jason_omara: Nintendo President takes huge pay cut after company posts 1st loss. They really did beat the boss at the end of the level.

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Source: http://twitter.com/jason_omara/statuses/218712338273026048

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Technology Information

As the world has become increasingly interconnected by modern telecommunication and computer technologies, the concept of information has taken on new meaning and importance. Accordingly, new fields related to designing, using, and man aging systems that handle information have emerged.

As the world has become increasingly interconnected by modern telecommunication and computer technologies, the concept of information has taken on new meaning and importance. Accordingly, new fields related to designing, using, and man aging systems that handle information have emerged.

??????????? After decades of slowly expanding behind the scenes, information technology has suddenly exploded into public view and seems to be every where in the popular media. It is almost impossible to avoid media stories on such topics as the information superhighway, multimedia, or the Internet. These aspects of information technology are just a few of the thousands of ways in which information technology will affect the way we work, live and play .

??????????? Information technology has changed dramatically . Not? long ago, information was processed using electrical or mechanical devices such as typewriters, calculators, and telephones . Calculations made with a calculator had to be typed into a document . Documents then had to be hand carried to a copy machine . Mail could be sent only in printed form . Today , all these devices and procedures have been automated and many of their functions are controlled by built-in microprocessors, computer on chips automated and many of their functions are controlled by build-in microprocessors, computers on chips that give even ordinary devices extraordinary capabilities. But it is not just that individual machines have been improved. The most dramatic change is how all those old information modules are being connected by digital highways .Once information is created in any form, text sound , pictures, animations, or movies, it can be instantly distributed for changed to other forms in a variety of ways . Technology is advancing so rapidly that previously is orated fields such as television , phone , computers , and radio are all converging into a single field .

??????????? Even though we all use modern information technology, we may not necessary concern ourselves with the details of how these new technologies operate. These details are primarily the concern of professionals in technical areas, which we will refer to as the field of information engineering . An information engineering must understand first what information is and how to make it useful to people for example , by transforming it , storing it, or transmitting it.

INFORMATION? TECHNOLOGY

Information Technology , of IT , is the language of today ?s high ?tech world .
At one time , only very large companies might have a need for an IT department or expert . But in today?s information ?driven economy, all companies need someone who can keep their computer systems running smoothly and their technology working efficiently. Today?s IT workers are working an virtually every industry , including banking, telecommunications,? education , retail , law enforcement? and medical .

IT? (information technology ) is a term that encompasses all forms of technology used to create , store , exchange , and? use information in its various forms (business data, voice conversations , still images , motion pictures, multimedia presentations, and other forms , including those not yet conceived). It`s a convenient term for including both telephony and computer technology in the same word . It is the technology that is driving what has often been called ?the information revolution)?.

???????? Definition : IT ( Information Technology ) is a term that encompasses all forms of technology used to create , store , exchange , and use information in its various forms ( business data , voice conversations, still images , motion pictures, multi media presentations, and other forms including those not yet conceived). It`s a convenient term for including botha telephony and computer technology in the same word . It is the technology that is driving what has often been called ?the information revolution ?

IT (information Technology ) is the branch of technology devoted to

? The study and application of data and the processing thereof ; i.e.,the automatic acquisition ,storage ,manipulation ( including transformation ) , management , movement ,control , display ,switching , interchange,. Transmission or reception of data , and

?? The development and use of the hardware , software , firmware , and procedures associated with this processing .

????????? Information Technology means the use of hardware , software , services and supporting infrastructure to manage and deliver information using voice , data and video.

THE IMPORTANCE OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

Is information technology ?, computer? literacy and access to information important in today?s society ? Looking at the facts and figures , the question is rhetorical beyond doubt.

Obviously ,the success in the information society demands computer literacy ,It is more or less impossible to complete and education let alone get and maintain a position on the job market without IT skills . Likewise , the ability to utilize information technology is important in most other aspects of life . Consider email for correspondence, home ? banking ,access to public services, access to library? services, e-commerce, access to traffic information , the ability to book theatre tickets and so on.

????? As such, information technology ,computer literacy and information access is important to everyone in information society , the visually impaired not excluded . In fact , these competencies may be even more important to people with a visual disability ,as discussed in more detail in subsequent sections. To some extend, IT competencies may eventually resolve some of the issues of underemployment and unemployment and unemployment amongst the visually disabled.

APPLICATIONS OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

Computers are every where and business and industry are using them in a new ways unthought-of? of even a decade ago .we can list thousands of these modern uses . Were the power to computers ever shut off , business and industry would almost instantly grind to a halt. Without computers the modern corporation and industry would almost grind to a halt .Without computers, the modern corporation could not even exist . Computer have become so deeply embedded in information? processing and communications systems that almost no activity would be possible without them.

Computer in Business

1. Transaction Processing : Most business activities involve transactions with suppliers, employees , or customers, Computer can make these transactions possible.
2. Home ? based workers : Now that it is easy to connect at home to all of the computers at the office, more and people working at home .These telecommuters often work one or more days without the traditional commute .The same ability to communicate so easily makes home ?based business easier to start and operate.
3. Desktop publishing : Producing finished business literature is one of the uses of the uses of computer in business .Using desktop publishing programs ,or even sophisticated word processing programs ,people can create sales letters , brochures? ,price lists, newsletters, and even book ?length manuals.
4. Financial analysis: Financial analysis is perfumed throughout the company , from top management to down . People can analyze investments , sales , expenses markets and other aspects of the business using both number and graphs .

Computer in Industry

????????? Computers have had a major impact in industries where products are designed and? manufactured. Computer-Aided Design (CAD) is used to develop products. Computer Aided Manufacturing (CAM) is used to produce them .

1. Product design : Designing complicated products con require the efforts of thousands of people working together . This teamwork is greatly enhanced through the use of computerized design.
2. Factories: Factory floors are becoming increasingly populated by computers used for many purposes including inventory control and planning ane process control. Computers are also used to run robots that create, finish , assemble, and test products and their components .

Computer in the home

??? When your computer is connected to a CD-ROM drive , encyclopedia information movies and animation are instantly available. When computer is connected to phone line, we can visit other parts of the world.

Computer in Education

????? Computers have been used in schools since the first Apples were introduced in the 1970.However , their impact was limited then because there were not enough computers and educational computer programming was poor. As technology has advanced education software has become a major influence at all levels from? elementary schools to universities . The ability to connect computer and students together over a network such as the Internet opens up fantastic educational opportunities.

??? Computers are specially valuable for students with special needs .A computer?s voice recognition capabilities and its connection to the Internet make it possible for special education users to participate in learning experiences form which they may have previously been excluded.

Computer? in Entertainment

?????? Computer are used in entertainment to create? or enhance a production or performance. The tools have become so? sophisticated that it?s becoming impossible to? distinguish between the real and the artificial in film and photography .

Computer in science and Engineering

????? Powerful computers are used to simulate dynamic in the practice of science? and engineering.

1. Medicine: Physicians use information technology? to understand the human body and to diagnose disorders .
2. Satellites: Satellites commonly used in Information Technology .They simply relay signals from one pointy to another , eliminating the need for wires between two locations. They also broadcast TV and even Internet signals so they can be picked up by small dish antennas.

FUNCTIONS OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

Information Technology can do at? least three things:

Information Technology can process raw data into useful information .

???? Example : Student data maintenance ? Every college or school has to maintain the data of all the students who are studying in the institution . The data may include reg. no ,name ,class , combination , fees and so? on . The stored can be processed into required information whenever the need arises.

Information Technology can recycle processed information and use it as data in another? processing step .

??? Already processed data can be combined with other information to increase its impact.

???? Payroll: Every organization will have to pay salary to its employees , to do this it will have to maintain the records of its employees . The records may contain information such as emp,no name ,address , basic pay , allowances and so on ,After processing meaningful information such as a pay slip may be generated .

Information Technology can package information? in a new form so it is easier to understand and , more attractive, or more useful

?? Billing System: Any shop dealing with products will have to maintain data about the products present in the shop . The data may include name of the item, weight ,price and so on .The organization of this data into a proper bill is the information , which is generated .

COMPONENTS OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

Information Technology has the following major components:

• Database
• Front End Application
• Network
• Operating Systems

Data Base

? ????What is involved in storing and manipulating data using computers? First of all we require software to store the data . This software is called a data base Databases are an important component of Information Technology .Databases could fall into three major categories:

• Flat files
• Relation databases
• Object oriented databases

??? Flat files databases were used in the 1970s and earlier years . In those days , there were no set industry standards to retrieve and manipulate data . Every body had written their own complicated programs in C language to read and modify data in flat files . Examples of? flat file databases are C databases , Fortran databases , and Pascal databases. In the 1980s relational databases emerged on the scene. The only difference between the flat files databases. The industry adopted the SQL ( Structured Query Language) as a standard language for querying and manipulating the data . Examples of relational databases are Oracle ,DB2 ,Informix and SQL Server .In the late 1990s , Object Oriented databases entered the I.T .market ,however they did not gain too much popularity since they were unable to beat the data integrity provided by relational databases .

Front ? End Application

???? Front ? end applications are another component of Information Technology .Storing the data and displaying it on the screen in a customized format are two different areas . The data is stored in databases .Employees of one department may want to use part of that data and perform some calculations on it ,while employees of some other department may want to use some other data stored in the same database. Each department of the company , for example ,would develop its own front-end applications to display data on the screen ,to perform some calculation on it and then store the new calculated data back to the database , to run some sports on the data . Members of the other department could run a front-end applications of their own to perform similar tasks. Therefore , we understand that each person or group of people can use different front end applications to display the data of their interest form the database and to perform some calculations on it .Different users could ?connect to one database using the same or different front ?end application .Front-end applications could be developed using tools or pure languages .Examples of front-end tools are Developer /2000,Visual Basic

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Professional Tips on Boosting Credit Score Released | Hugo Hosting

New York, NY (HUGO HOSTING) May 31, 2012

RoadFish.com mens lifestyle and finance magazine today urged readers for boosting their people?s credit report while using the professional advice in a recent article by MSN Money. RoadFish.com observed that new reports suspect that credit standing scores have dipped to levels seen before recession, and wise readers to think about a have a have a look at their own personal credit score and develop improving it whether or not it was below desirable.

Stacy Johnson of MSN Money generally known as a credit score because distillation of other nutritional foods using your credit score, declaring that ones credit score may affect you often than merely rates and premiums. Johnson proceeds you just read 18 different tips on ways of improve a credit score since, since they suggests, people?s credit report are not in place. Johnsons tips include attempting to find and disputing errors on credit profile, raising your borrowing limit, and have faraway from closing accounts. Most of his recommendations is in addition to get more information why such a action is critical, the best way will affect for a credit standing, along with the solutions to attempt performing that particular suggestion.

Johnsons report is very timely while using recent announcement by Experian Automotive, who just days ago stated in a website article until this people?s credit report of clients who?ll be seeking loans to accumulate pre-pwned or new vehicles have dropped to levels which may are not since before recession. Experian Automotives quarterly automotive credit analysis reveals make fish an average of, your credit score for borrowers looking at a truck has dipped four points over the previous quarter and also new vehicles, theyve decreased 6 points.

RoadFish.coms Senior staff writer is quoted as saying, I believe folks that realize the worthiness in a a favorable credit record rating have been actively implementing maintaining them, nevertheless, you it is important like us to acquire as aware. Im hoping a lot more males and females will realize the requirement of sustaining a good score, and may make necessary steps for boosting their credit. The space between having a poor score and a decent one can possibly possibly honestly mean the space in paying a thousands more dollars using instances, and also consumers in a nation just climbing beyond a long recession, nobody must be spending that type more income.

In the above-mentioned MSN Money article, one of the many pieces of advice offered may be to start at the start of order to fix a flawed credit score. Johnson states who?s definitely normally takes time correctly to fix a less-than-desirable credit score, there is not any overnight or quick solution. Johnson proceeds to suspect that most consumers will usually avoid seeing improvements over a month, may even a almost a year. He advises website visitors to got down to actively develop repairing their credit score around one 365 day upfront, devoid of after several months earlier, if and when they be intending on making a big purchase that can need a lender to obtain their credit.

RoadFish.com applauded Johnsons techniques for boosting a credit score and seen who?s hoped readers would heed his advice, echoing Johnson in because of the fact that it?s going to require advance try and turn a credit score around. RoadFish.coms Senior staff writer is quoted as saying, Another thing about people?s credit report is simply because are reparable but it surely doesnt happen overnight, and also something requires diligent work and smart, conscious financial choices. The guidance offered in MSN Moneys recent article is aptly timed the way it appears that Americans need to do a volume of try and strengthen her or his people?s credit report. It?s my hope that buyers will seriously analyze their personal credit and earn improvements as appropriate, that will put themselves up for fulfillment down the road situations where their credit might be viewed by potential lenders, employers, and even landlords.

Stacy Johnson is usually an author and finance reporter. They are the creator and host of revenue Talks, a personal finance news series that airs through the local news of 80 network-affiliated Tv producers during the entire nation. Money Talks News is a long term personal finance news series on network television.

About RoadFish.com

RoadFish.com is usually an online men?s lifestyle and finance magazine targeted toward men with their 30?s and 40?s which may previously attained a moderate a advanced success in way of life, and they are generally striving toward more. It is going over current events popular with this type of group, specific items like exciting adventures, consumer interests, and musical heroes like Bob Dylan, plus ways of make countless decrease money. It is usually a publication properties of Purpose Inc.

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1. Bad Credit Loans Surge as People Seek Way Out of Financial Mess
2. Bad Credit Car Loan Qualification Procedures Made Easier
3. Credit Cards for People With Bad Credit Updated for 2012
4. Score Big With March Mania Specials at Desert Rose Resort in Sin city
5. Consumer Credit Card Debt Drops for First Time in Five Months

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Accused NYC madam free on bond; jailed 4 months

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Austin Mayor, city staff plan trip to London for F1 Race

by ASHLEY GOUDEAU / KVUE News and photojournalist KENNETH NULL

Bio | Email | Follow: @AshleyG_KVUE

kvue.com

Posted on June 28, 2012 at 6:32 PM

Updated today at 6:41 PM

AUSTIN -- The City of Austin is a little more than five months away from the Circuit of the Americas (COTA)?Formula 1?race -- the largest,?worldwide event to come to Austin.

"We're going to be on an international stage here, and so we have to familiarize ourselves and do everything we can to try to determine what we need to do to prepare this community," said?Deputy City Manager?Michael McDonald.?

McDonald said about?four weeks ago COTA?offered to send Mayor Lee Leffingwell and City Manager Marc Ott to a similar event -- the F1?race in London. They accepted. The City also wanted to send four staff members,?including Austin Police Chief Art Acevedo and Austin Fire Chief Rhoda Mae Kerr. COTA?agreed to?pay for those additional four rooms, and the City had to buy the plane tickets. Those four tickets are going to cost $5,400. The money will come from the travel section of the City budget.

City officials say it's a small investment to ensure the race, which will bring an estimated $4 billion economic impact to Austin over the next 10 years, will be successful.

"When the comment was made that there would be no money spent on F1, that was a point in time where we were talking about the support that the City would have to give in order to be spent by the state. We never anticipated not doing the things that we would normally do as a city for any special event,"?said?Assistant City Manager Sue?Edwards.

Edwards said that?includes?visiting events to prepare. The problem is, City Council Member Laura Morrison says some council members, including herself,?didn't know about the trip. She found out?from a constituent.

Morrison voted against hosting F1 and?says the council was ensured that no taxpayer dollars would be spent on the event.

"Any dollar that we spend on F1 is a dollar we don't spend on something else,"?said Morrison.

"Promising not to spend city tax dollars and then turning around and spending city tax dollars looks bad," said?former Travis County Judge Bill Aleshire.?

Aleshire said?he understands that circumstances?about events change,?but?thinks the City needed more transparency. He's also concerned about a potential conflict of interest, claiming the mayor and city manager are accepting a gift, the trip,?from a company looking for tax breaks and incentives.

The City says?there is no conflict.

"We checked with our law department, and they did not find a conflict of interest. All of the decisions that the city council has to make about COTA?and F1 have been made," said Edwards.

COTA also?offered the Travis County Commissioners a similar opportunity to go to the London?race. The commissioners were split on the vote,?saying they didn't have enough time to decide. Still, Judge Sam Biscoe pointed out that the court supported the idea of going to a race to have a better idea of what they would be dealing with in November. He?even called it a "missed opportunity" for the county.

Austin city officials leave for London on?Thursday July 5, and will?return on Sunday July 9. City officials say this is strictly a working trip, with meetings?and tour planned throughout their stay.

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T-Mobile USA to buy, swap spectrum with Verizon

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Sri Lanka close in on big win over Pakistan

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What's next after Facebook buys facial rec software?

Article posted: 6/23/2012 7:45 AM

Facebook on this week confirmed that it is buying the 5-year-old Israel-based startup Face.com, maker of facial recognition software. ? Face.com

Chances are Facebook knows a lot about you. But can it pick you out in a crowd?

Probably not yet, but that could be on the horizon. Facebook on this week confirmed that it is buying the 5-year-old Israel-based startup Face.com, maker of facial recognition software. (AllThingsD put the price tag at about $60 million.)

Facebook already uses Face.com?s technology in its photo tagging suggestions, which attempt to guess which of your friends are in pictures that you upload to the site ? occasionally with awkward results. Now that it owns the company, the assumption is that Facebook will improve on the service and look to unveil facial recognition for pictures you take on your mobile phone, too.

From a business perspective, the acquisition seems natural: Facebook knows mobile photo-sharing is central to its future, and the Face.com buy dovetails with its purchase of Instagram and launch of Facebook Camera.

From a human perspective, though, the prospect of Facebook building up an ever-wider database that links people?s faces to their personal information is a little eerie.

In a study published last year, a team of Carnegie Mellon researchers found that they could combine off-the-shelf facial recognition software ? in this case, Google?s PittPatt technology ? with Facebook data and a computer algorithm to guess not only people?s names but in some cases their social security numbers based solely on snapshots taken with a webcam.

This only worked for a minority of the photos in the study. People who didn?t have any public Facebook photos were mostly immune to identification, said Alessandro Acquisti, the study?s lead author, though at least one subject found that he had been tagged publicly in a friend?s photo without his knowledge.

But facial-recognition software is improving rapidly. And software like Face.com?s gets better and learns more every time someone uses the tagging suggestions and clicks ?yes? or ?no? to indicate whether they were correct. ?They?re being smart in a way, or some could say very subtle, in enlisting users as a means of improving the accuracy of their identification,? Acquisti told me.

As Facebook?s database develops, it?s conceivable that within a few years you could see someone on the street, point your iPhone at her and pull up a list of possible identity matches within seconds. (In theory Google could do much the same, though unlike Mark Zuckerberg, Google?s Eric Schmidt has come out against the use of his company?s platform for facial recognition and mobile tracking.)

For now, Facebook only auto-suggests the identities of people who are among your friends. Still, the company will possess the information and capacity to identify and track people on a broad scale, both on the Web and out on the street ? ?much more than any government agency,? in Acquisti?s estimation. Only the company?s concern for your privacy will stand in the way.

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Ecuador's quandary over asylum for WikiLeaks chief

QUITO, Ecuador (AP) ? President Rafael Correa's objections to what he deems American interventionism in Latin America and his delight in Julian Assange's massive uncorking of U.S. secrets appear to have persuaded the WikiLeaks chief that Ecuador offers his best shot at avoiding extradition to Sweden.

But four days after Assange ducked into Ecuador's London embassy seeking political asylum, this South American nation's leftist leader has yet to announce a decision. The choice may not be easy.

Correa was cagey on Thursday night, telling reporters that Ecuador was consulting with the other governments involved.

"We don't wish to offend anyone, least of all a country we hold in such deep regard as the United Kingdom," he said.

The question he faces is whether it's worth risking a backlash from Washington and the European Union against his small, petroleum-exporting nation of 14 million.

On the plus side, Correa would deepen his anti-establishment reputation by identifying himself with someone who also rates the mainstream media as beholden to moneyed interests and powerful governments.

"By giving Assange asylum, Correa (would be) burnishing his anti-US credentials," said Michael Shifter, president of Inter-American Dialogue, a nonpartisan think tank in Washington, D.C. "Correa and Assange not only have a personal chemistry ? they also see themselves as victims of U.S. power."

The two seemed to get on well when Assange interviewed Correa last month for his Kremlin-funded TV program. "Your Wikileaks have made us stronger," Correa told Assange, adding later: "Welcome to the club of the persecuted."

"It is hard to escape the irony that Correa, who has suppressed press freedom in Ecuador, is associating himself with the professed champion of transparency," said Shifter. "What this reveals is that it all comes down to ideology."

Correa has angered human rights and media freedom activists by using criminal libel law and media ownership restrictions to gag opposition-owned outlets that he claims are corrupt and intent on destroying him.

The tactic hasn't hurt him domestically, however. The leftist economist who took office in 2007 is popular with lower-class Ecuadoreans who benefit from his generous public spending. His approval ratings top 70 percent.

Nor is Correa as relentlessly hostile to Washington as President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela. Unlike Chavez, he has never accused the U.S. of trying to overthrow him. But he does relish courting U.S. global counterweights including Russia, China and Iran.

And he boycotted April's Summit of the Americas in Colombia to protest Washington's continued insistence on excluding Cuba from such hemispheric summits.

Correa has also expelled three U.S. diplomats whom he considered threats, including an ambassador who suggested in one of the more than 250,000 U.S. diplomatic cables that WikiLeaks laid bare that Correa was deliberately overlooking high-level police corruption.

But none of that guarantees he'll grant the Australian activist refuge.

"The internal political and economic costs of asylum don't square up with the benefits," says Grace Jaramillo, an international relations expert at Ecuador's FLACSO university.

"We're in an election year in which a strangling of relations with European countries and the United States, with which we are, respectively, negotiating a trade agreement and the renewal of preferential tariffs, would give them a good excuse to stop negotiations," she said.

"Ecuador could basically forget about any renewal of the trade preferences if it granted safe haven to Assange," said Cynthia Arnson, Latin America director at the Woodrow Wilson center in Washington.

Forty-five percent of Ecuador's exports go to the U.S. and account for about 400,000 jobs. And a failure to reach a trade pact with the European Union could cut exports by 4 percent and cost tens of thousands of jobs.

There's also a risk for Correa of having Ecuador "become catalogued as a country that obstructs justice" and "protects transgressors of international law," said political scientist Vicente Torrijos of Rosario University in Bogota, Colombia.

That could cost him votes when he runs for re-election early next year.

On the other hand, he would win points with Latin American leftists for whom Assange is a "gigantic symbol" of the crusade against what they see as America's heavy-handedness in the region, said international relations specialist Sandra Borda of the Universidad de Los Andes in Bogota.

But she doesn't believe Washington would punish Ecuador if it accepted Assange. And in Washington, the State Department sought to keep out of the crossfire.

"This is a UK-Ecuador-Sweden issue," U.S. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said Wednesday. "We want to see justice served; let's leave it at that."

On the streets of Quito, some had only a vague notion of who Assange is.

One man who did know, 43-year-old lawyer Julian Amaya, didn't think bringing the former hacker to Ecuador was a good idea.

"It doesn't make sense," he said, "because who is going to guarantee that he doesn't do the same thing here: reveal the secrets of the government, or of the opposition or whomever he wished?"

___

Bajak reported from Lima, Peru. Associated Press writer Vivian Sequera contributed to this report from Bogota, Colombia.

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Bug-zapping lightsaber built in minutes, ready to fry pests

Simulated Jedi training not passing muster? Something more firmly grounded in reality might fit the bill. Hack a Day's bug zapping lightsaber, for instance, is suitably real -- and what it lacks in actual lasers it makes up for in insect annihilation. As the amalgamation of a Star Wars toy and an electrified bug racket, the zapper saber isn't exactly a looker -- two layers of metal mesh wrap awkwardly around the toy's telescoping blade, secured only by electrical tape and the sheer will of the force. All told, the contraption was constructed in roughly 20 minutes and Hack a Day reckons that more elaborate ones can be crafted with a tad more time and materials. Head past the break to catch the build process in motion.

Continue reading Bug-zapping lightsaber built in minutes, ready to fry pests

Bug-zapping lightsaber built in minutes, ready to fry pests originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 20 Jun 2012 08:19:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Workplace Wellness Programs to Reduce Workers' Compensation ...

Blog by: Garry Watts, CPCU, CRM

By implementing workplace health initiatives, many companies are taking proactive measures to help with decreasing health issues affecting their employees. This is particularly important because of the following:?

• The working population is aging, with the national average around 46 years old.
• There is a decreasing number of skilled workers, increasing the number of on-the-job injuries.
• Obesity rates are astronomical and continue to rise.
• There is a steady increase of inactivity among Americans.
• Medical care costs continue to rise.
• There is an increase in stress-related illnesses.
• Approximately 90 percent of Americans are living with some chronic condition, such as diabetes, asthma, thyroid disorders, etc.
• Most importantly for risk managers, non-work-related health issues directly increase the risk of work-related injuries.

?
Getting Employees Healthy

To assist your employees in getting healthy, staying healthy and consequently reduce their risk of a workplace injury or illness:

• Create an employee safety education committee devoted strictly to health problems that correlate with injuries.
• Teach employees how to properly investigate accidents and determine ways in which they could be prevented. This may include:
  • Ergonomics evaluations
  • Lift equipment evaluations
• Offer personal health profile screenings for employees to identify their risk factors. This should include screenings for cholesterol, bone density, glucose, body mass index, etc.
• Provide personalized health coaching and self-help materials.
• Offer quarterly corporate challenges to promote weight loss and activity.
• Offer quarterly educational safety and health seminars.
• Consider implementing a cross-promotional safety and health program with your health care provider.
• Provide incentives to employees who fulfill health-related goals, or remain free from injuries for an established amount of time.
• Refer all employees who suffer a work-related injury to the wellness program coordinator for a consultation.
• Incorporate a safety presentation in your wellness seminars.
• Workers? compensation managers and risk managers should provide health and wellness referrals to injured employees.
• Distribute monthly safety, health and nutrition tips to employees.

Feel free to contact us for more information and resources on how you can create an effective safety and health program.

**Reminder - August 2012 marks the beginning of our webinar series.? Webinars are presented on topics of interest as a service for the public. They are intended for educational purposes and are available at no cost. For more information about the webinars, please click here.

Posted Wednesday, June 20 2012 7:57 AM
Tags : Workers' Compensation

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'Seize moment' call at Rio summit

19 June 2012 Last updated at 06:15 GMT By Richard Black Environment correspondent, BBC News, Rio de Janeiro

Governments must seize the "historic opportunity" of the Rio+20 summit to put the world on a new sustainable course, says a panel of Nobel laureates, ministers and scientists.

Society is "on the edge of a threshold of a future with unprecedented environmental risks", they conclude.

Their declaration is being presented to government delegations here.

In the negotiations, Brazil's plan to sign off a new package by Monday night failed, with rows on several issues.

The Rio+20 meeting comes 20 years after the Earth Summit, and was called with the aim of putting humanity on a more sustainable pathway, alleviating poverty while preserving the environment.

The panel's declaration made clear that as far as they were concerned, the challenge is immediate and significant.

"The combined effects of climate change, resource scarcity, loss of biodiversity and ecosystem resilience at a time of increased demand, poses a real threat to humanity's welfare," they write.

"There is an unacceptable risk that human pressures on the planet, should they continue on a business as usual trajectory, will trigger abrupt and irreversible changes with catastrophic outcomes for human societies and life as we know it."

Continue reading the main story

Access and Benefit Sharing (ABS)

Granting countries the right to gain financially from the exploitation of biological resources discovered on their territory. Aims to prevent biopiracy. Agreement made at the UN CBC meeting in Nagoya, Japan in 2010. Rio+20 will see further discussion particularly of resources from international waters.

The group of more than 30 signatories includes Nobel laureates such as Carlo Rubbia, Walter Kohn, Douglas Osheroff and Yuan Tseh Lee, as well as politicians including Brazil's Environment minister Izabella Teixiera and Finland's recently ex-President Tarja Halonen.

Gro Harlem Brundtland, the former Norwegian prime minister and World Health Organization chief who led the Brundtland Commission on sustainable development in 1987, was also on the panel.

Prof Will Steffen from the Australian National University, one of the leading scientists in the group, said he hoped the declaration would make the implications of ministers' choices clear to them.

"There are intrinsic limits to the planet's capacity, and we must recognise that we're transgressing them - in fact, have transgressed some of them," he told BBC News.

"Business as usual is not an option."

Continue reading the main story

• How able is the planet to meet increasing demand?
• In 1960, a little over half the planet's land, forests and
  fisheries were needed to meet human consumption.
• By the late 1970s, consumption was equal to one planet.
• By the first years of this century, one-and-a-half planets
  were needed to meet consumption.

  This deficit can only be met by the depletion of renewable
  resources and increased pollution.

Tarja Halonen said the declaration could and should encourage leaders to raise their ambitions in Rio.

"What this says to negotiators is they need to push harder, they must be encouraged to do more," she told BBC News.

"The most important thing we are telling them is the urgency."

The host government's delegation chief Luiz Alberto Figueiredo Machado told reporters on Monday afternoon that he was "absolutely convinced" negotiators would finish talks within hours, leaving little for the estimated 130 heads of state and government to do when they arrive on Wednesday.

But according to sources, the discussions - from which reporters are excluded - saw heated exchanges over a number of issues, including the green economy, fossil fuel subsidies and sustainable development goals (SDGs).

EU ministers complained that the hosts had pushed their version of the text through without real negotiation, and that the outcome was far too weak.

In a joint statement, EU Environment Commissioner Janez Potocnik and Danish Environment Minister Ida Auken said the EU "remains committed, for as long as it takes, to achieving concrete and ambitious outcomes from the Rio+20 negotiations.

"We believe that in these final stages, our ministerial colleagues are best placed to reach a political agreement with the substance needed to bring the world towards a sustainable future."

However, if significant problems are left for governments leaders to resolve, the EU's capacity will be compromised by the fact that most European presidents and prime ministers are staying away from Rio, preferring to remain at home to manage eurozone-related fallout from Sunday's Greek election - though some are at the G20 summit in Mexico.

Direct endorsement

Brazilian President Dilma Roussef is expected to present the "final" Rio+20 agreement to G20 leaders in Mexico on Tuesday, providing it is finished.

That would allow world leaders not going to Rio, including US President Barack Obama, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and UK Prime Minister David Cameron, to give the document their endorsement before the final round begins in Rio.

The fossil fuel subsidy issue was highlighted during the day by environmental campaigners who directed an internet-based assault at delegates to both the Rio and G20 meetings, in the process attempting to set a world record for the most uses of a Twitter hashtag - in this case, #endfossilfuelsubsidies.

G20 leaders pledged three years ago to phase out inefficient fossil fuel subsidies, without setting a timetable or a mechanism.

A report from the research and campaign group Oil Change International, released before the Rio meeting, found that none of the G20 members had moved towards meeting their pledge.

Instead, more are simply not reporting their subsidies to the G20.

Estimates of the extent of subsidies run from about $400bn to about $1 trillion per year. Studies suggest that eliminating them would make a substantial contribution to reducing greenhouse gas emissions and lead to social benefits such as increased employment.

Follow Richard on Twitter

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Schooling fish: Wild zebrafish assess risk through social learning

Tuesday, June 19, 2012

Individuals in some species learn information about food, predators, and potential mates indirectly from conspecifics, without taking unnecessary risks by learning directly for themselves ('social learning'). Sarah Zala and Dustin Penn from the Konrad Lorenz Institute of Ethology of the University of Veterinary Medicine, Vienna investigated whether zebrafish use social learning to assess risk ('boldness/shyness' behaviour). They found that wild zebrafish, which are more timid than their domesticated counterparts, became emboldened after interacting with domesticated zebrafish. The opposite did not occur, however. When the bolder domesticated zebrafish came in contact with wild zebrafish, they did not become more cautious.

To test fish disposition, the scientists scored "boldness" as the response to a moving object. If fish approached the object relatively closely, they were classified as "bold", while those who tended to stay at the back of the tank were considered "shy". When the wild fish were allowed to interact with bolder domesticated fish, they became less likely to avoid the moving object.

These results confirm the researchers? hypothesis that zebrafish use social learning for assessing risk: they observe other individuals' behaviour, and change their own behaviour accordingly. The findings also indicate that zebrafish adapt their social-learning strategies to the costs of a perceived risk, as the domesticated bold fish did not change their behaviour after interacting with the shy fish.

"When a zebrafish moves a few centimetres closer to an unfamiliar object than its buddies it may not seem like a big deal to human observers," says Sarah Zala, "but 3 cm is about one ?sh length and in nature might mean exposing the fish to a predatory attack. So in reality, from the fish?s point of view, he is taking a big chance."

The researchers also investigated whether zebrafish adapt their behaviour to conform to the behaviour of a larger group ('social conformity'), but found no evidence for this hypothesis. Future studies should be able to utilize this model species to incorporate genetic and genomic tools to study the development and evolution of social learning.

###

"Different social-learning strategies in wild and domesticated zebrafish, Danio rerio" by Sarah M. Zala, Ilmari M??tt?nen, and Dustin J. Penn is published in the June 2012 issue of the journal "Animal Behaviour" (83 (2012) pp. 1519-1525 DOI: 10.1016/j.anbehav.2012.03.029)

University of Veterinary Medicine -- Vienna: http://www.vetmeduni.ac.at

Thanks to University of Veterinary Medicine -- Vienna for this article.

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

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Today on New Scientist: 18 June 2012

Greek octopus forms coalition with dolphin's genitals

Comparisons with Greek politicians' attempts to form a coalition would be in poor taste - but an unlikely coupling has been spotted in the Ionian Sea

Climate panel adopts controversial 'grey' evidence

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has decided to impose geographical quotas on its authors, and to rely more on non-peer-reviewed "grey literature"

Hawking and rap make science hip (hop)

Scientists and hackers become rock stars at Seattle Science Festival, where cosmologist Stephen Hawking shares the stage with rapper Baba Brinkman

Secret US spaceplane shows China the future

China is celebrating the docking of its Shenzhou-9 spacecraft with the Tiangong-1 orbiting lab - but a mysterious US spaceplane is far more advanced

What the golden ratio sounds like

Watch a video that converts the famous mathematical constant to music in honour of Phi day

Rio+20 conference suffers lack of leadership

Devoid of world leaders and without headline-grabbing treaties to sign, the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro is not looking promising

Japan prepares to switch nuclear reactors back on

Despite the partial meltdown at Fukushima Daiichi plant, Japan looks set to restart its power stations

Space mirrors will dry out US and Eurasia

Installing huge mirrors in space could reverse global warming, but at a price: the Americas and northern Eurasia will receive less rain

Wet supercomputer closes in on top of the flops

Lawrence Livermore's Sequoia BlueGene may be the the fastest, but the fourth-place supercomputer is far more interesting - and efficient

How much cheating is alright?

We're all prone to dishonesty, says Dan Ariely, but to avoid another financial meltdown, bankers really need to learn from the psychology of cheating

Tablet PCs preserve indigenous knowledge

Tablet computers could help villagers in the Kalahari desert preserve cultural knowledge and traditional techniques for future generations

Daydream your way to creativity

Concentration is overrated. Psychologists are finding that if you let your mind wander it may well stumble upon better ideas, says Richard Fisher

How to convince climate sceptics to be pro-environment

Converting climate-change sceptics is futile, but you can persuade them to take action anyway by focusing on social benefits, not environmental consequences

Gut bugs confined to quarters by special immune cells

Bacteria that are beneficial in the gut can cause problems in other tissues - a class of immune cells keeps them from straying

Algorithm beats jigsaw-solving record

The speedy solver whizzed through 10,000 pieces in 24 hours - and could one day help piece together shredded documents or archaeological artefacts

Enterprise makes a voyage into history

See the atmospheric test vehicle for the space shuttle programme, captured as it floats to its final resting place

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Voters let wallets guide them come November

By Eve Tahmincioglu

This year?s presidential election may hinge on voters? wallets.

More than half of Americans say their own financial well-being is the most important factor, or among the most important factors, when it comes to deciding who?ll they?ll pull the lever for come November, according to a study released Monday by Bankrate.com.

?How Americans feel about the U.S. economy and their own finances will be central to the election on Nov. 6,? said Claes Bell, senior banking expert with Bankrate.com. ?While unemployment will probably be above that 7.2 percent historical benchmark when the election takes place, the key question will be whether Americans are comfortable with the progress that has been made since the economy took a turn for the worse.?

The telephone survey, that polled 1,000 adults earlier this month, also found voters were ?deeply divided about which candidate will help households get back on track financially.??

• 21 percent said their personal financial situations would be better under former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney
• 21 percent said they would be better under President Barack Obama?
• And 8 percent were undecided.

But a majority, 50 percent, said whoever wins come November probably wouldn?t make much of a difference when it came to their wallets.

{"contentId":"12282977","totalVotes":"2826"}

Will you decide who to vote for based on your wallet?

?

?

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The euro lives! Europe hints at more time for Greece

By Stephen Brown and Dina Kyriakidou

BERLIN/ATHENS (Reuters) - Euro zone paymaster Germany, relieved at a narrow election victory for Greece's pro-bailout parties, signalled on Monday it may be willing to grant Athens more time to meet its fiscal targets to avert a catastrophic euro exit.

But financial markets' relief that the 17-nation European currency area had avoided plunging deeper into crisis was mitigated by concern about unresolved problems in Greece, the lack of a comprehensive plan for the euro zone as a whole and weakness in the world economy.

German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle said the substance of Greece's austerity and economic reform programme, agreed in exchange for a second EU/IMF rescue, was non-negotiable, but the timing could be adjusted.

"We're ready to talk about the timeframe as we can't ignore the lost weeks and we don't want people to suffer because of that," Westerwelle said in a radio interview.

Government officials said his comments did not reflect Berlin's official position, and a government spokesman said now was not the time to give Greece "a discount".

However, Deputy Finance Minister Steffen Kampeter, who is closer to Chancellor Angela Merkel and normally a stickler for strict adherence to fiscal orthodoxy, told ARD television: "It is clear to us that Greece should not be over-strained."

Austrian Chancellor Werner Faymann said Greece needed both a sustainable course of fiscal consolidation and a return to economic growth after four years of crippling recession.

"The conditions that were negotiated have to be observed but we also need to give the Greeks room to breathe," Faymann said in a statement. "For example it must be assured that people have sufficient access to medicine. Consolidation cannot be carried out solely on the backs of the people."

The hints at leniency should help Greek conservative leader Antonis Samaras, whose New Democracy party narrowly outpolled the radical leftist anti-austerity SYRIZA movement in Sunday's election, to form a mainstream coalition with the centre-left Pasok Socialists.

He will face fierce pressure from European and International Monetary Fund lenders to start implementing seriously an economic reform programme agreed earlier this year, which has largely remained a dead letter so far.

For euro zone crisis in graphics: click http://r.reuters.com/hyb65p

For full multimedia coverage: click http://r.reuters.com/xyt94s

TRUST BUST

With trust in Greek politicians at a low ebb, a senior EU official said the new government would find a 100-day action plan on its desk including privatisations, axing public sector jobs and closing loss-making enterprises to prove it was serious.

"There will be a very clear 100-day plan for a new government. If it's not implemented in full then the game is over," the German EU official told Reuters before the election.

Procedurally, the next step after the formation of a government will be for the "troika" of European Commission, IMF and European Central Bank inspectors to return to Athens to review Greek implementation of the bailout agreement.

The euro and shares rallied briefly after the Greek vote, but there was no let-up for the borrowing costs of euro zone strugglers Spain and Italy.

Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti welcomed the Greek election result, telling reporters in Mexico on arriving for a G20 summit: "This allows us to have a more serene vision for the future of the European Union and for the euro zone."

Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy called the outcome "good news for Greece, very good news for the European Union, for the euro and also for Spain".

But Spanish and Italian 10-year government bond yields rose, with Spain's hitting a fresh euro era record above 7.1 percent, close to levels that drove Greece, Ireland and Portugal to seek international rescues.

Analysts at Citi said the election had changed nothing fundamental and they still forecast a 50 to 75 percent likelihood of Greece leaving the euro within 12 to 18 months.

Others said that regardless of whether Greece stays or goes, the key issues driving markets are whether the world's central banks will do more to revive global growth, and whether euro zone leaders can sketch out a roadmap for closer fiscal and banking union at a summit next week to convince investors that the euro will survive.

"It remains vital that eurozone governments take profound steps forward in terms of fiscal union and restoring confidence in the banking sector," said Nick Kounis of Dutch bank ABN AMRO.

"Judging by past form, European politicians tend to take their foot off the gas when the pressure is off."

AUSTERITY ISN'T WORKING

Samaras has pledged to renegotiate key elements of the 130 billion euro bailout programme to soften the economic impact.

Giving Athens an additional year to achieve its deficit reduction goals would mean increasing the size of the euro zone's bailout, raising the commitment by countries such as Germany, the Netherlands and Finland where voters are deeply reluctant to approve further funding.

Greece is in the fifth year of a crippling recession that has driven unemployment to a record 22 percent - including one in two young people - and caused widespread hardship.

Although sufficient voters cast their ballots out of fear of a disastrous euro exit to give mainstream parties a working majority, a majority of electors angry over austerity and corruption voted for a range of anti-bailout fringe groups.

That raises the prospect of a renewal of violent street protests if a Samaras-led administration moves ahead with the unpopular cuts and closures demanded by international lenders.

There is little sign so far that austerity is working in Greece. Public wage, pension and spending cuts have exacerbated economic contraction, shrinking revenue needed to service the debt mountain, while bureaucracy, corruption and a lack of confidence have held back private sector investment.

Many citizens in a fractured society have responded by sullenly refusing to pay bills and taxes out of disgust with their political leaders and fury at seeing the rich evading tax and parking money abroad.

Even if the economy began to recover, economists argue the demands being made of Greece to reduce its public debt to a sustainable trajectory are unrealistic.

If, as expected, the "troika" finds that Greece is off course, pressure among non-European states for the IMF to pull out of the programme is bound to rise, diplomats said. The euro zone may end up carrying the whole cost of the bailout, which in turn could fuel public opposition in northern European creditor countries, they said.

(Additional reporting by Jeremy Gaunt and Alan Wheatley in London, Jan Strupczewski and Philip Blenkinsop in Brussels, Lisa Jucca in Milan, Paul Day in Madrid; Writing by Paul Taylor; editing by Janet McBride)

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AP sources: Administration mulls pared health law

FILE - In this March 25, 2012, file photo, people visit the Supreme Court in Washington. It sounds like a silver lining. Even if the Supreme Court overturns President Barack Obama's health care law, employers can keep offering popular coverage for the young adult children of their workers. But here's the catch: The parents' taxes would go up. That's only one of the messy potential ripple effects when the Supreme Court delivers its verdict on the Affordable Care Act in June 2012. The law affects most major components of the U.S. health care system in its effort to extend coverage to millions of uninsured people. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

FILE - In this March 25, 2012, file photo, people visit the Supreme Court in Washington. It sounds like a silver lining. Even if the Supreme Court overturns President Barack Obama's health care law, employers can keep offering popular coverage for the young adult children of their workers. But here's the catch: The parents' taxes would go up. That's only one of the messy potential ripple effects when the Supreme Court delivers its verdict on the Affordable Care Act in June 2012. The law affects most major components of the U.S. health care system in its effort to extend coverage to millions of uninsured people. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

WASHINGTON (AP) ? Covering all the bases ahead of a momentous Supreme Court ruling, the Obama administration plans to move ahead with major parts of the president's health care law if its most controversial provision does not survive, according to veteran Democrats closely involved with the legislation.

Even if the requirement that nearly every U.S. resident have health insurance is declared unconstitutional, the remaining parts of the law would have far-reaching impact, putting coverage within reach of millions of uninsured people, laying new obligations on insurers and employers, and improving Medicare benefits even as payments to many service providers get scaled back.

The White House says President Barack Obama is confident the whole law will be upheld when the court issues its ruling in the next week or two, but officials will be ready for any outcome.

"We do believe it's constitutional, and we ... hope and expect that's the decision the court will render," senior adviser David Plouffe said Sunday on ABC. "We obviously will be prepared for whatever decision the court renders." Administration officials have not wanted to discuss contingency plans to avoid creating the impression that the president is preparing for a high court rebuke.

Nevertheless, the Obama administration will move ahead to implement major elements of the law if the individual coverage requirement is struck down, two senior Democrats told The Associated Press. One is a leading Democrat familiar with the administration's thinking, the other a high-level Capitol Hill staffer. The two Democrats spoke on condition of anonymity to avoid appearing to be out of step with the administration's public stance.

Because the law's main coverage expansion does not begin until 2014, there would be time to try to fix serious problems that losing the individual coverage requirement may cause for the health insurance industry.

Surviving parts of the law would "absolutely" move ahead, said the congressional official. A Congress mired in partisan trench warfare would be unable to repeal or amend what's left of the law, allowing the administration to advance. Much of the money for covering the uninsured was already provided in the law itself.

"Legislatively we can't do a thing, and we are going to move full speed ahead (with implementation)," the official said.

How the Supreme Court will decide is unclear. It may uphold the law, strike it down entirely or do something in between. Skeptical questioning by the court's conservative justices during oral arguments this spring has fueled speculation that the court may invalidate the so-called individual mandate.

Opponents say the requirement that individuals have coverage is unconstitutional, that the federal government can't tell people to obtain particular goods or services.

Supporters say the mandate is a necessary component of a broader scheme to regulate health insurance, which is well within the powers of Congress. By requiring people to carry health insurance or pay a fine, the law seeks to broaden the pool of people with coverage, helping to keep premiums affordable.

If the mandate is struck down, that would still leave in place a major expansion of Medicaid, the federal-state safety net program for low-income people.

The Medicaid expansion was originally estimated to account for about half the more than 30 million people slated to get coverage under the law. Without a mandate, the number would be smaller but still significant.

Federal tax credits to help middle-class people buy private health coverage would also survive, as would new state-based insurance markets.

Such subsidies have never previously been available, and millions are expected to take advantage of them, whether or not insurance is required by law. Still, it could be tricky to salvage the law's full blueprint for helping middle-class uninsured people.

Overturning the mandate would have harmful consequences for the private insurance market. Under the law, insurers would still have to accept all applicants regardless of health problems, and they would be limited in what they can charge older, sicker customers.

As a result, premiums for people who directly buy their own coverage would jump by 15 percent to 20 percent, the Congressional Budget Office estimates. Older, sicker people would flock to get health insurance but younger, healthier ones would hold back.

To forestall such a problem, the administration asked the court ? if it declares the mandate unconstitutional ? to also strike down certain consumer protections, including the requirement on insurers to cover people with pre-existing health problems. That would mitigate a damaging spike in premiums.

Whether or not the court goes along with that request, more work would be needed to find alternatives to a federal mandate. That could provide an opening for state officials, as well as major insurance companies, to join in finding workable substitutes for the mandate. Congressional approval would likely be needed.

Without the individual requirement, some 14 million people would still get coverage, budget office estimates suggest. Supporters of the law point out that's still a lot of people.

Associated Press

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