handwritten katee

Tuesday, February 26, 2013

'Sequester' on president's agenda at meeting with governors

President Barack Obama on Monday is expected to implore the nation's governors to put pressure on Congress to avoid the sequester as Obama speaks to the nation's governors at the White House.

Members of the Obama administration, heads of federal agencies and others have been issuing severe warnings to Congress regarding the sequester-- $85 billion in across-the-board spending cuts that will go into effect March 1 absent a budget. Warnings have been released threatening fewer responders to handle wildfires, reduced food safety inspection, less help for vulnerable Americans and on Friday, widespread flight delays and cancellations.

"Travelers should expect delays. Flights to major cities like New York, Chicago, San Francisco and others could experience delays up to 90 minutes during peak hours, because we have fewer controllers on staff. Delays in these major airports will ripple across the country," Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood told reporters at Friday's White House press briefing after announcing that the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) plans massive furloughs and closing air traffic control towers if the sequester goes into effect.

The White House on Sunday night released state-by-state reports detailing what they say would be "devastating" impacts on each state as a result of the sequester, but the topic of the sequester was notably absent from Obama's speech Sunday night to the governors, who are in town for the National Governors Association's (NGA) annual winter meeting.

Instead, the president at the White House dinner struck an appreciative tone, commending the governors for steering their states through tough times.

Democratic Gov. Jack Markell of Delaware, chair of the NGA, followed Obama's address Sunday night by emphasizing the absence of politics from the night's celebration. "On this one night it?s a relief -- politics doesn?t drive the conversation. We don?t speak of partisan issues or presidential aspirations," Markell said.

But Markell did note the sequester.

"One thing for sure is certain -- you don?t let issues fester. You get to deal with education and health care, and even the sequester," Markell said to laughter and applause from the audience.

Republicans such as Speaker John Boehner have publicly stated their opposition to the sequester, though others have threatened they are willing to let it go into effect.

Some Republicans over the weekend continued to accuse the administration of exaggerating the sequester's impact.

"They have plenty of flexibility in terms of discretion on how they spend money. There are easy ways to cut this money that the American people will never feel," Republican Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma said on Fox News Sunday.

The president is slated to address the governors at 11:05 a.m. ET from the White House State Dining Room. Vice President Joe Biden, First Lady Michelle Obama and Second Lady Dr. Jill Biden are also scheduled to speak.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/obama-expected-address-sequester-monday-meeting-governors-143539950--politics.html

gcb mary j blige dionne warwick patricia heaton arsenic and old lace leslie varez ward

Macy's CEO testifies in fight over Martha Stewart

Macy's Chairman, President and CEO Terry Lundgren arrives to court in New York, Monday, Feb. 25, 2013. Lundgren is scheduled to testify in New York State Supreme Court on Monday in a trial that pits the department store chain against rival J.C. Penney Co. over a partnership with home diva Martha Stewart. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)

NEW YORK (AP) ? Macy's CEO Terry Lundgren testified on Monday that he hung up on home diva Martha Stewart after she called to inform him on Dec. 6, 2011 that the company that bears her name had inked a deal with J.C. Penney to open shops within most of the chain's stores.

He hasn't spoken to her since, even though the two used to be good friends.

"I was sick to my stomach," Lundgren testified on Monday in New York Supreme Court. "I can't remember hanging up on anyone in my life."

The testimony comes as Macy's Inc. and J.C. Penney Co. duke it out over the partnership with Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia. The trial, which began Wednesday, focuses on whether Macy's has the exclusive right to sell Martha Stewart branded cookware, bedding and other products. Other key witnesses expected to take the stand this week include Penney's CEO Ron Johnson and Martha Stewart.

Lundgren testified on Monday that Macy's had built the Martha Stewart brand to be the biggest in its home business. Under Lundgren's leadership, Macy's has focused on building exclusive brands that are not carried by rivals to get shoppers to the store. In the home area, exclusivity is key: Sales last year were up 8 percent, double the rate for the entire company.

Lundgren said Macy's has spent 40 percent of its overall marketing on the Martha Stewart brand even though the home category represents 17 percent of sales. He says that having Penney have access to the brand will not be good for the business and will confuse shoppers.

"I need the Martha Stewart business to be exclusive," Lundgren said. "I don't have a substitute."

The testimony is a culmination of a legal battle between the three companies that started in 2011. Macy's sued Martha Stewart Living in January 2011, saying the company breached a long-standing contract when it penned the deal with Penney, which invested $38.5 million in a nearly 17 percent stake. In a separate lawsuit, Macy's sued Penney claiming it had no regard for the Macy's contract and that Johnson had set out to steal the business that it had worked hard to develop.

The two suits were consolidated for the bench trial, which Supreme State Court Judge Jeffrey Oing is presiding over the trial. The trial is expected to last three weeks.

At issue seems to be a loophole in the agreement with Macy's. It's a provision that allows Martha Stewart to sell goods in categories like bedding in Martha Stewart Living's own stores.

According to Martha Stewart, because the Macy's agreement doesn't say the goods under dispute can be sold "only in "stand-alone" stores, the mini shops within J.C. Penney stores do not fall under the exclusive agreement.

Macy's Inc., based in Cincinnati, disagrees. Lundgren argues that a typical definition of a store is that it has a parking lot or is part of a mall. Macy's lawyers outlined in documents that it later found that Penney "knowingly and purposely demanded and received confidential information" from Martha Stewart Living about the contract of Macy's and crafted a deal that was more lucrative than the Macy's agreement.

Macy's claims in court documents substantial damages and said the maneuver by Penney "threatens to inflict incalculable further harm on Macy's. Billions of dollars of sales are involved." Macy's is also trying to stop Martha Stewart from providing designs to J.C. Penney even if it gets rid of the Martha Stewart moniker.

Last summer, Macy's won a preliminary injunction against Martha Stewart Living that would prevent it from selling housewares and other exclusive products at J.C. Penney. Judge Oing did grant Penney permission to open Martha Stewart shops, as long as the items under the exclusive contract with Macy's are not sold in them.

Penney, which is based in Plano, Texas, plans to open shops featuring designs from Martha Stewart on May 1, but Daphne Avila, a Penney spokeswoman, said that the products which include bedding and cookware have been stripped out of the home maven's moniker and instead feature the label "JCP Everyday."

According to a memo filed by Penney, Macy's rights to Martha Stewart aren't nearly as sweeping as it suggests. Under Macy's interpretation of the contract, according to J.C. Penney, Martha Stewart Living is "little more than an in-house designer for Macy's."

In court documents, Martha Stewart Living said it will prove that it was Macy's. that breached the contract because it didn't "use commercially reasonable efforts to maximize net sales of Martha Stewart Collection products."

The stakes are high for both retailers as well as for Martha Stewart. For Macy's, having another major department store sell Martha Stewart towels, pots and other merchandise could dilute its business.

Martha Stewart Living is trying to fatten merchandising revenue as it struggles to offset declines in its broadcast and publishing business, a segment that accounts for more than 60 percent of its total business. And the deal with Martha Stewart is part of Penney's plan to reinvent the struggling department store under Johnson, who became CEO of the company in November 2011.

Penney has struggled with mounting losses and sharp sales declines since early last year after shoppers were turned off by a new strategy that eliminated most sales in favor of lower prices every day. Penney began adding shops featuring new hip brands last year and plans to overhaul the home department this spring. Martha Stewart is at the center of that revamp.

The stakes are also high for the personalities involved in the suit. Lundgren said that while he used to be good friends with Stewart, he hasn't spoken to her since that 2011 after he hung up on her.

"''I was completely shocked and blown away," he testified on Monday. "It was so far from anything I could imagine."

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/f70471f764144b2fab526d39972d37b3/Article_2013-02-25-Macy's-Penney-Trial/id-a6f57cf94d6b4c8e8f8ec58e62658369

Chris Kluwe Jennifer Granholm Tulane player injured fox sports obama speech Art Modell Frank Ocean Gay

White House Previews Local Impacts of Sequester

WASHINGTON, D.C. - The National Governors Association's winter meeting is under way in the nation's capital, and while President Obama hosted the state executives for their annual black-tie dinner in the White House today, his administration is pushing a new angle over the partisan bickering around the sequester: how it relates to individual states.

READ: What's a Sequester?

Five days remain for Congress to agree to a deficit-reduction deal that would avoid triggering the $85 billion package of automatic cuts that would be split among the federal government over seven months, half from the Defense Department. There has been little public indication that lawmakers are in serious negotiations to avoid the deadline.

Tables released by the White House today indicate each state would receive penalties to mostly similar programs, including meal assistance for seniors and law enforcement grants. But the release is tailored to outline the individual impact to each state in the union.

In a sample from military-heavy Virginia, "90,000 civilian Department of Defense employees would be furloughed, reducing gross pay by around $648.4 million in total."

The document also says maintenance on 11 Navy vessels serviced in Old Dominion would be cancelled under the cuts.

Three-hundred disadvantaged children in Colorado could lose access to child care. Meanwhile in Louisiana, "1,730 fewer children will receive vaccines for diseases such as measles, mumps, rubella, tetanus, whooping cough, influenza, and Hepatitis B due to reduced funding for vaccinations of about $118,000," it reads.

READ: The full list of alleged consequences from the sequester

That state's governor, Bobby Jindal, is the head of the Republican Governors Association and was one of the state executives present at the White House dinner. Earlier that morning he accused the administration of fear mongering, rather than focusing on the issue at hand.

"It's time to stop campaigning," he said on NBC's "Meet the Press." "Stop sending out your cabinet secretaries to scare the American people. Roll up your sleeves and do the hard work of governing."

The governor, a fierce opponent of the president's healthcare agenda, suggested tweaks to the Affordable Care Act would be a good starting point to meet the debt goal.

"Just delay the Medicaid expansions, delay the health care exchanges so they can work with states on waivers, on flexibility. You could save tens of billions of dollars there by - and you're not even cutting a program that's started yet. Just delay it for a few years," he said.

With few exceptions, the sequestration law makes across-the-board cuts to all government departments, with each individual program taking a hit of between 5 percent and 7 percent. But as written, it does not allow those departments to reallocate funding between individual programs.

For example the Federal Aviation Administration says it stands to furlough the bulk of its 47,000 employees, including large numbers of air traffic controllers. Yet the FAA would not be able to take money from another program and dump it into the one that manages those air traffic controllers to offset the slashed budget.

READ: Devastating sequester spending cuts? Give me a break!

That may not mean the resulting cuts aren't salvageable. Economist Doug Holtz-Eakin, a former director of the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office, says that at the end of the day sound management could minimize the impact.

"Take defense for example. We're going to have to, at the present plan, furlough defense workers for roughly 22 days over the next six months roughly one day a week. You could do that by giving everybody Friday off, but Fridays would be a bad day for producing defense services. Or you could spread that out and have some people on Mondays, some on Tuesdays, some on Wednesday, Thursday, Friday," he told ABC News. "Manage the workflow to try to deliver what you need in terms of running the Pentagon and the effects would be a lot smaller.

Holtz-Eakin, who also advised Sen. John McCain during his 2008 presidential run, said the impacts would be "real" but may not be immediately recognizable for months.

"They're going to be slow," he said. "They're going to have the ability to manage the impacts and where possible states can pick up the slack."

ABC's David Kerley contributed to this report.

Monday, February 25, 2013

Sony?s New NEX-3N Mirrorless Delivers A Big Sensor In A Tiny Body, Could Be The New King Of Beginner ILCs

Sony today unveiled a new NEX camera, the NEx-3N. The new body is the latest addition to the company's celebrated lineup of mirrorless interchangeable lens cameras, and it manages to be the smallest and lightest camera available in that category to also house an APS-C sensor. The 16.1 megapixel CMOS sensor is right on par with those found in full-sized entry-level DSLRs, and allows the camera to snap photos up to ISO 16000, which means it should be a fairly strong low-light performer.

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

michael mcdonald jon jones vs rashad evans earth day 2012 jon jones rashad evans ufc jones vs evans watergate mlb

Conserative candidate wins Cyprus election

AAA??Feb. 24, 2013?12:28 PM ET
Conserative candidate wins Cyprus election
By MENELAOS HADJICOSTISBy MENELAOS HADJICOSTIS, Associated Press? THE ASSOCIATED PRESS STATEMENT OF NEWS VALUES AND PRINCIPLES

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS STATEMENT OF NEWS VALUES AND PRINCIPLES

Opposition party leader and presidential candidate Nicos Anastasiades votes with his grandson Andis, in the Presidential election in southern port city of Limassol, Cyprus, Sunday, Feb. 24, 2013. Faced with the specter of financial meltdown, Cypriots are choosing a new president with the conservative candidate favored to win over his left-wing rival in a runoff vote Sunday.(AP Photo/Petros Karadjias)

A man votes in the presidential election in southern port city of Limassol, Cyprus, Sunday, Feb. 24, 2013. Opposition party leader Nicos Anastasiades garnered 45.46 per cent of the vote in the first round of voting, some 18 points over communist-backed Stavros Malas. (AP Photo/Petros Karadjias)

Left-wing presidential candidate Stavros Malas votes in the Presidential election in Nicosia, Cyprus, Sunday, Feb. 24, 2013. Faced with the specter of financial meltdown, Cypriots are choosing a new president with the conservative candidate favored to win over his left-wing rival in a runoff vote Sunday. (AP Photo/Philippos Christou)

A replica of a ballot with two presidential candidates, right-wing opposition leader Nicos Anasatsiades, left, and left-wng Stavros Mallas is posted on a wall by a police officer, right, at a polling station in southern port city of Limassol, Cyprus, Sunday, Feb. 24, 2013. Opposition party leader Nicos Anastasiades garnered 45.46 per cent of the vote in the first round of voting, some 18 points over communist-backed Stavros Malas. (AP Photo/Petros Karadjias)

Right-wing opposition leader and presidential candidate Nicos Anastasiades with his granddaughter Nikoletta leaves after voting in the presidential election in southern port city of Limassol, Cyprus, Sunday, Feb. 24, 2013. Anastasiades garnered 45.46 per cent of the vote in the first round of voting, some 18 points over communist-backed Stavros Malas. (AP Photo/Petros Karadjias)

NICOSIA, Cyprus (AP) ? Final results show that conservative candidate Nicos Anastasiades has won Cyprus' presidential runoff election by one of the widest margins in 30 years.

According to the Interior Ministry's website, with all the votes counted, Anastasiades had won 57.48 percent of the ballots, far ahead of left-wing rival Stavros Malas, who had 42.51 percent of the vote.

Cypriots are choosing their leader at a critical time.

Their country faces the specter of financial meltdown, and the new president will be under pressure to quickly finalize a financial rescue package with the eurozone's other 16 countries and the International Monetary Fund.

Associated Press
People, Places and Companies: Cyprus

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2013-02-24-Cyprus-Presidential%20Election/id-8148732ed6884f488624b40553a86f26

sopa pipa wikipedia blackout kyla pratt justified season 3 custer scott walker

Sequestration affecting congressional hiring, Rep. Goodlatte says (Washington Post)

Share With Friends:

| Politics - Top Stories Stories, RSS and RSS Feed via Feedzilla.

Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/287079151?client_source=feed&format=rss

tebow tebow jets romney etch a sketch jeb bush sherry arnold snooty fox el debarge

New type of 'farming' yields renewable energy

There's a new way to farm at Mississippi State University, and the harvest yields renewable energy and teaches a new generation of students how to harness it for practical use.

MSU's energy farm consists of 24 solar panels and two wind turbines on top of the Simrall Electrical and Computer Engineering Building on the east side of campus. Under the leadership of Yong Fu, assistant professor in the electrical and computer engineering department, students have learned how to choose the appropriate equipment, figure out how it works and install, connect and operate it.

Two MSU graduate students, doctoral candidate Saher Albatran of Jordan and master's candidate Chiranjeevi Madvesh of India, have been part of the energy farm since it was conceptualized in early 2012. The farm is part of Fu's renewable energy integration course, which teaches students about harvesting, converting, operating, planning and marketing various renewable energy resources, including wind and solar energies.

The course allowed Albatran and Madvesh to become leaders in understanding the variable and sustainable attributes of renewable energy. Albatran headed the wind turbine project, while Madvesh spearheaded the solar panel initiative.

"We had to do all the mechanical-, civil-, electrical- and software-related work to make it successful," Madvesh said. "Today, we are feeding the energy back to the grid. The satisfaction we got by working on this project and the smiles on the faces of the team members are priceless."

Fu said students in his class explore how to connect wind and solar energies to a grid.

"If you show them the real-world application, that gives them understanding," he said. "The students enjoy it; sometimes I will teach my class in the lab. They work together to get the first-hand experience."

By choosing, installing and connecting the equipment, students get the chance not just to see the hardware work, but they also are able to ask relevant questions about application, Albatran said.

Overall, he said the experience has been very exciting work for him and has reinforced his leadership skills.

"I learned how to manage and how to divide the work among the students. Also, I learned how to make sure that all of them are ready to do the work, and if I did something alone, how to keep them in contact so they know all the details," Albatran said. "Otherwise, the work flow could go in an unexpected direction."

The mechanical and civil engineering work necessary to installing and connecting the renewable energies to the grid was a positive complement to the electrical engineering necessary to bring the project to fruition, Albatran and Madvesh agreed.

In addition to students researching, installing and connecting the solar panels and wind turbines, they are also collecting data, including energy generated and phase voltages and currents, Madvesh said.

"Students even worked on data analysis and were able to find out things which can really help to improve the present capacity of power delivery," he said.

Learning about renewable energies is one thing, Fu said, but actually implementing them is fostering the kind of learning that will benefit students in their careers.

"On the whole, the project was absolutely amazing, definitely one of my best experiences. It's a good achievement in a very short duration of time," Madvesh said. "I thank Dr. Fu and the department of electrical and computer engineering for giving me this opportunity."

MSU's energy farm is supported by the state Department of Energy Smart Grid Education and Workforce Training Project.

Source: http://www.msstate.edu/web/media/detail.php?id=5908

illuminati joe flacco Go Daddy Superbowl Commercial 2013 nfl nfl michael oher superbowl score