LONDON (AP) -Gervinho scored one goal and set up two others as Arsenal beat Reading 4-1 on Saturday, boosting its chances of Champions League football next season and ruining Nigel Adkins' return to managerial life in the Premier League.
The Ivory Coast forward set Arsenal on its way with the opener in the 11th minute and then provided assists for Santi Cazorla and Olivier Giroud to net in the second half.
Hal Robson-Kanu pulled a goal back for Reading, but Mikel Arteta ended the struggling visitors' hopes of an unlikely comeback by slotting home a penalty 13 minutes from time.
The victory lifts Arsenal to within two points of fourth-place Chelsea and drops Reading provisionally bottom of the table after Adkins' first game in charge of the club.
"I thought Arsenal were very good, they've passed the ball very well," said Adkins, who was fired by Southampton in January. "Unfortunately, we've made our own downfall on a couple of goals."
The Emirates Stadium wasn't exactly an ideal venue for Adkins to resume his coaching career, with Arsenal full of confidence after back-to-back 2-0 wins against Bayern Munich and Swansea before the international break.
And Gervinho, back in favor at Arsenal following a mid-season slump in form, continued the team's momentum by smashing in from close range after Cazorla drove in a cross. The Ivory Coast forward also scored against Swansea.
"He was always lively and created many dangerous situations," Wenger said of the much-maligned Gervinho.
Cazorla, the instigator of many Arsenal attacks, clipped in a great finish from the edge of the area in the 48th after being picked out by Gervinho, who then led a counter-attack in the 68th and passed for Giroud to drill home low to make it 3-0.
Robson-Kanu stooped to head in a cross from the left a minute later, with Arsenal left back Nacho Monreal having to go off after injuring his knee in the build-up to the goal.
But Arteta ensured there were no late anxieties for the hosts by calmly stroking in a penalty after Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain was fouled.
"We played with good collective spirit, technical quality and always went forward," Wenger said. "We created many chances, that's the most pleasant thing. We defended well, had good discipline and didn't become easy when the game became easy."
Arsenal is four points behind third-place Tottenham with a game in hand.
? 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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It's the end of the line for Roadrunner, a first-of-its-kind collection of processors that once reigned as the world's fastest supercomputer.
The $121 million supercomputer, housed at one of the nation's premiere nuclear weapons research laboratories in northern New Mexico, will be decommissioned Sunday.
The reason? The world of supercomputing is evolving and Roadrunner has been replaced with something smaller, faster, more energy efficient and cheaper. Still, officials at Los Alamos National Laboratory say it's among the 25 fastest supercomputers in the world.
"Roadrunner got everyone thinking in new ways about how to build and use a supercomputer," said Gary Grider, who works in the lab's high performance computing division. "Specialized processors are being included in new ways on new systems and being used in novel ways. Our demonstration with Roadrunner caused everyone to pay attention."
In 2008, Roadrunner was first to break the elusive petaflop barrier by processing just over a quadrillion mathematical calculations per second.
Los Alamos teamed up with IBM to build Roadrunner from commercially available parts. They ended up with 278 refrigerator-size racks filled with two different types of processors, all linked together by 55 miles of fiber optic cable. It took nearly two dozen tractor trailer trucks to deliver the supercomputer from New York to northern New Mexico.
The supercomputer has been used over the last five years to model viruses and unseen parts of the universe, to better understand lasers and for nuclear weapons work. That includes simulations aimed at ensuring the safety and reliability of the nation's aging arsenal.
As part of the U.S. nuclear stockpile stewardship program, researchers used Roadrunner's high-speed calculation capabilities to unravel some of the mysteries of energy flow in weapons.
Los Alamos has been helping pioneer novel computer systems for decades. In 1976, the lab helped with the development of the Cray-1. In 1993, the lab held the fastest supercomputer title with the Thinking Machine CM-5.
"And to think of where we're going to be in the next 10 to 15 years, it's just mindboggling," said lab spokesman Kevin Roark.
Right now, Los Alamos ? along with scientists at Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California ? is using a supercomputer dubbed Cielo. Installed in 2010, it's slightly faster than Roadrunner, takes up less space and came in at just under $54 million.
Roark said in the next 10 to 20 years, it's expected that the world's supercomputers will be capable of breaking the exascale barrier, or one quintillion calculations per second.
There will be no ceremony when Roadrunner is switched off Sunday, but lab officials said researchers will spend the next month experimenting with its operating system and techniques for compressing memory before dismantling begins. They say the work could help guide the design of future supercomputers.
? 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Given Friday?s events, it?s clear that the suggestion that the Cowboys couldn?t have used the franchise tag on Tony Romo in 2014 came from the Romo camp as part of an effort to break whatever final hurdle(s) existed between the team and the player.
Per a source with knowledge of the situation, it never was going to be issue.
The glitch that would have resulted in the final years of Romo?s contract voiding after the window for using the franchise tag had closed came, we?re told, from a deal that was done in 2011 to help create cap space.? At that time, Romo, the Cowboys, and his agents agreed to commence the process to make Romo a Cowboy for life, and to get it done before the start of the final season of his current contract.
In the end, Romo was never going to leave the Cowboys.? So it didn?t matter if there was no franchise tag to be used.
?Tony has a special relationship with Jerry [Jones], Stephen [Jones], and the Cowboys organization.? The parties truly view it as a long-term partnership and they truly trust each other,? the source said.? ?Tony values being a Cowboy for life.?
Moreover, the guaranteed money in the new Romo deal ($55.5 million) hints that the franchise-tag formula was a factor in the negotiations.? With a salary of $11.5 million in 2013 and franchise-tag numbers of $20.16 million and $24.19 million, respectively, in 2014 and 2015, Romo would have made $55.85 million over the next three years, if he had gone one year at a time under the franchise tag.
Either way, the Cowboys have gone all in with Romo.? Today?s deal simply puts even more chips in the middle of the table.
A leaked BlackBerry roadmap, first uncovered by TechnoBuffalo, suggests the Canadian company is gearing up to launch a new tablet, and two "phablet" devices within the next year.?
According to the roadmap, BlackBerry will release a tablet, dubbed the B10, around Q3 of this year. Before Q1 2014, it looks like BlackBerry will introduce a phablet device. And by Q2 2014, we may see a new tablet-like device with a QWERTY keyboard.
The roadmap also depicts the already-released BlackBerry Z10, and the forthcoming Q10 with a QWERTY keyboard ? both devices sport the new BlackBerry 10 operating system.?
BlackBerry made its first attempt at a tablet device with the launch of the 7-inch PlayBook tablet in 2011. Despite it being one of the most-hyped consumer gadgets at the time, it ended up not doing well, as it lacked a lot of basic functions like email and calendar when it first shipped. BlackBerry eventually added that functionality, but by then, it was too late.?
Head on over to TechnoBuffalo to take a look at the leaked roadmap.
Smokers have a higher probability of quitting smoking and a better overall cessation experience when taking varenicline compared to bupropion and to placebo ? unmedicated assisted smoking cessation ?according to a study published in the journalJAMA Psychiatry.
A team led by Paul Cinciripini, Ph.D., professor in the Department of Behavioral Science at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, investigated the relative efficacy of varenicline and bupropion ? both popular anti-smoking drugs on the market ? plus intensive counseling to assess the drugs' effects on smoking-cessation and emotional functioning while quitting.
"National surveys show that about 20 percent of adults continue to smoke, but it's disproportionally high among people in low socioeconomic populations and those with mental illness," said Cinciripini. "When smokers try to quit, many are likely to experience a range of nicotine withdrawal symptoms, including negative mood, difficulty concentrating, irritability and even depressive symptoms making quitting difficult and increases the chances of relapse."
"Our findings suggest that smokers trying to quit will have a better experience with varenicline as opposed to trying to quit on their own or by taking bupropion," Cinciripini said. "The more we can reduce these negative symptoms associated with quitting the better experience of the smoker and this may mean that even if they don't quit this time, they will be encouraged to try again."
In this study, funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, scientists examined data from 294 smokers who were trying to quit. The participants were randomized into one of three groups; varenicline, bupropion or placebo. QuitRx participants were assessed throughout the 12-week medication portion of the program, and also three and six months after quitting.
The researchers used four different measurements of abstinence and found that only varenicline significantly improved abstinence rates by all measures at all time periods compared with placebo, which is consistent with results from large phase 3 clinical trials with this medication. Varenicline consistently outperformed buproprion, but unlike the placebo comparisons did not reach statistical significance because of small sample size.
All participants received extensive smoking cessation counseling via QuitRx and were assessed for nicotine withdrawal and emotional functioning every week during treatment, using the Wisconsin Smoking Withdrawal Scale (WSWS), the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule and the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale (CES-D). In the QuitRx program, scientists investigated the effects of medication alone, abstinence alone and the combination of the two on each of these measures, specifically evaluating symptoms of depression, negative affect ? a person's mood? and other symptoms of nicotine withdrawal including craving.
Better mood, less anxiety for smokers
When measuring the effects of abstinence alone on emotional functioning, the study found that regardless of which medication the smoker received, people who were able to abstain from smoking had lower scores for overall negative affect, anxiety and sadness but also showed higher positive affect.
"This is a very interesting finding in that it suggests smoking itself may not be a very good anti-depressant," said Cinciripini, director of MD Anderson's Tobacco Treatment Program. "It also suggests that those who were able to abstain from smoking will ultimately feel better than those who continue to smoke."
The study also found that compared to the non-abstainers, abstainers using either bupropion or varenicline experienced lower levels of sadness, but in terms of overall depressive symptoms the varenicline group fared much better. For those taking varenicline, both abstainers and non-abstainers were less depressed. "This is especially intriguing given the post-marketing data with varenicline that suggests that it may worsen depressive symptoms," said Cinciripini. "More research is needed to look carefully at smokers with current psychiatric illness taking varenicline, since they were not included in this research study."
Suppressing other withdrawal symptoms
Smokers are also subject to other withdrawal symptoms when they try to quit including loss of concentration and craving for tobacco. In this study, both drugs reduced craving relative to placebo, however varenicline showed lower levels of craving even among those who did not quit fully.
Findings also indicate that when compared with bupropion, only varenicline reduced the psychological reward, or pleasure derived from smoking, when measured among those who initially lapsed, while trying to retain abstinence during the program.
Cinciripini noted that this is significant because varenicline which is thought to partially stimulate dopamine ? the neurotransmitter associated with reward that lessens overall withdrawal symptoms ? also supports another suggested mechanism of action that involves binding the nicotine receptor for a longer period of time.
He explains the net effect of lower withdrawal and psychological reward improves the overall odds of cessation success, which is consistent with other research. "The difference in our study was that this took place against a background of intense counseling suggesting that varenicline can even be of benefit in those situations as well as low counseling intensity environments."
"It is evident from the findings that varenicline is hitting many more affective targets, in comparison to bupropion or placebo, and there is a distinct benefit of these effects on cessation even among those who do not fully abstain," said Cinciripini.
###
University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center: http://www.mdanderson.org
Thanks to University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center for this article.
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Notre Dame researchers scoring a win-win with novel set of concussion diagnostic toolsPublic release date: 26-Mar-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Christian Poellabauer cpoellab@nd.edu 574-631-9131 University of Notre Dame
From Junior Seau, former San Diego Chargers linebacker, to Dave Duerson, former Chicago Bears safety who both committed suicide as a result of chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), traumatic brain injuries (TBIs) have been making gruesome headlines at an alarming rate. In the United States alone, TBIs account for an estimated 1.6 - 3.8 million sports injuries every year, with approximately 300,000 of those being diagnosed among young, nonprofessional athletes. But TBIs are not confined to sports; they are also considered a signature wound among soldiers of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.
The potential impact on the health and well-being of individuals with brain injuries are numerous. These individuals might display a range of symptoms such as headaches, depression, loss of memory and loss of brain function which may persist for weeks or months. The effects of brain injuries are most devastating when they remain unrecognized for long periods of time. This is where Christian Poellabauer, associate professor of computer science and engineering; Patrick Flynn, professor of computer science and engineering; Nikhil Yadav, graduate student of computer science and engineering; and a team of students and faculty are making their own impact.
Although baseline tests of athletes prior to an injury are trending up, these tests must still be compared to examinations after an injury has occurred. They require heavy medical equipment, such as a CT scanner, MRI equipment, or X-ray machine, and are not always conclusive. The Notre Dame team has developed a tablet-based testing system that captures the voice of an individual and analyzes the speech for signs of a potential concussion anytime, anywhere, in real-time.
"This project is a great example of how mobile computing and sensing technologies can transform healthcare," Poellabauer said. "More important, because almost 90 percent of concussions go unrecognized, this technology offers tremendous potential to reduce the impact of concussive and sub-concussive hits to the head."
The system sounds simple enough: an individual speaks into a SmartPhone equipped with the Notre Dame program before and after an event. The two samples are then compared for TBI indicators, which include distorted vowels, hyper nasality and imprecise consonants.
Notre Dame's system offers a variety of advantages over traditional testing, such as portability, high accuracy, low cost and a low probability of manipulation (the results cannot be faked); it has also proven very successful. In testing which occurred during the Notre Dame's Bengal Bouts and Baraka Bouts, annual student boxing tournaments, the researchers established baselines for boxers using tests such as the Axon Sports Computerized Cognitive Assessment Tool (CCAT), the Sport Concussion Assessment Tool 2 (SCAT2), and the Notre Dame iPad-based reading and voice recording test.
During the 2012 Bengal Bouts nine concussions (out of 125 participants) were confirmed by this new speech based test and the University's medical team. Separate tests of 80 female boxers were also conducted during the 2012 Baraka Bouts. Outcomes of the 2013 Bengal Bouts are currently being compared to the findings of the University medical team on approximately 130 male boxers.
The testing was done in cooperation with James Moriarity, the University's chief sports medicine physician, who has developed a series of innovative concussion testing studies.
###
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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.
Notre Dame researchers scoring a win-win with novel set of concussion diagnostic toolsPublic release date: 26-Mar-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Christian Poellabauer cpoellab@nd.edu 574-631-9131 University of Notre Dame
From Junior Seau, former San Diego Chargers linebacker, to Dave Duerson, former Chicago Bears safety who both committed suicide as a result of chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), traumatic brain injuries (TBIs) have been making gruesome headlines at an alarming rate. In the United States alone, TBIs account for an estimated 1.6 - 3.8 million sports injuries every year, with approximately 300,000 of those being diagnosed among young, nonprofessional athletes. But TBIs are not confined to sports; they are also considered a signature wound among soldiers of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.
The potential impact on the health and well-being of individuals with brain injuries are numerous. These individuals might display a range of symptoms such as headaches, depression, loss of memory and loss of brain function which may persist for weeks or months. The effects of brain injuries are most devastating when they remain unrecognized for long periods of time. This is where Christian Poellabauer, associate professor of computer science and engineering; Patrick Flynn, professor of computer science and engineering; Nikhil Yadav, graduate student of computer science and engineering; and a team of students and faculty are making their own impact.
Although baseline tests of athletes prior to an injury are trending up, these tests must still be compared to examinations after an injury has occurred. They require heavy medical equipment, such as a CT scanner, MRI equipment, or X-ray machine, and are not always conclusive. The Notre Dame team has developed a tablet-based testing system that captures the voice of an individual and analyzes the speech for signs of a potential concussion anytime, anywhere, in real-time.
"This project is a great example of how mobile computing and sensing technologies can transform healthcare," Poellabauer said. "More important, because almost 90 percent of concussions go unrecognized, this technology offers tremendous potential to reduce the impact of concussive and sub-concussive hits to the head."
The system sounds simple enough: an individual speaks into a SmartPhone equipped with the Notre Dame program before and after an event. The two samples are then compared for TBI indicators, which include distorted vowels, hyper nasality and imprecise consonants.
Notre Dame's system offers a variety of advantages over traditional testing, such as portability, high accuracy, low cost and a low probability of manipulation (the results cannot be faked); it has also proven very successful. In testing which occurred during the Notre Dame's Bengal Bouts and Baraka Bouts, annual student boxing tournaments, the researchers established baselines for boxers using tests such as the Axon Sports Computerized Cognitive Assessment Tool (CCAT), the Sport Concussion Assessment Tool 2 (SCAT2), and the Notre Dame iPad-based reading and voice recording test.
During the 2012 Bengal Bouts nine concussions (out of 125 participants) were confirmed by this new speech based test and the University's medical team. Separate tests of 80 female boxers were also conducted during the 2012 Baraka Bouts. Outcomes of the 2013 Bengal Bouts are currently being compared to the findings of the University medical team on approximately 130 male boxers.
The testing was done in cooperation with James Moriarity, the University's chief sports medicine physician, who has developed a series of innovative concussion testing studies.
###
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
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.
This undated handout photo provided by the US Secret Service shows Secret Service agent Julia Pierson. President Barack Obama will appoint the veteran Secret Service agent as the agency?s first female director, signaling his desire to change the culture at the male-dominated service, which has been marred by scandal. (AP Photo/US Secret Service)
This undated handout photo provided by the US Secret Service shows Secret Service agent Julia Pierson. President Barack Obama will appoint the veteran Secret Service agent as the agency?s first female director, signaling his desire to change the culture at the male-dominated service, which has been marred by scandal. (AP Photo/US Secret Service)
WASHINGTON (AP) ? President Barack Obama on Tuesday named veteran Secret Service agent Julia Pierson as the agency's first female director, signaling his desire to change the culture at the male-dominated service, which has been marred by scandal.
Pierson, who most recently served as the agency's chief of staff, will take over from Mark Sullivan, who announced his retirement last month. The agency faced intense criticism during Sullivan's tenure for a prostitution scandal during preparations for Obama's trip to Cartagena, Colombia, last year.
The incident raised questions within the agency ? as well as at the White House and on Capitol Hill ? about the culture, particularly during foreign travel. In addition to protecting the president, the Secret Service also investigates financial crimes.
"Over her 30 years of experience with the Secret Service, Julia has consistently exemplified the spirit and dedication the men and women of the service demonstrate every day," Obama said in a statement announcing Pierson's appointment, which does not require Senate confirmation.
Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano also praised Obama's "historic decision" to name Pierson as the service's first female director.
Pierson, 53, has held high-ranking posts throughout the Secret Service, including deputy assistant director of the office of protective operations and assistant director of human resources and training. She has served as chief of staff since 2008.
That same year, Pierson was awarded the Presidential Meritorious Executive Award for superior performance in management throughout her career.
She joined the Secret Service in 1983 as a special agent and previously worked as a police officer in Orlando, Fla.
"Julia is eminently qualified to lead the agency that not only safeguards Americans at major events and secures our financial system, but also protects our leaders and our first families, including my own," Obama said. "Julia has had an exemplary career, and I know these experiences will guide her as she takes on this new challenge to lead the impressive men and women of this important agency."
Thirteen Secret Service employees were caught up in last year's prostitution scandal. After a night of heavy partying in the Caribbean resort city of Cartagena, the employees brought women, including prostitutes, to the hotel where they were staying. The incident became public after one agent refused to pay a prostitute and the pair argued about payment in a hotel hallway.
Eight of the employees were forced out of the agency, three were cleared of serious misconduct and at least two have been fighting to get their jobs back.
The incident took place before Obama arrived in Colombia and the service said the president's safety was never compromised. But news of the scandal broke during his trip, overshadowing the summit and embarrassing the U.S. delegation.
Sullivan issued a new code of conduct that bans employees from drinking within 10 hours of starting a shift or bringing foreign nationals back to their hotel rooms.
Sullivan apologized for the incident last year during testimony before a Senate panel.
___
Associated Press writer Alicia Caldwell contributed to this report.
McDonald's latest addition to its core U.S. menu -- the Chicken McWrap -- comes as the chain works to boost sales. But an internal memo suggest that the product is intended to take on a particular competitor: Subway.
The memo, obtained by AdAge, refers to the new sandwich as a "Subway buster" and concedes that "McDonald's is currently not in the top 10 of millennials' (customers primarily ages 18-32) favorite restaurants."
In what is perhaps of even greater concern to the chain, the memo states that customers "have told us that if we did not offer McWrap, 22 percent of these incremental customers would have gone to Subway."
In recent years, Subway has surpassed McDonald's in number of locations worldwide. Earlier this year, the sandwich chain's president and co-founder, Fred DeLuca, told Bloomberg that he expected Subway would have 50,000 locations in operation by 2017, up from its current number of roughly 38,800 locations.
But do McDonald's troubles necessarily stem from competition with Subway, or from its classification as a burger chain? AdAge writes:
But hamburger chains have seen a 16% decline in traffic from millennials since 2007, NPD said. In the year ended November 2012, millennials made 3.6 billion visits to hamburger chains, down from 4.2 billion visits in the year ended November 2007. There was a 12% decline in quick-service restaurant visits by millennials in the same time period.
Higher-quality ingredients and more choices could help sway millennials back to McDonald's, AdAge suggests.
McDonald's has introduced other new products of late, including Fish McBites, which have done little to reinvigorate sales. Both Fish McBites and Chicken McWraps follow news in late 2012 that McDonald's experienced its first sales drop since 2003.
Mar. 24, 2013 ? Research conducted in fruit flies at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine has pinpointed a specific DNA sequence that both triggers the formation of the "histone locus body" and turns on all the histone genes in the entire block.
Every time a cell divides it makes a carbon copy of crucial ingredients, including the histone proteins that are responsible for spooling yards of DNA into tight little coils. When these spool-like proteins aren't made correctly, it can result in the genomic instability characteristic of most birth defects and cancers.
Seven years ago, Dr. Joe Gall of the Carnegie Institute in Baltimore, Md. and coworkers noticed an aggregation of molecules along a a block of genome that codes for the critical histones, but they had no idea how this aggregate or "histone locus body" was formed.
Now, research conducted in fruit flies at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine has pinpointed a specific DNA sequence that both triggers the formation of this "histone locus body" and turns on all the histone genes in the entire block.
The finding, published March 25, 2013 in the journal Developmental Cell, provides a model for the coordinated synthesis of histones needed for assembly into chromatin, a process critical to keeping chromosomes intact and passing genetic information from generation to generation.
"Our study has uncovered a new relationship between nuclear architecture and gene activity," said senior study author Bob Duronio, PhD, professor of biology and genetics at UNC. "In order to make chromosomes properly, you need to make these histone building blocks at the right time and in the right amount. We found that the cell has evolved this complex architecture to do that properly, and that involves an interface between the assembly of various components and the turning on of a number of genes."
In the fruit fly, as in the human, the five different histone genes exist in one long chunk of the genome. The "histone locus" in flies contains 100 copies of each of the five genes, encompassing approximately 500,000 nucleotides of A's, C's, T's and G's. The proteins required for making the histone message -- a process that must happen every time a new strand of DNA is copied -- come together at this "histone locus" to form the "histone locus body."
Duronio and co-senior study author William Marzluff, PhD, Kenan Distinguished Professor of Biochemistry and Biophysics, wanted to figure out how these factors knew to meet at the histone locus.
They inserted different combinations of the five histone genes into another site of the genome, and looked to see which combinations recruited a new histone locus body. The researchers found that combinations that contained a specific 300 nucleotide sequence -- the region between the H3 and H4 histone genes -- formed a histone locus body. In contrast, combinations of genes that lacked this sequence did not form the body. They went on to show that this sequence turned on not only the H3 and H4 genes in its direct vicinity, but also other histone genes in the block.
Though the research was conducted entirely in fruit flies, it may lend insight into mechanisms that keep the genome from becoming unstable -- and causing early death or illness -- in higher organisms.
"Humans and flies have these very same histone genes. They have the same proteins in the histone locus body. So understanding precisely how this works in flies will help us understand cell division in humans," said Marzluff.
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A notable piece of small-business news on Capitol Hill this year isn?t about a bill ? it?s about a tax proposal that could lift some of the uncertainty owners have been complaining?about.
Under a proposal announced last week by House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp, R-Mich., a popular tax deduction for equipment purchases would become permanent and be set at $250,000, aside from annual adjustments for inflation. Known as the Section 179 deduction, it?s scheduled to drop to $25,000 next year after having been at $500,000 from 2010 through?2013.
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A notable piece of small-business news on Capitol Hill this year isn?t about a bill ? it?s about a tax proposal that could lift some of the uncertainty owners have been complaining?about.
Under a proposal announced last week by House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp, R-Mich., a popular tax deduction for equipment purchases would become permanent and be set at $250,000, aside from annual adjustments for inflation. Known as the Section 179 deduction, it?s scheduled to drop to $25,000 next year after having been at $500,000 from 2010 through?2013.
If the proposal becomes law, it could give owners some predictability ? something they?ve been clamoring for given the large list of other uncertainties they?ve been sacked with such as health care, minimum wage and the economy. The deduction has fluctuated in recent years and has made it difficult for small businesses to?plan.
Not knowing what the deduction will be forces business owners to play a sort of roulette ? do they buy a drill press or an SUV before the end of the year and take advantage of the current deduction, or wait to see what the new year?brings?
There are ramifications for the broader economy that go beyond the boost from spending on equipment. If small-business owners have a better idea of how much money they might save on their taxes, they might feel more secure and then expand and hire. Small businesses account for more than 99 percent of U.S. companies, and they employ about half the country?s workforce, or about 60 million?people.
One of the greatest sources of uncertainty about the deduction is the fact that Congress has been erratic in setting the amount of the deduction and sometimes has made changes retroactively. In January, Congress gave final approval to a bill that boosted the 2013 deduction to $500,000 from a planned $25,000 ? but many owners had already made purchases in 2012 expecting a smaller deduction in the coming?year.
?People were making decisions they normally wouldn?t be making at the end of last year,? says Brian Burt, an attorney with the law firm Snell & Wilmer in Phoenix. His clients include small businesses in the manufacturing, financial services and software?industries.
?That uncertainty makes for bad decision making,? Burt says. One of his clients, a consumer products manufacturer, bought new machines at the end of the year to increase its capacity. Another manufacturing client invested in new?software.
The deduction, named after a section of the federal tax law, allows small businesses to deduct up front the costs of equipment such as vehicles, manufacturing machines, furniture and computers. The deduction is important and popular because it allows small businesses to get a tax savings on the entire cost of equipment in the year it was purchased. Without it, they would have to depreciate the costs over a period of years which varies according to the type of equipment. Companies that get a refund get a boost in their cash flow from their tax?savings.
?The Section 179 proposal is pretty big because it affects everybody,? says John Arensmeyer, the CEO of Small Business Majority, a group that lobbies on behalf of small?businesses.
The deduction was created as part of the Economic Recovery Tax Act of 1981 ? a law passed to help the country emerge from the 1980 recession. In 1982, the year it took effect, the deduction was $5,000. Congress increased it through the years until it reached $125,000 in 2007. It doubled to $250,000 in 2008-09 because of the Great Recession, and subsequently rose to?$500,000.
How much a small business saves in taxes from the deduction depends on how much they spend on equipment, and on the company?s or owner?s tax rate. In many small companies, including sole proprietorships, partnerships and some corporations, owners pay business taxes on their individual?returns.
Camp, the Ways and Means chairman, released what he called a bipartisan discussion draft of proposals to reform tax rules that affect small businesses. The draft, which Camp said was being circulated so the public can offer feedback, is intended to be part of an overhaul of the entire tax system. Other suggestions in the draft included a doubling of the deduction for startup costs and later tax return filing deadlines for small?corporations.
The NSBA likes the idea of a permanent Section 179 deduction, although McCracken says his group would like to see a higher?amount.
Small businesses shouldn?t be subject to a limit on deducting equipment purchases, says Karen Kerrigan, CEO of the Small Business & Entrepreneurship Council. Under current law, when a company reaches the limit, it must use depreciation to deduct amounts over $500,000, a process that takes?years.
Given the fighting in Congress over taxes ? most recently, the year-end battle over tax rates for the wealthiest people ? and the current focus on cutting the budget deficit, it?s hard to predict how the Section 179 proposal will fare. Camp has said that tax cuts must be offset by tax increases elsewhere. Lower taxes for small businesses would likely mean higher taxes for someone else ? which could make it a tough sell in the current climate in?Congress.
But Kerrigan thinks the proposal has a good chance of becoming law because it has bipartisan support in Congress, and because it appeals to small?businesses.
?It?s something that small business can look to and say, ?This can make a difference for my firm,??? she?says.
This undated photo released by the Colorado Department of Corrections shows paroled inmate Evan Spencer Ebel.
By Tom Brown, Reuters
Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper, a longtime family friend of a prime suspect in the shooting death of the state's prisons chief, said on Sunday that the now-dead suspect always seemed to suffer from a "streak of cruelty and anger."
Hickenlooper said he and Jack Ebel, the father of white supremacist ex-convict Evan Ebel, had been friends for more than 30 years and that he had spoken to him since the 28-year-old parolee from Denver emerged as a lead suspect in the shooting last Tuesday of Tom Clements, executive director of the Colorado Department of Corrections.
"From the beginning, his son just seemed to have this bad streak, a streak of cruelty and anger," Hickenlooper told CNN's "State of the Union."
"They did everything they could," he said. "They worked with Evan again and again but to no avail. He had a bad, bad streak."
Evan Ebel was killed by police on Thursday after a high-speed chase through Decatur, Texas. He is also a suspect in the killing of pizza delivery man Nathan Leon in Denver, police there have said.
Hickenlooper said an investigation is continuing and that "all the signs" in the Clements killing seemed to point to Ebel, whom he confirmed had been connected to a prison-based white supremacist group.
"We can't see clearly what a motive was," he added.
The governor, who said his own personal security had been beefed up recent days, did not rule out the possibility that the Clements killing had been ordered by jailed white supremacist gang leaders targeting public officials from behind bars.
Lieutenant Jeff Kramer, a spokesman for the sheriff's office in El Paso County, Colorado, said on Sunday that Evan Ebel was definitely considered a suspect in the death of Clements, 58, who was shot on Tuesday when he answered the door at his home about 45 miles south of Denver.
Shell casings found at Clements' home were the same brand and caliber of the Hornady 9-mm bullets Ebel fired at Texas police, according to the search warrant filed in Texas for police to search Ebel's Cadillac.
"We're still waiting for the results of some ballistics testing that we're doing up here in Colorado ... to see if the gun used in Texas is the same gun used in the Tom Clements homicide case," Kramer said.
Ebel was a member of a white supremacist prison gang, the 211 Crew, and had been paroled in the Denver area, a law enforcement official said.
Authorities have said they were looking for ties between the death of Clements and the January killing of Mark Hasse, a prosecutor in the Kaufman County District Attorney's Office. Kaufman County is east of Dallas.
Copyright 2013 Thomson Reuters. Click for restrictions.
FILE - In this Friday, Nov. 23, 2012 file photo, a Powerball form and purchased ticket are on the counter at the Jayhawk Food Mart in Lawrence, Kan. A single ticket sold in New Jersey matched all six numbers in the Saturday night, March 23, 2013 drawing for the $338.3 million Powerball jackpot, lottery officials said. (AP Photo/Orlin Wagner, File)
FILE - In this Friday, Nov. 23, 2012 file photo, a Powerball form and purchased ticket are on the counter at the Jayhawk Food Mart in Lawrence, Kan. A single ticket sold in New Jersey matched all six numbers in the Saturday night, March 23, 2013 drawing for the $338.3 million Powerball jackpot, lottery officials said. (AP Photo/Orlin Wagner, File)
DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) ? A single ticket sold in New Jersey matched all six numbers in Saturday night's drawing for the $338.3 million Powerball jackpot, lottery officials said. It was the 13th drawing held in the days since a Virginia man won a $217 million jackpot Feb. 6.
Thirteen other tickets worth $1 million each matched all but the final Powerball number on Saturday night. Those tickets were sold in New Jersey and 10 other states. Lottery officials said there was also one Power Play Match 5 winner in Iowa.
The New Jersey Lottery said Sunday that details about the winning ticket would be released Monday, declining to reveal where it had been purchased and whether anyone had immediately come forward. It was the sixth largest jackpot in history.
The numbers drawn were 17, 29, 31, 52, 53 and Powerball 31. A lump sum payout would be $221 million.
Lottery officials said the 13 tickets worth $1 million apiece ? matching the first five numbers but missing the Powerball ? were sold in Arizona, Florida (2), Illinois, Minnesota, North Carolina, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania (2), South Carolina and Virginia.
Powerball said on its website that the grand prize jackpot has now been reset to an estimated $40 million or a lump sum cash amount estimated at $25 million for Wednesday's next drawing.
No one had won the Powerball jackpot since early February, when Dave Honeywell in Virginia bought the winning ticket and elected a cash lump sum for his $217 million jackpot.
The largest Powerball jackpot ever came in at $587.5 million in November. The winning numbers were picked on two different tickets ? one by a couple in Missouri and the other by an Arizona man ? and the jackpot was split.
Nebraska still holds the record for the largest Powerball jackpot won on a single ticket ? $365 million. That jackpot was won by eight workers at a Lincoln, Neb., meatpacking plant in February 2006.
Powerball is played in 42 states, Washington, D.C., and the U.S. Virgin Islands. The chance of matching all five numbers and the Powerball number is about 1 in 175 million.
Powerball said on its website that the game is played every Wednesday and Saturday night when five white balls are drawn from a drum of 59 balls and one red ball is picked from a drum with 35 red balls. It added that winners of the Powerball jackpot can elect to be paid out over 29 years at a percentage set by the game's rules ? or in a lump sum cash payment.
DOHA, Qatar (AP) ? In a symbolic blow to embattled Syrian President Bashah Assad, senior Arab diplomats say the Arab League has decided to transfer Syria's seat to opposition forces.
The decision is unlikely to mean much in practical terms to Assad's regime, which has already been abandoned by many Arab states that are siding with rebel forces. But it reflects pressure by key rebel backers ? Qatar and Saudi Arabia ? for a show of Arab solidarity against Assad at a two-day Arab League Summit beginning Tuesday in Doha.
Egyptian Foreign Minister Mohammed Amr Kamel said Sunday that Syrian opposition can now send an envoy to the summit.
Earlier, Qatar's prime minister, Hamad bin Jassim Al Thani, urged the new head of the Syrian opposition's interim government, Ghassan Hitto, to attend.
Mar. 22, 2013 ? In August 2011, researchers from the U.S. Department of Agriculture were presented with a serious, and potentially very costly, puzzle in Kennewick, Wash. Since Kennewick lies within a region near the heart of Washington state's $1.5 billion apple-growing region, an annual survey of fruit trees is performed by the Washington State Department of Agriculture (WSDA) to look for any invading insects. This time the surveyors discovered a crabapple tree that had been infested by a fruit fly that they couldn't identify.
It was possible that the fly's larvae, eating away inside the crabapples as they grew toward adulthood, belonged to a relatively harmless species that had simply expanded its traditional diet. In that case, they posed little threat to the surrounding apple orchards in central Washington.
But the real fear was that they represented an expansion in the range of the invasive apple maggot fly, known to biologists as Rhagoletis pomonella. If so, then this would trigger a costly quarantine process affecting three counties in the state.
"In one of the world's leading apple-growing regions, a great deal of produce and economic livelihood rested on quickly and accurately figuring out which one of the flies was in that tree," says Jeffrey Feder, professor of biological sciences and a member of the Advanced Diagnostics & Therapeutics initiative (AD&T) at the University of Notre Dame. "And for these flies, it can sometime turn out to be a difficult thing to do."
As Feder and his team, including graduate student Gilbert St. Jean and AD&T research assistant professor Scott Egan, discuss in a new study in the Journal of Economic Entomology, the WSDA sent larvae samples to Wee Yee, research entomologist at the USDA's Yakima Agricultural Research Laboratory in Wapato, Wash. One larva was sent to Notre Dame for genetic analysis. The study sought to compare Notre Dame's genetic analysis to Yee's visual identification after the larvae had developed into adults. Fortunately, the fly identified, Rhagoletis indifferens, is not known to infest apples. The Notre Dame group further demonstrated that it is possible to genetically identify the correct fly species within two days, compared to the four months required to raise and visually identify the fly.
A separate study led by the Feder lab details how the apple maggot fly was recently introduced into the Pacific Northwest region of the U.S., likely via larval-infested apples from the East. The flies have subsequently reached as far north as British Columbia, Canada, and as far south as northern California. So far, though, the apple maggot has not been reported infesting any commercial apple orchards in central Washington.
"The correct identification of the larvae infesting crabapple trees saved the local, state and federal agencies thousands of dollars in monitoring, inspection and control costs," Yee said. "The cost to growers if the apple maggot had been found to be established in the region would have been very substantial (easily over half a million dollars), but the rapid diagnostic test developed at Notre Dame suspended the need to proceed with the rulemaking process, saving staff and administrative costs."
The Feder team is continuing to refine the genetic assays to develop a portable test that would be valuable in apple-growing regions, as well as ports of entry where fruit infested by nonlocal insect species can be rapidly detected, to prevent the spread of the insect.
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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by University of Notre Dame. The original article was written by Kirk Reinbold.
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A secret bunker meant to house Benito Mussolini was discovered in Rome (Wikicommons)Workers in Rome have stumbled across a top-secret bunker once belonging to former Fascist leader Benito Mussolini, hidden underneath the historic Palazzo Venezia.
The discovery is the 12th such bunker as is said to have been the ?most secret? of the former strongman?s hideouts, according to the Italian publication La Stampa.
And in what has become a tradition of sorts, the bunker will soon go on display for the public to tour and document, as has been done with other recently discovered Mussolini bunkers. City officials plan to install lighting, a touchscreen system and an air siren, meant to simulate the sounds of an impending air raid.
The nine room hidden compound was reportedly unearthed by city superintendent Anna Imponente and architect Carlo Serafini, who were busy inspecting a restoration project on the 15th century building that sits atop the bunker. The Palazzo Venezia currently houses a national museum and has been a historically significant structure for centuries, having been used by high ranking members of the Roman Catholic Church and other important figures over the years.
During their inspection, Serafini and Imponente noticed a tiny wooden hatch, which led down to the bunker nearly 50 feet beneath the earth.
?When we saw the concrete, it was all clear,? Serafini told the paper. "It?s the twelfth bunker of Rome -- Benito Mussolini?s last bunker."
Although the bunker was never finished, there are holes in the wall meant for indoor plumbing and electricity, Serafini says the structure is so solid it would have likely held up under an assault from Allied forces.
"The walls rest on the foundations of an old tower, and are almost two meters thick in some places," Serafini told the paper. "It would have probably only been designed for Mussolini himself and one other person; more than likely his mistress, Claretta Petacci.?
MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia criticized the United States and Georgia on Friday over their joint military exercises in the former Soviet republic, accusing Washington of putting peace at risk five years after a war between Moscow and Tbilisi.
The United States started annual training exercises in Georgia in 2010, two years after Tbilisi fought a five-day war with its former Soviet master over two breakaway Georgian regions.
The Russian Foreign Ministry voiced "concern" about the exercises at Vaziani military training ground, in which 400 U.S. marines are participating. They started on March 11 and continue until April 5.
"We believe that any foreign military assistance to Georgia, whatever the motivation, complicates the prospects for strengthening peace and stability in the region," the ministry said in a statement.
Russia and Georgia accuse each other of starting the 2008 war, in which Russian forces repelled a Georgian offensive in breakaway South Ossetia and drove deep into the small ex-Soviet republic before a ceasefire brokered by the European Union.
Moscow has repeatedly warned that U.S. military aid or cooperation could encourage pro-Western Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, portrayed by the Kremlin as bellicose and unbalanced, to unleash a new conflict.
The United States and Georgia say the exercises are aimed at training for combat in Afghanistan, where Georgian soldiers have served since 2004, underscoring the nation's desire for closer cooperation with NATO.
Ties between Russia and Georgia have improved since Saakashvili's party lost its dominance in parliament in elections last October and billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili, who made his fortune in Russia, became prime minister.
Saakashvili's efforts to bring Georgia into NATO angered the Kremlin and added to tension that led to the war in the South Caucasus nation, which has pipelines carrying Caspian oil and gas westward toward Europe, bypassing northern neighbor Russia.
(Additional reporting by Margarita Antidze in Tbilisi; Editing by Steve Gutterman)
NEW YORK (Reuters) - A rare portrait of the wife of Henri Matisse by artist Andre Derain and a monumental work by Jackson Pollock could each sell for $20 million or more in spring auctions in New York, auction houses said on Friday.
Christie's will offer "Madame Matisse," a vibrant 1905 oil canvas with a pre-sale estimate of as much as $20 million, at its sale of Impressionist and modern art on May 8.
At Sotheby's, a highlight of its May 14 sale is likely to be Jackson Pollock's "The Blue Unconscious" from 1946 that is expected to sell for up to $30 million.
Christie's said the Derain portrait, a vibrant 1905 oil on canvas, is the most important work by the French artist ever to appear at auction. Derain painted Matisse's wife during a summer in Collioure in France.
The painting shows Am?lie Matisse in the patterned Japanese kimono she often wore and in which her husband painted her, as did several of his colleagues. She holds a red fan and sits with one elbow resting on a table.
The work, one of Derain's few fully realized portraits, will be exhibited in London, Moscow and New York prior to the sale.
Pollock's "Blue Unconscious" has not been offered for sale in nearly 50 years, having remained in the same private collection, according to Sotheby's, which did not disclose the seller.
But the work is likely to generate intense interest since Pollocks are relatively rare at auction. A Pollock record was set in November when Sotheby's sold "Number 4, 1951" for $40.4 million, well above the pre-sale estimate of about $30 million.
The painting is one of seven in Pollock's "Sounds in the Grass" series executed in his studio on Long Island. Five of the works are in major museums, including the Museum of Modern Art and the Peggy Guggenheim Foundation in Venice.
It will be exhibited in Los Angeles, London and New York before the auction at Sotheby's on May 14.
(Reporting by Chris Michaud; Editing by Vicki Allen)
By Amelia Mularz On Wednesday, Ryan Gosling let the world know that this is a break, not a breakup. He told the Associated Press that he needs some time away from acting and said, "I need a break from myself as much as I imagine the audience does." No, Ryan, no we do not. But [...]
Online game publisher Zynga relaunched its website on Thursday, allowing users to play its games without first signing on to Facebook, a significant step toward establishing its independence from Facebook.
The relaunch of Zynga.com is the latest step in the slow dissolution of a special partnership that once bound two of the most influential players in the social Internet industry.
Tim Catlin, general manager of Zynga.com, told Reuters he believed Zynga's players wanted to create unique player names that were not tied to their Facebook accounts, which displays their real names.
"You had to use your Facebook account to play previously, but this is going to change going forward," said Catlin, who added that existing players will still be able to log in with their Facebook accounts.
New players, however, will be able to easily sign up without using Facebook credentials ? long a hallmark of many Zynga games.
"We've been able to greatly streamline that process," Catlin said of the new Zynga.com website, which has been in the works for the past year.
Founded in 2007, Zynga achieved a searing growth rate in its early years by exclusively tapping Facebook's network to gain new users while offering games directly within Facebook.com web pages.
For several years the companies enjoyed a lucrative and symbiotic relationship, with Zynga deriving close to 90 percent of its revenues from Facebook games, while Facebook received roughly 15 percent of its income in the form of fees from Zynga.
But Zynga's competitive advantage on the world's largest social network gradually shrank as other publishers entered the market, and the company's leadership has been faulted for not diversifying away from Facebook's platform earlier.
Last year, Facebook and Zynga announced that they agreed to amend a longstanding deal that had given Zynga special privileges on the Facebook platform.
Rather than relying on Facebook's communications features, Zynga has focused on building out features of its own such as its "social stream," a bar that is displayed within games to connect players to each other.
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Public release date: 26-Mar-2013
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