Clean air, water rules spark different responses (AP)

WASHINGTON ? Large and small companies have told Republican-led congressional committees what the party wants to hear: dire predictions of plant closings and layoffs if the Obama administration succeeds with plans to further curb air and water pollution.

But their message to financial regulators and investors conveys less gloom and certainty.

The administration itself has clouded the picture by withdrawing or postponing some of the environmental initiatives that industry labeled as being among the most onerous.

Still, Republicans plan to make what they say is regulatory overreach a 2012 campaign issue, taking aim at President Barack Obama, congressional Democrats and an aggressive Environmental Protection Agency.

"Republicans will be talking to voters this campaign season about how to keep Washington out of the way, so that job creators can feel confident again to create jobs for Americans," said Joanna Burgos, a spokeswoman for the House Republican campaign organization.

The Associated Press compared the companies' congressional testimony to company reports submitted to the Securities and Exchange Commission. The reports to the SEC consistently said the impact of environmental proposals is unknown or would not cause serious financial harm to a firm's finances.

Companies can legitimately argue that their less gloomy SEC filings are correct, since most of the tougher anti-pollution proposals have not been finalized. And their officials' testimony before congressional committees was sometimes on behalf of ? and written by ? trade associations, a perspective that can differ from an individual company's view.

But the disparity in the messages shows that in a political environment, business has no misgivings about describing potential economic horror stories to lawmakers.

"As an industry, we have said this before, we face a potential regulatory train wreck," Anthony Earley Jr., then the executive chairman of DTE Energy in Michigan, told a House committee on April 15. "Without the right policy, we could be headed for disaster."

The severe economic consequences, he said, would be devastating to the electric utility's customers, especially Detroit residents who "simply cannot afford" higher rates.

Earley, who is now chairman and CEO of Pacific Gas & Electric Corp., said if the EPA had its way, coal-fired plants would be replaced with natural gas ? leading to a spike in gas prices. He said he was testifying for the electric industry, not just his company.

But in its quarterly report to the SEC, Detroit-based DTE, which serves 3 million utility customers in Michigan, said that it was "reviewing potential impacts of the proposed and recently finalized rules, but is not able to quantify the financial impact ... at this time."

Skiles Boyd, a DTE vice president for environmental issues, said in an interview that the testimony was meant to convey the potential economic hardship on ratepayers ? while the SEC report focused on the company's financial condition.

"It's two different subjects," he said.

Another congressional witness, Jim Pearce of chemical company FMC Corp., told a House hearing last Feb. 9: "The current U.S. approach to regulating greenhouse gases ... will lead U.S. natural soda ash producers to lose significant business to our offshore rivals...." Soda ash is used to produce glass, and is a major component of the company's business..

But in its annual report covering 2010 and submitted to the SEC 13 days after the testimony, the company said it was "premature to make any estimate of the costs of complying with un-enacted federal climate change legislation, or as yet un-implemented federal regulations in the United States." The Philadelphia-based company did not respond to a request for comment..

California Rep. Henry Waxman, the senior Democrat on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, said the SEC filings "show that the anti-regulation rhetoric in Washington is political hot air with little or no connection to reality."

House Republicans have conducted dozens of hearings, and passed more than a dozen bills to stop proposed environmental rules. So far, all the GOP bills have gone nowhere in the Democratic-run Senate.

"I will see to it, to the best of my ability, to try to stop everything," California Sen . Barbara Boxer, the Democratic chairman of the Senate's environment committee, vowed in reference to GOP legislation aimed at reining in the EPA. She predicted Republicans "will lose seats over this."

The Obama administration has reconsidered some of the environmental proposals in response to the drumbeat from business groups. In September, the president scrubbed a clean-air regulation that aimed to reduce health-threatening smog. Last May, EPA delayed indefinitely regulations to reduce toxic pollution from boilers and incinerators.

James Rubright, CEO of Rock-Tenn Co., a Norcross, Ga.-based producer of corrugated-and-consumer packaging, told a House panel in September that a variety of EPA, job safety and chemical security regulations would require "significant capital investment" ? money that "otherwise go to growth in manufacturing capacity and the attendant production of jobs."

Rubright conveyed a consulting firm's conclusion that EPA's original boiler proposal before the Obama administration withdrew it in May would have cost the forest products industry about $7 billion, and the packaging industry $6.8 billion.

Another industry study, he said, warned that original boiler rule would have placed 36 mills at risk and would have jeopardized more than 20,000 jobs in the pulp and paper industries ? about 18 percent of the work force.

But a month before his testimony_ and three months after EPA withdrew its boiler proposal ? Rock-Tenn told the SEC that "future compliance with these environmental laws and regulations will not have a material adverse effect on our results or operations, financial condition or cash flows." The company did not respond to a request for comment.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/us/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111126/ap_on_go_co/us_clean_air_politics

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WIA Emergency Communications Operator Training | Southgate ...

To date, well over 100 emergency communications operators across Australia have been training via the WIA Emergency Communications Operator training program.

This program, Certificate II in public safety (SES Operations), is now available 'on-line' and can be completed as a self-paced program.
The WIA registration requirements apply.

The process to undertake the course can be commenced by completing the WIA on line application form found on the WIA web site.
https://www.wia.org.au/members/emcom/emcomregisteronline/

The on line program will assist those wishing to complete the program but are unable to attend a formal training session or those who have missed a section of the training as well as those who want to complete the program and provide a service to their community.

WIA website
http://www.wia.org.au/

Source: http://www.southgatearc.org/news/november2011/wia_emcomm_training.htm

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Former NYT columnist, author Tom Wicker dies (AP)

MONTPELIER, Vt. ? Tom Wicker, the former New York Times political reporter and columnist whose career soared following his acclaimed coverage of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, died Friday at his home in Rochester, Vt. He was 85.

Wicker died after an apparent heart attack Friday morning, his wife Pamela said.

"He'd been ill with things that come from being 85," she said. "He died in his bedroom looking out at the countryside that he loved."

Wicker grew up in poverty in Hamlet, N.C., and wanted to be a novelist, but pursued journalism when his early books didn't catch fire. He worked at weekly and daily newspapers in North Carolina before winning a spot as a political correspondent in the Times' Washington bureau in 1960.

Three years later, he was the only Times reporter to be traveling with Kennedy when the president was shot in Dallas.

Gay Talese, author of the major history of The New York Times, wrote of Wicker's coverage: "It was a remarkable achievement in reporting and writing, in collecting facts out of confusion, in reconstructing the most deranged day in his life, the despair and bitterness and disbelief, and then getting on a telephone to New York and dictating the story in a voice that only rarely cracked with emotion."

One year later, Wicker was named Washington bureau chief of the Times, succeeding newspaper legend James Reston, who had hired Wicker and called him "one of the most able political reporters of his generation."

In 1966, Wicker began his "In the Nation" column, becoming, along with colleague Anthony Lewis, a longtime liberal voice on the Op-Ed page. Two years later he was named associate editor of the Times, a post he held until 1985.

He ended his column and retired to Vermont in 1991 but continued to write. He published 20 books, ranging from novels about gritty, hard-scrabble life in the South to reflections on the presidents he knew.

Among his books was "A Time to Die," winner of the Edgar Allan Poe Award in 1976, which recounted Wicker's 1971 experience as an observer and mediator of a prison rebellion at New York's Attica prison.

Wicker, the son of a railroad man, started in journalism in 1949 at the weekly Sandhill Citizen in Aberdeen, N.C., where he was paid $37.50 a week to report on such local news stories as the discovery of "the first beaver dam in anyone's memory on a local creek."

He moved on to a local daily and then to the larger Winston-Salem Journal, where he worked for most of the 50s, with time out in 1957-58 to serve as a Nieman fellow at Harvard University. He went to work for the Nashville Tennessean in 1959 but then a year later was hired by Reston.

In mid-1961, when Times veteran Bill Lawrence abruptly quit his post as White House correspondent in a dispute with management, Wicker got the assignment. He said it was a dream assignment ? "sooner or later most of the government's newsworthy business passes through the White House" ? and especially covering the excitement of the Kennedy era.

On Nov. 22, 1963, Wicker was in the first press bus following the Kennedy motorcade when the president was assassinated. He would later write in a memoir that the day was a turning point for the country: "The shots ringing out in Dealey Plaza marked the beginning of the end of innocence."

At that moment, however, all he knew was that he was covering one of the biggest stories in history. "At first no one knew what happened, or how, or where, much less why," he later wrote. "Gradually, bits and pieces began to fall together."

Wicker dictated his story from phones grabbed here and there, with most of his writing done at a desk in the upper level of the Dallas airport. "I would write two pages, run down the stairs, across the waiting room, grab a phone and dictate," Wicker later wrote. "Dictating each take, I would throw in items I hadn't written, sometimes whole paragraphs."

Although Wicker didn't even have a reporter's notebook that day and scribbled all of his notes on the backs of printed itineraries of the presidential visit, his story captured the detail and color of the tragic events.

Describing the president's widow as she left the hospital in Dallas, Wicker wrote: "Her face was sorrowful. She looked steadily at the floor. She still wore the raspberry-colored suit in which she greeted welcoming crowds in Fort Worth and Dallas. But she had taken off the matching pillbox hat she had worn earlier in the day, and her dark hair was windblown and tangled. Her hand rested lightly on her husband's coffin as it was taken to a waiting hearse."

In 1966, Wicker was named a national columnist, replacing retiring Times' icon Arthur Krock, who had covered 10 presidents. Wicker's first column reported on a political rally in Montana. He would later say that it was a huge step to move from detached observer to opinion holder ? and especially in the times he was writing.

"My own transition from reporter to columnist coincided roughly with the immense American political re-evaluation that sprang in the sixties from the Vietnam War and the movement against it, from the ghetto riots in the major cities, and from the brief flowering of the counterculture," Wicker wrote in his 1978 book, "On Press."

Wicker was not lacking in opinions, though, and over the years took strong and sometimes unpredictable stands, emphasizing such issues as the nation's racial divide.

On race, he said in a 1991 interview in the Times: "I think the attitudes between the races, the fear and the animosity that exist today, are greater than, let us say, at the time of the Brown case, the famous school desegregation decision in 1954."

Although Wicker was attacked by President Nixon and Vice President Spiro Agnew for his negative coverage during the Nixon administration, he argued in a 1991 book, "One of Us: Richard Nixon and the American Dream," that Nixon accomplished much in his presidency and deserves a high ranking in history.

In his final column, published Dec. 29, 1991, Wicker commented on the fall of the Soviet Union and urged President George H.W. Bush to "exercise in a new world a more visionary leadership" on non-military issues like the environment.

"As the U.S. did not hesitate to spend its resources to prevail in the cold war, it needs now to go forward as boldly to lead a longer, more desperate struggle to save the planet, and rescue the human race from itself," he wrote.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/obits/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111126/ap_on_re_us/us_obit_wicker

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For both parties, reasons for thanks (Politico)

The two major political parties have any number of reasons to be thankful this holiday season.

Democrats are grateful no single candidate has emerged as a clear front-runner in the GOP presidential field. Republicans are thankful President Barack Obama?s approval ratings are in the tank.

Continue Reading

But both parties also have a few less obvious reasons to feel fortunate. Here?s POLITICO?s Thanksgiving Day look at 10 of them.

For the Democrats

Elizabeth Warren

It?s hard to think of a congressional candidate Democrats are more passionate about than Warren, the consumer advocate and former chairwoman of the Congressional Oversight Panel who has launched a campaign against Massachusetts GOP Sen. Scott Brown.

For Democrats, the attraction to Warren is simple: She?s an attractive challenger against one of their top Senate targets, and she offers an unapologetic brand of liberalism that many in the party feel has been lacking in the Obama White House.

For someone who hasn?t run for office before, she?s off to a strong start: During the first six weeks of her campaign, Warren raised an astonishing $3.15 million, 96 percent of which came in the form of donations of $100 or less ? the largest single-quarter haul of any Senate candidate this year.

Ohio?s SB5

After a year in which GOP governors stuck it to organized labor, labor finally got payback a few weeks ago.

By repealing the Ohio measure known as Senate Bill 5, Democrats dealt a stiff blow to GOP Gov. John Kasich, who had staked much of his first year in office on pushing the controversial anti-collective bargaining rights legislation into law.

The convincing off-year election victory came after labor forces fell short earlier this year in a vigorous recall effort in Wisconsin, where Democrats sought to oust a number of Republican state legislators who supported Gov. Scott Walker?s anti-union legislation.

After a 2010 midterm election in which Republicans won big in Ohio, the SB5 win proved that Democrats aren?t down for the count in the crucial swing state. For that, state and national Democrats are very, very grateful.

Operation Neptune Spear

For Obama, there was no more gratifying accomplishment than the raid that led to the killing of Osama bin Laden.

The president won praise from both parties for the success of the mission ? code-named Operation Neptune Spear ? that eliminated the terrorist who was responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks and had eluded capture for nearly a decade.

In the national security sphere, there?s no greater accomplishment ? and it?s reflected in the polls, which show the president?s healthy approval ratings when it comes to foreign policy and national security.

How important was the success of Operation Neptune Spear? It ranks as one of the rare actions nearly everyone, in both parties, can be thankful for this year.

Steve Beshear

President Obama and the national Democratic Party might not be popular in Kentucky, but that didn?t stop Beshear, the state?s Democratic governor, from winning reelection in a landslide early this month.

Now, his campaign playbook is a one-stop manual for how Democrats can win in conservative states where the president is lagging: distance yourself from the national party and run as a nonideological, pro-business leader who?s willing to work with Republicans as well as Democrats. Best of all, Beshear managed the feat without completely throwing his president and party to the wolves.

When the dust settled on Election Day, Beshear defeated GOP state Senate President David Williams 56 percent to 35 percent, an impressive margin of victory for an incumbent governor in any state ? let alone a Democrat in a state where Obama will be lucky to win 40 percent of the vote in 2012.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/politics/*http%3A//us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/external/politico_rss/rss_politico_mostpop/http___www_politico_com_news_stories1111_69086_html/43703072/SIG=11m261suh/*http%3A//www.politico.com/news/stories/1111/69086.html

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Egypt army picks new PM, protesters plan mass rally (Reuters)

CAIRO (Reuters) ? Egyptian former prime minister Kamal Ganzouri accepted a request from the ruling generals to form a new government, state media reported, but protesters brushed away their choice and vowed to hold another mass rally on Friday to demand the army quit power.

Ganzouri confirmed he had agreed in principle to lead a national salvation government after meeting with the head of the ruling military council, Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, the website of state newspaper Al Ahram reported, citing sources close to Ganzouri.

In an attempt to defuse protests by thousands of Egyptians frustrated by nine months of military rule, the army council promised parliamentary elections would start on time next week. It earlier said it would speed up the timetable for a handover from military to civilian presidential rule.

Violent clashes with police in and around Cairo's Tahrir Square since Saturday have killed dozens, in scenes reminiscent of the popular uprising that toppled Hosni Mubarak in February.

"The people demand the execution of the marshal," crowds chanted, referring to army chief Tantawi who was Mubarak's defense minister for 20 years.

Ganzouri headed a cabinet from 1996 to 1999 that introduced some economic liberalization measures. Many Egyptians viewed him as an official who was not tainted by corruption, but his record serving under Mubarak could stir opposition from those demanding a clean break with the past.

As talk of a Ganzouri appointment filtered through the crowds packed into Tahrir Square, reactions were mixed. Some said his age made him a bad choice. Ganzouri is in his late 70s.

"Ganzouri is no good for this transitional period, which needs youth leaders, not grandparents," said student Maha Abdullah.

Metwali Atta, a 55-year-old taxi driver who was camped out in Tahrir, disagreed: "I would like to see Ganzouri as prime minister. The man has a strong character, unlike (outgoing prime minister) Essam Sharaf who was easily bossed around by the military council."

In a communique, protesters called a million-man march on "the Friday of the last chance" to back demands for an immediate transfer to civilian rule via a national salvation government.

The Egyptian Independent Trade Union Federation called for a workers' march to Tahrir. Another labor rights group called for a general strike to back the protests. Labour unions played an important role in the movement that toppled Mubarak.

The heads of two political parties who took part in a meeting with the military council on Tuesday said they now regretted attending and apologized to the protesters in Tahrir.

The demonstrations appear to have polarized Egyptians, many of whom worry unrest will prolong economic stagnation.

Supporters of the army council had said they would hold a rally to back the military. In a statement on its Facebook page, the army council said it was "appealing to them to cancel the demonstration," saying it wanted to avoid divisions.

ECONOMY REELS

In fresh blows to confidence, the Egyptian pound weakened to more than six to the dollar for the first time since January 2005, and Standard & Poor's cut Egypt's credit rating.

The agency cut Egypt's long-term, foreign and local-currency sovereign credit ratings to B+ from BB-, saying a "weak political and economic profile" had worsened further.

The Central Bank raised interest rates unexpectedly in what bankers was an attempt to shore up the pound.

Egypt's ruling army council said it was doing all it could to prevent more violence. In a statement, it apologized, offered condolences and compensation to families of the dead, and promised a swift investigation into who was behind the unrest.

A ruling council member, General Mamdouh Shaheen, told a news conference the parliamentary vote, whose first stage is due to begin on Monday, would go ahead on time. "We will not delay elections. This is the final word," he said.

Another council member, Major-General Mokhtar al-Mullah, took a swipe at the demonstrators. "If we look at those in Tahrir, regardless of their number, they do not represent the Egyptian people, but we must respect their opinion," he said.

Mullah said the army hoped to form a new government before Monday to replace Prime Minister Essam Sharaf's cabinet, which resigned during this week's violence without giving a reason.

Demonstrators in Tahrir said the truce had taken hold from midnight. Cranes hauled concrete barriers, later reinforced with barbed wire, across streets leading to the nearby Interior Ministry, flashpoint for much of the recent violence.

HUMAN CHAINS

Protesters linked arms in human chains to prevent further clashes with security forces guarding the Interior Ministry.

"We have created a space separating us from the police. We are standing here to make sure no one violates it," said Mahmoud Adly, 42, part of a human cordon four people deep.

The protests in Cairo and elsewhere pose the gravest challenge to Egypt's army rulers since they took over from Mubarak, overthrown on February 11 after an 18-day uprising.

The United States and European nations, alarmed at the violence of the past few days, have urged Egypt to proceed with what has been billed as its first free vote in decades.

The army and the Muslim Brotherhood, which expects to do well in the election, say it must go ahead, but many protesters do not trust the military to oversee a clean vote. Some scorn the Brotherhood for its focus on gaining seats in parliament.

In Tahrir, two groups were chanting against other, one saying, "Muslim Brotherhood, we don't want you in the square," and another responding in a unity call, "One hand, one hand."

The military council originally promised to return to barracks within six months of the fall of Mubarak, but then set a timetable for elections and drawing up a new constitution that would have left it in power until late next year or early 2013.

Tantawi pledged this week to hold a presidential vote in June that could pave the way for a transfer to civilian rule, but the demonstrators, angered by army attempts to shield itself legally from future civilian control, are unconvinced.

"The protesters of Tahrir Square announce their absolute rejection of ... Tantawi's speech, and stress they have been humiliated that the regime moved to offer solution only after martyrs fell," the protesters' communique said.

Before the truce, protesters had fought running battles with security forces around the Interior Ministry. The bloody chaos there contrasted with normal life in streets nearby.

(Additional reporting by Edmund Blair, Tom Perry and Patrick Werr; Writing by Alistair Lyon; Editing by Sophie Hares)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/africa/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111124/wl_nm/us_egypt_protests

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Be thankful for messy politics and noisy protesters (The Week)

New York ? Many Americans are fed up with our gridlocked politics and sputtering economy. But there's still plenty to be grateful for

Some Americans might not see much to be thankful for this year. After all, 48 million of our fellow citizens are on food stamps. Unemployment grinds along at 9 percent. Housing prices???the source of most people's wealth???have fallen to 2002 levels. Economic uncertainty, even fear, is spreading. And, in a most un-American thought, there is a gnawing suspicion that the next generation won't live as well as the preceding one.?

Fair points all???and a humble reminder to those who are blessed that millions of our fellow Americans, tens of millions, are truly struggling this Thanksgiving. Here's to hoping for better times for them.?

SEE MORE: The GOP's new voting laws: Disenfranchising 5 million Americans?

?

Call me crazy, but I think it's great that our elections take months and years to play out.

Still, there are plenty of things to be thankful for. And a few may surprise you:?

SEE MORE: Will Scott Brown pay for insinuating that Elizabeth Warren is ugly?

?

We can be thankful for our messy political system. Call me crazy, but I think it's great that our elections take months and years to play out. It gives us time to thoroughly vet our candidates. In parliamentary democracies like Britain and Canada, elections are held in a matter of weeks. It seems to work for them, but think about this: In the last few months alone, Republicans pined for Sarah Palin; Michele Bachmann had her 15 minutes; Rick Perry rose and fell; Herman Cain burned bright before burning out; and now Newt Gingrich is moving up. Meanwhile, Mitt Romney chugs along, never getting more than 25 percent or so of Republican support. That the GOP goes through candidates quicker than the Kardashians do marriages is a healthy thing (for the Republicans, not the Kardashians). Each candidate is thoroughly scrutinized, put to the test in a series of debates, and made to answer difficult questions from pesky reporters. By enduring this, sometimes for years, the true measure of a candidate???his or her intelligence, character (or lack thereof), experience, strengths, and weaknesses???usually emerges. When we go to the polls next year, we'll know what we're getting. And Democrats basking in the GOP squabble this cycle had better buckle up, because they're looking at a similar free for all in 2016???and that's great.?

We can be thankful that we have the right to gather in city squares and protest and yell at the top of our lungs. The Tea Party and its left-wing lookalike, the Occupy movement, are perhaps the purest form of American democracy. It's no coincidence that the framers chose this right???to assemble (peaceably) and be heard???as the First Amendment. The hue and cry of the citizenry is not only a temperature check on the body politic, it is an essential cog in the self-correcting mechanism that has always helped the American ship of state find the best course.?

SEE MORE: Elizabeth Warren takes credit for Occupy Wall Street: Smart move?

?

Let's be thankful that our media is a patchwork quilt of loud, disagreeable people with wildly differing ideas. What's your pleasure: Fox News or MSNBC? NPR or Rush Limbaugh? The Wall Street Journal or The New York Times? There is something for every point of view. Don't trust the mainstream media or feel like you're not being heard? Fine. Start your own blog or podcast. Email your congressman. Send a tweet to the president. It has never been easier to let our opinions be known than today.?

Think politics is all about big money and big corporations? That's often the perception, and in some respects, it is undeniably true. But it's also true, albeit underreported, that the little guy plays a big role as well. For example, through September 30, more than half of all donations to President Obama's re-election campaign have been for $200 or less. We can be thankful that citizens, particularly of modest means, care about their country so much that they'll part with a few of their hard-earned dollars so that they, too, can make a difference. (By contrast, only 10 percent of Mitt Romney's donations fall into this category).?

We can be thankful that even in these tough times, Americans continue to have big hearts. We gave $291 billion to charity last year, 3.8 percent more than in 2009, reports CharityNavigator.org. And the vast majority of that, 73 percent, came from individuals. Americans know that no matter how difficult their personal struggles, there's always someone who has it worse.?

Let's also be thankful that young Americans???our next generation of leaders???recognize the importance of pubic service and giving back. Applications for positions at AmeriCorps nearly tripled between 2008 and 2010, reports The New York Times; Teach for America, which puts college graduates into some of the toughest classrooms in the land, received 32 percent more applicants last year than the year before. Some of this surge can surely be attributed to America's lack of jobs. But also, "the millennial generation is a generation that is just more interested in making a difference than making a dollar," Max Stier, the president and chief executive of the Partnership for Public Service, a nonprofit group that advises government recruiting efforts, tells the Times.

The list of things to be thankful for is long. What about all the tremendous problems we face? Obviously, that's a long list, too. But for one day, at least, let's focus on what we have. Pass the pumpkin pie???and Happy Thanksgiving.?

View this article on TheWeek.com
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Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/oped/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/theweek/20111123/cm_theweek/221726

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This is My Job: Fabricator

November 22, 2011 5:00 PM

Thomas Hosford Ann Arbor, Mich. Age: 28 Years on Job: 14

A busted clutch drove Thomas Hosford to a job that turned out to be his calling. It was 1998, and "my time was cheaper than buying a new clutch basket," he says. So he headed to his father's fab shop?which the elder Hosford has operated since 1979?and milled a new part from an aluminum slab. After that, Hosford worked summers alongside his dad, but didn't realize he wanted a fabricating career until he studied business for two years at Indiana University. "I found myself going back to the shop every chance I could," he says. Now, Hosford can make just about anything. "I'm either fixing a cracked lawnmower deck or making parts for remotely operated vehicles [ROVs] that maintain underwater pipes." His bike frames in particular are getting noticed. Demand is so great that he started a side business, Ordnance Bikes, to build custom downhill MTB and BMX frames.

How to Fab a Custom Part

Design Verification

Jobs arrive with a variety of instructions. Most are singular requests, like the coupler (left) that connects an underwater ROV's cable to the control unit. "Sometimes a guy wants a real-life version of a napkin sketch," Hosford says. "Other times I get detailed CAD drawings." In all cases, he checks to see if the part can actually be made. "I look for tricky curves or oddly placed holes, and I'll work with the customer to simplify the design to reduce the labor cost."

Fabrication

While Hosford works with all types of metal, wood and composites, the coupler plans called for corrosion-resistant bronze. First, Hosford cut a solid, round bar of bronze to the specified length. Next, he bored a central hole with a lathe, then used a milling machine to cut a groove down the coupler's length and to drill and tap the perpendicular holes. Milling machines?the backbone of every fab shop?use a variety of cutting and drill bits that rotate in a spindle like a drill press. But the table on a milling machine moves in three dimensions while the spindle stays fixed. The material, which is rigidly held in place by fixtures, is moved to engage the bit.

Final Inspection

As he does with everything he fabricates, Hosford used a die grinder to clean burrs off the coupler. He also polished any machining marks and measured the part to make sure it matched the plans. Then it was off to the customer?and on to the next job for Hosford. "Every day is different," he says. "I love the variety."

Source: http://www.popularmechanics.com/outdoors/extreme-jobs/this-is-my-job-fabricator?src=rss

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Tebow, Broncos top Jets 17-13 on last-minute drive (AP)

DENVER ? There's a new Comeback Kid in Denver, and John Elway's proudly looking on as this plucky quarterback wins with his legs, not his arm.

Tim Tebow's 20-yard touchdown run with 58 seconds left capped a 95-yard drive and sent the Broncos to a 17-13 victory over the stunned New York Jets on Thursday night.

"I like winning," Tebow said after his third comeback in a month, "but I wish it wasn't this stressful."

The Broncos had punted on their eight previous possessions when they got the ball with less than 6 minutes and 95 yards to go. Tebow calmly drove Denver down the field, thwarting a Jets defense that had throttled him all night.

"We played them well, through the whole game, until that last play," Jets star cornerback Darrelle Revis said. "We played them well. Tim Tebow's legs took them to victory, ran them to victory."

On third-and-4 from the Jets 20 and under a minute left, the Broncos got an extra minute to think about things when a fan ran onto the field and was corralled by security.

During the break, the Jets dialed up their first all-out blitz of the night.

Tebow took the snap from the shotgun with 1:06 left, read the blitz and outflanked safety Eric Smith around the left edge, then cut back and bulled his way past other Jets into the end zone.

"He shocked me," Revis said, "probably shocked a lot of people."

Not Jets coach Rex Ryan.

"You know he's going to keep it in that situation. That's what he does. You keep the ball in your playmaker's hand," Ryan said. "We thought he was going to carry the ball and he didn't disappoint us. But he ran for a touchdown. The kid's a competitor and makes big plays with the game on the line."

The Jets (5-5) lost for the second time in four nights.

The Broncos (5-5) are 4-1 since Tebow replaced Kyle Orton, and at .500, they're a-half game behind Oakland in the AFC West race.

"He's a competitive dude," Broncos coach John Fox said. "He's super competitive. He never lays his sword down. He'll fight you to the death. That's just his nature. He's a great young man."

Mark Sanchez's desperation pass toward the end zone was batted down as time expired and the Jets trudged off the field with their playoff hopes dimmed just a week after they were brimming with optimism.

Nick Folk's 45-yard field goal had broken a 10-10 tie with 9:14 remaining, and the Broncos found themselves facing a daunting task when they got the ball back with 5:54 left at their own 5.

New York safety Jim Leonhard could have quashed Denver's winning drive on the first play when he wrapped up Eddie Royal in the end zone on a throw to the right flat, but Royal wiggled free for 8 yards.

Tebow ran just twice for 11 yards until the final drive, when he carried seven times for 58 yards in a performance reminiscent of his miracle in Miami, when he was ineffective for 55 minutes, then led the Broncos to two TDs in the final 5 minutes of a game Denver won in overtime.

"I think it was just a bunch of guys that kept fighting, that had been knocked down a bunch of times and got back up," Tebow said. "I'm proud of these guys for their resiliency and determination."

After completing just two passes in a win at Kansas City four days earlier, Tebow completed 9 of 20 passes for 104 yards Thursday night.

"I said before, I trust him. I trust him with everything," teammate Von Miller said. "No matter how many interceptions he throws, no matter how many touchdowns he scores, that's Tim Tebow and I'm going to ride with him to the end. I hope he shut up a whole bunch of critics today."

The debate across the NFL is whether the option is sustainable? After all, when Elway joined the team's front office this year, he said Tebow had to become a pocket passer to make it in this league.

"I want to run whatever's going to work," Tebow said, disputing the notion advanced by Hall of Famer and TV broadcaster Steve Young that he must be mad that Fox isn't letting him throw the ball more like a conventional quarterback.

Before Denver's unorthodox option offense prevailed again, it appeared the Jets were going to win this one thanks to an oddball touchdown.

Left guard Matt Slauson recovered rookie running back Bilal Powell's fumble at the 1 and dived across the goal line early in the third quarter to give New York a 10-3 lead.

"It was awesome at the time," Slauson said. "Unfortunately, it doesn't mean anything now."

Denver tied it at 10 when Andre' Goodman stepped in front of Plaxico Burress and picked off Sanchez's ill-advised pass and returned it 26 yards for a touchdown.

"I shouldn't have thrown it," Sanchez lamented. "It's an embarrassing play on my part."

It was the third pick-six Sanchez and thrown this year, and the Jets followed that with their fourth lost fumble on special teams when Joe McKnight coughed it up on the kickoff return at his 41. Cassius Vaughn recovered for Denver, but the Broncos couldn't capitalize this time, going three and out.

McKnight and Powell shared snaps after New York's backfield took another hit when starting running back Shonn Greene took a knee to the ribs and didn't return. They were already without LaDainian Tomlinson (knee), so Powell was activated for the first time all season.

With each game, the Broncos mold their offense more and more to fit Tebow's unique skill set that made him the most successful combination college quarterback in NCAA history, just as former Florida coach Urban Meyer once suggested an NFL team would have to do.

And they keep watching him run roughshod over defenders who are bigger, faster and stronger than they were in the SEC.

"He did it to us in college and he's doing it here," said teammate Robert Ayers, who went to Tennessee. "It doesn't have to be pretty, it doesn't have to be Aaron Rodgers-like. As long as we get it done, that's all that matters."

Notes: Broncos WR Eric Decker's girlfriend, country singer Jessie James, performed at halftime. ... Greene said X-rays were negative. ... No Jets offensive lineman had scored on a fumble recovery since guard Randy Rasmussen smothered running back Cliff McClain's fumble in the end zone against Miami in 1972.

___

Follow AP Pro Football Writer Arnie Melendrez Stapleton on Twitter: http://twitter.com/arniestapleton

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/topstories/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111118/ap_on_sp_fo_ga_su/fbn_jets_broncos

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Police: 2 soldiers, child killed in north Nigeria (AP)

MAIDUGURI, Nigeria ? Police say two soldiers and a child are dead after members of a radical Muslim sect ambushed them in a city in northeast Nigeria.

Local police commissioner Simeon Midenda said Saturday that the attack happened Friday night in Maiduguri, the spiritual home for the sect known as Boko Haram. Witnesses said the sect members shot at a military patrol in the city, and one of the stray rounds killed a 9-year-old.

No one has been arrested over the killings.

Boko Haram is also being blamed for bombings and gunfights Nov. 4 that left more than 100 people dead in Damaturu, a town 80 miles (130 kilometers) west of Maiduguri.

The group has been carrying out a campaign of attacks for more than a year. Boko Haram wants the strict implementation of Islamic Shariah law across the country's north.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/africa/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111119/ap_on_re_af/af_nigeria_violence

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Palestinian official: Rivals agree on election (AP)

RAMALLAH, West Bank ? The rival Palestinian factions Fatah and Hamas have agreed to hold elections next May, a senior official said Tuesday, in what would be a major step toward ending a four-year rift.

Azzam al-Ahmad, a senior Fatah negotiator, said the sides agreed on the election plan in secret talks and are expected to formally approve it later this month. The plan calls for the establishment of a caretaker government to prepare for the vote ? most likely without current Prime Minister Salam Fayyad.

Dismissing Fayyad would be a huge gamble. The U.S.-educated economist is widely respected in the West and is key to ensuring the flow of hundreds of millions of dollars of international aid. Hamas objects to Fayyad's participation in a caretaker government, claiming he is a pawn of the West.

Al-Ahmad hinted that Fayyad would not be part of the new government. "Fayyad was an obstacle before reconciliation because Hamas insisted on rejecting him, and therefore I hope this obstacle will not be there this time," he said.

The Palestinians have been divided between two governments since Hamas overran the Gaza Strip in 2007. The Fatah-led Palestinian Authority has governed only the West Bank since then.

The division has complicated peace efforts, since President Mahmoud Abbas' Palestinian Authority favors a negotiated peace with Israel, while Hamas is sworn to the destruction of the Jewish state.

The Palestinians claim both the West Bank and Gaza, located on opposite sides of Israel, for a future state. Israeli officials say it is impossible to reach peace as long as Hamas controls Gaza.

Hamas and Fatah first signed a reconciliation plan last May calling for elections and a caretaker government, but the plan has not been implemented, in part because of disagreements over Fayyad.

Fayyad said he would not stand in the way of an agreement. "I have always called for ending the split," he said. "I call upon the factions to find a new prime minister and stop claiming that I'm the obstacle, because I was never an obstacle and will never be."

Abbas and Hamas' supreme leader, Khaled Mashaal, are expected to formally approve the election plan at a meeting in Cairo on Nov. 25, al-Ahmad said.

Salah Bardawil, a Hamas leader in Gaza, said his group is ready to move forward on reconciliation if Fayyad is out of the picture.

"Hamas does not fear the elections and will respect the opinion of the Palestinian people," he said. Hamas won a parliamentary election in 2006.

Even if an agreement is reached in Cairo, implementing it is far from certain. The sides would still have to agree on a list of ministers in the new government, budget issues and how to combine rival security forces.

Any government that includes Hamas would also be shunned by Israel and the West, which have both branded the group a terrorist organization. Hamas has killed hundreds of Israelis in suicide bombings and other attacks and has refused to renounce violence or accept existing partial peace accords.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/mideast/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111115/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_palestinians_reconciliation

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Protesters in, tents out at NYC 'Occupy' park

NEW YORK?? Protesters returned to the home of "Occupy Wall Street" on Tuesday after a tumultuous day that started with their eviction by police.

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Zuccotti Park in lower Manhattan was filled, but demonstrators were not allowed to bring tents, tarps, generators and camping equipment, WNBC reported.

"Small backpacks are allowed," an NYPD chief bellowed through a bullhorn as demonstrators filed back into the plaza after a New York judge upheld the city's dismantling of the encampment.

Protesters' First Amendment rights don't entitle them to camp out indefinitely in the plaza, ruled New York City Supreme Court Justice Michael Stallman as he denied a motion by demonstrators seeking to re-establish their camp. (Read his ruling here.)

"Even protected speech is not equally permissible in all places and at all times," Stallman ruled.

Police cleared out protesters in a nighttime sweep early Tuesday. The judge upheld the city's effective eviction of the protesters after an emergency appeal by the National Lawyers Guild.

The protesters had been camped out in privately owned Zuccotti Park since mid-September. Mayor Michael Bloomberg said he ordered the sweep because health and safety conditions had become "intolerable" in the crowded plaza.

The protesters allowed in Zuccotti Park will have to abide by the park rules ? designed to prevent them from setting up a camp again ? that included a ban on sleeping bags, tents and the storage of belongings in the space.

Story: Mayors deny colluding on 'Occupy' crackdowns

Stallman ruled after the city filed papers opposing a temporary restraining order issued early Tuesday. The earlier order, published on The New York Times website, said authorities were prohibited from "preventing protesters from re-entering the park with tents and other property previously utilized."

But Bloomberg closed the park while lawyers reviewed the order.

The city claimed that giving protesters free reign over the park would cause unsafe and unsanitary conditions. They also claimed occupiers were stockpiling makeshift weapons including metal-pipes inside cardboard tubes, WNBC reported.

PhotoBlog: Dispatches from the disputed streets

The park had become a health and fire safety hazard and that "unfortunately ... (it) became a place not to protest, but to break the law," Bloomberg said Tuesday.

"Inaction was not an option," he said. "We could not wait for someone in the park to get killed."

Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said around 200 were arrested overnight, including dozens who tried to resist by linking arms at the center of Zuccotti Park or chaining themselves together with bicycle locks.

NBC New York's Jonathan Dienst, who was at the scene in Lower Manhattan, reported that he had counted a further 40 arrests along Broadway.

Jay-Z and others who are profiting from Occupy Wall Street

A few protesters, who appeared to resist and shove officers, were thrown to the ground and placed in handcuffs, he reported.

Ryan Peters, 29, from Chicago, who took a leave of absence from the advertising agency where he works to tour different Occupy protests, cried as he told msnbc.com's Miranda Leitsinger that about 30 people had chained themselves up inside the Occupy protest's kitchen area.

"People want to fight for something that's really important," he said. "It makes me cry every time I think of them (the people in the kitchen) getting locked down in the park ? these guys are patriots."

Another protester, Luc Baillargeon, 29, told Leitsinger that "a few" people were treated for pepper burns and minor lacerations but he added there were no apparent signs of serious injuries. NYPD told WNBC three people were injured during the evacuations, one of whom was taken to Bellevue Hospital.

Meanwhile, a message on the @OccupyWallSt Twitter account said that city council member Ydanis Rodriguez was "beaten by nypd and bleeding from head."

Police confirmed Rodriguez was part of a group arrested near Cortlandt Street and Broadway as they tried to push through a barricade around 1:45 a.m., NBC reported.

Josh Harkinson, writer for Mother Jones magazine and one of the few journalists present during the eviction, reported on Twitter that he heard from several sources that police felled a tree in the park in order to remove protesters who had climbed to safety.

Regrouping?
After being evicted, several hundred demonstrators regrouped in nearby Foley Square to discuss their next move, setting up a new Twitter account.

Nicholas Frechette, 25, said he had been pepper sprayed during the eviction but was undeterred.

"We broke the night together doing something truly revolutionary," he said in Foley Square.

Protesters also grouped at Duarte Square, a city park at Canal Street and Avenue of the americas, about a mile north north of Zuccotti park. Two people with bolt cutters allegedly snipped a lock to a fenced-off lot at nearby Trinity Church aroud 11 a.m. EST. Police came in and cleared them out, arresting about two dozen people in the process, The New York Times reported.

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After the church-lot was swept, about 350 protesters marched back to Zuccotti Park, blocking Broadway traffic along the way. They circled the park while awaiting the outcome of the court hearing.

Msnbc.com's Bob Sullivan reported from the scene that many police officers in riot gear had their helmets off and were chatting.

Police searched protesters as they let them back into the park.

The police operation in the park ? known by the demonstrators as Liberty Park or Liberty Square ? comes just two days ahead of a massive planned demonstration Thursday marking the movement's two-month anniversary.

Earlier, Mayor Bloomberg defended the move to evict the protesters and tear down their tent city, saying in a statement that the park was "becoming a place where people came not to protest, but rather to break laws, and in some cases, to harm others."

"Protesters have had two months to occupy the park with tents and sleeping bags," he added. "Now they will have to occupy the space with the power of their arguments."

The park was cleared in less than three hours in what appeared to be a highly coordinated action, prompting firebrand left-wing film-maker and activist Michael Moore to ask on Twitter whether President Obama or federal agencies had been involved in planning the clearance and similar evictions of Occupy camps elsewhere in the US.

Letters to protesters
After the raid, thousands of dollars worth of computer and camera equipment, tents and sleeping bags could be seen piled in the center of the park by sanitation workers. Police said in a statement that the items would be brought to a sanitation garage where they could be collected later.

By 9 a.m. ET, the park had been power-washed clean by city workers and stood empty ? as seen in this picture from msnbc.com's Jonathan Woods ? as police in riot gear waited for orders to reopen it.

Police earlier handed out notices from Brookfield Office Properties, owner of Zuccotti Park, and the city saying that the park had to be cleared because it had become unsanitary and hazardous.

Justin Stone-Diaz, a member of the "Think Tank" policy group set up by the protesters, told msnbc.com he saw that police had a Long Range Acoustic Device ? a powerful speaker that disperses crowds by producing an uncomfortable sound.

Story: Police dismantle Oakland camp, protesters on march

Another protester, Nan Terrie, an 18-year-old law student, told msnbc.com that a number of people had formed an interlocking human chain in the women's tent.? "This is an illegal eviction (that) they are trying to do to us," she said.

Thorin Caristo, 37, whose eyes appeared red and swollen, told msnbc.com he felt stinging in his eyes for several minutes after being cleared from the camp.

"I feel like this (action) will be a catalyst for the movement," he said.

Protester John Murdock told msnbc.com he was arrested and held for four hours. "Shame on America, shame on the police," he said. "This is not okay. This is an embarassment for the country.

"We're just getting started. We changed the conversation of the nation. This is just another chapter."

Crowds chanted "The people united will never be divided" in Foley Square.

Protester Han Shan, 39, left his job to work on the movement full time. He was at the park helping get out media equipment and supplies as the eviction took place and then moved one block away to "bear witness."

PhotoBlog: Occupy Wall Street

"I think obviously people are angry. We see like thousands ... of police amassing around a peaceful protest," he told msnbc.com.

"It's one night in what is a growing movement ... this is a movement now that is much, much larger than one square in downtown Manhattan," Shan added. "We've seen sweeps of occupations in Oakland and Denver and other places, but I don't think that it's going to affect the momentum of this movement."

Police move across U.S.
The New York eviction followed similar action in Atlanta, Portland and Salt Lake City, but unlike action in Oakland ? where police used tear gas and stun grenades ? NYPD said most protesters left peacefully.

A Bloomberg News report Monday stated that mayors across the country ordered police to shut down camps, arguing they had deteriorated from a protest against income inequality into a backdrop for crime and violence.

Video: Occupy London faces eviction

Elsewhere:

In Seattle, police officers on mountain bikes pepper-sprayed protesters who mobbed them in the Belltown neighborhood Tuesday evening, NBC station KING reported. At least one woman was arrested as protesters chanted "Whose streets? Our streets."

In London, authorities said on Tuesday they were resuming legal action to evict a protest camp outside St. Paul's Cathedral after talks with the demonstrators stalled.

More than 200 tents have been pitched outside the church for a month in a protest inspired by New York's Occupy Wall Street.

The cathedral and local authority the City of London Corporation suspended legal action to remove the camp two weeks ago, and offered the protesters a deal to allow them to stay until the new year if they then agreed to leave.

The London protest started Oct. 15 after the demonstrators were prevented from remaining on private property near the London Stock Exchange, their original target.

In Toronto, officials have told Occupy Toronto protesters they must leave their encampment in a downtown park or risk forcible removal, raising the possibility of a police-backed eviction similar to the one in New York's Zuccotti Park earlier on Tuesday.

"The city recognizes the rights of Canadians to gather and protest. However, the city has determined that it cannot allow the current use of St. James Park to continue," read eviction notices affixed by bylaw officers to tents in the park, which has been the home of the Toronto Occupy movement.

Protesters first set up tents in the downtown park one month ago as the Occupy movement - conceived by Canadian magazine Adbusters and put into action in New York's Zuccotti Park - went global.

In Berkeley, Calif., anti-Wall Street activists began converging Tuesday on the University of California for a day of protests and another attempt to establish an Occupy Cal camp after a failed attempt last week led to dozens of arrests.

ReFund California, a coalition of student group and university employee unions, called for a campus strike, and protesters planned a rally and march to protest banks and budget cuts to higher education.

Dozens of students and faculty took part in morning teach-ins at an outdoor plaza with banners reading "stop the cuts" and "educate the state."

"If the only people who can come here in the future are those who have money, it's going to hurt everyone's educational experience," said Daniel Rodriguez, 28, a graduate student who was conducting an introductory Spanish language class outside.

The Berkeley protesters will be joined by Occupy Oakland activists who said they would march to the campus in the afternoon.

The Occupy Wall Street protest also reached one of Washington state's most remote towns.

The Peninsula Daily News reported that 17 people held an Occupy Forks protest on Saturday, rallying outside a Bank of America branch, the only corporate presence the protesters could find in the town.

Forks is better known to the world as the fictional home of the characters of the vampire teen series "Twilight." It is about a four-hour trip from Seattle, on the western side of the Olympic Peninsula.

Occupy Forks organizer Patt Doyle says the turnout of 17 people was better than expected. It rained heavily on Saturday.

The newspaper reports that the Bank of America branch is slated to be closed in January, and its employees will be laid off.

NBC News' Jonathan Dienst, msnbc.com's Miranda Leitsinger and Bob Sullivan, and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45299622/ns/us_news-life/

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Creepy App Lets You Creepily Meet (Creepy?) Strangers [Apps]

Here is a recipe: Take Foursquare, remove all potential usefulness. Take the entirety of dating, add all possible creepiness. Mix. Dump in five pounds of salt. Inject into jugular. Mm! You're now using Crowded Room, today's stupidest, disquieting iPhone app. More »

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/6CS-yPLKj-s/creepy-app-lets-you-creepily-meet-creepy-strangers

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Penn State trustees promise to search for truth (AP)

STATE COLLEGE, Pa. ? The arduous task of rebuilding Penn State's shattered image began Friday with a pledge by the board of trustees to search for the truth amid an unfolding child sex abuse case against a former assistant football coach, a scandal that has already claimed the jobs of coach Joe Paterno and the school's president.

In front of an overflow crowd at a meeting that was moved from a hotel boardroom to a ballroom to accommodate more people, the trustees opened with Chairman Steve Garban welcoming the replacement president, Rod Erickson, and Gov. Tom Corbett, who had pressed publicly for fast action by trustees accustomed to deferring to Spanier.

The meeting was the first public gathering of the 32-member board in the wake of the scandal that has gripped one of the nation's largest universities and touched off a violent student demonstration. In addition to the firing of Paterno and President Graham Spanier, an assistant coach who told his bosses in 2002 that he saw an assault was placed on administrative leave Friday.

Garban pledged to support Erickson ? the trustees removed the "interim" tag on his new title but will continue to search for a permanent successor to Spanier ? as the board works "for the future of this institution that we respect and love." Erickson, previously the university's longtime provost, said Penn State must devote itself to its core values ? honesty, integrity, excellence and community ? now more than ever.

"I know we can do this. We are resilient; we are a university that will rebuild the trust and confidence that so many people have had in us for so many years," Erickson said in a six-minute speech to the trustees.

Without mentioning Spanier or Paterno, Erickson told trustees that their deliberate and decisive action had set a course for the university's future. His heart aches for the victims and their families, he said, and he pledged to reassure Penn Staters that the university's future is still bright.

Paterno and Spanier were fired Wednesday in the fallout of a shocking days-old grand jury report alleging repeated, illicit contact between retired assistant coach Jerry Sandusky and boys as young as 10 over a span of 15 years, sometimes in Penn State's facilities.

The grand jury report said that administrators did not contact law enforcement authorities after a graduate assistant for the football team said he saw Sandusky sodomizing a boy of about 10 years old in the locker room showers at the team's practice center in 2002. Top school officials, including Paterno and Spanier, say they weren't told about the seriousness of the matter.

Sandusky has been aware of the accusations against him for about three years and has maintained his innocence, his lawyer has said.

The board adjourned after forming an investigative committee, to be headed by trustee Kenneth Frazier, the CEO of pharmaceutical company Merck, to dig into the university's failure to stop Sandusky's alleged activity. Ronald Tomalis, a trustee and state education secretary, will be vice chairman.

The rest of the committee has yet to be formed, but Frazier said it will have the power to hire independent lawyers and plans to publicly release the entirety of its findings.

"That's absolutely what we intend to do," Frazier said after the meeting. "The purpose of this investigation is to ensure that the public understands everything that we learn in this investigation and a report will be made completely public as quickly as we possibly can."

The university as a whole, however, has a long way to go before anything can be considered routine now that Paterno, whose 46 years leading the Nittany Lions turned him into an icon in the area known as Happy Valley and beyond, is gone. The school named defensive coordinator Tom Bradley interim coach on Thursday.

Paterno's firing touched off a violent student rally late Wednesday night, requiring police in riot gear, at times using pepper spray, to disperse about 2,000 who took to the streets and toppled a television news van.

The university's faculty senate on Friday called on students and employees to "act in ways that bring honor to our institution and ourselves."

Sandusky served as Paterno's top defensive assistant for more than two decades and at one time was considered his heir apparent. But he abruptly retired in 1999, about a year after university police investigated a complaint by the mother of a woman upset that Sandusky had showered with and bear-hugged her 11-year-old son, the grand jury report alleged.

Authorities said Sandusky met many of his alleged victims through The Second Mile, a charity he founded in 1977 to help at-risk youth.

Former athletic director Tim Curley and former university vice president Gary Schultz have been charged with perjury and failure to report the 2002 assault, as required by state law. Lawyers for the men say that they are innocent, that they told the truth to the grand jury and that they told Spanier what they knew, fulfilling their legal obligation.

About a week and a half after the 2002 incident, the graduate assistant ? identified by people familiar with the investigation as Mike McQueary, now the team's wide receivers coach ? met with Curley and Schultz, and told them he had witnessed what he believed to be Sandusky having sex with a boy, the grand jury report said.

McQueary was placed on administrative leave Friday, Erickson said, and won't be coaching at Saturday's game against Nebraska because he has received threats.

Spanier told the grand jury that Schultz and Curley went to him and reported an incident that made a member of Curley's staff "uncomfortable."

"Spanier described it as `Jerry Sandusky in the football building locker area in the shower ... with a younger child and they were horsing around in the shower,'" the grand jury report said.

Paterno, major college football's winningest coach, has said he wasn't told "the very specific actions" contained in the grand jury report, but he also has acknowledged that "with the benefit of hindsight, I wish I had done more."

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/topstories/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111111/ap_on_sp_co_ne/fbc_penn_state_abuse

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Hard-working Velasquez honored to represent Mexican people at UFC on Fox

Mexican pride has a deep history in the fight game, so it's no surprise that tomorrow's big UFC on Fox main event between Cain Velasquez and Junior dos Santos is slowly? developing into a Mexico vs. Brazil affair. It's no different than boxing where a large group of Mexican fans are backing Juan Manuel Marquez tomorrow night in his quest to finally get a win against Filipino Manny Pacquiao.

Mexicans love their fighting.

"I just represent hard-working people," Velasquez told the Orange County Register. "That's what my family is. That's what I've grown up around. I'm happy that the Mexicans are known as hard-working people. We live our life with a lot of heart. I try to use that in my fighting. I fight with a lot of heart, with a lot of blood. I'm always going forward. That's what it means to me."

UFC president Dana White says he understands why Mexicans and Mexican-Americans admire Velasquez.

"I don't think we're putting a lot of emphasis on the Hispanic community. He is Hispanic and the Hispanic community is (supporting him), but we're trying to reach everybody," White said. "Yeah, I think it's a big deal. When you think about it in the history of combat sports, this is the only heavyweight champion ever as far Mexican champions go. It's a big deal."

On fight nights Velasquez pays homage to his heritage with his walkout music.

The champion never wants to forget the sacrifice made by his parents.

"At first, I chose the song as my walk-out music to honor my father," Velasquez said. "My dad dreamed of coming to America and once he got here he worked so hard so I would have a better life.? Watching my parents work so hard every day and not complain, even though they were doing back-breaking jobs, I took that work ethic and applied it to my own life. The song is about places in Mexico that my dad actually crossed coming to the U.S."

Velasquez said he's heard the appreciation from Mexican fans.

"It is very special to me, but what's surprised me is other Mexican-Americans would come up to me and say 'I did the same thing' or 'my parents did that too,' so it has become a very meaningful song for me."

Source: http://sports.yahoo.com/mma/blog/cagewriter/post/Hard-working-Velasquez-honored-to-represent-Mexi?urn=mma-wp9298

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Suicide suspected for son of Iranian hard-liner

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) ? The son of a prominent Iranian conservative who ran against President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in 2009 has died in a Dubai hotel in an apparent suicide, a Dubai police official and an Iranian website said Sunday.

The police official said the body, with a slit left wrist, was found late Friday by hotel staff in an 18th floor room.

There was no evidence of an attack and the death is being investigated as a suicide, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to brief media.

Dubai police did not provide further details on the man's identity, but the Iranian website Tabnak, which is close to conservative Mohsen Rezaei, said that the politician's son Ahmad Rezaei died in Dubai's Gloria Hotel. It called the death "suspicious," but offered no other details.

Prior to his return to Iran in 2005, Ahmad Rezaei had lived in the United States and openly criticized Tehran's rulers. This put his father, a conservative closely associated with clerical hard-liners, in an awkward political position.

Mohsen Rezaei is secretary of Iran's powerful Expediency Council, an advisory body to Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2011-11-13-ML-Iran/id-0ed9706ef7984a7ebbb918773c48a78f

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Suspected Kurdish rebels hijack ferry in Turkey (AP)

ANKARA, Turkey ? A group of Kurdish militants on Friday hijacked a ferry with 19 passengers near Istanbul, the country's transport minister said.

The minister, Binali Yildirim, said "four or five" hijackers claiming to be members of the armed wing of the Kurdish rebel group Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, commandeered the ship after it set sail from the northwestern port city of Izmit.

The rebels have been fighting for autonomy in Turkey's mainly Kurdish southeast and have stepped up attacks on Turkish forces in that region in recent months.

One of the hijackers was in the captain's cabin and was claiming to be carrying a bomb, Yildrim said. The hijackers have so far not made any demands.

Earlier reports had said a lone hijacker had commandeered the boat.

The mayor for the city of Izmit said at least one of the hijackers was armed.

The PKK has increased attacks across the country, killing dozens of Turkish soldiers and civilians. The Turkish military responded by staging an air and ground offensive against rebel hideouts in neighboring Iraq. Turkish police have also detained hundreds of Kurdish activists on suspicion of ties to the rebels.

The pro-Kurdish Firat news agency, without citing sources, said the ferry was allegedly heading toward the heavily guarded prison island of Imrali, where the Kurdish rebel chief Abdullah Ocalan is serving life in prison.

The Hurriyet newspaper's online edition said security at Imrali was increased. Gunboats were patrolling a five-mile no-go area around the island which is sealed with an electrical fence, it said.

Authorities suspended other ferry services in the Sea of Marmara as a precaution, state-run TRT television reported.

Authorities were not available for comment. The rebels and Kurdish politicians have been calling for Ocalan's release as a condition for peace.

TRT television said three coast guard boats were shadowing the ferry.

Yildirim said there were 19 passengers, four crew and two trainees on board.

NTV said the hijackers had collected all the passengers' mobile phones.

Tens of thousands of people have died since the Kurdish rebels took up arms 1984.

In a previous hijacking by the rebels in 1998, security forces stormed a plane on the tarmac of Ankara airport, and shot and killed a Kurdish rebel hijacker armed with a hand grenade who held 38 people hostage aboard a Turkish Airlines plane. The man was protesting Turkey's fight against the rebels. No passenger was injured.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/asia/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111111/ap_on_re_eu/eu_turkey_ferry_hijack

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More votes cast for deceased mayor in Michigan

FILE - In this Oct. 15, 2003 photo, Montague Mayor Henry Roesler Jr. is shown. More voters cast ballots for the longtime mayor of a West Michigan city who died a week before the election than for his challenger. The Muskegon Chronicle reports , however, that the 129 votes cast in Montague for Henry Roesler Jr. don't officially count. Thirty-two-year-old challenger Kevin Erb ? who got 115 votes in Tuesday's election ? will serve the two-year term. The 84-year-old Roesler died Nov. 1. He had been seeking his 11th consecutive term as mayor. (AP Photo/The Muskegon Chronicle, Cory Morse)

FILE - In this Oct. 15, 2003 photo, Montague Mayor Henry Roesler Jr. is shown. More voters cast ballots for the longtime mayor of a West Michigan city who died a week before the election than for his challenger. The Muskegon Chronicle reports , however, that the 129 votes cast in Montague for Henry Roesler Jr. don't officially count. Thirty-two-year-old challenger Kevin Erb ? who got 115 votes in Tuesday's election ? will serve the two-year term. The 84-year-old Roesler died Nov. 1. He had been seeking his 11th consecutive term as mayor. (AP Photo/The Muskegon Chronicle, Cory Morse)

MONTAGUE, Mich. (AP) ? More voters cast ballots for the longtime mayor of a West Michigan city who died a week before the election than for his challenger.

The Muskegon Chronicle reports (http://bit.ly/tj17px ), however, that the 129 votes cast in Montague for Henry Roesler Jr. don't officially count. Thirty-two-year-old challenger Kevin Erb ? who got 115 votes in Tuesday's election ? will serve the two-year term.

The 84-year-old Roesler died Nov. 1, following a battle with cancer. He had been seeking his 11th consecutive term as mayor.

City officials last week checked state law following Roesler's death and determined that any votes cast for Roesler wouldn't count.

Erb previously ran unsuccessfully against Roesler in the 2009 mayoral race.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/aa9398e6757a46fa93ed5dea7bd3729e/Article_2011-11-09-Deceased%20Mayor-More%20Votes/id-bd0af548c9014f169755a8f10f385ea1

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'Family Circus' creator Bil Keane dies at 89

FILE - In this June 21, 2006 file photo, cartoonist Bil Keane, creator of the comic strip "Family Circus," poses in his home in Paradise Valley, Ariz. A spokeswoman for King Features Syndicate, the comic strip's distributor, says Keane died Tuesday, Nov. 8, 2011. He was 89. (AP Photo/East Valley Tribune, Paul O'Neill) MAGS OUT, NO SALES, MANDATORY CREDIT

FILE - In this June 21, 2006 file photo, cartoonist Bil Keane, creator of the comic strip "Family Circus," poses in his home in Paradise Valley, Ariz. A spokeswoman for King Features Syndicate, the comic strip's distributor, says Keane died Tuesday, Nov. 8, 2011. He was 89. (AP Photo/East Valley Tribune, Paul O'Neill) MAGS OUT, NO SALES, MANDATORY CREDIT

PHOENIX (AP) ? For more than a half century, Bil Keane's clever "Family Circus" comics entertained readers with a mix of humor and traditional family values, intentionally simplistic because the author thought the American public needed the consistency.

Keane, who started drawing the one-panel cartoon featuring Billy, Jeffy, Dolly, P.J. and their parents in February 1960, died Tuesday at age 89. His comic strip is featured in nearly 1,500 newspapers across the country.

Jeff Keane, his son, said his father died of congestive heart failure. Bil Keane has a home in Paradise Valley, near Phoenix, but it was not immediately clear where he died.

Keane said in a 1995 interview with The Associated Press that the cartoon endured because of its consistency and simplicity.

"It's reassuring, I think, to the American public to see the same family," he said.

Although Keane kept the strip current with references to pop culture movies and songs, the context of his comic was timeless. The ghost-like "Ida Know" and "Not Me" who got blamed for household accidents were staples of the strip. The family's pets were dogs Barfy and Sam, and the cat, Kittycat.

"We are, in the comics, the last frontier of good, wholesome family humor and entertainment," Keane said. "On radio and television, magazines and the movies, you can't tell what you're going to get. When you look at the comic page, you can usually depend on something acceptable by the entire family."

His friend Charles M. Schulz, the late creator of "Peanuts," once said the most important thing about "Family Circus" is that it's funny.

"I think we share a care for the same type of humor," Schulz told The Associated Press in 1995. "We're both family men with children and look with great fondness at our families."

Keane said the strip hit its stride with a cartoon he did in the mid-1960s.

"It showed Jeffy coming out of the living room late at night in pajamas and Mommy and Daddy watching television and Jeffy says, 'I don't feel so good, I think I need a hug.' And suddenly I got a lot mail from people about this dear little fella needing a hug, and I realized that there was something more than just getting a belly laugh every day."

Even with his traditional side, Keane appreciated younger cartoonists' efforts. He listed Gary Larson's "The Far Side" among his favorites, and he loved it when Bill Griffith had his offbeat "Zippy the Pinhead" character wake up from a bump on the head thinking he was Keane's Jeffy.

Keane responded by giving Zippy an appearance in "Family Circus."

In later years, Keane continued to produce "Family Circus" with the help of his youngest son, Jeff. Keane sketched out the ideas, characters and captions and sent them to Jeff for inking.

Born in 1922, Keane taught himself to draw in high school in his native Philadelphia. Around this time, young Bill dropped the second "L'' off his name "just to be different."

He worked as a messenger for the Philadelphia Bulletin before serving three years in the Army, where he drew for "Yank" and "Pacific Stars and Stripes." He met his wife, Thelma ("Thel"), while serving at a desk job in Australia.

He started a one-panel comic in 1953 called "Channel Chuckles" that lampooned the up-and-coming medium of television. (In one, a mom in front of a television, crying baby on her lap, tells husband: "She slept throught two gun fights and a barroom brawl ? then the commercial woke her up.")

He moved to Arizona in 1958 and two years later started a comic about a family much like his own. Keane and his wife had a daughter, Gayle, and sons Glen, Jeff, Chris and Neal ? one more son than in his cartoon family.

"I never thought about a philosophy for the strip ? it developed gradually," Keane told the East Valley Tribune in 1998. "I was portraying the family through my eyes. Everything that's happened in the strip has happened to me.

"That's why I have all this white hair at 39 years old."

He is survived by the five children he had with his wife Thelma "Thel" Keane, who died of Alzheimer's disease in 2008 and was the inspiration for the Mommy character in the comic strip.

When his wife died, Keane called her "the inspiration for all of my success. ...When the cartoon first appeared, she looked so much like Mommy that if she was in the supermarket pushing her cart around, people would come up to her and say, 'Aren't you the mommy in 'Family Circus?'"

She also served as his business and financial manager.

Arizona and Keane had a mutual influence on each other. Keane's work can be found all around ? from children's centers to ice cream shops.

Likewise, Arizona could also be found in Keane's work.

A 2004 comic saw the family on a scenic lookout over the Grand Canyon with the children asking "Why are the rocks painted different colors" and "What time does it close?"

Although Keane drew the funnies, his work was not necessarily intended to be comical.

His goal was this: "I would rather have the readers react with a warm smile, a tug at the heart or a lump in the throat as they recall doing the same things in their own families."

___

On the Net:

http://www.familycircus.com/

___

Associated Press Writer Matt Moore in Philadelphia contributed to this report.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/4e67281c3f754d0696fbfdee0f3f1469/Article_2011-11-09-Obit-Bil%20Keane/id-c31a3a6fbda1461bb4e45263053174fd

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