miserably fatalistic: October 2013

Friday, October 25, 2013

Sobeys-Safeway deal approved by Canada's Competition Bureau

By Euan Rocha

TORONTO (Reuters) - Empire Co Ltd , the operator of Canadian grocery chain Sobeys, said on Tuesday that Canada's competition watchdog approved its acquisition of substantially all of Safeway Inc's assets in Canada.

The deal cements Empire's position as Canada's No. 2 grocer behind Loblaw Companies Ltd at a time when competition from U.S. retailers Wal-Mart Stores and Target is heating up.

Empire announced in June that it was acquiring Safeway Inc's assets in Canada for $5.7 billion, a move that will nearly double its reach in the country's western provinces.

To win approval from the Competition Bureau, Empire said it has agreed to divest 23 stores in the provinces of British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba.

In addition to 200 grocery stores, Empire is acquiring about 200 in-store pharmacies, along with some liquor stores, fuel stations and distribution centers. The deal is now expected to close sometime next month.

Empire, which has been in the food business for over a century, already owns some 1,500 stores in 10 provinces across Canada with retail banners that include Sobeys, IGA, Foodland, FreshCo, Price Chopper and Thrifty Foods.

The assets that are being sold include 13 Safeway stores and 10 stores that operate under different banners owned by Empire.

The Competition Bureau, in a separate statement, said it concluded that the asset sales were required as the deal would otherwise have led to a substantial lessening of competition in the sale of a full-line of grocery products in a number of local markets in Western Canada.

The bureau, an independent law enforcement agency set up to ensure fair competition in Canada, said it believes Empire's agreement to divest 23 retail stores resolves these concerns.

The agency is currently reviewing another major deal in the Canadian retail sector - Loblaw's C$12.4 billion ($12.1 billion)acquisition of Canada's biggest pharmacy chain, Shoppers Drug Mart Corp .

Competition law experts believe that the Shoppers deal, which was announced in July, is also likely to require some asset sales in order to win the bureau's approval.

(Additional reporting by Randall Palmer in Ottawa; Editing by Nick Zieminski and Leslie Adler)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/canadas-competition-bureau-approves-sobeys-safeway-deal-204639964--sector.html
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Katharine McPhee SIGHted Making Out With Her MARRIED Smash Director!

katherine mcphee michael morris sbs watermark

Oh no. It's happening again. A director is falling in love with his leading lady!

NBC might have canceled Katharine McPhee's show Smash but they can't cancel whatever it is that's going on between her and the series' director, Michael Morris!

The two, who are both married to OTHER people, were caught making out in public this week!

What the WHAT?!

Morris is married to actress Mary McCormack, famous for playing Howard Stern's wife in Private Parts as well as starring for 5 seasons on her own show In Plain Sight. Together they have 3 young daughters.

Miss McPhee, 29, married 47-year-old producer Nick Cokas back in 2008. But insiders say the two have been separated for at least 6 months now!

But what about Michael and Mary? Is their love on the rocks as well??

Maybe Katharine and Michael can just play off this kiss as a misunderstanding. Like, they were rehearsing for a play, or he was giving her stand-up CPR!

Oh wait, they were also caught holding hands and cuddling with each other while hanging out in Hollywood…

Welp, the proof may be in the PDA!

Any advice for KatPhee for life after adultery, Kristen Stewart?

[Image via Alberto Reyes/WENN and Ramey Pix.]

Tags: howard stern, katharine mcphee, love line, mary mccormack, michael morris, smash

Source: http://perezhilton.com/2013-10-22-katharine-mcphee-caught-kissing-her-married-smash-director-in-public
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FDA recommends tightening access to hydrocodone pain-killers

By Toni Clarke

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Thursday recommended tighter restrictions on products that contain hydrocodone, an opioid painkiller present in commonly prescribed, potentially addictive drugs such as Vicodin.

Until now, Vicodin and other products that contain less than 15 milligrams of hydrocodone have been classified as Schedule III controlled substances. The FDA recommends reclassifying them more restrictively -- potentially as Schedule II products, in line with opioid pain-killers such as oxycodone and morphine.

Reclassifying the products would make them harder to obtain, both by addicts and by legitimate pain patients. Physicians are not allowed to call in a prescription for a Schedule II product to a pharmacy. Instead, patients must present a written prescription.

In addition, patients would not be allowed as many refills before returning to see their doctors, potentially representing a hardship for patients in chronic pain.

The proposed change was urged by the Drug Enforcement Administration, which is battling a rising tide of prescription drug abuse. The change must be approved by the Department of Health and Human Services and the DEA, which will make a final scheduling decision.

Opponents of the rule change, including many physicians, have argued for years that restricting pain products further could cause hardship to pain patients, especially the elderly.

Proponents argue that the death toll from abuse is unacceptably high.

Nearly three of four prescription drug overdoses are caused by opioid pain-killers, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Regulators are trying to tackle the problem from a variety of angles. In an attempt to restrict supply, the DEA has been putting pressure on wholesale suppliers of prescription drugs to police their customers better.

Several companies, including Pfizer Inc and Endo Health Solutions, have been working to develop tamper resistant opioids that cannot be easily crushed or dissolved by addicts looking to get a full dose of the drug quickly.

The misuse of prescription pain-killers was responsible for more than 475,000 emergency department visits in 2009, a number that nearly doubled in just five years, according to the CDC.

In January a panel of outside medical experts voted 19 to 10 to reclassify the products. The vote followed two days of discussions.

Dr. Janet Woodcock, director of the FDA's pharmaceuticals division, said in a statement that the agency has, over the past few years, been "challenged with determining how to balance the need to ensure continued access to those patients who rely on continuous pain relief while addressing the ongoing concerns about abuse and misuse."

In the end, she said, the level of opioid abuse and the "tremendous amount of public interest" in the matter led the agency to recommend a change.

(Editing by Dan Grebler)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/fda-recommends-tightening-access-hydrocodone-pain-killers-090201618--finance.html
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Fon brings its WiFi-sharing service to the US

Reach a certain level of fame in Europe and you've got two choices: rest on your laurels, or risk it all for a shot at America. It's one transatlantic journey that few careers survive, but the latest to try is Spanish muni-fi outfit Fon. Buy one of the company's $60 WiFi hotspots and it'll portion ...

Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/OWq0Tyejplo/
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Report: Memos Unmask Pakistan's Approval Of Drone Strikes

Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif met with President Obama at the White House on Wednesday.

Dennis Brack/pool/Getty Images

Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif met with President Obama at the White House on Wednesday.

Dennis Brack/pool/Getty Images

While it is been "one of the more poorly kept national security secrets in Washington and Islamabad" that Pakistani leaders privately endorse U.S. drone strikes aimed at terrorists in their country, The Washington Post says that:

"Top-secret CIA documents and Pakistani diplomatic memos" it has obtained show that "top officials in Pakistan's government have for years secretly endorsed the program and routinely received classified briefings on strikes and casualty counts."

The Post's exclusive, written by intelligence correspondent Greg Miller and investigative legend Bob Woodward of Watergate fame, adds that:

"The files expose the explicit nature of a secret arrangement struck between the two countries at a time when neither was willing to publicly acknowledge the existence of the drone program. The documents detailed at least 65 strikes in Pakistan and were described as 'talking points' for CIA briefings, which occurred with such regularity that they became a matter of diplomatic routine. The documents are marked 'top secret' but cleared for release to Pakistan.

"A spokesman for the Pakistani Embassy in Washington did not respond to a request for comment. A CIA spokesman declined to discuss the documents but did not dispute their authenticity."

The report came just hours after Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif met with President Obama at the White House. Voice of America writes that:

"As he has done elsewhere in Washington, Prime Minister Sharif called for an end to drone strikes the United States has used to target al-Qaida and militant figures in Pakistan's tribal areas."

But as NPR's Philip Reeves said Tuesday on Morning Edition:

"There's a difference between the public and the private positions of senior Pakistani government officials on this issue. Some senior figures in government and in the army are known to have in the past privately supported drone strikes. And, indeed, a certain element of the Pakistani public actually feels the same way."

Nawaz is expected to be back in Pakistan on Friday.

Source: http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2013/10/24/240467210/report-memos-unmask-pakistans-approval-of-drone-strikes?ft=1&f=1001
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Negotiators looking for only a small budget deal

FILE - In this Oct. 11, 2013, photo, House Budget Committee chairman Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., laughs as he walks to his office on Capitol Hill in Washington. Forget a grand bargain. Reaching even a small budget deal will be a challenge when negotiators start meeting in an effort to salvage any kind of agreement in the aftermath of this month’s shutdown debacle and debt limit crisis. "If we focus on some big, grand bargain then we’re going to focus on our differences and both sides are going to require that the other side compromises some core principle and then we’ll get nothing done," Ryan, said in an interview on Oct. 24. (AP Photo/ Evan Vucci, File)

WASHINGTON (AP) — Forget a grand bargain. Reaching even a small budget deal will be a challenge when negotiators start meeting next week in an effort to salvage any kind of agreement in the aftermath of this month's shutdown debacle and debt limit crisis.

Long-standing, entrenched differences over taxes make a large-scale budget pact virtually impossible, according to lawmakers, their aides and observers who will be monitoring the talks.

Republicans say they simply won't agree to any further taxes atop the 10-year, $600 billion-plus increase on upper-income earners that Obama and Democrats muscled through in January. Without higher taxes, Democrats say they won't yield to cuts in benefit programs like Medicare.

"If we focus on some big, grand bargain then we're going to focus on our differences, and both sides are going to require that the other side compromises some core principle and then we'll get nothing done," House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, R-Wis., said in an interview Thursday. "So we aren't focusing on a grand bargain, because I don't think in this divided government you'll get one."

In an interview Thursday with Nevada public radio station KNPR, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., agreed that a large-scale grand bargain isn't in the cards.

Ryan, his party's vice presidential nominee a year ago, and Senate Budget Committee Chairman Patty Murray, D-Wash., are two of the key congressional figures in the talks. They both say they're seeking "common ground" between the sharply different Republican and Democratic budgets.

Common ground, however, is a much different concept that compromise. It involves finding ideas upon which they can agree rather than compromising principles such as Republican opposition to tax increases or the unwillingness on the part of many Democrats to consider cutting future Social Security benefits by decreasing the annual cost-of-living adjustments.

Instead of a broad agreement encompassing tax hikes and structural curbs on the relentless growth of benefit programs like Medicare and Medicaid, Ryan says he's seeking a "smaller, more achievable objective." The talks, he said, will also focus on alleviating another upcoming round of automatic spending cuts known as sequestration and replacing them with longer-term cuts.

"If we can agree on sensible medium- and long-term policies to replace these short-term cuts, we can do something good for the economy and our national security," Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew said in a speech Thursday before the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank.

Sequestration mostly hits so-called discretionary spending, the money approved by Congress each year to run agency operations. Ryan wants to cut autopilot-like spending on so-called entitlement programs like Medicare to ease sequestration's effects on both the Pentagon and domestic programs.

"I think we all agree that there's a smarter way to cut spending" than sequestration, Ryan said. "If I can reform entitlement programs where the savings compound annually ... that is more valuable for reducing the debt that a one-time spending cut in discretionary spending."

Reid reiterated that Democrats aren't interested in doing that until Republicans are willing to look at raising tax revenues.

The automatic spending cuts are mandated by the failure of the 2011 deficit supercommittee to reach an agreement. They would carve $91 billion from the day-to-day budgets of the Pentagon and domestic agencies in 2014 compared with the limits set by the 2011 budget deal. The Pentagon would absorb almost 60 percent of the cuts.

While the first official meeting of the larger House-Senate negotiating team is scheduled for next week, Ryan and Murray have already been talking.

Republicans are looking at a bushel basket of cuts to Medicare health care providers contained in Obama's budget. They also have voiced support for curbing Social Security cost-of-living adjustments, or COLAs, an idea Obama has backed, but only in the context of a broader deal in which Republicans would allow tax increases. That proposal won't fly in the current talks.

So where might common ground be found? One option embraced by Murray and utilized earlier this year to ease $12 billion worth of sequestration cuts would be to lower spending "caps" in future years to offset some of the automatic cuts now. That would save $142 billion over the coming decade.

There are also several supercommittee ideas like curbing Postal Service cost overruns, making federal workers contribute more to their pensions and raising premiums on higher-income Medicare beneficiaries.

There are also lots of fee proposals contained in Obama's budget, but most of them promise lots of irritation while raising relatively little money. Lawmakers have annually repelled attempts by Obama to increase airline security fees by $18 billion over a decade to help pay for Transportation Security Administration operations.

Democrats, meanwhile, are wary of using cuts to Medicare and other entitlement programs to ease cuts in the defense budget. Negotiators still might explore curbing generous military retirement, health care and prescription drug benefits as a way to restore cuts to readiness and procurement of weapons systems.

"Congressional Democrats and the White House, rightly in my view, don't want to use domestic entitlement cuts to offset easing or eliminating the defense side of sequestration on top of the nondefense discretionary side," said Robert Greenstein, president of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

Even a small deal promises to be a challenge. Those watching the talks say there's no shortage of issues that could cause them to unravel.

"I think you would always bet on failure if you had to pick an outcome. This is the Congress after all, and repeated experiences with this issue set would say that failure is the most likely scenario," said former longtime Senate GOP aide Rohit Kumar, a tax policy expert with PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP. "For a deal to come together both sides have to be able to declare victory."

Associated PressSource: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/89ae8247abe8493fae24405546e9a1aa/Article_2013-10-24-US-Budget-Battle/id-4094c27abc91458fafe1ba71a29fe626
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Thursday, October 24, 2013

Teen Drinking Party Leaves Md. Attorney General With Headache

In this Instagram photo, Maryland Attorney General Doug Gansler (center, in white shirt holding cellphone) is seen at a summer party where underage drinking appears to be taking place.

Via The Baltimore Sun

In this Instagram photo, Maryland Attorney General Doug Gansler (center, in white shirt holding cellphone) is seen at a summer party where underage drinking appears to be taking place.

Via The Baltimore Sun

Maryland Attorney General Doug Gansler meets with reporters Thursday to explain his actions during a summertime visit to a teenage house party.

Cliff Owen/AP

Maryland Attorney General Doug Gansler meets with reporters Thursday to explain his actions during a summertime visit to a teenage house party.

Cliff Owen/AP

Doug Gansler is Maryland's top law enforcement official. As the state's attorney general, he's spoken out against the perils of underage drinking.

So, naturally, the posting of an Instagram photo of Gansler in the middle of what appears to be a wild underage drinking party — the attorney general is surrounded by shirtless dancing teenagers and red plastic cups — is proving to be a big political problem.

Gansler explained to the Baltimore Sun, which published the photo in its Thursday edition, that he had stopped by the Delaware beach house party briefly to speak with his teenage son. He said he did not remember if he saw any of the attendees drinking, though partygoers later confirmed that many were.

"Assume for purposes of discussion that there was widespread drinking at this party," Gansler, who is running for governor in 2014, told the paper. "How is that relevant to me? ... The question is, do I have any moral authority over other people's children at beach week in another state? I say no."

At a press conference Thursday, Gansler said he "should have probably assumed there was drinking" going on at the party, but that he "wasn't there to determine if there was drinking."

The particular party took place last summer at a six-bedroom beach house where a group of recent private school graduates lived during a weeklong stay.

The Sun reported that the weeklong stay was organized by some of the graduates' parents, who laid down a set of ground rules preventing the teenagers from driving, taking girls behind closed bedroom doors and drinking hard alcohol. Two fathers were also put on chaperone duty each night.

An anonymous attendee told the Sun, "I don't remember much, but it was one of the best parties I've been to, hands down."

The flap comes on the heels of a run of bad press for the attorney general. Earlier this month, the The Washington Post reported that Gansler regularly ordered the state troopers who drive him around to turn on the lights and sirens, run red lights, speed and use the shoulder to bypass traffic. Gansler even took the wheel himself on one occasion, turning the sirens on and running red lights, the Post said.

Gansler on Wednesday paid a $400 speeding ticket — issued to his state-owned vehicle after it was spotted by a traffic camera — that was overdue by 16 months. He said that he was not operating the vehicle at the time, even though a state trooper says otherwise.

A Democratic gubernatorial primary poll released last week shows Lt. Gov. Anthony Brown leading the Democratic primary field with the support of 41 percent of likely voters. Gansler was in second with 21 percent.

Brown has been endorsed by some of the most prominent Democratic figures in Maryland politics, including outgoing Gov. Martin O'Malley, Sen. Barabara Mikulski and House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer.

Source: http://www.npr.org/blogs/itsallpolitics/2013/10/24/240563485/teen-drinking-party-busts-maryland-attorney-general?ft=1&f=1014
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Student: Accused Mass. teen stayed after school

DANVERS, Mass. (AP) — A teacher who was allegedly killed by one of her students had asked him to stay after school the day she was killed, a classmate said Thursday, as students met with grief counselors and tried to come to grips with the slaying of the popular teacher.

Philip Chism, 14, was charged with murder Wednesday in the death of Colleen Ritzer, a 24-year-old math teacher at Danvers High School.

Rania Rhaddaoui sat two seats away from Chism in Ritzer's Algebra I class, the final class of the school day. She said Chism was drawing in a notebook rather than taking notes Tuesday.

"She came over and said, 'I didn't know you draw,' and he said, 'yes,' then later on, she said, 'Can you stay after with me?'" Rhaddaoui said. "Obviously, he stayed after because when I was leaving, he was still at his desk."

She said Ritzer had scheduled a test for Friday, but she was unsure why exactly Ritzer asked Chism to stay after school.

Ritzer never returned home that day. Blood in a second-floor bathroom helped lead investigators to her body, which was dumped in the woods behind the school in a close-knit community about 20 miles north of Boston.

Chism was picked up by police in the early morning hours Wednesday, walking along Route 1 in neighboring Topsfield. His attorney declined to comment outside court Wednesday and did not immediately return a call seeking comment Thursday.

The high school remained closed for classes Thursday, but grief counselors were on hand to offer comfort to students.

Kaitlyn Nash, 16, went to the school to be with her friends. She said students who knew and loved Ritzer were still trying to make sense of what happened. She said she found it particularly frightening that she had theater rehearsal Tuesday afternoon and was at the school when authorities believe Ritzer was killed.

"It's just terrifying," she said. "I know a lot of people don't want to go back to school at this point. I know we have to, and we just need to get on with."

Classes were expected to resume Friday.

Authorities offered no clues Thursday on Chism's alleged motive. They also would not say how Ritzer was killed.

Carrie Kimball-Monahan, a spokeswoman for Essex District Attorney Jonathan Blodgett, said the case was still being investigated.

Chism had moved to Massachusetts from Tennessee before the start of the school year and was a top scorer on the school's junior varsity soccer team.

Jean McCartin, a Danvers School Committee member, said the school has extensive programs to help ease the transition for new students who may have problems but there was no information about Chism that would have presented any red flags.

"He just presented himself to us like any other student would," she said Thursday. "And that's what I think is so hard for the administration right now. You know, their hearts are breaking because they just didn't know he was in need, if he was in need. ... No one knows why he would have behaved in this way and done such a terrible thing."

Students were also puzzled. Chism's teammates on the soccer team have said he was soft-spoken and nonviolent.

Rhaddaoui said Chism was quiet, and she never saw him raise his hand in math class. She said they were also in the same history class, where he told classmates he spoke three languages: English, Portuguese and Japanese.

Ritzer was described as an enthusiastic, caring teacher who stood outside her classroom and said hello to all students, whether they were in her classes or not.

"She was very approachable," Rhaddaoui said. "She was always smiling. She always made the best of every situation."

Ritzer's family released a statement Thursday, asking the media to respect their privacy as they make arrangements "to celebrate Colleen's vibrant life."

Chism appeared briefly in court Wednesday for arraignment on a murder charge and was ordered held without bail.

Ritzer was the second teacher allegedly killed by a student in the U.S. this week. A Sparks, Nev., middle school teacher was shot Monday, allegedly by a 12-year-old student.

___

Associated Press writer Denise Lavoie in Boston contributed to this report.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/student-accused-mass-teen-stayed-school-190958919.html
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Ellis Island museum to reopen Monday

NEW YORK (AP) — Ellis Island will reopen to the public Monday, almost exactly a year after Superstorm Sandy's swells reached 8 feet and badly damaged the former U.S. immigration entry point.

"We are delighted to be able to share Ellis Island's uniquely American story with the world once more," Superintendent David Luchsinger said in a statement Thursday.

The Oct. 29 storm swamped boilers and electrical systems, and the 27.5-acre island in New York Harbor was without power for months.

The Ellis Island Immigration Museum, housed in the main building on the island, showcases the stories of the millions of immigrants who passed through the island to start their lives in the United States.

More than a million documents, photographs and other artifacts at the museum were moved before the storm because it was impossible to maintain the climate-controlled environment needed for their preservation.

While the halls and buildings will reopen, the artifacts remain in a temporary storage facility in Maryland, park officials said. There's no estimate on when they will return to the island, because considerable work to upgrade and fix the buildings is still ongoing.

"You're not going to see a complete restoration of Ellis Island for a while," spokesman John Warren said.

Crews are still working on revamping so that the next bad storm won't leave the island shuttered for a year, he said.

Nearby Liberty Island, which also flooded during Sandy, reopened on July 4th but was closed during the partial federal government shutdown.

"I can think of no better way to celebrate Lady Liberty's 127th birthday than to welcome visitors back to the place where those 'huddled masses yearning to breathe free' first came to our shores," Luchsinger said, referring to a line in the Emma Lazarus poem "The New Colossus," which is engraved on a plaque hung inside the statue's pedestal.

There's no cost estimate yet on how much it will take to repair and revamp the island.

Associated PressSource: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/4e67281c3f754d0696fbfdee0f3f1469/Article_2013-10-24-Ellis%20Island/id-7595cf08d02d4661b5acefd9d89889d7
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'X-Men: Days Of Future Past': Watch The Sneak Peek Of The Trailer Now!

The first seven seconds of footage from the movie has leaked online.

By Alex Zalben

Source:
http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1716123/x-men-days-of-future-past-teaser-trailer.jhtml

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Use MongoDB to make your app location-aware

Since I've been the boss man, I find I have fewer opportunities to get into the details of coding as I spend more time dealing with annoyances. Once again, I'm handing over this blog to one of my crack developers, Jonathan Freeman. I think you'll find his explanation of geospatial queries in MongoDB highly useful. -- Andy

The surging popularity of Hadoop has paved the way to storing and processing gobs of semistructured data. Batch processing data is a great way to study the past in high definition, but it's constrained by the simple phrase "next time." As in: "Looks like our customers didn't like the way the checkout process went, let's change that for next time."

Constructing a "this time" solution can be approached in several ways. One angle of attack is to combine batch and real-time analytics: Set up MapReduce jobs to run every night, for example, and pipe the results into a NoSQL database to be queried throughout the day. MapReduce distills and condenses the data set, allowing it to be accessed quickly as needed.

[ Work smarter, not harder with InfoWorld's roundup of tips and trends programmers need to know in the Developers' Survival Guide. Download the PDF today! | Keep up with the latest developer news with InfoWorld's Developer World newsletter. ]

Another approach is to focus on the state of the user at the current moment. In other words, context -- not what will be, but what is, right now. And particularly for mobile applications, what information could be more important about the user's state than his or her geolocation?

Location awareness is an idea that's spreading both inside the tech world and out (just think about the locavore or farm-to-table trends in the foodie community). GPS-enabled mobile devices have been a boon to developers and technology providers paying attention to these trends. One such provider is our new favorite billion-dollar NoSQL company, MongoDB.

MongoDB's new geospatial query in action
MongoDB has had native geospatial queries for a while (famously used by Foursquare), which make finding documents that are near a given point or documents that lie within a given polygon a breeze.

The latest production release introduced a new query operator: $geoIntersects. The operator packs quite a punch, filling in functionality lacking in previous versions. For example, if you wanted to supply a point and find all the documents enclosing that point, you had to do it on your application layer. If you wanted to supply a polygon and see which documents overlap, you had to do it on your application layer. If you wanted to supply a line and see which documents could be found on that line, you did it in your application layer.

Happily, $geoIntersects does all that and more. On top of the flexibility, it's incredibly easy to use. The general idea is that you can supply a point, line, or polygon, and any document that intersects with the supplied geometry will be returned. To demonstrate, I've built a little Web app that relies on the query.

The app takes a starting and ending address, finds a bike route for the supplied points, and tells you all the Chicago neighborhoods you'd pass through. It will also tell you which Chicago neighborhood you're in at the moment. The app is simple, but shows two possible uses of the new query operator. Here's what it looks like:

TEXT

Source: http://www.infoworld.com/d/application-development/use-mongodb-make-your-app-location-aware-229403?source=rss_infoworld_top_stories_
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Time Warner Cable to carry Al Jazeera America

NEW YORK (AP) — Time Warner Cable and Al Jazeera America say they've reached a deal for the cable company to start carrying the channel.

Al Jazeera America will be launched over the next six months on digital basic cable services in Time Warner Cable as well as Bright House Networks markets, including New York, Los Angeles and Dallas.

Financial terms were not disclosed.

The deal will make Al Jazeera America available to almost 55 million homes.

Al Jazeera America began broadcasting in August. It has said it wants to provide unbiased, in-depth domestic and global news. But it faces the challenge of overcoming suspicions that some Americans may have about a news organization that is controlled by a foreign government and part of a larger company described by some critics as anti-American.

Associated PressSource: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/4e67281c3f754d0696fbfdee0f3f1469/Article_2013-10-24-Time%20Warner%20Cable-Al%20Jazeera%20America/id-1aa8dd66200f41fb9f8b05c6a219df05
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Builders of Obama's health website saw red flags

White House press secretary Jay Carney introduces Council of Economic Advisers Chairman Jason Furman who spoke about the economy post government shutdown at the daily press briefing at the White House in Washington, Tuesday, Oct. 22, 2013. Furman said the addition of 148,000 jobs in September is a sign of "solid" growth but forecasts worsening in October because of the 16-day partial government shutdown. (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)

President Barack Obama, standing with supporters of his health care law, speaks 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) — Crammed into conference rooms with pizza for dinner, some programmers building the Obama administration's showcase health insurance website were growing increasingly stressed. Some worked past 10 p.m., energy drinks in hand. Others rewrote computer code over and over to meet what they considered last-minute requests for changes from the government or other contractors.

As questions mount over the website's failure, insider interviews and a review of technical specifications by The Associated Press found a mind-numbingly complex system put together by harried programmers who pushed out a final product that congressional investigators said was tested by the government and not private developers with more expertise.

Meanwhile, the White House said that President Barack Obama's longtime adviser Jeffrey Zients will provide management advice to help fix the system. White House press secretary Jay Carney says Zients will be on a short-term assignment at the Health and Human Services Department before he's due to take over as director of Obama's National Economic Council Jan. 1.

Carney cited Zients' expertise as a longtime management consultant and his "proven track record" since coming to the White House in 2009, both as interim budget director and as chief performance officer, when he headed an effort to streamline government and cut costs. "We're engaged in an all-out effort to improve the online experience," Carney said.

This is not the first time Obama has turned to Zients for help solving a major problem. In the 2009, after far more drivers than anticipated signed up for the Cash for Clunkers program that promised rebates to people who traded in their old cars for more fuel-efficient vehicles, Obama assigned Zients, his deputy budget director at the time, to help eliminate the backlog.

When the same thing happened with sign-ups for an updated version of the GI Bill, one designed to help the 9/11 generation of veterans get a college education, Obama again turned to Zients.

"He's not going to be looking under the hood and tell you 'I can fix the coding, I can fix it,'" Kenneth Baer, who was a senior adviser to Zients at the budget office, said of Zients' newest assignment. "His skill is going to be how to identify challenges, prioritize what solutions need to be done next, assessing what talent is already available and then how to motivate them to do that job as quickly and as ably as possible."

Aneesh Chopra, who was Obama's chief technology officer, said Zients is extremely skilled in figuring things out from a management perspective.

"If I was confident this issue would be resolved before his participation, I am doubly so now," said Chopra, who also worked with Zients at the Advisory Board Co., one of two business advisory firms where Zients held top posts. "Jeff's track record is really a relentless focus on execution."

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said in a post on HealthCare.gov that her agency is also bringing in more experts and specialists from government and industry, including top Silicon Valley companies.

"This new infusion of talent will bring a powerful array of subject matter expertise and skills, including extensive experience scaling major IT systems," she said. "This effort is being marshaled as part of a cross-functional team that is working aggressively to diagnose parts of HealthCare.gov that are experiencing problems, learn from successful states, prioritize issues, and fix them."

Project developers for the health care website who spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity — because they feared they would otherwise be fired — said they raised doubts among themselves whether the website could be ready in time. They complained openly to each other about what they considered tight and unrealistic deadlines. One was nearly brought to tears over the stress of finishing on time, one developer said. Website builders saw red flags for months.

A review of internal architectural diagrams obtained by the AP revealed the system's complexity. Insurance applicants have a host of personal information verified, including income and immigration status. The system connects to other federal computer networks, including ones at the Social Security Administration, IRS, Veterans Administration, Office of Personnel Management and the Peace Corps.

Obama on Monday acknowledged technical problems that he described as "kinks in the system." But in remarks at a Rose Garden event, Obama offered no explanation for the failure except to note that high traffic to the website caused some of the slowdowns. He said it had been visited nearly 20 million times — fewer monthly visits so far than many commercial websites, such as PayPal, AOL, Wikipedia or Pinterest.

"The problem has been that the website that's supposed to make it easy to apply for and purchase the insurance is not working the way it should for everybody," Obama said. "There's no sugarcoating it. The website has been too slow. People have been getting stuck during the application process. And I think it's fair to say that nobody is more frustrated by that than I am."

The online system was envisioned as a simple way for people without health insurance to comparison-shop among competing plans offered in their state, pick their preferred level of coverage and cost and sign up. For many, it's not worked out that way so far.

Just weeks before the launch of HealthCare.gov on Oct. 1, one programmer said, colleagues huddled in conference rooms trying to patch "bugs," or deficiencies in computer code. Unresolved problems led to visitors experiencing cryptic error messages or enduring long waits trying to sign up.

Congressional investigators have concluded that the government's Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, not private software developers, tested the exchange's computer systems during the final weeks. That task, known as integration testing, is usually handled by software companies because it ferrets out problems before the public sees the final product.

The government spent at least $394 million in contracts to build the federal health care exchange and the data hub. Those contracts included major awards to Virginia-based CGI Federal Inc., Maryland-based Quality Software Services Inc. and Booz Allen Hamilton Inc.

CGI Federal said in a statement Monday it was working with the government and other contractors "around the clock" to improve the system, which it called "complex, ambitious and unprecedented."

The schematics from late 2012 show how officials designated a "data services hub" — a traffic cop for managing information — in lieu of a design that would have allowed state exchanges to connect directly to government servers when verifying an applicant's information. On Sunday, the Health and Human Services Department said the data hub was working but not meeting public expectations: "We are committed to doing better."

Administration officials so far have refused to say how many people actually have managed to enroll in insurance during the three weeks since the new marketplaces became available. Without enrollment numbers, it's impossible to know whether the program is on track to reach projections from the Congressional Budget Office that 7 million people would gain coverage during the first year the exchanges were available.

Instead, officials have selectively cited figures that put the insurance exchanges in a positive light. They say more than 19 million people have logged on to the federal website and nearly 500,000 have filled out applications for insurance through both the federal and state-run sites.

The flood of computer problems since the website went online has been deeply embarrassing for the White House. The snags have called into question whether the administration is capable of implementing the complex policy and why senior administration officials — including the president — appear to have been unaware of the scope of the problems when the exchange sites opened.

Even as the president spoke at the Rose Garden, more problems were coming to light. The administration acknowledged that a planned upgrade to the website had been postponed indefinitely and that online Spanish-language signups would remain unavailable, despite a promise to Hispanic groups that the capability would start this week. And the government tweaked the website's home page so visitors can now view phone numbers to apply the old-fashioned way or window-shop for insurance rates without registering first.

The House Energy and Commerce Committee was expected to conduct an oversight hearing Thursday, probably without Sebelius testifying. She could testify on Capitol Hill on the subject as early as next week.

Uninsured Americans have until about mid-February to sign up for coverage if they are to meet the law's requirement that they be insured by the end of March. If they don't, they will face a penalty. The administration says it's working to address the timing issue to provide more flexibility.

Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., plans to introduce legislation to delay that requirement because: "It's not fair to punish people for not buying something that's not available," Rubio told "CBS This Morning" on Tuesday.

Citing the website problems, Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., also urged the White House to extend the open enrollment period past March 31, 2014.

In a letter Tuesday to Obama, Shaheen suggested extending open enrollment to "provide greater flexibility for the American people seeking to access health insurance," according to an emailed statement from her office. Shaheen also asked the White House to clarify how the "individual responsibility penalty will be administered and enforced" in light of the website's difficulties.

On Monday, the White House advised people frustrated by the online tangle that they can enroll by calling 1-800-318-2596 in a process that should take 25 minutes for an individual or 45 minutes for a family. Assistance is also available in communities from helpers who can be found at LocalHelp.HealthCare.gov.

___

Associated Press writers Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar and Darlene Superville contributed to this report.

___

Follow Jack Gillum on Twitter at http://twitter.com/jackgillum or Julie Pace at http://twitter.com/jpaceDC.

Associated PressSource: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/89ae8247abe8493fae24405546e9a1aa/Article_2013-10-22-Obama-Health%20Care/id-077414b1e5ec445bab6e6ce97a25d0f7
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Bank of America liable for Countrywide mortgages fraud

By Nate Raymond

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Bank of America Corp was found liable for fraud on Wednesday on claims related to defective mortgages sold by its Countrywide unit, a major win for the U.S. government in one of the few big trials stemming from the financial crisis.

Following a four-week trial, a federal jury in Manhattan found the Charlotte, North Carolina bank liable on one civil fraud charge. Countrywide originated shoddy home loans in a process called "Hustle" and sold them to government mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government said.

The four men and six women on the jury also found former Countrywide executive, Rebecca Mairone, liable on the one fraud charge facing her.

A decision on how much to penalize the bank would be left to U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff. The U.S. Department of Justice has said it would ask Rakoff to award up to $848.2 million, the gross loss it said Fannie and Freddie suffered on the loans.

Bank of America bought Countrywide in July 2008. Two months later, the government took over Fannie and Freddie.

"The jury's decision concerned a single Countrywide program that lasted several months and ended before Bank of America's acquisition of the company," Bank of America spokesman Lawrence Grayson said. "We will evaluate our options for appeal."

Wednesday's verdict marked a major victory for the Justice Department, which has come under criticism for failing to hold banks and executives accountable for their roles in the events leading up to the financial crisis.

In late afternoon trading, Bank of America shares were down 27 cents at $14.25 on the New York Stock Exchange.

WHISTLEBLOWER

The lawsuit stemmed from a whistleblower case originally brought by Edward O'Donnell, a former Countrywide executive who stands to earn up to $1.6 million if the government prevailed.

It centered on a program called the "High Speed Swim Lane" - also called "HSSL" or "Hustle" - that government lawyers said Countrywide started in 2007 as it sought to move away from subprime lending and issue prime loans.

Prime loans are considered less risky than subprime. But the Justice Department said fraud and other defects were rampant in HSSL loans, because Countrywide eliminated loan quality checkpoints and paid employees based on loan volume and speed.

The Justice Department said the process was overseen by Mairone, a former chief operating officer of Countrywide's Full Spectrum Lending division.

Mairone later became a managing director at JPMorgan Chase & Co. That bank had no immediate comment.

In 2012, the Justice Department intervened in O'Donnell's lawsuit and filed its own complaint under the Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery, and Enforcement Act of 1989. That law, passed in the wake of the 1900s savings-and-loan scandals, covers fraud affecting federally insured financial institutions.

The case is U.S. ex rel. O'Donnell v. Bank of America Corp et al, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, No. 12-01422.

(Reporting by Nate Raymond; Additional reporting by Jonathan Stempel; Editing by Leslie Gevirtz)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/bank-america-loses-fraud-trial-over-u-mortgages-194751822--sector.html
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Red Sox rout Cardinals in Game 1 of World Series

BOSTON – Sending out an APB: If anyone locates the real St. Louis Cardinals, please alert authorities immediately. The only explanation for what happened in Game 1 of the World Series was that imposters took the field at Fenway Park in Cardinals regalia.

Among the dropped flip, the fumbled grab, the bungled pop-up, the mangled backhand, the errant catch and the do-si-do groundball, the Cardinals packed a half-dozen flubs into the first two innings, and the Boston Red Sox pummeled them 8-1 Wednesday night in a game far worse than the final score indicated – and the final was quite awful in and of itself.

[Yahoo Sports Shop: Gear up for the World Series with official team gear]

While nobody ever mistook these Cardinals for a field full of Ozzie Smiths, to see them melt down so spectacularly served as the initial insult. Losing Carlos Beltran to bruised ribs suffered when robbing David Ortiz of a grand slam was the injury. And getting shut down by Red Sox starter Jon Lester dropped a moldy cherry atop a sundae of awful.

The disciplined Cardinals of the regular season, their 97 victories matching Boston's for most in the major leagues, went AWOL from the beginning of the game. Starter Adam Wainwright, who began the season with 34 2/3 straight innings without a walk, walked leadoff hitter Jacoby Ellsbury. Then came a Dustin Pedroia hit, which presaged chaos.

Ortiz hit a ground ball, and it should have been an easy force out at second base on a Matt Carpenter flip. Only Cardinals shortstop Pete Kozma dropped the ball. Initially, umpire Dana DeMuth called him out, by a long shot the worst error on Wednesday night, which is saying something. The six-umpire crew got together, reversed the call, watched Mike Napoli clear the bases with the help of a Shane Robinson misplay in center field and stake Boston to a 3-0 advantage.

Wainwright lurched off the field frustrated, and understandably so: Boston was squaring up his pitches, and rather than feed off the 38,345 at Fenway, the atmosphere, in concert with his team botching a pair of plays, quickly turned claustrophobic.

Carlos Beltran robs David Ortiz of a grand slam, but was injured on the play and left the game. (AP Photo) "What I found throughout my playoff career so far is that I respond really well when the adrenaline really kicks in," Wainwright said Tuesday. "I love that. The crowd gets louder. I get more fired up. That's something that I just – I can't tell you how cool it is to pitch in front of great crowds like we're going to have [Wednesday] here in Boston, and we're going to have in St. Louis with that crisp, cool air, that Octobery kind of air, where you know it's playoff baseball.

"This is my favorite time of year, for many reasons. There's NFL football on TV, there's college football on TV, there's hunting season, there's playoff baseball. It does not get much better than that."

Nope. It got a lot worse.

Stephen Drew, the first batter of the second inning, hitting .083 this postseason, popped a short fly in between Wainwright and catcher Yadier Molina. They weren't more than 5 feet from one another when the ball hit the ground in between them. Neither said a word. Laughter from the stands filled the silence.

Later in the inning, it stopped on account of pity. Shane Victorino's grounder that glanced off Kozma's glove? It was just piling on. A bases-loaded ground ball from Pedroia that snuck by Freese? Have mercy. Beltran did what Torii Hunter couldn't in the ALCS – steal a grand slam from Ortiz with an over-the-fence catch in right field – though the price was significant. He went to a nearby hospital for further examination, and his status for Game 2 on Thursday was in question.

Misery continued deep into the Boston night. Cardinals swung and miss with regularity at Lester, who threw 7 2/3 shutout innings. Even when they loaded the bases in the fourth, Freese hit into a 1-2-3 double play. And he made the Cardinals' third error of the night with a bad throw in the seventh inning. Followed immediately by Ortiz hitting one nobody would catch into the right-field bleachers for a 7-0 advantage. St. Louis’ lone run came on a Matt Holliday homer in the ninth inning.

It puts the Cardinals in the position of having to rely again on rookie Michael Wacha, thus far the best pitcher in the 2013 postseason. He faces John Lackey, a World Series MVP 11 years ago and back for the first time since. And if he's anything like his last start nine days ago, when he outdueled Justin Verlander, the Cardinals better escape from wherever they absconded to during Game 1 and actually show up.

Source: http://sports.yahoo.com/news/mlb--red-sox-rout-cardinals-in-game-1-of-world-series-032230773.html
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Daniel Cormier doesn't want to fight Alexander Gustafsson in Europe

An immediate fight against a top contender makes sense for Daniel Cormier's light heavyweight debut.

But a match in Europe against Alexeander Gustafsson is off the table, as far as DC is concerned.

On Wednesday's edition of UFC Tonight, the undefeated former Strikeforce Heavyweight Grand Prix tournament champion explained why he wants to have his first fight at 205 pounds here in the United States.

"I have no problem fighting Alexander Gustafsson, not at all," Cormier said. "The one thing I'm concerned about, being that its going to be my first time down at 205, I know that Gustafsson is going to fight in Europe somewhere. Whether it's Sweden or somewhere else in Europe, I don't want to be making my first weight cut down to 205 overseas. I know what I'm going to need, I want to find saunas here in the United States and all the food that I'm comfortable with in order to make the weight."

So with Gustafsson, one of the few names all but guaranteed to sell out a European arena, apparently a no-go, who does that leave? Several top light heavyweights already have matchups lined up. But among the bigger names without a dance partner are Phil Davis and Antonio Rogerio Nogueira.

"Those are all big fights," Cormier said. "These are the fights that matter. I'm going to need if I'm going to put myself in position to win the championship. I want to fight for the title, man. That was the reason I went. I thought that was going to be my first fight. It doesn't seem that way, in the division I've moved on. To me, L'll Nog, that makes a great fight. Any of those guys, I want a big fight."

Cormier also took a moment to reflect on an eventful night at UFC 166 on Saturday. Cormier scored a one-sided unanimous decision over Roy Nelson in the co-main event, then turned right around and cornered heavyweight champion Cain Velasquez for his fight with Junior dos Santos.

"Going into the Octagon and doing what I was supposed to do against Roy Nelson, that was a big part of my night," Cormier said. "But to go back in Cain Velasquez's corner go back watch my friend Cain Velasquez retain his title? That makes it something, man. Went back, threw my shirt on, and watched Cain put on a great show."

Source: http://www.mmafighting.com/2013/10/23/5022416/daniel-cormier-doesnt-want-to-fight-alexander-gustafsson-in-europe
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Name that tune

PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:

23-Oct-2013

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Contact: Catherine Crawley
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865-974-9350
National Institute for Mathematical and Biological Synthesis (NIMBioS)

Algorithm used in music retrieval systems applied to help identify dolphin whistles

The same algorithm used to find tunes in music retrieval systems has been successfully applied in identifying the signature whistles of dolphins, affording a new time-saving device for research into the world of dolphin communication.

Bottlenose dolphins, in particular, recognize each other by name: the sound of each animal's "signature" whistle, which each dolphin develops at a young age. Bottlenose dolphins appear to show preference to the signature whistles of familiar individuals. Scientists have found that dolphins use the signature whistles to foster and maintain group cohesion.

Until now, the classification of individual dolphin whistles has typically been done by examining a spectrograph, which visually represents the spectrum of frequencies found in a sound. But the method is time-consuming, requires more data than might be necessary, and is subject to human error.

A study, published Oct. 23 in the journal PLOS ONE, describes a new method for identification that uses an algorithm based on what's called the Parsons code, which has been used extensively in computerized retrieval of tunes from music databases. Instead of looking at the precise variation in frequency, the Parsons code only considers whether at each point in time the pitch goes up, down, or stays the same. The researchers examined 400 signature whistles from 20 different dolphins. The new algorithm did well at assigning signature whistles to individual animals, helping scientists to classify the tested whistles quickly and efficiently, according to the study.

"The Parsons code is a robust way to compare dolphins' signature whistles because it is able to home in on the variation in frequency that actually matters. It discards the information that isn't useful for the analysis," said lead author Arik Kershenbaum, a postdoctoral fellow at the National Institute for Mathematical and Biological Synthesis.

Being able to identify information in signature whistles is important for assessing the similarity of whistles and for studying how social behavior influences the development of these learned calls.

"Cetacean vocalizations are highly varied and presumably serve varied functions. So determining what aspects of the vocalizations hold information is crucial to be able to classify them and to be able to understand their meaning," Kershenbaum said.

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Citation: Kershenbaum A, Sayigh LS, Janik VM. 2013. The encoding of individual identity in dolphin signature whistles: how much information is needed? PLOS ONE. http://dx.plos.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0077671

The National Institute for Mathematical and Biological Synthesis (NIMBioS) brings together researchers from around the world to collaborate across disciplinary boundaries to investigate solutions to basic and applied problems in the life sciences. NIMBioS is sponsored by the National Science Foundation, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture with additional support from The University of Tennessee, Knoxville.

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