Tuesday, April 30, 2013

5 Top Resorts In France For A School Ski Trip - ArticleSnatch.com

There are many iconic ski destinations all over the world to choose from when it comes to taking a group of students abroad. You may consider gliding down the classy slopes of Aspen or enjoying the many gourmet cafes in Deer Valley while in the US; you could be sipping hot chocolate and breezing down the valleys and hills of the Swiss or Italian Alps; but in reality, you can't go past France if you're looking for the perfect destination for a school ski trip.

France offers students a variety of cultural icons, a potent heritage and culture, gourmet cuisine, top-notch services and, of course, ideal powder, runs and slopes. Here are five picture perfect resorts that offer world-class locations for ski excursions.

Alpe d'Huez

One of France's most prestigious and popular resorts, Alpe d'Huez is an ideal venue for a school ski trip. On the Grand Domain mountain range, the resort is blessed with a wide variety of slopes and runs, with some of the most state-of-the-art lifts in Europe, and nearly 300 days of sunshine a year. Students of all different skill levels can enjoy the slopes, while off them they can have fun in the pools, ice rinks or karaoke halls.

Le Corbier

When deciding on a destination for a school ski trip, who could pass up the opportunity to spend time in one of the largest Alpine resorts? Still relatively unknown, Le Corbier flaunts its almost 300 kilometres of perfect Alpine views and high altitude slopes while also offering superbly comfortable accommodation. Students will enjoy the disco, bowling and pizza nights while carving up the spectacular wide runs under blue skies.

Les Deux Alpes

This resort does not just provide excellent amenities, it offers a complete snow sports experience. Students can hit the slopes but they can also swim, board, skate, dance and eat well. The slopes themselves are varied and diverse, catering for all levels of skill - from beginners finding their feet on the snow, to hardened experts keen to shred the white stuff like a pro.

Montgenvre

No school ski trip to France is complete without digging into the heritage of the nation's culture, history and cuisine. Montgenvre, located as it is in the famous Alpine pass between Italy and France, boasts proximity to the history-rich town of Brianon, and will allow students a chance to experience roomy slopes with a traditional and authentic feel.

Risoul

Finally, Risoul will immerse students in an ideal environment with a little taste of all things French. Near year-round sunshine, a small resort feel, a gorgeous forest setting, and small French market town nearby makes this wonderful resort perfect for students travelling as a group.

For a successful and memorable school ski trip, an excursion to any of the above resorts will introduce students to some of the world's best slopes and the unique French culture.

Susan Joubert works for Ski Plan Travel, the market leaders in skiing for schools. Experts in arranging school ski trip itineraries, Ski Plan has over 14 years experience organising safe and successful ski trips. We arrange school ski courses with an extensive range of resorts for your school ski experience.

Source: http://www.articlesnatch.com/Article/5-Top-Resorts-In-France-For-A-School-Ski-Trip/4580992

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Monday, April 29, 2013

Cancer, mud, no match for VB runner | WAVY.com | Virginia Beach ...

VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. (WAVY) - Cancer, disease and mud were no match for one Virginia Beach runner who crossed the finish line at the Dirty Girl Mud Run Saturday morning.

Jan Morrow fought off a rare blood disease and a cancerous lung tumor. And at one point, she had to give up running altogether.

But, Morrow is back on track, and feeling stronger than ever.

She shared her story with WAVY.com photojournalist Kenny Becker.
?

Source: http://www.wavy.com/dpp/news/local_news/va_beach/cancer-mud-no-match-for-vb-runner

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Saturday, April 27, 2013

Tesla announces new service details, unconditional warranty for Model S battery

Tesla announces new service details, unconditional warranty for Model S battery

Tesla CEO Elon Musk talked a bit about his goals for expanded service options in his interview with us earlier this month, and he's today detailed some of those options that the company is ready to roll out. That includes one perk that's been mentioned previously: the ability to get a Model S loaner to tide you over when you have to turn your car in for service. What's more, that loaner will be a top-of-the-line Model S regardless of the car you turn in (there's a fleet of 85 to start with, each with valet service to your location), and customers in "most markets" can also opt to get a Tesla Roadster as a loaner if they'd prefer to try out something sportier. Musk further explains that customers can even choose to keep that loaner car if they like it better, and simply pay the difference.

Beyond that, Tesla is now making annual checkups entirely optional, meaning that your warranty will still be valid for the full term even if you never take your car in. And rounding things out is what Tesla describes as an "unconditional warranty" on Model S batteries, which will let owners get a factory reconditioned unit as a replacement even in the case of user error. You can find the full details on the new options in Musk's blog post announcing the news linked below.

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Source: Tesla

Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/rQfCTGrafpY/

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Friday, April 26, 2013

South Coast Elevenses - Local Business Networking, Russells ...

Every 2 weeks in Russells Garden Centre Cafe Restaurant from 11am til 12.30pm.

Ideal for home businesses, shops, SMEs, salons etc.

FREE & RELAXED (Just pay for your own refreshments)

Networking Address:

Russells Garden Centre

Restaurant/Deli, Main Rd, Birdham, Chichester

West Sussex, PO20 7BY.

Free Parking & Wheelchair Access

Includes: Birdham, Bracklesham, Chichester, Earnley, East Wittering, Havant, Pagham, Selsey, Sidlesham, West Itchenor, West Wittering and surrounding areas.

Event Organised By

JK Accountancy & Bookkeeping

www.jkab.co.uk

We are based in Crookham Village, Church Crookham, Fleet, Hampshire and West Wittering, West Sussex.

JKAB is the answer to all of your Accountancy and Bookkeeping needs, wherever you may be in the UK.

Attending this event or want to share it on Facebook? Comment below!

Source: http://www.findnetworkingevents.com/events/index.cfm?action=eventdetail&eventid=56601&utm_source=sitefeeds&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=regionfeed

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Online privacy is evolving. Does it matter to you?

WASHINGTON (AP) ? Online privacy rules are changing. The question now is how much you'll care.

America's tech industry is finalizing voluntary disclosure standards on the sensitive information being sucked from your smartphone like your location, surfing habits and contacts. Senate Democrats are pushing for a clearer opt-out button for all online tracking. And Microsoft is offering a new browser that encourages people to block the technology that enables tracking.

Industry officials say they understand some people want greater control. But they are betting that consumers don't really mind trading some basic information about themselves for free access.

"Consumers are very pragmatic people," Lou Mastria, managing director of the Digital Advertising Alliance, said in an interview this week. "They want free content. They understand there's a value exchange. And they're OK with it."

Mobile applications like Google Maps, Angry Birds and GasBuddy have become popular, inexpensive ways to personalize smartphones or tablets and improve their functionality. Often free or just 99 cents to download, apps can turn a phone into a sophisticated roaming office or game console with interactive maps and 24-7 connectivity.

But like all those websites that offer medical advice or parenting tips, there's a hitch: They want information from you like your birthdate or ZIP code. Developers say data collection is necessary for the software to work as promised and to reward the intellectual creativity behind it.

"There's no free lunch," said Adam Thierer, a senior research fellow at George Mason University's Mercatus Center. "It's essentially a quid pro quo. You'll trade a little bit of information for all that free content and great services."

The online privacy debate has stumped Congress and prompted limited input from the Obama administration, mindful of consumers' concerns but reluctant to crush a growing industry in a difficult economy.

Some lawmakers, mostly Democrats but some libertarian Republicans, say consumers should have the option of not being tracked at all. Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., chairman of the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, planned a hearing Wednesday to press his proposal to subject companies to penalties by the Federal Trade Commission if they violate a consumer's "do not track" request.

Industry is pushing back. The Digital Advertising Alliance points to its web-based icon program that links consumers to an opt-out site of participating advertisers. They say some 20 million people have visited their site and only 1 million of those consumers chose to opt out of all ad tracking.

But privacy advocates, backed by the FTC, say the issue goes well beyond targeted advertising, particularly when it comes to a mobile device. Because a smartphone can divulge a person's location, the FTC warned in a recent report that detailed profiles of a person's movements can be collected over time and in surprising ways, revealing a person's habits and patterns and making them vulnerable to stalking or identity theft.

Some researchers also say they suspect retailers are engaging in "price discrimination" ? the practice of setting a price based on personal data, such as the average home price in their area or a person's proximity to a competitor.

Marc Rotenberg, executive director of Electronic Privacy Information Center, said most consumers aren't even aware of the extent to which their information is being collected and how it's used. And as with any product on the market, companies should be required to take meaningful steps to make sure people don't get hurt, he said.

"You shouldn't be put at risk if a car is correctly designed when you go on the highway," Rotenberg said. "And that's our view of Internet-based services. People shouldn't have to lose their privacy to use Internet-based services."

FTC Commissioner Julie Brill says the biggest concerns are all the unknowns. The FTC has asked nine data brokers to disclose what information they collect on consumers and how they use it. Brill said she worries that companies might determine a person's eligibility for certain products and services based on information collected online, potentially violating credit reporting and fair lending laws, but without authorities knowing it.

"The industry is moving so quickly and changing so much that we need to make sure that the laws are keeping up with it," Brill said in a recent interview.

So far, the only solution to emerge has been voluntary industry standards. The Commerce Department's National Telecommunications and Information Administration has been coordinating among some 80 industry lobbyists, consumer advocates, academics and technology experts to devise the new disclosure standards for mobile apps that would offer consumers a quick, easy-to-read snapshot of what information is collected and whether it's shared with third parties.

While the final agreement isn't expected until later this spring, the privacy disclosures are expected to look less like a legal manifesto and more like a nutrition label. Just as some snacks are labeled as high in fat or sodium, some mobile apps might have to fess up to being bigger data collectors than others.

In the end, Thierer isn't sure consumers will care that they've been labeled by a marketing company as someone who, for example, likes to play "Angry Birds" and lives in Ohio.

"The problem is that a lot of these cases driving the debate are worst-case scenarios ... but in reality they are still hypothetical," Thierer said.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/online-privacy-evolving-does-matter-062419989--finance.html

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SKorea demands talks with NKorea on closed factory

FILE - In this June 22, 2006 file photo, North Koreans work at a factory of South Korean apparel maker Shinwon company in the inter-Korean industrial park in Kaesong, North Korea. South Korea on Thursday, April 25, 2013 warned of an unspecified "grave measure" if North Korea rejects talks on the jointly run factory park shuttered for nearly a month - setting up the possible end of the last remaining major symbol of inter-Korean cooperation.(AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon, File)

FILE - In this June 22, 2006 file photo, North Koreans work at a factory of South Korean apparel maker Shinwon company in the inter-Korean industrial park in Kaesong, North Korea. South Korea on Thursday, April 25, 2013 warned of an unspecified "grave measure" if North Korea rejects talks on the jointly run factory park shuttered for nearly a month - setting up the possible end of the last remaining major symbol of inter-Korean cooperation.(AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon, File)

U.S. Army soldiers ride an armored vehicle during their military exercise near the border village of Panmunjom, that separates the two Koreas, in Paju, north of Seoul, South Korea, Wednesday, April 24, 2013. For weeks, North Korea has threatened to attack the U.S. and South Korea for holding joint military drills and for supporting U.N. sanctions. Washington and Seoul said they've seen no evidence that Pyongyang is actually preparing for a major conflict, though South Korean defense officials said the North appears prepared to test-fire a medium-range missile capable of reaching the American territory of Guam. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man)

North Korean soldiers salute in front of Kumsusan Palace of the Sun, the mausoleum where the bodies of the late leaders Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il lie embalmed, in Pyongyang on Thursday, April 25, 2013. North Korea on Thursday marked the 81st anniversary of the founding of its military, which began as an anti-Japanese militia and now has an estimated 1.2-million troops. (AP Photo/David Guttenfelder)

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) ? After weeks of threatening rhetoric from the North, South Korea on Thursday promised its own unspecified "grave measures" if Pyongyang rejects talks on a jointly run factory park shuttered for nearly a month.

The park in the North Korean border town of Kaesong is the most significant casualty so far in the recent deterioration of relations between the Koreas. Pyongyang barred South Korean managers and cargo from entering North Korea earlier this month, then recalled the 53,000 North Koreans who worked on the assembly lines.

South Korea's Unification Ministry on Thursday proposed working-level talks on Kaesong and urged the North to respond by noon Friday, warning that Seoul will take "grave measures" if Pyongyang rebuffs the call for dialogue.

In a televised news conference, spokesman Kim Hyung-suk refused to say what those measures might be. Some analysts said Seoul would likely pull out the roughly 175 South Korean managers who remain at the complex.

Kim said South Korea set a Friday deadline because the remaining workers at Kaesong are running short of food and medicine. He said the companies there are suffering economically because of the shutdown.

To resolve deadlocked operations at Kaesong, Kim said North Korea should first allow some South Koreans to cross the border to hand over food and medicine to the managers.

North Korea didn't immediately respond Thursday, according to the Unification Ministry. North Korean state television showed fighter jets screeching across the sky and goose-stepping soldiers parading in front of leader Kim Jong Un at a ceremony in Pyongyang marking the 81st anniversary of the founding of the military. Tens of thousands of people visited Pyongyang's Kumsusan Palace to celebrate the anniversary.

The demand for talks follows a lull in what had been a period of rising hostility between the Koreas. Pyongyang has recently eased its threats of nuclear war and expressed some tentative signs of interest in dialogue. Its demands, including dismantling all U.S. nuclear weapons, go far beyond what its adversaries will accept, but Washington, Seoul and Beijing have also pushed for an easing of animosity.

The Kaesong complex is the last major symbol of cooperation remaining from an earlier era that saw the Koreas set up various projects to facilitate better ties.

The factory park has operated with South Korean know-how and technology and with cheap labor from North Korea since 2004. It has weathered past cycles of hostility between the rivals, including two attacks blamed on North Korea in 2010 that killed 50 South Koreans.

More than 120 South Korean companies, mostly small and medium-sized apparel and electronics firms, operated at Kaesong before North Korean workers stopped showing up on April 9. Raw material came from South Korea, with finished goods later sent back south. Last year, the factories produced goods worth $470 million.

Impoverished North Korea objects to views in South Korea that the park is a source of badly needed hard currency. South Korean companies paid salaries to North Korean workers averaging $127 a month, according to South Korea's government. That is less than one-sixteenth of the average salary of South Korean manufacturer workers.

Pyongyang also has complained about alleged South Korean military plans in the event the North held the Kaesong managers hostage.

South Koreans remaining at Kaesong are free to leave, but have been staying to protect their companies' equipment and products. Their food, which had been brought in before North Korea closed the border, is dwindling, and there has been a daily trickle of managers returning home.

On Wednesday, South Korean President Park Geun-hye said the country won't seek to resolve the Kaesong standoff by making concessions to the North. That was a reference to past liberal governments that were accused of providing the North with almost unconditional financial assistance to promote reconciliation.

"How the Kaesong issue is handled will be a touchstone for whether South-North relations will be predictable and sustainable," Park told South Korean journalists, according to her office. "I want the issue to be resolved quickly, but I would say there should not be a solution like funneling" aid, as has happened in the past.

Kim, the spokesman, said: "It's very regrettable for North Korea to reject (taking) the minimum humanitarian measures for our workers at the Kaesong industrial complex."

___

Associated Press writer Jean H. Lee in Pyongyang, North Korea, contributed to this report.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2013-04-25-AS-Koreas-Tension/id-2e880d936c71457dbf12008e3c36f637

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Thursday, April 25, 2013

Ex-bin Laden secretary gets life for 1998 embassy bombings role

By Nate Raymond

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A former personal secretary to Osama bin Laden was sentenced to life in prison on Tuesday, for the second time, for participating in a conspiracy to kill Americans that included the 1998 bombings of two U.S. embassies in Africa.

Wadih El-Hage, a Lebanese-born U.S. citizen and former al Qaeda member, was one of four people convicted in 2001 for their roles in bombings of embassies in Kenya and Tanzania that killed 224 people and injured thousands.

El-Hage, 52, was convicted in 2001 on charges including conspiring to kill U.S. nationals and destroy government-owned buildings, in addition to multiple counts of perjury. He was re-sentenced on Tuesday after a prior life term was reversed in 2008 and sent back to the district court.

His lawyers sought leniency. But in handing down the new sentence, U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan in Manhattan cited El-Hage's lack of remorse and the likelihood the man he termed a "committed terrorist" would resume his activities if released.

"It is necessary to deter others," Kaplan said. "It is necessary to prevent you from resuming terrorist activities."

The case, dating back to the Clinton administration, provided a fresh reminder of U.S. prosecutors abilities to prosecute cases involving terrorism charges in civilian courts.

Debate had surged in recent days over the federal government's decision on Monday to prosecute Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev in a Massachusetts court rather than before a military commission as an "enemy combatant."

El-Hage was a former personal secretary of bin Laden, who was indicted in the same 1998 case for masterminding the embassy bombings in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.

El-Hage, who was in Texas with his family at the time of the embassy bombings, was not accused of directly carrying them out.

Instead, he was convicted of helping establish al Qaeda's front businesses following the move of its operations to Sudan in 1989 and of lying to a Manhattan federal grand jury probing bin Laden and al Qaeda.

A different judge, U.S. District Judge Leonard Sand, had previously sentenced El-Hage to life in prison in October 2001, just a month after the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington.

But the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, while upholding his conviction, reversed his sentence in 2008, citing a 2005 U.S. Supreme Court case that struck down the mandatory application of federal sentencing guidelines used in his case.

El-Hage, whose re-sentencing had been scheduled for as early as 2009 but was pushed back at the request of the defense, called his conviction an injustice and contended the jury was biased.

"Most importantly, God knows this and he does not stand for injustice, and he punishes swiftly and severely for injustice," he said.

As part of his new sentence, Kaplan also ordered El-Hage to pay $33.8 million in restitution.

(Reporting by Nate Raymond in New York; Editing by Cynthia Johnston and Bob Burgdorfer)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/ex-bin-laden-secretary-gets-life-1998-embassy-001407829.html

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Videogram Launches iOS App And Platform To Give Publishers Better Video Thumbnails

videogramThe problem with most video apps is that they don't allow viewers to have much of a clue about what a video is actually like. Too often, video publishers pick a thumbnail that is misleading or only shows a small bit of what their content is about. That can leave viewers frustrated if they invest the time to actually watch a video. And for publishers, it means lost views.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/fv8Z4oyReBM/

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Wednesday, April 24, 2013

New home sales climb 1.5 percent, bolstering housing recovery

New home sales improved again in March. Despite a minor slowdown in existing home sales, analysts are optimistic that the US housing recovery is continuing and that home prices will rise.?

By Schuyler Velasco,?Staff writer / April 23, 2013

A worker helps frame a new home under construction last month in Matthews, N.C. New home sales rose 1.5 percent in March, the Commerce Department said Tuesday.

Chuck Burton/AP/File

Enlarge

The US housing sector is powering ahead. Despite small dips in the road, the market is expected to see further recovery and rising home prices for the rest of the year.

Skip to next paragraph Schuyler Velasco

Staff writer/editor

Schuyler Velasco is a writer and editor for the Monitor's business desk.? She writes about consumer issues, sports, and the occasional sandwich.

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The latest evidence: new home sales. They rose 1.5 percent in March to 417,000 homes, up from 410,000 new homes in February, according to Commerce Department data released Tuesday. Sales were up 18.5 percent from March 2012.

?Trends in new home sales remain consistent with a broad-based recovery in US housing,? Barclays researcher Michael Gapen wrote in an e-mailed analysis. ?We look for lean inventories of both new and existing homes to support homebuilder activity and house prices in the coming quarters.?

What's less clear is whether the number of home sales will accelerate. In contrast to new home sales, existing home sales slipped 0.6 percent between February and March, meaning the market is on pace to sell 4.92 million home on the year, according to the Washington-based National Association of Realtors (NAR).?

France legalizes gay marriage after harsh debate

French justice minister Christiane Taubira addresses members of parliament during the questions to the government session, at the National Assembly in Paris, Tuesday April 23, 2013. President Francois Hollande's social reform on gay marriage and adoption have already been approved by both houses of French parliament. The second and final reading is expected today. (AP Photo/Remy de la Mauviniere)

French justice minister Christiane Taubira addresses members of parliament during the questions to the government session, at the National Assembly in Paris, Tuesday April 23, 2013. President Francois Hollande's social reform on gay marriage and adoption have already been approved by both houses of French parliament. The second and final reading is expected today. (AP Photo/Remy de la Mauviniere)

Frigide Barjot, leader of the movement against gay marriage, 2nd right, talks to the media as she visits mothers, who take part in a vigil to protest against French President Francois Hollande's social reform on gay marriage and adoption next to the Eiffel tower in Paris, Monday, April 22, 2013. Both houses of the French parliament have already approved the bill in a first reading. The second and final reading is expected Tuesday. Eiffel tower is seen in the background. (AP Photo/Michel Euler)

French interior minister Manuel Valls addresses members of parliament during the questions to the government session, at the National Assembly in Paris, Tuesday April 23, 2013. President Francois Hollande's social reform on gay marriage and adoption have already been approved by both houses of French parliament. The second and final reading is expected Tuesday. (AP Photo/Remy de la Mauviniere)

(AP) ? France legalized gay marriage on Tuesday after a wrenching national debate and protests that flooded the streets of Paris. Legions of officers and water cannon stood ready near France's National Assembly ahead of the final vote, bracing for possible violence on an issue that galvanized the country's faltering conservative movement.

The measure passed easily in the Socialist-majority Assembly, 331-225, just minutes after the president of the legislative body expelled a disruptive protester in pink, the color adopted by French opponents of gay marriage.

"Only those who love democracy are here," Claude Bartelone, the Assembly president, said angrily.

In recent weeks, violent attacks against gay couples have spiked and some legislators have received threats ? including Bartelone, who got a gunpowder-filled envelope on Monday.

One of the biggest protests against same-sex marriage drew together hundreds of thousands of people bused in from the French provinces ? conservative activists, schoolchildren with their parents, retirees, priests and others. That demonstration ended in blasts of tear gas, as right-wing rabble-rousers, some in masks and hoods, led the charge against police, damaging cars along the Champs-Elysees avenue and making a break for the presidential palace.

Justice Minister Christiane Taubira told lawmakers that the first weddings could be as soon as June.

"We believe that the first weddings will be beautiful and that they'll bring a breeze of joy, and that those who are opposed to them today will surely be confounded when they are overcome with the happiness of the newlyweds and the families," she said.

When President Francois Hollande promised to legalize gay marriage, it was seen as relatively uncontroversial. But the issue has become a touchstone as his popularity has sunk to unprecedented lows, largely over France's ailing economy.

But the most visible face in the fight against gay marriage ? a former comedienne who goes by the name of Frigide Barjot ? said the movement named "A Protest for Everyone" will continue beyond the law's passage and possibly field candidates in 2014 municipal elections. She said anyone involved in protest violence would be marginalized, but blamed the government for its failure to listen.

"The violence comes from the way in which this was imposed," Barjot told France Info radio.

French conservatives, decimated by infighting and the election loss of standard-bearer Nicolas Sarkozy, had found a rallying cause in same-sex marriage. Hoping to keep the issue alive, the conservative UMP party planned to challenge the law in the Constitutional Council.

French civil unions, allowed since 1999, are at least as popular among heterosexuals as among gay and lesbian couples. But that law has no provisions for adoption, and the strongest opposition in France as far as same-sex couples goes comes when children are involved. According to recent polls, just over half of French are opposed to adoption by same-sex couples ? about the same number who said they favored same-sex marriage.

Christophe Crepin, spokesman for the police union UNSA, says the extraordinary security Tuesday includes a total of about 4,000 officers in the area near the National Assembly building and water cannon positioned nearby. One group of anti-riot police swarmed the banks of the Seine River about a quarter-mile from the legislature, hours before protests were scheduled there.

France is the 14th country to legalize gay marriage. On the cover of Tuesday's Liberation newspaper, the famed gay photographers Pierre and Gilles took over the front page and several of the inside pages, splashing them with some of their most provocative photos, including one of three soccer players ? nude but for the footwear ? facing the camera.

In New Zealand, where gay marriage enjoys popular support, people gathered outside Parliament and joined in singing a traditional Maori love ballad after a vote last week making it legal. Nine states and the District of Columbia in the U.S. also recognize such marriages, but the federal government does not.

___

Follow Lori Hinnant at https://twitter.com/lhinnant

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2013-04-23-EU-France-Gay-Marriage/id-f2b41a03cdeb4ba8b5c84722bcd31341

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Big ecosystem changes viewed through the lens of tiny carnivorous plants

Apr. 23, 2013 ? What do a pond or a lake and a carnivorous pitcher plant have in common?

The water-filled pool within a pitcher plant, it turns out, is a tiny ecosystem whose inner workings are similar to those of a full-scale water body.

Whether small carnivorous plant or huge lake, both are subject to the same ecological "tipping points," of concern on Earth Day--and every day, say scientists.

The findings are published in this week's issue of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

In the paper, ecologists affiliated with the National Science Foundation (NSF) Harvard Forest Long-Term Ecological Research site in Massachusetts offer new insights about how such tipping points happen.

"Human societies, financial markets and ecosystems all may shift abruptly and unpredictably from one, often favored, state to another less desirable one," says Saran Twombly, program director in NSF's Division of Environmental Biology, which funded the research.

"These researchers have looked at the minute ecosystems that thrive in pitcher plant leaves to determine early warning signals and to find ways of predicting and possibly forestalling such 'tipping points.'"

Life in lakes and ponds of all sizes can be disrupted when too many nutrients--such as in fertilizers and pollution--overload the system.

When that happens, these aquatic ecosystems can cross "tipping points" and change drastically. Excess nutrients cause algae to bloom. Bacteria eating the algae use up oxygen in the water. The result is a murky green lake.

"The first step to preventing tipping points is understanding what causes them," says Aaron Ellison, an ecologist at Harvard Forest and co-author of the paper. "For that, you need an experiment where you can demonstrate cause-and-effect."

Ellison and other scientists demonstrated how to reliably trigger a tipping point.

They continually added a set amount of organic matter--comparable to decomposing algae in a lake--to a small aquatic ecosystem: the tiny confines of a pitcher plant, a carnivorous plant native to eastern North America.

Each pitcher-shaped leaf holds about a quarter of an ounce of rainwater. Inside is a complex, multi-level food web of fly larvae and bacteria.

"The pitcher plant is its own little ecosystem," says Jennie Sirota, a researcher at North Dakota State University and lead author of the paper.

Similar to lake ecosystems, oxygen levels inside the water of a pitcher plant are controlled by photosynthesis and the behavior of resident organisms--in this case, mostly bacteria.

Ellison says that conducting an experiment with bacteria is like fast-forwarding through a video.

"A bacterial generation is 20 minutes, maybe an hour," he says. "In contrast, fish in a lake have generation times of a year or more.

"We would need to study a lake for 100 years to get the same information we can get from a pitcher plant in less than a week."

The same mathematical models, Ellison and colleagues discovered, can be used to describe a pitcher plant or a lake ecosystem.

To approximate an overload of nutrients in pitcher-plant water, the team fed set amounts of ground-up wasps to the plants.

"That's equivalent to a 200-pound person eating one or two McDonald's quarter-pounders every day for four days," says Ellison.

In pitcher plants with enough added wasps, an ecosystem tipping point reliably occurred about 45 hours after the start of feeding.

The scientists now have a way of creating tipping points. Their next step will be to identify the early warning signs.

"Tipping points may be easy to prevent," says Ellison, "if we know what to look for."

Other authors of the paper are Benjamin Baiser of Harvard Forest and Nicholas Gotelli of the University of Vermont.

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Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/most_popular/~3/Jm0LPU17tNQ/130423153919.htm

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Tuesday, April 23, 2013

FIFA Twitter accounts hacked by Assad sympathizers

ZURICH (AP) -- Two of FIFA's Twitter accounts have been hacked in the latest wave of cyberattacks claimed by Syrian government sympathizers.

A series of corruption allegations were made on the accounts of FIFA President Sepp Blatter and the World Cup.

With soccer's governing body unable to regain control of either account, the media department confirmed by email that they had been hacked, saying: "We are looking at this issue at the moment."

The Syrian Electronic Army ? hackers sympathetic to Syrian President Bashar Assad ? wrote messages saying it had posted the tweets.

The group also recently claimed to have hacked the Twitter accounts of the BBC Arabic service and broadcaster Al-Jazeera.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/fifa-twitter-accounts-hacked-assad-185807504.html

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Monday, April 22, 2013

Moxie Software Offers Freemium Service, Integrating Collaboration Spaces With Social Knowledge Engine

moxiesoftwareMoxie Software has announced a new freemium service that integrates its collaboration service with its social knowledge engine. Under the new plan,?Collaboration Spaces?is?now free for anyone to use with no limits on users and full features that come with the SaaS offering. The social knowledge engine integration is offered as a premium service that can be integrated with Collaboration Spaces. The cost of the premium social knowledge engine is based upon the number of users on the plan. Moxie’s model is based on the premise that general collaboration has only limited value. It’s good for sharing information, but the real context comes when business processes and analytics integrate into users’ workflows. The social knowledge engine is designed to give answers to questions. With the new premium service, answers that surface in Collaboration Spaces become part of the social knowledge engine and are fed back so actions can be taken quickly. The new service follows Moxie’s announcement last fall that it would provide the ability for customers to tap into the Facebook social graph to determine the best time to engage with people on a brand?s Facebook page. The Facebook service and the new social knowledge engine integration with Collaboration Spaces shows how Moxie is developing use-case-specific ways for contact centers in particular to use its technology. Moxie?sees itself differentiating from services like Jive and Yammer that charge by the user or the enterprise plan and offer general collaboration services.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/eqE209VVNYI/

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Todd Harrell Arrested; 3 Doors Down Bass Player Charged With Vehicular Homicide

Source: http://www.thehollywoodgossip.com/2013/04/todd-harrell-arrested-3-doors-down-bassist-charged-with-vehicula/

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Saturday, April 20, 2013

Magnitude 6.9 quake strikes Sichuan region of China

(Adds quotes, team news for Villa game) By Sonia Oxley MANCHESTER, England, April 19 (Reuters) - Manchester United winger Ashley Young will miss the rest of the season with an ankle injury, manager Alex Ferguson said on Friday. The England international picked up the problem in this month's 2-1 defeat by Manchester City and attended Wednesday's 2-2 draw at West Ham United on crutches. "Ashley is out for the season," Ferguson, whose side can secure the Premier League title on Monday if they beat Aston Villa and second-placed Manchester City lose at Tottenham Hotspur on Sunday, told MUTV. ...

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/magnitude-6-9-quake-strikes-sichuan-region-china-002702079.html

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IBM 1Q net income slips, results miss expectations

NEW YORK (AP) ? IBM Corp.'s first-quarter net income and revenue declined due to delays in closing several of the technology company's large software and mainframe computer deals. The results fell short of Wall Street's expectations, sending IBM's stock lower in after-hours trading.

IBM is seen as a good gauge of technology demand because it sells to major companies and governments around the world. That said, it's not immune to economic uncertainty and currency fluctuations, which were evident in the quarterly results.

IBM said Thursday that it earned $3.03 billion, or $2.70 per share, in the January-March period. That's down 1 percent from $3.07 billion, or $2.61 per share, in the same period a year earlier. Last year's quarter had more outstanding shares, which lowers per-share results.

Earnings excluding one-time items were $3 per share in the latest quarter, below Wall Street's expectations of $3.05 per share.

Revenue fell 5 percent, to $23.41 billion from $24.67 billion. Analysts polled by FactSet expected revenue to be nearly unchanged at $24.65 billion

"Despite a solid start and good client demand we did not close a number of software and mainframe transactions that have moved into the second quarter," said IBM CEO Ginni Rometty in a statement. "The services business performed as expected with strong profit growth and significant new business in the quarter."

Chief Financial Officer Mark Loughridge said on a conference call that weakness in the Japanese yen hurt earnings. A weak yen translates to fewer dollars for IBM on sales in Japan. Adjusted for currency fluctuations, IBM said its revenue would have only declined by 3 percent for the quarter, rather than 5 percent.

IBM kept its full-year guidance intact. It still expects adjusted, per-share earnings of at least $16.70 for 2013. Analysts predict $16.77. Rometty said the company expects to close the delayed transactions and expects to benefit from investments in growth initiatives. She said IBM is also trying to improve the weaker parts of its business.

The company has been focusing on growing its software business, which is more profitable, over hardware.

Revenue from technology services declined 4 percent during the quarter, to $9.6 billion, and business services revenue fell 3 percent, to $4.5 billion. Software revenue was flat at $5.6 billion, while hardware revenue dropped 17 percent to $3.1 billion.

IBM has had a good track record of beating or at least meeting Wall Street's expectations ?the shortfall in profit and revenue is a rare miss.

The company has now been able to grow its earnings per share for 41 consecutive quarters ? more than a decade ? even though it hasn't always increased net income. In the third quarter of 2012 IBM's net income was flat, while per-share earnings grew because the company had fewer outstanding shares. That's what happened in the first quarter. Net income fell but per-share earnings increased.

Shares of the Armonk, N.Y.-based company fell $9.90, or 4.8 percent, to $197.25 in after-hours trading. Before the earnings announcement, the stock closed down $2.52 at $207.15.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/ibm-1q-net-income-slips-results-miss-expectations-222615721--finance.html

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Friday, April 19, 2013

Twitter #Music launched for iOS and Web (but not Android)

Twitter #Music is designed to help users find and share tracks from top artists. For now, however, the app is only available on the Web and iOS devices.?

By Matthew Shaer / April 18, 2013

Thursday is launch day for Twitter #music, the new and much-hyped music discovery service. Haven't been following the #music story? Here's the 30-second primer: The platform tracks the Twitter activity of a range of acts, and highlights trending bands, singers, and rappers on its tiled homepage. In addition, you can search for "emerging" artists or have Twitter recommend an act, based on the artists you already follow.?

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Click on one of the tiles, and a short MP3 will play; if you've got a Spotify or Rdio account, you can listen to the whole song.?

"Twitter and music go great together. People share and discover new songs and albums every day," Stephen Philips of Twitter?wrote?on the Twitter blog. "Many of the most-followed accounts on Twitter are musicians, and half of all users follow at least one musician. This is why artists turn to Twitter first to connect with their fans ? and why we wanted to find a way to surface songs people are tweeting about."

So how does the software hold up? Well, over at 9 to 5 Mac, Zac Hall speculates that the #Music app could end being a "much more developed and useful version" of Ping, the Apple discovery service that was officially closed last September.?

"Overall, Twitter #Music demonstrates a great degree of polish and swiftness," Hall writes. "Unlike Twitter apps, Twitter #Music isn?t shy about having a little design personality while still maintaining more than enough branding presence."?

But don't expect Twitter #Music to revolutionize the way we listen to music online. As ReadWrite's John Paul Titlow notes, #Music is a decent enough recommendation engine ? it's just not a replacement for your usual player.?

"The music-listening part is only really worthwhile to those of us who pay for premium Spotify or Rdio accounts," Titlow writes. "Otherwise, we're left with a mere iTunes snippet and the option to buy the whole track. And if you do have Rdio or Spotify, you're going to continue to use those services' apps for the majority of your listening. Listening to music isn't the main draw of Twitter #Music, just a very nice touch."

For now, Twitter #Music is available only on the Web and as a free iOS app; an Android release is expected at some point, although Twitter has not given any indication as to when exactly that app might launch.?

For?more tech news, follow us on?Twitter @venturenaut.

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/DM09V3Pe3Rg/Twitter-Music-launched-for-iOS-and-Web-but-not-Android

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Macklemore & Ryan Lewis Break Out Camels, Dogsleds For 'Can't Hold Us' Video

'We shot it on six different continents,' Macklemore says of the duo's epic new vid, which premieres Wednesday.
By James Montgomery


Macklemore & Ryan Lewis
Photo: MTV News

Source: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1705824/macklemore-ryan-lewis-cant-hold-us.jhtml

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Big Education Ape: Agenda Advisory Commission on Special ...

Advisory Commission on Special Education (ACSE) meeting agenda.

Advisory Commission on Special Education Members

Kristin Wright, Chair
Diane Fazzi, Vice Chair

Feda Almaliti
Maureen Burness
Morena de Grimaldi
Kristi Hagans
Somer Harding
Sara Jocham
Betty Karnette
Gina Plate
Nancy Portillo
Naomi Rainey
Mariano Sanz
Barbara Schulman
Jaclyn Vincent?

Student Members

Matthew Stacy
Timothy Higgins

Legislative Members

Carol Liu, Senate
Joan Buchanan, Assembly

State Board of Education

Carl Cohn, Liaison

State Special Schools

Scott Kerby, Director, State Special Schools & Services Division
California Department of Education

Executive Secretary

Fred Balcom, Director, Special Education Division
California Department of Education

Agenda Times Are Approximate and Are Provided for Convenience Only

All items may be re-ordered to be heard on any day of the noticed meeting. The order of business may be changed without notice.

Advisory Commission on Special Education
Schedule of MeetingLocation
California Department of Education
1430 N Street, Room 1101
Sacramento, California
916-445-4602

Thursday, May 2, 2013
8:30 a.m. - 1:30 p.m. Pacific Time ?
California Department of Education
1430 N Street, Room 1101
Sacramento, California
916-445-4602

Please see the detailed agenda for more information about the items to be considered and acted upon. The public is welcome.

Guidelines for Public Input Sessions

The Commission welcomes public involvement. Opportunities for public comment are provided at every Commission meeting.

Reasonable Accommodation for Any Individual With a Disability

Pursuant to the?Rehabilitation Act of 1973?and the?Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, any individual with a disability who requires reasonable accommodation to attend or participate in a meeting or function of the Advisory Commission on Special Education (ACSE), may request assistance by contacting the Special Education Division, 1430 N Street, Suite 2401, Sacramento, CA, 95814; telephone, 916-445-4602; fax, 916-327-3706.


Advisory Commission on Special Education
Agenda, Wednesday, May 1, 2013, 10:00 a.m. Pacific Time
California Department of Education
1430 N Street, Room 1101
Sacramento, California
NOTE: Items not heard or completed on March 6, 2013, may be carried over to March 7, 2013.
10:00 - 10:10 a.m.

Call to Order - Roll Call
Salute to the Flag
Communications and Announcements
Review of Agenda

10:10 - 10:25 a.m.

Item 1-Subject:?Operations and Planning for the Advisory Commission on Special Education (ACSE):

  • Election of 2013?14 officers
  • Student commissioner appointment
  • Review 2013?14 meeting calendar

Type of Action:?Action, Information

10:25 a.m. - Noon

Item 2-Subject:?Standing committees will meet separately to discuss and make recommendations to the ACSE, to wit:

Policy Review and Development Standing Committee:

  1. California Code of Regulations, Title 5 review
    1. Clarification regarding teachers of students with vision impairments
    2. Specific learning disability language
    3. Items for further review in Phase II
  2. Behavior intervention plan language and policy considerations
  3. Special education master plan review proposal

Legislation Standing Committee:

  1. Review current legislation of interest to the ACSE.
  2. Review of legislative platform and recommendations for changes and adoption by the ACSE.
  3. Legislative purview and protocol of the ACSE to weigh in.
  4. Establish protocol with legislation, letters, tracking of bills, public testimony at hearings.
  5. Assignment of roles and responsibilities.
  6. Review of State budget language related to behavior intervention plan.

Type of Action:?Action, Information

Noon - 1:00 p.m. Lunch
1:00 - 1:30 p.m.

Item 3-Subject:?Standing committees to convene to discuss outcomes, committee recommendations, and next steps.

Type of Action:?Action, Information

1:30 - 1:45 p.m.

Item 4-Subject:?Public comment is invited on any matter not included on the printed agenda. The Commission is precluded from discussing matters not included on the meeting agenda; however, questions may be asked for clarification. Issues raised by the public may be referred to a future meeting agenda for Commission discussion. A five minute time limit is allocated for each individual.

Type of Action:?Information

1:45 - 3:15 p.m.

Item 5-Subject:?Panel discussion on the provision of educationally related mental health services in public schools:

Type of Action:?Action, Information

3:15 - 3:30 p.m. Break
3:30 - 3:45 p.m.

Item 6-Subject:?Reports from ACSE legislative appointees and/or liaisons including Assembly Member Joan Buchanan; Senator Carol Liu; and Carl Cohn, Member, State Board of Education (SBE) and SBE liaison to the ACSE.

Type of Action:?Action, Information

3:45 - 4:30 p.m.

Item 7-Subject:?Discussion of presentations and concepts presented to the ACSE during the 2012?13 year for the purpose of developing policy recommendations for submittal to the SBE.

Type of Action:?Action, Information

4:30 - 5:00 p.m.

Item 8-Subject:?Commissioner reports on activities, liaison work and representation of the ACSE outside of ACSE meetings.

Type of Action:?Action, Information

Adjournment of day's session.


Advisory Commission on Special Education
Agenda, Thursday, May 2, 2013, 8:30 a.m. Pacific Time
California Department of Education
1430 N Street, Room 1101
Sacramento, California
8:30 - 8:40 a.m.

Call to Order - Roll Call
Salute to the Flag
Communications and Announcements
Review of Agenda

8:40 - 9:00 a.m.

Item 9-Subject:?The ACSE to complete any unfinished business from prior day.

Type of Action:?Action, Information

9:00 - 9:20 a.m.

Item 10-Subject:?Update and discussion on National Center and State Collaborative (NCSC) and Smarter Balance Assessment Consortium (SBAC) specific to students with disabilities presented by Kristen Brown, Education Programs Consultant, Policy and Program Services Unit, Special Education Division, CDE.

Type of Action:?Action, Information

9:20 - 9:40 a.m.

Item 11-Subject:?Update and discussion on State budget presented by Jillian Kissee, Finance Budget Analyst, Education Systems Unit, California Department of Finance.

Type of Action:?Action, Information

9:40 - 10:00 a.m.

Item 12-Subject:?Input is invited from the public and organizational representatives including, yet not limited to, the following interested entities: California Association of Resource Specialist Plus, California Teachers Association, California School Employees Association, Parent-Teachers Associations, Special Education Administrators of County Offices, Special Education Local Plan Areas, Family Empowerment Centers, Parent Training and Information Centers*, California Charter Schools Association, and California Speech-Language-Hearing Association.

*Time will be allocated to distance participant Parent Training Institutes to present issues of importance to parents.

Type of Action:?Information

10:00 - 10:15 a.m. Break
10:15 - 10:35 a.m.

Item 13-Subject:?Update and discussion on the proposed state budget pertaining to Workability presented by Jill Larson, Education Programs Consultant, Special Education Division, CDE.

Type of Action:?Action, Information

10:35 - 10:55 a.m.

Item 14-Subject:?Report on matters pertaining to State Special Schools. Scott Kerby, Director, State Special Schools & Services Division Department of Education.

Type of Action:?Action, Information

10:55 - 11:15 a.m.

Item 15-Subject:?Special Education Division report by Fred Balcom, Director, Special Education Division, CDE.

Type of Action:?Action, Information

11:15 - 11:35 a.m.

Item 16-Subject:?August 2013 agenda building. ACSE Members are invited to participate in agenda for August meeting.

Type of Action:?Action, Information

11:35 a.m. - 12:25 p.m.

Item 17-Subject:?Grazer Outstanding Achievement in Learning (GOAL) Award:

Type of Action:?Action, Information

12:25 - 1:30 p.m.

Item 18-Subject:?GOAL award luncheon to be held in Room 1801 at the California Department of Education.

Type of Action:?Information

Adjournment of day's session.
Adjournment of meeting.

Source: http://bigeducationape.blogspot.com/2013/04/agenda-advisory-commission-on-special.html

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Thursday, April 18, 2013

Image leads to hunt for Boston bombing suspect

Officials stand guard near the site of the Boston Marathon explosions, Wednesday, April 17, 2013, in Boston. Authorities investigating the deadly bombings have recovered a piece of circuit board that they believe was part of one of the explosive devices, and also found the lid of a pressure cooker that apparently was catapulted onto the roof of a nearby building, an official said Wednesday. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)

Officials stand guard near the site of the Boston Marathon explosions, Wednesday, April 17, 2013, in Boston. Authorities investigating the deadly bombings have recovered a piece of circuit board that they believe was part of one of the explosive devices, and also found the lid of a pressure cooker that apparently was catapulted onto the roof of a nearby building, an official said Wednesday. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)

Military Police, left, inspect the identification card of a man trying to get through a checkpoint near the site of the Boston Marathon explosions, Wednesday, April 17, 2013, in Boston. The city continues to cope following Monday's explosions near the finish line of the marathon. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)

Boston Marathon runner Vu Trang, of San Francisco, cries at a makeshift memorial on Boylston Street near the finish line of Monday's Boston Marathon explosions, which killed at least three and injured more than 140, in Boston, Wednesday, April 17, 2013. The bombs that blew up seconds apart near the finish line left the streets spattered with blood and glass, and gaping questions of who chose to attack at the Boston Marathon and why. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)

A makeshift memorial including a pair of running shoes sits on the campus of Boston University after it was learned that BU student Lu Lingzi was one of the victims of the Boston Marathon bombings in Boston Wednesday, April 17, 2013. (AP Photo/Winslow Townson)

Boston University student Joy Liu places a note at a memorial on the campus for Boston Marathon bombing victim Lu Lingzi in Boston Wednesday, April 17, 2013. Lu and two friends had been watching the Boston Marathon near the finish line. (AP Photo/Winslow Townson)

(AP) ? The painstaking work to identify a bombing suspect from reams of Boston Marathon footage yielded a possible breakthrough as investigators focused on a man seen dropping off a bag, and then walking away from the site of the second of two deadly explosions.

The discovery of the image ? found on surveillance footage from a department store near the finish line ? emerged two days after the attack that left three people dead, wounded more than 170, and cast a dark shadow over one of this city's most joyous traditions.

President Barack Obama is planning to attend a service honoring the victims Thursday in Boston, where police were stationed on street corners across downtown and some residents admitted they were nervous moving about in public spaces.

Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick said he shared the frustration that the person or people responsible were still at large, but he said solving the case will not "happen by magic."

"It's going to happen by doing the careful work that must be done in a thorough investigation," Patrick said. "That means going through the couple of blocks at the blast scene square inch by square inch and picking up pieces of evidence and following those trails, and that's going to take some time."

The bombs were crudely fashioned from ordinary kitchen pressure cookers packed with explosives, nails and ball bearings, investigators and others close to the case said. Investigators suspect the devices were then hidden in black duffel bags and left on the ground.

As a result, they were looking for images of someone lugging a dark, heavy bag. Investigators had appealed to the public to provide videos and photographs from the race finish line.

City Council President Stephen Murphy, who said he was briefed by Boston police, said investigators saw the image of the man dropping off a bag and matched the findings with witness descriptions of someone leaving the scene.

One department store video "has confirmed that a suspect is seen dropping a bag near the point of the second explosion and heading off," Murphy said.

Separately, a law enforcement official who was not authorized to discuss the case publicly and spoke to The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity confirmed only that investigators had an image of a potential suspect whose name was not known to them and who had not been questioned. The official said investigators did not know the man's name.

Several media outlets reported that a suspect had been identified from surveillance video taken at a Lord & Taylor department store between the sites of the bomb blasts.

At least 14 bombing victims, including three children, remained in critical condition. Dozens of victims have been released from hospitals, and officials at three hospitals that treated some of the most seriously injured said they expected all their remaining patients to survive. A 2-year-old boy with a head injury was improving and might go home Thursday, Boston Children's Hospital said.

On Wednesday, investigators in white jumpsuits fanned out across the streets, rooftops and awnings around the blast site in search of clues. They picked through trash cans, plastic cup sleeves and discarded sports drink dispensers.

Marian Wilson said she tried not to notice the men slowly pacing and looking for evidence on the street behind her as she ate a tuna sandwich at Stephanie's on Newbury, a restaurant a block from the site of the bombings.

"I just go in and out of being completely freaked out," she said.

Boston remained under a heavy security presence, with scores of National Guard troops gathering among armored Humvees in the Boston Common.

Kenya Nadry, a website designer, took her 5-year-old nephew to a playground.

"There's still some sense of fear, but I feel like Boston's resilient," she said. "The fine men in blue will take care of a lot of it."

Dr. Horacio Hojman, associate chief of trauma at Tufts Medical Center, said patients were in surprisingly good spirits when they were brought in.

"Despite what they witnessed, despite what they suffered, despite many of them having life-threatening injuries, their spirits were not broken," he said. "And I think that should probably be the message for all of us ? that this horrible act of terror will not bring us down."

Obama and his challenger in the last election, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, planned to visit Boston on Thursday to attend the vigil.

The blasts killed 8-year-old Martin Richard, of Boston, 29-year-old Krystle Campbell, of Medford, and Lu Lingzi, a Boston University graduate student from China.

___

Associated Press writers Jay Lindsay, Pat Eaton-Robb, Steve LeBlanc, Bridget Murphy and Meghan Barr in Boston; Eileen Sullivan, Julie Pace and Lara Jakes in Washington; and Marilynn Marchione in Milwaukee contributed to this report.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/347875155d53465d95cec892aeb06419/Article_2013-04-18-Boston%20Marathon-Explosions/id-8a2fc5e4f58946209ebde805df699b12

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Napolitano: Men of interest seen in bomb video (The Arizona Republic)

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Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/299910138?client_source=feed&format=rss

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