Camping gear found in ex-cop's truck

BIG BEAR LAKE, Calif. (AP) ? Authorities say camping gear was found along with weapons inside the burned-out truck belonging to Christopher Dorner, the former Los Angeles police officer suspected in three killings who is the subject of a manhunt in Southern California's snow-covered mountains.

Los Angeles police Sgt. Rudy Lopez said Sunday that the truck was so charred that investigators couldn't be more specific about the nature of its contents.

SWAT teams with air support and bloodhounds fanned out for the fourth day to search for Dorner, who has vowed revenge against several former LAPD colleagues whom he blames for ending his career.

Authorities planned a 1 p.m. news conference to announce a reward for information leading to the arrest of 33-year-old fugitive.

Chief Charlie Beck has ordered a review of the 2007 disciplinary case that led to Dorner's dismissal.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/camping-gear-found-ex-cops-truck-182017096.html

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Amtrak funding in crosshairs in presidential race

FILE - In this March 13, 2009 file photo, Vice President Joe Biden announces funding for Amtrak, at Union Station in Washington. Warning to Amtrak from Mitt Romney and Republicans: You're on your own. The platform Republicans adopted at their convention includes a call for full privatization and an end to subsidies for the nation's passenger rail operator, which gobbled up almost $1.5 billion in federal funds last year. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais, File)

FILE - In this March 13, 2009 file photo, Vice President Joe Biden announces funding for Amtrak, at Union Station in Washington. Warning to Amtrak from Mitt Romney and Republicans: You're on your own. The platform Republicans adopted at their convention includes a call for full privatization and an end to subsidies for the nation's passenger rail operator, which gobbled up almost $1.5 billion in federal funds last year. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais, File)

FILE - In this Sept. 16, 2008 file photo, then-Democratic vice presidential candidate Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del. mingles with passengers aboard the Amtrak Acela train from Washington to Wilmington, Del. Warning to Amtrak from Mitt Romney and Republicans: You're on your own. The platform Republicans adopted at their convention includes a call for full privatization and an end to subsidies for the nation's passenger rail operator, which gobbled up almost $1.5 billion in federal funds last year. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert, File)

WASHINGTON (AP) ? Warning to Amtrak from Mitt Romney and Republicans: You're on your own.

The platform Republicans adopted at their convention included a call for full privatization and an end to subsidies for the nation's passenger rail operator, which gobbled up almost $1.5 billion in federal funds last year.

"It is long past time for the federal government to get out of the way and allow private ventures to provide passenger service," the platform said, arguing that taxpayers dole out almost $50 for every Amtrak ticket.

Long a political cudgel in the halls of Congress, Amtrak is among a number of transportation functions Republicans say should be turned over to the private sector ? including airport security, also on the chopping block in the GOP platform. At its core, the debate juxtaposes differing visions about what role government should play in ensuring public access to services ? even if they're losing money hand over fist.

For President Barack Obama, Amtrak symbolizes a communal investment in the American infrastructure that enables and catalyzes economic growth. For Romney, who built a career mending the balance sheets of unprofitable companies, dropping Amtrak fits neatly into his message of doing away with spending that government can't afford.

On Monday, Amtrak announced it had set monthly ridership records in each of the past 11 months, with expectations of a 12th in September.

Even with a record 30 million passengers boarding its trains last year, Amtrak operated at a net loss of more than $450 million. The government pitched in $562 million to keep Amtrak in the black. And that's just on the operations side, where Amtrak says it covers about 85 percent of its own costs through ticket fares and fees. When it comes to capital costs, like keeping train tracks up, the government foots almost the entire bill, costing taxpayers about $650 million in 2011.

Leading the Republican charge that the U.S. can't bear the continued hemorrhaging is Rep. John Mica, R-Fla., who chairs the House Transportation Committee. Mica says he'll hold a hearing a month on Amtrak. A session Tuesday is to focus on Amtrak's "monopoly mentality" on commuter rail.

While recognizing the need for a central entity to coordinate routes nationwide, Mica said the government has no place handling Amtrak's day-to-day operations. But he acknowledged that some less profitable routes can't get by without some subsidies.

"I'm for the privatization, and if we can end them, we can," Mica told The Associated Press.

Despite chiding from tea party activists and libertarians, Amtrak enjoys broad support from most Democrats, making it unlikely its federal subsidies will disappear any time soon. And if Obama wins re-election, Amtrak will continue to have a powerful advocate in the White House.

"I'm the biggest railroad guy you've ever known," Vice President Joe Biden, whose hometown Amtrak station was renamed after him last year, told supporters last week. "I have traveled round trip from Wilmington, Del., to Washington, D.C. ? a 250-mile round trip ? over 7,900 times."

Democrats didn't mention Amtrak in their platform, but spoke generally about rail's importance and the need for increased investments in U.S. infrastructure. With more people than ever riding trains, government should be expanding intercity travel, not dismantling it, said Rep. Nick Rahall, D-W.Va., the top Democrat on Mica's committee.

"This short-sighted proposal that Republicans are again trotting out would mark the end of the line for Amtrak service across the country, while punching a ticket to the unemployment line for thousands of workers," Rahall said.

Proponents of continued subsidies say opponents are missing the point: It's in the public interest to keep tens of millions of cars off already congested highways and from polluting the environment.

Inevitably, comparisons to Europe and Asia emerge, with skeptics questioning why for-profit rail travel can succeed overseas. But while other nations have privatized some routes, few operate systems that are free of subsidies. Japan and England repeatedly have had to bail out train systems in dire straits.

More to the point, the sprawling U.S. is not Europe, with its dense peppering of major cities. Transportation experts describe a sweet spot of about 200 to 300 miles between cities where train travel can be profitable and competitive. Any farther, and it becomes quicker and cheaper to hop a flight.

Situated perfectly in that sweet spot is the Northeast Corridor, the lifeblood of Amtrak's system. The route connects Boston to New York to Washington ? each leg less than 250 miles. Both parties say if there's any hope for Amtrak's future, it's along that bustling corridor.

Cutting subsidies would almost surely mean jettisoning the long-distance routes that connect far-flung parts of the country, and few members of Congress want to see their districts lose connectivity to the transportation grid.

In a surprise move, the GOP-controlled House in June boosted Amtrak's overall funding by $384 million, offsetting reductions in operating subsidies with new money to repair bridges and tunnels. In its funding request for next year, Amtrak asked Congress for less money for operating costs than it received this year, citing an improving financial situation.

A recent report to Congress from Amtrak's inspector general said the company was making progress on many fronts. One suggestion investigators said Amtrak had failed to take up: adding more special trains to help reduce its reliance on federal subsidies.

___

Reach Lederman on Twitter at http://twitter.com/joshledermanAP

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/89ae8247abe8493fae24405546e9a1aa/Article_2012-09-11-Amtrak-Politics/id-eb8dceaf929d4021acba3af35434112c

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Driving Traffic To Your Website is Vital To Online Marketing ...

For those who have a business already set up, you will not find any better way to reach prospective customers than by using driving traffic to your website.? If your website suffers from the lack of traffic talking with a Denver SEO company can be beneficial. The Internet is vast, and just about every person on the planet today has access to the Internet, which makes every one of these men and women a potential customer. One more thing you should comprehend about advertising a business on the internet is that this may be one of the most cost effective techniques for you to market. There are plenty of different ways you are able to market your business online and you?ll need to decide the very best way for you to market your own business. When your online marketing and advertising campaign is carried out correctly you?re going to see that you?ll have the ability of greatly increasing the amount of money you are making every year.

A site is only the beginning of online marketing and advertising, nevertheless many men and women actually believe that all they need to do is set up a web site. A Denver Web design company can help to make sure your website not only looks great but more importantly it performs well.In order to be a successful online marketer it will be of vital for you to have the ability of getting folks to visit your internet site. For people who decide that you want traffic from the search engines to come to your internet site you?ll find that there are search engine optimization strategies that will be required. Building links to your website will be one of the greatest strategies for you to get top search engine rankings, and you will also find that creating videos about your website is additionally a good choice. Mainly you have to discover the very best technique to get exposure for your web site.

There?s another technique that?s now available to be able to help individuals get traffic and that?s through something called affiliate marketing and advertising. For people that are not aware of what this is, this is really a practice of getting other individuals to market your internet site for you. You are going to need to pay folks a commission rate in order to get them to advertise your products, but this can be very effective. There?s a lot of online marketers these days who have an e-mail list that they can send offers to, and this can drive massive amounts of traffic to your website. Having the proper affiliate marketers could make you a lot of sales, and having the proper product can make this a lot easier. Good affiliate marketers like selling good products, so their customers are happy. Even though having one or two affiliate marketers can be extremely effective you are going to find that the more affiliate marketers you have advertising your product the more cash you will make.

Online advertising and marketing can either give your business credibility or it can ruin your reputation, according to how you do it. So long as you are providing content that?s unique and the information and knowledge is valuable, you will be building up your reputation as an authority. Your reputation may be negatively affected if the content you publish on the web has nothing to do with your product or isn?t valuable and informative. It will take you a while to get used to the sometimes unusual business elements that are only seen on the net. It is the possibility for sudden change in some of the operating rules that can really throw you for a loop. All the old-timers can tell you stories about things that have been stable for many years will become totally different or even gone.? When you analyze anything new for possible inclusion in your marketing arsenal, you need to be completely objective. Due diligence and make your decision about it; go or no go ? experiment and test everything and have no fear. People who come to your web site need to know your information is credible, before they?re going to recommend it to other individuals. Providing you are providing information that men and women are looking for, your traffic will increase.

To be able to be profitable as well as successful with your online marketing, research will need to be carried out so you are able to figure out how to do this in the best way possible. For people who are trying to take your business to the next level and increase your income you are going to find that online advertising may be just what you have been looking for.

See if you can work out a way to just perform an experiment with a method or two, and be sure you track your results. If you do not have the funds to buy courses and ebooks, then one solution is to join marketing and online business forums and do some background reading. You probably do not yet realize that a lack of confidence will often have an effect on the outcome of your marketing methods. We do not know about you, but we love testing out anything new that has good potential.

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Source: http://www.uniteamasia.com/284-driving-traffic-to-website-is-vital-to-online-marketing

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Top 5 bullying myths: What you don't know about bullying

You?ve probably seen a lot in the news about bullying. From a bus monitor taking abuse from students, to a six-year-old singing an allegedly inappropriate song in the lunch line, to the latest study about teens online, it seems that every day there?s a new story about bullies, victims, or anti-bullying efforts. By now, you might figure you know the topic inside and out.?But a lot of what you think you know about bullying is probably wrong. ?

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/glp5LuqF520/Top-5-bullying-myths-What-you-don-t-know-about-bullying

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Legg Mason CEO to step down, temporary CEO named

BALTIMORE (AP) ? Legg Mason's chairman and CEO, Mark Fetting, who guided the money manager through difficult years during and after the financial crisis, will step down Oct. 1.

The asset management company said Tuesday that Joseph Sullivan, Legg Mason Inc.'s head of global distribution, will become interim chief executive as it searches for a new CEO. The company's lead independent director, W. Allen Reed, will become non-executive chairman

Fetting will remain as a consultant to the Baltimore-based company through the end of the year. He became CEO in January 2008 and was named chairman that December.

Like many money managers, Legg Mason has navigated rocky territory in the wake of the recession as Americans pull billions from U.S. stock funds nearly every month. In July, Legg Mason posted its first quarterly loss in three years as it paid charges to lighten its debt and investment fees fell. Its revenue has yet to return to levels from before the 2008 financial crisis.

The company's board has formed a search committee that will look at company executives and outside candidates in the search for a new CEO. It will hire an executive search firm to help with the process.

Sullivan was named as the company's head of global distribution in 2010, after serving as its chief administrative officer since 2008. He has more than 30 years of experience in investment management and capital markets, the company said.

Reed, who has been a director since 2006, is the former CEO of General Motors Asset Management Corp., which had been the automaker's investment-management arm.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/legg-mason-ceo-step-down-temporary-ceo-named-124126196--finance.html

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Droughts are pushing trees to the limit

ScienceDaily (Sep. 10, 2012) ? Droughts in the Southwest made more severe by warming temperatures are putting plants in stressful growing conditions, a new study has found, identifying an increasingly water-thirsty atmosphere as a key force that sucks moisture from plants, leading to potentially higher stress -- especially in mid and low elevations.

As temperatures rise and droughts become more severe in the Southwest, trees are increasingly up against extremely stressful growing conditions, especially in low to middle elevations, University of Arizona researchers report in a study soon to be published in the Journal of Geophysical Research Biogeosciences.

Lead author Jeremy Weiss, a senior research specialist in the UA department of geosciences, said: "We know the climate in the Southwest is getting warmer, but we wanted to investigate how the higher temperatures might interact with the highly variable precipitation typical of the region."

Weiss' team used a growing season index computed from weather data to examine limits to plant growth during times of drought.

"The approach we took allows us to model and map potential plant responses to droughts under past, present and future conditions across the whole region," explained Julio Betancourt, a senior scientist with the U.S. Geological Survey who co-authored the study along with Jonathan Overpeck, co-director of the UA Institute of the Environment. Betancourt holds adjunct appointments in the UA department of geosciences, the UA School of Geography and Development, the UA School of Natural Resources and the Environment and the UA Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research.

"Our study helps pinpoint how vegetation might respond to future droughts, assuming milder winters and hotter summers, across the complex and mountainous terrain of the Southwest," Betancourt said.

For this study, the researchers used a growing season index that considers day length, cold temperature limits and a key metric called vapor pressure deficit to map and compare potential plant responses to major regional droughts during 1953-56 and 2000-03.

A key source of plant stress, vapor pressure deficit is defined as the difference between how much moisture the air can hold when it is saturated and the amount of moisture actually present in the air. A warmer atmosphere can hold more water vapor, and during droughts it acts like a sponge sucking up any available moisture from the ground surface, including from plants.

Both droughts -- with the more recent one occurring in warmer times -- led to widespread tree die-offs, and comparisons between them can help sort out how both warming and drying affected the degree of mortality in different areas.

Weiss pointed out that multiyear droughts with precipitation well below the long-term average are normal for the Southwest. He said the 1950s drought mainly affected the U.S.-Mexico borderlands and southern High Plains and happened before warming in the region started. The 2000s drought centered on the Four Corners area and occurred after regional warming began around 1980.

The actual causes of physiological plant stress and tree death during droughts are being investigated by various research teams using models and field and greenhouse experiments. One possibility is prolonged embolism, or the catastrophic disruption of the water column in wood vessels as trees struggle to pump moisture from the soil in the heat of summer. The other is carbon starvation as leaves shut their openings, called stomates, to conserve leaf water, slowing the uptake of carbon dioxide needed for photosynthesis. Stomatal closure is triggered by deficits in the ambient vapor pressure, which controls the rate of evaporation for water and is very much influenced by temperature.

"When the air is hotter and drier, it becomes more difficult for plants to conserve water while taking up carbon dioxide," Weiss explained. "As plants become starved of carbon, it also weakens their defenses and renders them more susceptible to insect pests."

To make matters worse, Weiss said, the size of the "atmospheric sponge" grows faster during increasingly hotter summers like those over the last 30 years, absorbing even more moisture from soil and vegetation.

"When warmer temperatures combine with drought, relatively stressful growing conditions for a plant become even more stressful," Weiss explained. "You could say drought makes that atmospheric sponge thirstier, and as the drought progresses, there is increasingly less moisture that can be evaporated from soil and vegetation to fill -- and cool -- the dry air."

"In a sense, it's a vicious circle. Warmer temperatures during droughts lead to even drier and hotter conditions."

The researchers mapped relatively extreme values of vapor deficit pressure for areas of tree die-offs during the most recent drought determined from annual aerial surveys conducted by the U.S. Forest Service.

"Our study suggests that as regional warming continues, drought-related plant stress associated with higher vapor pressure deficits will intensify and spread from late spring through summer to earlier and later parts of the growing season, as well to higher elevations," the authors write. This could lead to even more severe and widespread plant stress.

The results are in line with other trends of warming-related impacts in the Southwest over the past 30 years, including earlier leafout and flowering, more extensive insect and disease outbreaks, and an increase in large wildfires.

"We're seeing climatic growing conditions already at an extreme level with just the relatively little warming we have seen in the region so far," Weiss said. "Our concern is that vegetation will experience even more extreme growing conditions as anticipated further warming exacerbates the impacts of future droughts."

Weiss added: "We also know that part of the regional warming is linked to human-caused climate change. Seeing vapor-pressure deficits at such extreme levels points to the conclusion that the warmer temperatures linked to human-caused climate change are playing a role in drying out the region."

Betancourt said: "We have few ways of knowing how this is going to affect plants across an entire landscape, except by modeling it. There is not much we can do to avert drought-related tree mortality, whether it is due to climate variability or climate change."

Instead, Betancourt suggested, land managers should focus on how to manage the regrowth of vegetation in the aftermath of increased large-scale ecological disturbances, including wildfires and drought-related tree die-offs.

"Models like the one we developed can provide us with a roadmap of areas sensitive to future disturbances," Betancourt said. "The next step will be to start planning, determine the scale of intervention and figure out what can be done to direct or engineer the outcomes of vegetation change in a warmer world."

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Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/~3/ZjFsCFy8NJY/120911103411.htm

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Creating Playful Spaces: Setting Up a Child's Project Area ? Playful ...

I am really excited that Annie?Riechmann from Alphabet Glue and Bird and Little Bird is with us today to launch our Creating Playful Spaces week! Annie is sharing the inspiring project area that she created for her daughter. Be sure to check back each day this week to discover tips and resources for creating engaging spaces for the children in your life. To celebrate, we are offering a 30% discount on the Playful Learning Spaces eCourse (see coupon below for details).

For the last few years, our family has taken up residence in a small house near the local hospital where my medical student husband spends a lot of his time.? Being near to the hospital means that we get to see him more than we otherwise might, but small space living as a family of four (with a myriad of pets) can sometimes be a challenge. Add to this the changing space needs of growing children, and I find that I often need to reevaluate how we are using our space and what we could change to do a better job of making our home a creative and useable, but also peaceful environment.

Recently, I came across Lori Pickert?s fantastic book, Project-Based Homeschooling, and found myself completely overcome with inspiration. I?m not currently homeschooling my daughter, but we do incorporate a lot of projects into our time together at home. Lori?s book made me realize that I really needed to make some changes to my daughter?s art space to bring it more in line with her needs as an older child (now eight) doing more sophisticated projects and artwork.

My idea was to increase my daughter?s actual useable surface area, while also increasing her storage for materials and giving her a little bit of room for display. Oh, and I was hoping to be able to fit all of this into an area of our living room that is about four and a half feet wide, and to do it using only stuff that we already had around the house. The medical school family bit also means that our budget is tight and that there isn?t a lot of extra money to spend on cute organizational tools, fun though they might be.

I settled on moving our existing art table to a small section of wall that is adjacent to some built-in bookshelves in our living room.? Having her project space in a central area of the house is important to me; I have never been one to keep the living room decor ?adult only.? The kids live here too, and I feel strongly that their activities should be folded into the common spaces in our home.? Plus, we literally have no where else to put them. We hung small display shelves on the wall above her table, and she immediately filled them with favorite collections, such as her jar of beach glass and a row of pretty minerals in decorative jars. One shelf is dedicated to some clay models that she has been working on (for a diorama about penguins that she wants to make). I also hung a small bulletin board for hanging notes, displaying work in progress or for keeping lists of materials that would be useful to have for completing a project.

I cleared out some no longer needed books from the shelves next to her table, and instead, filled the space with a collection of things that she might need easy access to for creative endeavors of all sorts. There are field guides and reference books, magnifying glasses, science kits recently sent by some friends of ours, and some boxes of paper.? But from her perspective, the best part of the newly organized area is the fact that she now has free access to all the household art supplies. Her baskets and suitcases contain ?real? paint (good quality acrylics and watercolors), as well as modeling clay, high quality markers and colored pencils and various rolls of tape; all materials I may have been more cautious with in the past. In her book, Lori makes mention of the fact that children respond to trust about their ability to use high quality materials responsibly by producing high quality work and I am already finding this to be true.

Here is a list of what I?ve included in Mariam?s project space:

• pencils, hand sharpeners and erasers
• colored pencils, markers and crayons
• modeling clay and tools
• stickers, labels, tape, balls of string, clothespins
• paper, cardstock, stationery and bits of cardboard
• paint and brushes
• field guides, reference books, plant presses in two sizes
• a bug house, magnifying glasses
• glue sticks and liquid glues
• oil and chalk pastels
• card games
• a ?project journal? where she can keep track of project ideas, make sketches, take notes
• a basket for storage of work in progress and for materials being used in the space on a more temporary basis

In all, we are already finding that having easy access to a variety of materials that are well-organized can do great things for productivity, enjoyment of creating and for clean-up too.? My daughter is encouraged by her independence with using these materials and, I?m pretty pleased to have been able to find a way to incorporate a more organized project space into our small living room by making good use of what was already here.

Annie Riechmann is an educator, blogger and mama to two small people who lives in the Burlington, Vermont area. Annie is also the creator and publisher of Alphabet Glue, a literacy themed e-magazine for families, and is an associate editor for Rhythm of the Home. She is an unapologetic lover of striped knee socks, avocados, and field guides, and wishes that she was better at flying kites. You can check in with Annie at her blog, Bird and Little Bird, where she writes about everything from books and babies to laundering snowpants and the joys of putting a husband through medical school.

Source: http://playfullearning.net/creating-playful-spaces-setting-up-a-childs-project-area/

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