diana Rauner, president of the Ounce of Prevention Fund, a nonprofit that serves 1,300 Chicago children. The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois in Chicago is considering closing its doors for one work day a week if the cuts take full effect, said court clerk Tom Bruton.

Philadelphia
The program Meals on Wheels is preparing for a worst-case scenario, according to NBC Philadelphia. Cuts to the program could mean waiting lists or stopping deliveries to home-bound clients altogether. "They wouldn't be able to stay at home and then they would probably end up in a nursing homes, which would cost the government a fortune," Bill Decamp of Lehigh Valley told NBC Philadelphia.

NBC's David Gregory joins Lester Holt with more on the political impasse in Washington over the sequester.

Related:

Source: http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/03/02/17162039-from-coast-to-coast-states-brace-for-sequester-shock?lite

the shore meryl streep oscar wins sasha baron cohen oscars the artist sacha baron cohen oscars the old curiosity shop jane russell

John M. Eger: Letting Learning Happen

Click here to read an original op-ed from the TED speaker who inspired this post and watch the TEDTalk below.

Worldwide, The Economist recently reported, "schools... are caught up in a global battle of ideas. In many countries education is at the forefront of political debate, and reformers desperate to improve their national performance are drawing examples of good practice from all over the world."

Why now, they asked rhetorically?

Because the new global technology-driven economy has made the whole system of education, not broken, but obsolete. That was the overriding conclusion of Sugata Mitra, a professor of educational technology at Newcastle University (UK), whose idea of a "School in the Cloud" was awarded the TED Prize of $1 million this week to make his wish come true: "To design the future of learning by supporting children to tap into their innate sense of wonder."

Mitra's concern echoed that of former Education Secretary Richard Riley, who said several years ago, people will "have 10 to 14 jobs by age 38.. .and that, "the top 10 jobs that will be in demand (don't yet exist but will require) "technologies that haven't been invented. In order to solve problems we don't even know are problems yet."

Given the proliferation of the Internet, cloud computing, and the computerization of news archives and libraries available on the World Wide Web, literally thousands of references are available at the click of a mouse. The challenge today is not acquiring information, or memorizing it. Rather, it is determining which information is relevant. What do our young people need to know and why, in this new, global, technology-driven world?

Mitra's findings, after almost a decade of experimentation with the poorest of the poor in the slums of India, were that something radical had to occur. His idea simply is to "let learning happen," to develop self-organizing learning systems to take place where the teacher asks the right question but only the student, in collaboration with other students, finds the answer or answers. Mitra, quoting science fiction writer, Arthur C. Clark, who just happened to write about "synchronizing orbits" and gave birth to the scientific discovery of satellite communications: "If children have interest, education happens."

A fact of life in the 21st century is that technology has moved faster than anyone imagined. Unless we use technology to reinvent our current systems of education, we all will suffer as more and more people are left behind the learning curve, and left behind the mainstream of world economic development. Mitra's idea is to create a "school in the cloud" accessible by anyone in the world where the "toolkit" for creating self-organizing learning environments (SOLE's) can be downloaded.

The challenge, as he sees it, is to have teachers, educators, businesses and governments everywhere in the world think about how they might help, what they think young people need to know and what questions to pose; how, in short, to create the toolkit for others to use, and to bring the self organizing and learning habits to fruition.

This approach clearly represents a revolution in education. But as Mitra has discovered, students actually like this learning method. They want to be challenged, have the opportunity to be listened to and to be admired. It gives them the incentive to explore, to wonder, to imagine... in short to learn how to learn, and to think. As Casey Stengel was fond of saying, perhaps prophetically, "You can look it up." Little did he know that "knowing" can now be achieved by looking almost anything up on Google or one of the other search engines.

What we need to do is make learning "pleasurable" -- not threatening as most testing is -- and something young people want to do, not must do. We need to encourage them to take the lead and be in charge of their own learning.

Given the need to educate millions, perhaps billions, who would otherwise remain ignorant of what is happening in our world today, there may be no alternative other than Mitra's self organizing approach, and a form of cyber learning... learning by using the tools of the new technologies.

As globalization spreads, it is imperative that we not only close the "digital divide" in hardware and infrastructure, but also use technology to dramatically confront the world illiteracy problem in developing nations today. A fact of life is that in many parts of the world, systems of education either do not exist or girls, for example, are not allowed to get an education.

A form of cyber education -- using computers, broadband, collaboration and environments that encourage and enhance self-learning -- may be the only alternative to providing the basic skills for economic survival. Yes, it will take time for the toolkit to be fully developed, and to get businesses to step up to the plate, to get parents, teachers, and politicians on board. But we must take the first step in this journey to transform the way young people, young people all over the world, learn.

Two of the eight Millennium Development goals adopted by the UN Millennium Summit in 2000 focus on education, but the goals -- for all children to complete primary school, and to achieve gender equality at all levels of education by 2015 -- will not be achieved. And as Mitra suggests, the goal itself may not be realistic either.

The world needs a comprehensive solution, a Cloud-like School portal now, and it needs the attention, support and commitment of more global corporations, government and the larger philanthropic community.

TED and The Huffington Post invite you to take the SOLE Challenge, a unique contest in which we're asking teachers and parents to create child-centered learning labs in their homes and schools. Write an 800 to 1,000 word blog post on your experiences and send it to tedweekends@huffingtonpost.com. Three winning submissions will get to attend TED Youth 2013.

Ideas are not set in stone. When exposed to thoughtful people, they morph and adapt into their most potent form. TEDWeekends will highlight some of today's most intriguing ideas and allow them to develop in real time through your voice! Tweet #TEDWeekends to share your perspective or email tedweekends@huf?ngtonpost.com to learn about future weekend's ideas to contribute as a writer.

?

More in ted prize 2013: a wish to inspire the world

Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-m-eger/letting-learning-happen_b_2777501.html

hope solo tesla model s tesla model s act Black Ops 2 Secede ben roethlisberger

US seizes 2,200 pieces of artwork in NJ

NEWARK, N.J. (AP) ? The massive trove of artwork arrived in New Jersey last year from Texas on an 18-wheeler ? its contents a mystery.

After five days of inventory, the haul proved to be significant: more than 1,100 pieces of art, mostly works by some of the nation's most influential photographers, including Alfred Stieglitz and Edward Weston.

The valuable shipment was moved again to New York, but instead of being carefully exhibited in a home in Spain as planned, it ended up in the hands of federal authorities. By the end of an investigation, authorities had seized more than 2,200 works of art appraised at nearly $16 million.

On Friday, the U.S. Attorney's Office in Newark announced a Feb. 22 court filing that alleges the artwork was purchased with money collected in a scheme that sold fake credits for renewable energy. The complaint seeks to force the owner to forfeit the works.

Authorities said they were seized from a warehouse in New York in July weeks after being moved from Newark and readied for shipment to Spain via Amsterdam. The works include numerous prints by Stieglitz, including one of his famous artist wife, Georgia O'Keefe, that sold for $675,000. An Edward Steichen print titled "Greta Garbo for Vanity Fair Hollywood" was purchased for $75,000.

Authorities allege the artworks' owner, Philip Rivkin, used money fraudulently funneled through his Houston-based company, Green Diesel, to buy the art. Rivkin has not been formally charged with a crime.

Kyle Sampson, a lawyer for Rivkin, said Friday he was aware the forfeiture action was filed.

"We have not received formal notice of the forfeiture action, but I am aware that a complaint has been filed," he told The Associated Press. "We've been working for some time with the EPA in an effort to resolve their concerns and any other outstanding issues there may be."

A lawyer for Green Diesel declined comment in an email message.

Rivkin was owner and CEO of Green Diesel and a company called Fuel Streamers. Authorities allege in the complaint that Rivkin and others claimed the companies produced, purchased and imported renewable fuel. But authorities say the fuel did not exist.

By federal standards, the national stock of gasoline and diesel must contain a certain percentage of renewable fuel. Authorities allege oil companies, including Shell and Exxon, have reported a total of $78 million in losses from buying fake renewables from Green Diesel.

According to the complaint, an unnamed assistant for Rivkin told authorities that Rivkin controlled all financial accounts. "Money would come in and he (Rivkin) would move it out," the assistant told authorities.

Authorities allege Rivkin used Green Diesel's bank account and other accounts to buy at least $18 million in artwork. Rivkin tended to buy his photographs in groups, making it difficult to trace individual purchases, but authorities said they have matched 1,590 pieces of art to one credit card and four bank accounts.

In April 2012, the federal Environmental Protection Agency issued a notice of violation to Green Diesel, alleging it improperly generated credits that track and boost renewable fuel production. Authorities claim Rivkin arranged to have the art shipped out the year before, after learning of the investigation.

An EPA spokesman did not return a call for comment.

According to the complaint, Rivkin's assistant said Rivkin started purchasing vintage photographs after receiving the "EPA money." Much of the artwork was shipped from Houston to Newark and eventually bound for Spain, authorities said.

The assistant traveled to Geneva and Barcelona with Rivkin, the assistant told authorities. Rivkin stayed in Spain and when the assistant returned to the U.S. noticed that Rivkin's office was cleaned out and numerous documents were shredded, authorities said.

___

Associated Press writer Geoff Mulvihill in Trenton contributed to this story.

___

Follow Zezima at www.twitter.com/katiezez

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/4e67281c3f754d0696fbfdee0f3f1469/Article_2013-03-01-US-Energy-Fraud-Artwork/id-aae52d50acb64bbca43cb0a392eaf0c0

nicki minaj grammy jason whitlock beach boys tony bennett joe walsh the civil wars duggar miscarriage

HBT: Iraq Vet who lost leg tries out for Dodgers

Daniel ?Doc? Jacobs already made history. He was the first amputee to return to active duty in the Navy?(see update below) going so after an IED explosion in Iraq took his lower left leg and led to 50 surgeries. Yesterday he did something else that was pretty impressive: he tried out for the Los Angeles Dodgers.

It was an open tryout, and Jacobs participated after being encouraged to do so by Tommy Lasorda, who Jacobs met at a disabled veterans event last year. The result, reports the Long Beach Press-Telegram were not unlike anyone else?s at this sort of thing:

Unless you were looking closely at his left leg, Jacobs? tryout was indistinguishable from most. He fielded a pair of ground balls cleanly but long-hopped both throws. A backhand was hit to his right side, but it went under his glove and rolled onto the outfield grass. Another backhand met Jacobs? glove cleanly, but he short-hopped that throw.

Sadly, that?s not good enough for the big leagues, but since Jacobs said he was there for the experience, we can safely call this a success.

A photo montage of Jacobs? tryouts can be seen here.

UPDATE: A reader corrects the story from the Press-Telegram, noting that Jacobs was not the first amputee to return to active duty in the Navy. That honor goes to Master Chief Carl Brashear:

In 1967, a year after an injury onboard the salvage ship Hoist cost him his left leg, Brashear became the first Navy diver to be restored to full active duty as an amputee.

The more you know.

Source: http://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/2013/03/01/iraq-veteran-who-lost-his-leg-tried-out-for-the-dodgers/related/

last train to clarksville tim tebow taylor swift post grad arpaio carol burnett neil degrasse tyson neil degrasse tyson

Budget cuts countdown: Hours away (CNN)

Share With Friends: | | Politics - Top Stories News, News Feeds and News via Feedzilla.

Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/288326158?client_source=feed&format=rss

autoimmune disease news channel 9 insanity workout mass effect 3 launch trailer yelp huntsville al channel 2 news

Mauritius' Sun Resorts says Q4 pretax profit down 20 pct

MADRID, Feb 27 (Reuters) - Lionel Messi has rarely been accused of failing to deliver in big games, having scored in two European Cup finals, but after subdued performances against AC Milan and Real Madrid, questions are being asked. The four-times World Player of the Year and leading scorer in one of the greatest club teams of all time, was a shadow of his usual self at the San Siro in a Champions League last-16 first leg last week, when Barcelona slumped to a 2-0 defeat. ...

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/mauritius-sun-resorts-says-q4-pretax-profit-down-090312480--finance.html

homeland homeland Miss America 2013 Aaron Swartz Java Gangster Squad school shooting

Feeding limbs and nervous system of one of Earth's earliest animals discovered

Thursday, February 28, 2013

An extraordinary find allowing scientists to see through the head of the 'fuxianhuiid' arthropod has revealed one of the earliest evolutionary examples of limbs used for feeding, along with the oldest nervous system to stretch beyond the head in fossil record.

Until now, all fossils found of this extremely early soft-bodied animal featured heads covered by a wide shell or 'carapace', obscuring underlying contents from detailed study.

But a new fossil-rich site in South China has been found to contain arthropod examples where the carapace has literally been 'flipped' over before fossilisation ? allowing scientists to examine the fuxianhuiid head to an unprecedented extent.

The study, published today in Nature, highlights the discovery of previously controversial limbs under the head, used to shovel sediment into the mouth as the fuxianhuiid crawled across the seabed, millions of years before creatures emerged from the oceans.

Scientists say that this could be the earliest and simplest example of manipulative limbs used for feeding purposes, hinting at the adaptive ability that made arthropods so successful and abundant ? evolving into the insects, spiders and crustaceans we know today.

Using a feeding technique scientist's call 'detritus sweep-feeding', fuxianhuiids developed the limbs to push seafloor sediment into the mouth in order to filter it for organic matter ? such as traces of decomposed seaweed ? which constituted the creatures' food.

Fossils also revealed the oldest nervous system on record that is 'post-cephalic' ? or beyond the head ? consisting of only a single stark string in what was a very basic form of early life compared to today.

"Since biologists rely heavily on organisation of head appendages to classify arthropod groups, such as insects and spiders, our study provides a crucial reference point for reconstructing the evolutionary history and relationships of the most diverse and abundant animals on Earth," said Javier Ortega-Hern?ndez, from Cambridge's Department of Earth Sciences, who produced the research with Dr Nicholas Butterfield and colleagues from Yunnan University in Kunming, South China. "This is as early as we can currently see into arthropod limb development."

Fuxianhuiids existed around 520 million years ago, roughly 50 million years before primordial land animals crawled from the sea, and would have been one of the first examples of complex animal life ? likely to have evolved from creatures resembling worms with legs. Arthropods were the first jointed animals, enabling them to crawl.

Fuxianhuiid arthropods would have spent most of their time grazing on the sea floor, using these newly discovered limbs to plow sediment into their mouths. They could probably also use their bodies to swim for short distances, like tadpole shrimps.

The fossils date from the early part of the event known as the 'Cambrian explosion', when life on Earth went from multi-cellular organisms we know very little about to a relatively sudden and wide spread explosion of diverse marine animals - the first recognisable evolutionary step for the animal kingdom we know today.

"These fossils are our best window to see the most primitive state of animals as we know them ? including us," said Ortega-Hern?ndez. "Before that there is no clear indication in the fossil record of whether something was an animal or a plant ? but we are still filling in the details, of which this is an important one."

While still a mystery, theories about the cause of the 'Cambrian Explosion' include possible correlations with oxygen rises, spikes in oceanic nutrient concentration, and genetic complexity reaching critical mass.

But the new site in South China where these fossils were found could prove to be key in uncovering ever more information about this pivotal period in the history of life on Earth. The Xiaoshiba 'biota' - that is the collection of all organisms preserved in the new locality - in China's Yunnan Province is similar to the world-famous Chengjiang biota, which provided many of the best arthropod fossil records to date.

"The Xiaoshiba biota is amazingly rich in such extraordinary fossils of early organisms," said Ortega-Hern?ndez. "Over 50 specimens of fuxianhuiids have been found in just over a year, whereas previous areas considered fossil rich such as Chengjiang it took years - even decades - to build up such a collection."

"So much material is so well preserved. There's massive potential for Xiaoshiba to become a huge deal for new discoveries in early animal evolution".

###

University of Cambridge: http://www.cam.ac.uk

Thanks to University of Cambridge for this article.

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

This press release has been viewed 25 time(s).

Source: http://www.labspaces.net/127053/Feeding_limbs_and_nervous_system_of_one_of_Earth_s_earliest_animals_discovered

madonna half time show fiat 500 abarth madonna halftime m i a mia super bowl tom coughlin wes welker