Wnd dec 1 by The Weekly News Digest

THE

FREE

WEEKLY NEWS DIGEST

Ciculated Weekly in Florida

FERGUSON PROTESTS M O V E T O TA R G E T, WA L - M A R T S T O R E S

Volume 003 Issue 47

Established 2012

Nov 24 thru Dec 1, 2014

B L A C K F R I D AY F R O M S T A R T T O F I N I S H Greater Manchester Police said two arrests were made and injuries reported as police closed some stores to prevent more severe problems. One woman was injured by a falling television set.

NEW YORK (AP) -- Black Friday was already well underway before many awoke this morning. The traditional kickoff to the holiday shopping season has become a two-day affair, with more stores opening before people put down their turkey legs on Thanksgiving. There’s good reason for the creep; businesses know shoppers will only spend so much, and they want the first crack at those holiday budgets.

MANCHESTER, Mo. (AP) -- Dozens of people have interrupted holiday shopping at major retail stores around the St. Louis area to speak out about a grand jury’s decision not to indict the officer who fatally shot Michael Brown. The protests began Thanksgiving night and continued early Friday. Protesters spent a few minutes at each store, shouting inside. Officer in at least one store ordered them to leave. There was no immediate word of any arrests. According to Johnetta Elzie, who had been tweeting and posting videos of the protests, demonstrations occurred at a Wal-Mart and Target in Brentwood, two Wal-Marts in St. Charles and one Wal-Mart in Manchester. In the suburb of Ferguson, where Brown was shot on Aug. 9, there were no visible protests as the National Guard patrolled the area Thursday night.

G R O W E R S G R AT E F U L FOR HIGHER CHRISTMAS TREE PRICES Christmas trees sit covered in snow on the family-run Howell Tree Farm, Wednesday, Nov. 26, 2014, in Cumming, Iowa. After several tough years, the nation’s Christmas-tree growers are happy to see higher prices, but customers shouldn’t worry too much.

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) -- Christmas tree likely will cost a little more this year, and growers like John Tillman say it’s about time. Six years of decreased demand and low prices put many growers out of business. Those who withstood the downturn are relieved they survived. “I’m awful proud to still be in the Christmas tree business,” said Tillman, who ships up to 20,000 trees each fall from nine fields south of Olympia, Washington. “We lost a lot of farmers who didn’t make it through.” Prices vary according to the variety of tree, but growers this year will see about $20 per tree, $2 more than the last several years, according to Bryan Ostlund, executive director of the Salem, Oregon-based Pacific Northwest Tree Association. Prices will likely rise as the holidays near and supply decreases.

Still, millions of Americans are expected to head out in search of steep discounts today. The National Retail Federation forecasts holiday sales will grow 4.1 percent to $616.9 billion - the biggest jump since 2011.

Online retailer Amazon is believed to have introduced the concept of Black Friday to the U.K. four years ago, with more businesses joining every year since. Crowd Control

Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell talking ahead of the second open enrollment in the Health Insurance Marketplace during a visit to Miami’s Florida International University College of Law. The Obama administration will promote health insurance coverage at malls starting Black Friday and continuing through the busiest shopping days of the holiday season, officials announced Wednesday, and they said more than 462,000 people selected a private insurance plan in the first week of 2015 enrollment through HealthCare.gov.

It’s a make-or-break time for many retailers, which on average get 20 percent of their annual sales during the holiday shopping season. Already, retailers have resorted to steep discounting to lure shoppers. Here’s a look at what’s happening this Black Friday. Ferguson Protests Hit Stores Dozens of protesters interrupted holiday shopping to speak out about a grand jury’s decision not to indict the officer who fatally shot Michael Brown. Demonstrations took place at a Target and multiple Wal-Mart stores, according to Johnetta Elzie, who had been tweeting and posting videos of the protests. Protesters spent a few minutes at each store, shouting inside as law enforcement stood watch. There was no immediate word of arrests. The protests began Thanksgiving night and more are expected Friday. U.K. Gets Black Friday, shoving Included

In the coming years, growers expect the supply of trees to remain stable with prices gradually increasing, in part because it takes six to seven years for a seedling to grow large enough to sell. Even with the increase, most growers are being paid less now than in the mid2000s, when trees from new and expanded farms hit the market as demand fell. And the industry still faces challenges, as competition from artificial tree manufacturers and other factors have led to a drop in trees harvested, from 20.8 million in 2002 to 17.3 million in 2012, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The National Christmas Tree Association, based in Missouri, has encouraged growers to offer more options that meet the needs of younger people who live in urban areas and don’t have space for a towering tree, says executive director Rick Dungey. More growers are realizing that if they offer different looks - such as a tree that could fit on a coffee table or one thin enough to squeeze into a narrow room - people will buy them, Dungey said. “There are more options and choices out there,” he said.

At Target, deals are spread throughout the stores and signs direct shoppers to hot items. And the company says every store has a crowd-management captain for inside and outside the store. That doesn’t mean everyone remembers their manners. Wendy Iscra noted it got a little competitive at Wal-Mart in a Chicago suburb where she where she was shopping Thanksgiving. “People were shoving each other in there,” the 40-year-old said Early Bird Special The National Retail Federation expected 25.6 million shoppers to head to stores on Thanksgiving, which would be slightly down from last year. The numbers aren’t in yet, but there were crowds across the country. Macy’s said more than 15,000 people were lined up outside its flagship location in New York City’s Herald Square when the doors opened at 6 p.m. Last year, the retailer said there were 15,000 people.

And just like in the U.S., businesses across the Atlantic are finding it can lead to chaos. Early Friday morning, police were called to help maintain security at some supermarkets and shopping outlets that offered deep discounts starting at midnight.

In the Chicago suburb of Naperville, Illinois, the parking lot of a Wal-Mart store was full about a half hour before deals started at 6 p.m., including $199 iPad minis.

“This created situations where we had to deal with crushing, disorder and disputes between customers,” said Peter Fahy, police chief for greater Manchester, where police were summoned to seven Tesco supermarkets after disturbances.

And thousands of people were at Citadel Outlets in Los Angeles, which opened at 8 p.m. on Thanksgiving for a “Moonlight Madness” all-night sale. Hordes of cars inched past rows of palm trees wrapped in red and white lights.

continued on page 2

HEALTH INSURANCE SIGN-UPS COMING TO SHOPPING MALLS malls in that state.

The administration released what it called a snapshot of signups for the first week of the enrollment period, which started Nov. 15. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Burwell said 462,125 people chose a health plan in the 37 states using the federal website.

Tara Deering-Hansen, a spokeswoman for Midwestern supermarket chain Hy-Vee, said wholesale tree prices have climbed slightly but prices are set at each store and customers might not see any increase.

“Getting the snow off was more work than loading the trees,” said Dan Wahmhoff, co-owner of a nursery in southwestern Michigan. “It was definitely a challenge wind and snow and cold, trucks were getting stuck - but we made it through.”

Best Buy, for instance, has a ticketing and line process that starts two hours before doorbusters to ensure an orderly entrance into its stores. The company also says stores held training sessions last weekend to prep for this weekend’s rush.

Americans aren’t the only ones searching for deals on Black Friday; the shopping derby is becoming a tradition in the United Kingdom as well.

Consumers looking to deck their home could pay a little more than last year, but costs vary widely depending on factors such as transportation, tree-lot rental space and big-box retailers’ demand that prices remain stable. For example, a 6-foot Douglas fir in Oregon, which grows about one-third of the nation’s Christmas trees, could sell for $25 while a similar tree hauled to Southern California might go for $80.

Heavy snow last week slowed the shipment of trees from Michigan, which ranks third in production and supplies much of the Midwest and parts of the South. In some loading yards, stacks of trees awaiting shipment were covered with up to 2 feet of snow.

Back in the U.S., businesses are taking steps to keep crowds under control. Such efforts were stepped up after 2008, when a Wal-Mart worker died after a stampede of shoppers.

CHICAGO (AP) -- The Obama administration will promote health insurance coverage at shopping malls starting on Black Friday and continuing through the busiest shopping days of the holiday season, officials announced Wednesday. They said more than 462,000 people selected a private insurance plan in the first week of 2015 enrollment through the online marketplace HealthCare.gov.

The government’s enrollment push with Westfield Shopping Centers will involve setting up outreach tables at malls in Florida, Illinois, New Jersey, Connecticut, Maryland, New York and Washington state. Separately, the California insurance marketplace, Covered California, will work with Westfield

Of those, 48 percent are new customers, including enrollees in Oregon and Nevada, which turned over their troubled insurance markets to the federal government. The figures don’t include states running their own insurance markets. The numbers represent only the choice of a plan, and not whether consumers paid their first month’s premium - a requirement for coverage to start. “We’re off to a solid start but we’ve got a lot of work every day between now and Feb. 15,” the last day of the enrollment period, Burwell said in a conference call with reporters. About 1 million people phoned the enrollment site’s help line, she said, and roughly an additional 100,000 callers chose to speak with a Spanish-speaking representative. Burwell said the administration is sticking with its previously announced goal of signing up 9.1 million consumers for coverage in 2015. Unlike last year, the website suffered no outages in the first week, officials said, and it’s ready to handle 250,000 users at a time during anticipated surges around deadlines. Consumers must sign up by Dec. 15 for coverage to start on Jan. 1. continued on page 3

The Weekly News Digest, Nov 24 thru Dec 1, 2014

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

PUBLISHER INFORMATION Published By

Digital Media Publishing For The Weekly News Digest

Design, Production & Layout Digital Media Pubishing Records Department Administrator

Yrma Perez

Local Sales & Marketing Office The Weeklt News Digest, LLC. 237 S.W. 13st Miami, Florida 33130 twndigest@gmail.com TheWeeklyNewsDigest™ is published

four times a month by “The Weekly News Digest LLC.” All rights are reserved throughout the world. Reproduction in whole or part is strictly prohibited. Editorial inquiries and manuscripts should be directed to the Editor. Manuscripts or other submissions must be accompanied by self addressed, stamped envelopes. “The Weekly News Digest”, assumes no responsibility for the return of unsolicited manuscripts, photographs, or artwork. All correspondence regarding business, editorial, production, and address changes should be sent to:

Local Sales & Marketing Office The Weekly News Digest, LLC. 237 S.W. 13st Miami, Florida 33130

FERGUSON RESIDENTS CLEAN U P, H O P E F O R C A L M N I G H T

FERGUSON, Mo. (AP) -- Ferguson business owners and residents spent Wednesday boarding up windows and clearing debris after two nights of unrest over the grand jury decision in the Michael Brown case, even as protesters continued to hold scattered demonstrations in the area.

never considered closing his doors.

Several protesters managed to rush into St. Louis City Hall screaming “Shame, shame,” leading police to lock down the building and call in more than a hundred extra officers. Police arrested three people, including one on an assault charge.

He said it was protesters who helped spare his business during Monday night’s chaos, when a dozen commercial buildings were burned to the ground.

“It really wasn’t about wondering if the building would get torched or not,” Jenkins said. “Me and my wife, we expected it to get damaged ... we decided to go home, and we would live with whatever fate would give us.”

Anjana Patel cleans up the damage from Monday’s riots at her store, Ferguson Market and Liquor, Wednesday, Nov. 26, 2014, in Ferguson, Mo. A grand jury’s decision not to indict a police officer in the shooting death of an unarmed 18-year-old has stoked passions nationwide, triggering debates over the relations between black communities and law enforcement.

The demonstrators were among a group of about 200 that marched through downtown St. Louis and held a mock trial of Darren Wilson, the Ferguson police officer who shot and killed the unarmed Brown during an Aug. 9 struggle in that St. Louis suburb.

In Ferguson, meanwhile, many residents eager to get back a sense of normalcy were hoping to replace the nighttime chaos and unrest since the Monday’s announcement of the grand jury decision with the relative calm the city has enjoyed during daylight hours. About a dozen people were painting over boarded-up windows on businesses in the suburb’s downtown on Wednesday, where National Guardsmen were stationed every few feet and some looked down from rooftops. “This is my Ferguson, you know?” said Kari Hobbs, 28, as she watched 17-year-old Molly Rogers paint “Love will Win” on a board that covered a smashed window at Cathy’s Kitchen, a restaurant not far from the Ferguson Police Department. “The stuff that happens at night and the people ... are watching on the national news? That is such a small bit of what’s happening here,” Hobbs said. “There’s so much donation and charity going on with the businesses that have been affected and the people that have been affected.” There were no seats inside Cathy’s Kitchen on Wednesday, and a line had formed at the back of the building. As a light snow fell, a diverse mix of residents, business people with the day off and journalists covering the protests enjoyed a pre-Thanksgiving lunch. Jerome Jenkins, who runs the restaurant with his wife, Cathy, said he

B L A C K

F R I D AY

continued from page 1

Those waking early for some Black Friday shopping may have missed the boat.

www.childrenincorporated.

An influx of guardsmen helped make Tuesday night much calmer, although there were still 58 arrests at area protests and demonstrators in Ferguson set fire to a squad car and broke windows at City Hall. There have been demonstrations in cities throughout the U.S. since the grand jury’s decision was announced. Most have been peaceful, with protesters rallying behind the refrain “hands up, don’t shoot.” But others haven’t been calm, including a demonstration in Oakland, California, in which protesters vandalized several businesses, one in Minneapolis in which a car struck a protester and drove into others. And in Portland, Oregon, police used pepper spray and made arrests after about 300 people disrupted bus and light rail traffic. Wilson, 28, broke his long public silence on Tuesday, saying during an interview with ABC News that he has a clean conscience because “I know I did my job right.” Wilson, who had been on the Ferguson police force for less than three years before the shooting, said Brown’s shooting was the first time he had fired his gun on the job. Asked whether the encounter would have unfolded the same way if Brown had been white, Wilson said yes. Attorneys for the Brown family vowed to push for federal charges against Wilson - there is an ongoing civil rights investigation - and said they think the grand jury process was rigged from the start to clear Wilson. One of them, Anthony Gray, suggested that the office of the county’s top prosecutor, Bob McCulloch, presented certain testimony to discredit the process, including from witnesses who did not see the shooting. But federal investigations of police misconduct face a steep legal standard, requiring proof that an officer willfully violated a victim’s civil rights.

Too Late Already?

Children Incorporated 4205 Dover Road Richmond, VA 23221-3267

“The criminals, the looters, whatever you want to call them: They’re not protesters, they wanted to vandalize the place,” Jenkins said. “And the protesters locked arms together and they surrounded our place and ... told them `No, you’re not going to touch this place.’”

It turns out the hottest deals of the season may be on Thanksgiving, according to an analysis of sales data and store circulars by two research firms. This year, Target, Macy’s and Kohl’s opened at 6 p.m. on Thanksgiving. Others started dishing out deals even earlier. Amazon.com and Best Buy started introducing Black Friday deals last week. On Wednesday, Target also gave early access to some of the specials reserved for the holiday shopping kickoff both in stores and online.

Testimony from Wilson that he felt threatened, and physical evidence almost certainly complicates any efforts to seek federal charges. The Justice Department has also launched a broad probe into the Ferguson Police Department, looking for patterns of discrimination. Attorney General Eric Holder said the department aims to complete those investigations as quickly as possible “to restore trust, to rebuild understanding and to foster cooperation between law enforcement and community members.” Regardless of the outcome of the federal inve

Buyer’s Remorse? When stores first started opening on Thanksgiving a few years ago, the move was met with resistance by those who thought the holiday should remain sacred. Some Thanksgiving shoppers still felt a tinge of guilt even as they snagged deals on the holiday. “I think it’s ridiculous stores open on Thanksgiving,” said Reggie Thomas, 44, a director who bought a Sony sound bar for $349, about $100 off, at Best Buy in New York on Thanksgiving.

POTECTING SPEICIES worldwildlife.org

Cathyliz Lopez, 20, who spent $700 at Target on Thanksgiving, agrees. “It’s ruining the spirit of Thanksgiving,” she said Thursday. “But ... the best deals were today.” A New Tradition, For Workers Wal-Mart is expected to be the target of another round of protests calling on the company to pay its workers $15 an hour. The union-backed group Our Walmart says demonstrations are planned at 1,600 stores around the country. Organizers say workers started walking off the job on Wednesday and some staged a sit-down strike at a store in Washington, D.C. Brooke Buchanan, a Wal-Mart spokeswoman, played down the impact of

www.redcross.org

the protests. She said past protests have focused on a handful of locations with a handful of workers. “Perception is not reality in this case. We’ve seen this story before,” she said. Sales Bang Black Friday is also one of the biggest days of the year for gun sales. That puts pressure on the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, which is run by a division of the FBI. NICS researchers have until the end of the third business day following an attempted firearm purchase to determine whether a buyer is eligible. After that, buyers have the right to get their guns even if the check wasn’t completed. Last year, the clock ran out more than 186,000 times. The problem is the records submitted by states, which aren’t always updated to reflect restraining orders or other reasons to deny a sale. NICS did about 58,000 checks on a typical day last year, with the figure surging to 145,000 on Black Friday.

SUBSCRIPTION REQUEST FORM The Weekly News Digest is happy to offer subscriptions to individuals and businesses that would like to receive a weekly publication. However, if you would like to have one of the newspapers sent to you on a weekly basis, please fill out the form below and return it with a money order for $24.95 per year to cover postage & handling. Outside Florida $52.95 Tax Incuded MAIL TO :

The Weekly News Digest 237 S.W. 13 St. Miami, Florida 33031

Name _____________________________

www.additions.generalcontractors1.com

Address ___________________________ City ____________________State____

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ The Weekly News Digest, Nov 24 thru Dec 1, 2014

I N B R I T A I N , D I N N E R I S B I G

U S F O R

LONDON (AP) -- Plump turkeys in butcher shop windows. Harvest displays of pumpkin and corn. Sandwich boards describing groaning feasts.

“I believe firmly that there’s a real integration of the societies,” he said. “There’s a lot of Americans and a lot people want to share their cultures.” Klaes is one of some 200,000 U.K. residents who were born in the U.S., according to census data. That’s 26 percent more than in 2001. In Kensington and Chelsea, an upscale London borough that is home to many bankers and celebrities, U.S.born residents make up 5 percent of the population. And since there’s no other holiday that’s quite like Thanksgiving, businesses big and small are finding ways to get in on the celebrations. Dozens of restaurants are putting on spreads. Texas-based Whole Foods has turned its store on Kensington High Street into a one-stop holiday shopping center beginning with a sidewalk chalkboard that welcomes customers with the message “We are here to make your Thanksgiving epic.” Even the mainstream British grocery chain Waitrose is getting involved, although in a smaller way. A few blocks down the High Street in a store that’s already decked out with red-andgreen Christmas decorations, Waitrose has a small “Happy

Seen through the window, Danny Lidgate places a turkey on display at his butchers shop in Holland Park in London, Tuesday, Nov. 25, 2014. Lidgate, whose 160-year-old shop C. Lidgate, butcher and charcuterie, has been in the same family for five generations, says Americans just keep gobbling up the big broad-breasted heritage Bronze turkey. Put simply, business is very good indeed.

Thanksgiving” display, complete with a picture of a pumpkin wearing a buckled Pilgrim hat. Offerings include Ocean Spray cranberry sauce, Carnation evaporated milk and Libby’s pumpkin, alongside British icons like Paxo Sage and Onion stuffing. Turkey producer Bramble Farm in Surrey has been around since the 1930s and sold 100 or so special birds during the Thanksgiving season 15 years ago. Farm owner Derek Joy says he now sells 4,500. It’s not just Americans who are buying. Joy said he has started getting calls from British families who want to put on feasts for their American work colleagues - so they don’t feel lonesome on the big day. As he is most definitely British, Joy finds it strange when he is asked to dispense advice on a quintessentially American holiday, but he tries to keep it straightforward.

Greek officials said Wednesday there were no reports of severe health problems or food and water shortages on board. A pregnant woman was airlifted by helicopter to an island hospital. Once near the Cretan coast, the vessel was expected to anchor offshore but it was unclear if the migrants would be immediately ferried to land. Just days before the freighter ran into trouble, 228 Syrian refugees heading for Italy were rescued from a crippled ship off Cyprus in the eastern Mediterranean. EU regulations stipulate that refugees seeking asylum must apply in the first EU country they arrive at.

ERAPETRA, Greece (AP) -- Local authorities and Red Cross volunteers on Crete were racing Wednesday to prepare shelter and food for hundreds of immigrants on a crippled freighter being slowly towed to safety by a Greek navy frigate, a rescue effort hampered by gale-force winds and high waves. A day after it suffered engine failure in international waters, the 77-meter (250-foot) Baris cargo ship carrying some 700 men, women and children trying to enter Europe clandestinely - one of the largest boatloads of the kind in recent years - was being towed at a speed of about three knots (3.4 miles per hour). By midday Wednesday it had covered about a third of the way, and was expected to arrive well after nightfall at the port town of Ierapetra in southern Crete. The coast guard said initial indications suggested passengers included Syrians and Afghans heading for Italy. It was unclear where the Kiribati-flagged ship had set sail from, or when. About 80 percent of immigrants arriving by sea at Greece’s eastern Aegean Sea islands are Syrians fleeing the country’s civil war, according to the Doctors Without Borders humanitarian organization’s Greek branch. Tens of thousands of people risk the hazardous journey every year, paying smuggling gangs to carry them over in usually unseaworthy craft ranging from toy dinghies to aging rust-buckets. Most end up in Italy. According to Amnesty International data, since the start of 2014 more than 2,500 people have drowned or gone missing - about 1.7 percent of the estimated 150,000 who made it across. Ierapetra local authorities and volunteer groups were preparing an indoor basketball stadium to provide temporary shelter for the migrants, and were collecting food, blankets, mattresses and toiletries. “Our main concern is to offer them preliminary care, to register them and to find, as soon as possible, somewhere for them to stay under the best conditions possible,” said Red Cross volunteer organizer Nikos Nestorakis. The Baris lost engine power Tuesday about 30 nautical miles off the southeastern tip of Crete.

“I’d say just treat it like Christmas day,” Joy said. “And instead of doing a pudding, just buy a pumpkin pie.”

In trendy Notting Hill, made famous to Americans by the Julia Roberts film of the same name, there’s even a store catering to the expats. Aptly named the American Food Store, replete with sign decorated with the Stars and Stripes, it caters to those in need of Hostess Twinkies, Pepperidge Farms Goldfish and Campbell’s Soup. For the holiday they’ve added Libby’s canned pumpkin, Stove Top stuffing and graham cracker pie crusts.

FREIGHTER WITH 700 MIGRANTS BEING TOWED TO CRETE

In this photo released by Greek Navy on Tuesday, Nov. 25, 2014, the 77-meter-long (250-foot) Baris cargo ship carrying some 700 people is seen about 30 nautical miles southeast of the Greek island of Crete. Ships from Greece rushed to help after a crippled freighter crammed with hundreds of migrants floundered for hours Tuesday in gale-force winds and high waves in the Mediterranean Sea, officials said

T U R K E Y B U S I N E S S

There’s a lot of Americana in London, especially when it comes to food.

Thanksgiving isn’t a holiday in Britain, but you might be forgiven for being fooled. It’s not hard to find someone to talk turkey, never mind sell you one. That’s because there are so many Americans in Britain these days that dozens of businesses have started selling the goods they need to celebrate. Greg Klaes, a Detroit native who used to teach science on U.S. military base schools, started growing pumpkins 30 years ago so his students could carve Halloween jack-o-lanterns. This year, his Oxfordshire farm is selling 600 kilograms (1,322 pounds) a week, filling harvest decorations and pumpkin pies.

And for the really upscale, there’s always Lidgate’s. The ever-cheerful Danny Lidgate, whose 160-year-old shop has been in the same family for five generations, says Americans gobble up the big broad-breasted heritage Kelly Bronze turkeys he stocks. Put simply, business is very good. For those who don’t understand the holiday, Lidgate’s offers this primer on its Website: “Turkeys feature prominently in the history of the Pilgrim fathers, and it is believed that many Puritan families owed their survival to wild turkeys.” Never mind that those Pilgrim parents left Britain fleeing religious persecution. That’s all past. Everyone is friends now. Lidgate says from the time he was a kid working at the shop, he’s known Thanksgiving was special. “It’s like a mini-Christmas,” he said. “It’s an energy we love.” Americans can expect to pay more than they would for similar fixings back home. Lidgate’s is taking orders for Thanksgiving turkeys up to 12 kilograms (26.5 pounds), enough to feed 20 people. The price: 198 pounds ($311). Britain doesn’t really have a holiday like Thanksgiving. There are harvest celebrations, but no single event compares to the mammoth festival of food and football that dominates American thought. Britons know about it, though, and in a world of multinational companies, they will expect their colleagues to be away on Thursday. “I’m personally quite envious of your Thanksgiving.” Joy said. “It’s about family and friends. It’s all about being proud to be an American. It’s all about not giving presents, but it’s about your presence. It’s about being there and being part of a family.” “I think that’s pretty cool,” he said before checking himself. “That sounds very American, doesn’t it?”

KEYSTONE PIPELINE V O L C A N O I N S O U T H continued from page 1 J A PA N E R U P T S , The figures announced Wednesday don’t include dental plans, Burwell stressed. Last week, the administration acknowledged D I SR U PT I N G FL I GHT S it had been over-reporting the number of enrollees by double-counting about 400,000 who had both medical and dental plans. Burwell said she has directed her staff to find out how the double-counting happened. Burwell promised a weekly update on enrollment along with more thorough monthly reports that will include what’s happening in state-based markets. Along with the shopping mall campaign, HHS announced marketing partnerships with the National Community Pharmacists Association and the XO Group, a company that runs websites targeting brides, new mothers and homeowners. The pharmacists group will get enrollment information to its members and pharmacy customers, officials said. The XO Group will post blog content on its sites.

Dont Text and Drive

In this Nov. 26, 2014 photo, volcanic smoke billows from Mount Aso, Kumamoto prefecture, on the southern Japanese main island of Kyushu. The volcano is blasting out chunks of magma in the first such eruption in 22 years, causing flight cancellations and prompting warnings to stay away from its crater. The Japan Meteorological Agency said Friday, Nov. 28 that Mount Aso had spewed out lava debris and smoke, shooting plumes of ash a kilometer (3,280 feet) into the sky. The observatory does not expect the eruption to increase in scale.

TOKYO (AP) -- A volcano in southern Japan blasted out chunks of magma Friday in the first such eruption in 22 years, causing flight cancellations and prompting warnings to stay away from its crater. The Japan Meteorological Agency said that Mount Aso spewed out lava debris and smoke, shooting plumes of ash a kilometer (3,280 feet) into the sky. Dozens of flights from Kumamoto, the nearest city, were canceled. The observatory did not expect the eruption to increase in scale. Mount Aso, about 1,000 kilometers (625 miles) southwest of Tokyo on Kyushu island, is one of the world’s largest. Earthquakes and other seismic activity stepped up in late August. Eruptions by another volcano, Mount Ontake, in Nagano west of Tokyo killed more than 50 people in late September.

The Weekly News Digest, Nov 24 thru Dec 1, 2014

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

F L O R I D A C R A S H S TAT I S T I C S S t u a r t w o m a n s t i l l i n c r i t i c a l condition after multi-car crash on I-95 Palm Beach Post A 26-year-old Stuart woman remained in critical condition Thursday after she was injured in a multi-car crash that shut down a stretch of Interstate 95 in the Jupiter-Hobe Sound area for more than four hours Wednesday night, the Florida Highway Patro[...]

R o a d r a n g e r t r u c k s h i e l d s w o m a n ’s v e h i c l e i n I - 9 5 s h o u l d e r c r a s h 95 JACKSONVILLE, Fla. - A road ranger’s truck may have very well saved a woman’s life. The ranger had stopped to help her when she had car trouble on Interstate 95, but then someone slammed into the truck, narrowly missing the ranger and the woman.[...]

D r u n k

d r i v e r h i t s S o u t h i d a R o a d R a n g e r

F l o r-

MIAMI (AP) - The Florida Highway Patrol says a Road Ranger is recovering after he was hit by a drunk driver on Interstate 95. The crash happened Sunday in the northbound lanes of I-95 in Miami.

F H P e x p e c t e d t o r e l e a s e m o r e i n f o a b o u t 6 - v e h i c l e I - 9 5 c r a s h Florida Highway Patrol is expected to release more information Thursday about an Interstate 95 crash that sent three people to the hospital and shut down northbound lanes for four and a half hours Wednesday.[...]

C r a s h w i t h i n j u r i e s s h u t s d o w n I - 9 5 n o r t h b o u n d l a n e s , t r o o p e r s s a y Injuries were reported in a crash that shut down the northbound lanes of Interstate 95 at Broward Boulevard, according to the Florida Highway Patrol. Troopers said the crash happened just before 11 p.m. Friday in Broward County. Check: Latest traffic[...]

O n e d e a d a f t e r I - 9 5 c r a s h n e a r H a l l a n d a l e B e a c h

Dont Text and Drive

Sierra Sierra Sierra Sierra

“

Club Club Club Club

Sierra Sierra Sierra Sierra

Club Club Club Club

“

Improves the health and lives of people affected by poverty, disaster, and civil unrest. Learn more

www.directrelief.org

John Muir (1838-1914) was America’s most famous and influential naturalist and conservationist, and founder of the Sierra Club. This website, known as the “John Muir Exhibit” features his life and contributions.

h t t p : / / w w w . s i e r r a c l u b . o r g /

POTECTING SPEICIES Learn more

www.worldwildlife.org

www.redcross.org

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ The Weekly News Digest, Nov 24 thru Dec 1, 2014

A G L A N C E T H E N , N O W ST. LOUIS (AP) -- During a quiet holiday night in Ferguson, a small group of protesters demonstrated inside St. Louis-area retail stores, speaking out about a grand jury’s decision not to indict the officer who fatally shot Michael Brown.

A T F E R G U S O N : A N D T H E F U T U R E car cruise. Paul Byrd would not specifically say whether he supported Wilson, but he noted he supports the job of police officers, adding, “Those causing the trouble are making a bad name for everyone.”

The protests, which appeared to be peaceful, continued Friday morning at the start of what is traditionally the busiest shopping day of the year.

---

During the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York, about 50 people walked down the sidewalk carrying signs and chanting, “Hands up, don’t shoot” - a reference to Brown’s death. Seven were arrested.

NATIONWIDE RESPONSE

THE LATEST About two dozen people chanted “no justice, no peace, no racist police” and “no more Black Friday” after police moved them out of a Wal-Mart during an early-morning protest in Manchester, Missouri. Officers warned that protesters risked arrest if they didn’t move at least 50 feet from the store’s entrance, then began advancing in unison toward the protesters until they were moved further into the parking lot. The mostly black group of protesters chanted in the faces of the officers - most of whom were white - as shoppers looked on.

S W I S S TO VO T E O N M A S S I V E GOLD-BUYING PLAN GENEVA (AP) -- In Switzerland, a campaign is on to protect the country’s wealth by investing in gold - a lot of gold. In a test of their sense of financial security, the Swiss are being asked to vote on a proposal to make the central bank hold a fifth of its reserves in gold within five years. That would mean buying about 1,500 metric tons, or 1,650 short tons, of gold worth more than $60 billion. If the initiative wins the backing of a majority of voters this Sunday, the Swiss National Bank would also be prohibited from spending any of the treasure, which would have to be locked away in vaults entirely on Swiss soil. The prospect risks causing a spike in gold prices globally. The nationalist Swiss People’s Party, the country’s largest, has brought the “Save our Swiss Gold” initiative, arguing it will restore trust in the central bank and its paper money. The proposal is opposed by the government and financial leaders but aims to capitalize on a growing sense of caution among the Swiss about the perceived dangers and increasing volatility of financial markets. Though the country is among the world’s most prosperous, the initiative argues that owning physical gold in vaults would protect the country’s wealth from trouble in markets beyond the control of this small Alpine nation. The experience of the 2008 global financial crisis, triggered in part by complex investments that brought down multiple banks and bankrupted states, is fresh in people’s memories. Jacques Mayor, a Geneva accountant, said he was wary of the idea of Switzerland buying or selling gold in large amounts in international markets. “The last time they sold gold, we had an enormous loss,” Mayor said, referring to the central bank going $10 billion in the red in 2013, when the value of its gold holdings slumped. Despite the perception that gold’s value is protected by the fact it is a physical good, its market price can in fact be quite volatile. The metal is used often by speculators as a safe haven. Recently, gold has lost much of its sheen. Its price has fallen 11 percent since the summer to around $1200 an ounce. Swiss polling firm gfs.bern has found the initiative is likely to fail, with just 38 percent supporting it, short of the required majority. About 47 percent were opposed as of early November. For investors, the vote is still too close for comfort. “Initial market reaction to a yes vote would be a sharply higher price - a $50 dollar rise looks plausible,” said Carsten Fritsch, commodity analyst at Commerzbank. A greater impact may be felt over months, as global traders know the Swiss central bank will be a regular buyer. “It could provide the base for an upward trend in the years to come,” said Fritsch. Until 1973, Switzerland was part of the Bretton Woods system of fixed exchange rates and the value of the Swiss franc was defined in grams of gold. But the Swiss National Bank, or SNB, was criticized for holding excessive gold reserves that generated too little return. Moving away from this system allowed the bank to decide more freely how to invest its currency reserves. Fritz Zurbruegg, a member of SNB’s governing board, notes the Swiss still hold a relatively large amount of gold in reserve. “At 125 grams per capita, Switzerland has the largest gold reserves per head of population of any country - triple those of Germany and quintuple those of the U.S.,” he told a conference last week. If the initiative were to pass, the SNB would need to dramatically increase its gold holdings, which currently amount to 1,040 metric tons or just fewer than 8 percent of its nearly $532 billion in reserves as of the end of September. Raising that to the required 20 percent of its official reserve assets would mean buying gold worth over $60 billion at current prices. There would be the additional cost of repatriating gold Switzerland now stores overseas. About 30 percent of the SNB’s gold is kept in U.K. and Canadian central banks. European countries historically store part of their gold with allies to protect it in case of war on the continent. A gold-buying binge could also hurt the Swiss economy by reducing the amount of money the central bank has to spend on keeping a lid on the strong Swiss franc. The bank currently intervenes in currency markets to weaken the franc, with the ultimate aim of helping exporters and tourism. Zurbruegg said the initiative to buy more gold could therefore disrupt the domestic economy. And the benefits would be dubious: “Gold which cannot be sold in a crisis no longer meets the definition of a reserve and thus offers no security at all.”

Protesters of the grand jury decision in the Michael Brown shooting march through the St. Louis Galleria mall Wednesday evening, Nov. 26, 2014, in Richmond Heights, Mo., chanting slogans. They stayed in the mall for about 15 minutes and then left peacefully without confrontation with a large police presence.

“We want to really let the world know that it is no longer business as usual,” said Chenjerai Kumanyika an assistant professor at Clemson University. He added that the group had already visited several big box stores in the region that were open for Black Friday to protest the grand jury’s decision, among other things. Although part of the aim in disrupting Black Friday was to call attention to disagreement with the grand jury’s decision and the way the case was handled, Kumanyika said it was also to highlight other forms of injustice. “Capitalism is one of many systems of oppression,” he said as the group cleared out of the parking lot. QUIET HOLIDAY The protest activity in Ferguson was calm Thursday, just three nights after the grand jury’s announcement led to widespread commercial looting and vandalism. Community members decorated boarded-up windows, and some went to a church service where prayers were said for the family members of Brown and Darren Wilson, the white Ferguson officer who shot the unarmed Brown during a struggle Aug. 9. Hours after nightfall, there was no organized protest, and the downtown streets were mostly empty. Occasionally, National Guard troops would patrol the area. On Thursday morning, a few cars drove through downtown St. Louis for what the organizer called a “pro-community”

“We will not tolerate, under any circumstances, any effort to disrupt this parade,” police Commissioner William Bratton said earlier Thursday. “This is a national event, a historic event. Anybody who would seek to interrupt it would be callous, indeed, on this very special day.” There have been numerous protests in major cities across the country since the grand jury’s decision. In Los Angeles, a total of 338 people were arrested over three days for protests. There also were arrests in Oakland, California, following a march that deteriorated into unrest and vandalism. --THE BEGINNING: Wilson shot and killed Brown shortly after noon in the middle of the street after a scuffle. Brown’s body lay there for hours as police investigated and a crowd of angry onlookers gathered. Several days of tense protests in the predominantly black community followed, prompting Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon to call in the National Guard. McCulloch decided to present the case to a grand jury. --THE ANNOUNCEMENT: Made up of nine white people and three black people, the grand jury met 25 days over three months, and heard more than 70 hours of testimony from 60 witnesses. McCulloch held a news conference Monday night to reveal the decision. --THE FINAL SAY? The U.S. Justice Department has its own investigation into possible civil rights violations that could result in federal charges for Wilson, but investigators would need to satisfy a rigorous standard of proof. The department also has launched a broad probe into the Ferguson Police Department.

The Weekly News Digest, Nov 24 thru Dec 1, 2014

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________

S P Y B A L L O O N S N E W V I E W O F

G I V E P O L I C E J E R U S A L E M

JERUSALEM (AP) -- Israeli police are watching from above in their attempts to keep control in Jerusalem in the face of the city’s worst wave of violence in nearly a decade.

The balloons are part of a broad collection of surveillance equipment that includes security cameras throughout the city, including 320 of them in the Old City - as well as undercover units, riot-control forces and intelligence gathering.

Police have been flying surveillance balloons over the city’s eastern sector and Old City - the location of its most sensitive holy sites - to monitor protests and move in on them quickly. They say the puffy white balloons, which carry a rotating spherical camera pod, have greatly helped quell the unrest. But the eyes in the sky are unnerving Palestinians.

Police have arrested some 1,000 protesters since the summer, when the violence erupted following the killing of a 16-year-old Palestinian boy by Jewish extremists in a revenge attack for the earlier killing of three Israeli teens in the West Bank.

“They want to discover everything that’s going on. (They see) who is going, who is coming, who is that person,” said Imad Muna, who works at a local bookstore. The Israeli company that makes the Skystar 180 aerostat system says the balloons can stay in the air for 72 hours and carry highly sensitive cameras. Rami Shmueli, the CEO of RT LTA Systems Ltd, said his company gives police a “third dimension” in their quest to quell tensions in east Jerusalem, where they have been clashing regularly with masked youths hurling rocks and firebombs. “We give them an aerial view of the streets and those people who are throwing stones, we can detect them even if they hide behind buildings or in gardens,” said Shmueli. “When we see them and when we see their activity, we can direct the police forces to their location. And even if they escape we can follow them and make sure that police catch them.” Over the past month, 11 people have been killed in Palestinian attacks, including a deadly assault last week on a Jerusalem synagogue that killed five people. Most of the violence has occurred in Jerusalem, along with deadly attacks in Tel Aviv and the West Bank. The violence has been connected in large part to continuing unrest at Jerusalem’s most sensitive holy site - a hilltop compound revered by Jews as the Temple Mount and by Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary. The Temple Mount, home to the ancient Hebrew temples, is the most sacred site in Judaism. Today, it is the site of the Al Aqsa Mosque and the goldtopped Dome of the Rock, the third-holiest place in Islam. Jews are allowed to visit the site, but under a longstanding arrangement,

This undated photo provided by RT LTA Systems Ltd. shows a Skystar aerostat surveillance system. Israeli police started using the system recently in Jerusalem to track clashes between Palestinians and Israeli security forces.

they are barred from praying there. A growing number of visits by Jewish worshippers - some of whom seek to pray or want to rebuild the Jewish Temple there - has sparked rumors that Israel is plotting to take over the site - a charge Israel denies - and prompted violent riots by Palestinian youths. Israeli crackdowns and restrictions on Muslim access to the site, imposed as a security measure, have further enflamed tensions. The helium-filled balloons were successfully used in Israel’s war in the Gaza Strip last summer. While various types of surveillance blimps have been used in the Jerusalem area for years, police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said a strategic decision was recently made to increase their use as part of a broader effort to use the latest technologies. He said police currently have four surveillance balloons deployed over Jerusalem, including one that monitors the Old City and its volatile holy sites, and others over Arab neighborhoods that have experienced unrest. Since the aerial deployment, he said there has been a marked decrease in street violence. “It is tremendously important and gives us gives a 360-degree view of what is going on,” Rosenfeld said. “Our units can respond a lot quicker, a lot faster and much more effectively.” The Skystar system is currently also deployed in Afghanistan, Mexico,

S I E R R A L E O N E O F F I C I A L : E B O L A M AY H AV E R E A C H E D P E A K “We believe that now that those treatment centers are ready, the transmission of new cases will start reducing,” he said. “I don’t think we can get any higher than we are now - we are at the plateau of the curve and very soon we will have a downward trend, once we have somewhere to take people.” Sierra Leone has nearly 6,600 of the reported Ebola cases, with about 1,400 deaths, and the infections are increasing swiftly here.

Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, center, temperature is taken by a Chinese soldier, left, before the opening of a new Ebola virus clinic sponsored by China, in Monrovia, Liberia, Tuesday, Nov. 25, 2014, Liberia got another 100 treatment beds in the fight against Ebola on Tuesday, as yet another Sierra Leonean doctor became infected with the disease sweeping West Africa. Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf toured the Ebola treatment center built by China, calling it “first-class.

FREETOWN, Sierra Leone (AP) -- The Ebola outbreak in Sierra Leone, which has been surging in recent weeks, may have reached its peak and could be on the verge of slowing down, Sierra Leone’s information minister said Wednesday. But in a reminder of how serious the situation is in Sierra Leone, a ninth doctor became infected Wednesday and the World Health Organization said the country accounted for more than half of the new cases in the hardest-hit countries in the past week. By contrast, infections appear to be either stabilizing or declining in Guinea and Liberia, where vigorous campaigning for a Senate election this week suggests the disease might be loosening its grip. In all, 15,935 people have been sickened with Ebola in West Africa and other places it has occasionally popped up. Of those, 5,689 have died. The case total includes 600 new cases in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone in just the past week, according to the WHO. The disease is transmitted through contact with bodily fluids of the sick, putting health workers at particular risk. Dr. Songo Mbriwa, a top military doctor who was working at a treatment center in the capital, tested positive for Ebola on Wednesday, according to Abass Kamara, a Health Ministry spokesman. Nearly 600 health workers have become infected in the West African outbreak, many in the hardest-hit countries of Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone - all of which had too few of the workers to begin with. Still, Alpha Kanu, Sierra Leone’s minister of information, told journalists in an online press conference that with the imminent completion of two British-built treatment centers, the worst could be over for the country.

Thailand, Canada, Russia, in various countries in Africa and was used for security at the World Cup in Brazil, the company says.

In its release of the latest figures on Wednesday, the World Health Organization said both Sierra Leone and Liberia appeared to be far behind the U.N.-set goal of isolating 70 percent of patients by Dec. 1, with only about 20 percent isolated in each country. Guinea, by contrast, appears to have already passed that target. The agency warned that data is poor and slow to come in, so firm conclusions are difficult. Kanu, the information minister, agreed that finding beds for patients had been a challenge in the country and predicted that the new centers would expand the country’s Ebola treatment capacity to 1,000 beds and would help get the infected out of the community. He also said that Sierra Leone would repeat its September shutdown when people across the country had to remain at home while medical teams went door to door.

Sheik Ikrima Sabri, the imam of the Al Aqsa Mosque, said Palestinians are well accustomed to the aerial surveillance of mass prayers each Friday. But he said the new surveillance over residential areas is a problem. “It is practically over the houses. It violates the privacy of people. There are women in the houses and these machines can photograph them,” he said. Saleem Mohtaseb, a resident of Shuafat, an Arab neighborhood that has experienced frequent unrest, said the cameras have further frayed people’s nerves. “I asked my wife to close the curtains whenever she sees it in the sky. I know many people who have done the same,” he said.

HACKERS FORCE MESSAGE ON WEBSITES VIA US FIRM LOS ANGELES (AP) -- A U.S. firm that helps connect more than 700 companies with customers through social media says a Syrian group hacked the company’s web address to upload a message to other websites. Gigya CEO Patrick Salyer outlined what happened in a blog published Thursday. At around 6:45 a.m. Eastern Time, the company discovered “sporadic failures with access to our service,” Salyer wrote. The executive said hackers had rerouted Internet traffic from Gigya’s website to an outside computer server. That server generated a message to visitors that their site had been hacked by the Syrian Electronic Army. Published reports noted the message appeared on websites for several UK newspapers, CNBC and the National Hockey League. The message also showed up briefly on some retail sites just as they prepared for the biggest shopping day of the year on Friday. The National Retail Federation did not immediately comment Thursday. Still, the issue appeared to be resolved quickly. The hackers rerouted Gigya’s web traffic by tweaking the company’s web address on Internet registry Whois.com so that it would point visitors to the outside server. The registry entry on Whois.com was fixed about an hour after the company detected the breach, Salyer said. Even so, the executive sought to reassure the company’s clients. “To be absolutely clear: Neither Gigya’s platform itself nor any user, administrator or operational data has been compromised and was never at risk of being compromised,” he wrote. The Syrian Electronic Army aligns itself with Syrian President Bashar Assad. It has previously taken credit for hacking media sites like E! Online and the BBC.

In Liberia a further sign of the country’s recovery came when one candidate expressed delight Wednesday at how many supporters turned out for a campaign rally for Senate elections. “They told me that there would only be 50 people but I see four or five thousand people,” said Senate candidate Robert Sirleaf, son of President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf. “That gives me spirit.” Police last week said gatherings are still banned, but political rallies are exempt from the ban. The Senate election was supposed to have been held on Oct. 16, but that was when hundreds of new Ebola cases were being reported each week. The vote was delayed for two months. With the rate of infection slowing, the green light remains on for the Dec. 16 vote. Polling places are supposed to provide buckets of chlorinated water for hand-washing and a clean pen for each voter to fill out his or her ballot. Some Liberians are concerned that it might still be too soon for electioneering. “Even if Liberia was declared free of Ebola today, there would still be no need to ... celebrate until Guinea and Sierra Leone are also declared free,” said Jerry Filika, a 19-year-old, underscoring that the deadly disease can easily cross borders.

Children Incorporated 4205 Dover Road Richmond, VA 23221-3267

www.childrenincorporated.

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ The Weekly News Digest, Nov 24 thru Dec 1, 2014

R E B E L S I N S O U

P U S H T H E R

F O R W A R D N S Y R I A

BEIRUT (AP) -- Syrian rebels backed by the United States are making their biggest gains yet south of the capital Damascus, capturing a string of towns from government forces and aiming to carve out a swath of territory leading to the doorstep of President Bashar Assad’s seat of power

with Jordan. These included the town of Nawa and the Harra hill, a strategic hill where Syrian troops had stationed monitoring equipment because of its proximity to Israeli army positions in the Golan. The hill, one of the highest in Daraa province, also overlooks a main road that rebels use.

The advances appear to be a rare visible success story from efforts by the U.S. and its allies to train and arm moderate rebel fighters.

More recently, the fighting has been concentrated in and around the contested village of Sheikh Maskeen and the nearby Brigade 82 base, one of the main government units in the province. If the rebels capture the village and the base they will be then able to threaten the Damascus-Daraa highway, a main lifeline for government forces.

The rebel forces are believed to include fighters who graduated from a nearly 2-year-old CIA training program based in Syria’s southern neighbor Jordan. The group known as the Friends of Syria, including Jordan, France the U.S. and Saudi Arabia, are backing the rebels with money and weapons, said Gen. Ibrahim Jbawi, the spokesman for the Free Syrian Army’s southern front. The gains are a contrast to northern Syria, where U.S.-backed rebels are collapsing in the face of an assault by Islamic militants. Notably, in the south, the rebels are working together with fighters from al-Qaida’s Syria branch, whose battle-hardened militants have helped them gain the momentum against government forces. The cooperation points to the difficulty in American efforts to build up “moderate” factions while isolating militants. “The goal is to reach the capital ... because there is no way to bring down the regime without reaching Damascus,” said Ahmad al-Masalmeh, an opposition activist in Daraa. But few are under the illusion that the offensive in the south can loosen Assad’s grip on power in the near future. The Syrian leader has benefited from the U.S.-led coalition’s war against the Islamic State group, which has had the side effect of freeing up Assad’s forces to focus on more moderate rebels elsewhere in the country. Government forces have seized several key areas around the capital. Rebels in the south say they hope the new push will be just enough to pressure Assad to negotiate a peaceful solution to the conflict. Jbawi said the international support for the assault “is not enough to let the rebels win the battle militarily. They are backing (us) to pressure Bashar Assad’s regime to bring him to the negotiating table.” The Islamic State group’s onslaught in Syria and Iraq has given greater urgency to international efforts to find some sort of solution for Syria’s conflict,

The rebel offensive could eventually link opposition fighters’ positions in Daraa and Quneitra with Damascus’ rebel-held Ghouta suburbs. “The military objective is to secure lines of communication and to put pressure on the capital,” said Faysal Itani, a resident fellow at the Atlantic Council. Free Syrian Army fighters fire at Syrian army soldiers during a fierce firefight in Daraa al-Balad, Syria. Syrian rebels backed by the United States are making their biggest gains yet south of the capital Damascus, capturing a string of towns from government forces and aiming to carve out a swath of territory leading to the doorstep of President Bashar Assad’s seat of power.

which has killed more than 200,000 people and displaced millions. Previous attempts and two rounds of peace talks in Switzerland earlier this year failed to make any progress as each side remained convinced it can win the war militarily. The U.N. envoy to Syria, Staffan de Mistura, has now proposed local ceasefires starting with the northern city of Aleppo as a building block for a wider solution - an idea that Assad has said is “worth studying.” Speaking by telephone, Jbawi said 54 rebel factions consisting of 30,000 fighters are taking part in the battles in southern Syria. Activists say that Jordan is also facilitating the rebels’ push by arming some rebels and allowing them to cross freely to and from the country. The rebel offensive gained momentum two months ago, leading to the capture of much of the Quneitra region bordering Syria’s Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, as well as large areas in the southern province of Daraa on the border

However, despite the rebel advance, Assad’s forces remain strong in the area, holding bases in critical locations that the rebels will find difficult to capture, he said. Daraa-based activist Ibrahim Hariri said that while government forces collapsed in some parts of the province, they still hold much of the city of Daraa and control the Daraa-Damascus highway, “the spine of the province.” “The regime always has a very big force in Daraa because it is close to the front with Israel,” Hariri said. “Any attempt to reach Damascus will not be an easy mission.”

F E D S C A N C E L PERMIT FOR IDAHO WOLF-KILLING DERBY

R I C K S H AW R E S E A R C H R E V E A L S E X T R E M E D E L H I P O L L U T I O N norms, pollution levels that are already often deemed unhealthy or hazardous will escalate. Unchecked, today’s vehicle trends in India could lead to a three-fold increase in levels of PM 2.5 by 2030 - the tiny particulate matter believed to cause the most damage to human health - according to a study this month by The Energy and Resources Institute in New Delhi, University of California, San Diego and the California Air Resources Board. Still, few Indian cities have air quality monitors. New Delhi officially has 11, though experts say the readings can be erratic and the reporting opaque. The city reports several key pollutants and this month launched an air quality index, boiling down the ambient readings to a single daily number indicating whether the air is healthy, poor, harmful or hazardous.

In this Tuesday, Nov. 25, 2014 photo, U.S. scientist Joshua Apte monitors pollution levels on his laptop as he travels in an open-aired auto-rickshaw during rush-hour traffic in New Delhi, India. Apte has alarming findings for anyone who spends time on or near the roads in this city of 25 million, with numbers far worse than the ones that have already led the World Health Organization to rank New Delhi as the world’s most polluted city. Average pollution levels, depending on the pollutant, were 50 percent to 8 times higher on the road than urban background readings, including official ambient air pollution measures, according to research by Apte and his partners at the University of California, Berkeley, and the Indian Institute of Technology in New Delhi.

NEW DELHI (AP) -- The three-wheeled rickshaw lurched through New Delhi’s commuter-clogged streets with an American scientist and several air pollution monitors in the back seat. Car horns blared. A scrappy scooter buzzed by belching black smoke from its tailpipe. One of the monitors spiked. Joshua Apte has alarming findings for anyone who spends time on or near the roads in this city of 25 million. The numbers are far worse than the ones that have already led the World Health Organization to rank New Delhi as the world’s most polluted city. Average pollution levels, depending on the pollutant, were up to eight times higher on the road than urban background readings, according to research by Apte and his partners at the University of California, Berkeley, and the Indian Institute of Technology in New Delhi. “And you have to keep in mind that the concentrations at urban background sites, where these official monitors are, are already very high,” he said. The measures “are actually some of the highest levels in air pollution made inside vehicles anywhere in the world.” The point is particularly important for New Delhi residents, about half of whom live within 300 meters (330 yards) of a major road. New Delhi, like most cities, places their air monitors far from primary pollution sources like highways or industrial plants so that no single source can affect ambient readings, which are meant to represent an average pollution exposure from all sources. “Official air quality monitors tend to be located away from roads, on top of buildings, and that’s not where most people spend most of their time,” Apte said as The Associated Press joined him on a pollution-monitoring ride-along. “In fact, most people spend a lot of time in traffic in India. Sometimes one, two, three hours a day.” Outdoor air pollution kills millions worldwide every year, according to the WHO, including more than 627,000 in India. One of the biggest culprits in fast-growing India is vehicular traffic: Car ownership in the country of 1.2 billion grew from 20 million in 1991 to 140 million in 2011, and is expected to reach 400 million by 2030. India’s new Prime Minister Narendra Modi has taken steps to cut down the popularity of cars running on diesel, one of the dirtiest burning fuels, by pegging its cost to world market prices and scrapping a discount that had encouraged diesel consumption. But experts say that, unless India raises fuel standards to international

Apte, who in January starts as an assistant professor of environmental engineering at the University of Texas, Austin, said that such indices, while perhaps easier for citizens to digest, represent vague urban background readings and can’t help residents understand exactly what risks they face.

BOISE, Idaho (AP) -- Environmental groups have won the latest battle in their effort to halt a wolf- and coyote-shooting derby in Idaho, but a pro-hunting group says the contest with cash prizes for whoever kills the most predators will go on as planned early next year. The U.S. Bureau of Land Management, facing two federal lawsuits from conservation groups, canceled a permit late Tuesday issued to derby organizer Idaho for Wildlife on Nov. 13.

What ordinary people really want to know are answers to questions like, “`Should I be taking a walk outside in this neighborhood right now?’ ... `Is it safe for my child to be playing cricket on the field here?’” he said.

The agency didn’t mention the lawsuits in a statement but said modifications to derby rules made by the pro-hunting group after receiving the permit left it unclear if the permit could still apply without another round of analysis.

Apte’s goal was to highlight the huge differences between the urban background readings and ground-level pollution along roads. His approach to gathering his data involved twice-daily rush-hour drives from the city center to a southeast suburb.

“We were expecting a fight, so it’s nice to see the BLM had a change of heart,” said Laura King, an attorney for the Western Environmental Law Center. “This is some of the wildest land in America. It is a safe haven for an iconic species that is just getting its foothold in the West.”

He traveled in one of India’s typical open-aired auto-rickshaws, which he outfitted with pollution monitoring equipment to gather second-by-second data. On one-quarter of his visits to Delhi, he developed bronchitis. For comparison, he also took readings from inside regular cars with the windows rolled up, and from a rooftop monitor that stood for ambient air quality readings - or what the government might record and report to the public. He found average, rush-hour levels of PM 2.5 were about 50 percent higher than ambient air quality readings, according to his team’s data. The monitor shot up wildly for brief periods when lumbering vehicles emitting black smoke rolled by. Levels of black carbon, a good indicator of diesel exhaust and poorly tuned vehicle performance, were more than three times higher than the ambient readings. The average level of ultrafine particles, especially tiny forms of PM 2.5, was more than eight times higher - so high that Apte’s equipment broke when he initially tried to measure it. Ultrafine particles have been studied less than other forms of pollution but are believed to be particularly hazardous. Environmental consultant Ajay Ojha, who works on air quality in the western city of Pune outside of Mumbai, said it will take more work to show policy makers the risks of air pollution and how to address them. “The problem is nobody owns air pollution. Nobody is individually responsible. So unless the public is demanding action, officials have no reason to even bring it up,” he said. “... More understanding is needed before people will start to get upset.” Policy makers disagree about which sources of pollution are the most worrying, with car traffic, industries and power plants, trash burning and small businesses like brick kilns all vying for attention. To Apte, that simply means there are lots of ways to start clearing the air. “The good news about air pollution in Delhi is that there’s a lot of really low-hanging fruit in terms of sectors that we can choose to target,” he said. He added that the U.S. and Europe began cleaning their skies only after incomes rose and people

Steve Alder of Idaho for Wildlife said BLM officials caved in to environmental groups. “Somebody in (Washington), D.C., twisted that I was trying to change the application so they could blame us,” he said. “They’re trying to blame somebody else because they couldn’t take the heat.” Alder said the derby still would be held in January on private ranches in the Salmon area and on U.S. Forest Service land, which doesn’t require a permit, according to a federal judge’s ruling last year. But losing the 3.1 million acres of BLM land cuts the area for the derby in half. The contest includes a $1,000 prize each for whoever kills the most wolves and coyotes. Joe Kraayenbrink, the BLM’s district manager in Idaho Falls who signed the decision revoking the permit, didn’t return a call from The Associated Press on Wednesday. The two lawsuits filed by seven environmental groups contended that the agency violated environmental laws. King said the Western Environmental Law Center is not withdrawing its lawsuit because it’s not clear if the BLM would conduct the needed environmental analysis should Idaho for Wildlife apply for another permit. The center is representing WildEarth Guardians, Cascadia Wildlands and the Boulder-White Clouds Council in the lawsuit that also seeks to halt the derby on Forest Service land. The groups contend environmental laws require the agency to do an environmental analysis and issue a permit. King said a court date hasn’t been set but she expected one before the derby scheduled for Jan. 2-4. Four other environmental groups - Defenders of Wildlife, the Center for Biological Diversity, Western Watersheds Project and Project Coyote - are also suing the BLM, contending the permit opposes the federal government’s wolf-reintroduction efforts. Amy Atwood, an attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity, said the lawsuit would continue because of ambiguity in the BLM’s statement. “We think this is a serious, precedent-setting case,” she said. Alder, the derby organizer, predicted that the permit’s loss could drive more hunters to shoot the predators on BLM lands anyway, though any coyotes or wolves killed there wouldn’t be eligible for prize money. “I think you’re going to see more hunters out,” he said. “This isn’t going to save one coyote from being shot, I can guarantee that.” The event last year drew 230 people, about 100 of them hunters, who killed 21 coyotes but no wolves.

The Weekly News Digest, Nov 24 thru Dec 1, 2014

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

S I Z I N G U P W H A T A P P L E ’ S $ 7 0 0 B M A R K E T C A P C O U L D B U Y

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- Apple’s market value surpassed $700 billion in Tuesday trading, an unprecedented milestone among U.S. companies.

- It could pay for the next 46 Summer Olympics, based on the estimated cost of $15 billion for staging the event in London during 2012. But the money would only be enough to cover the next 13 Winter Olympics, based on the $51 billion that it took to pull off that even nine months ago in Russia.

Shares backtracked in the afternoon, closing down $1.03 at $117.60 - leaving Apple up 47 percent this year with a still-staggering market value of $690 billion. Exxon Mobil Corp. is a distant second with a market value of about $400 billion.

- It would be enough to buy all of the world’s publicly traded airlines, and still have about $300 billion left over to pay for bag fees, seat upgrades and in-flight snacks.

The iPhone and iPad maker is worth so much that it stretches the imagination.

- Or you could just buy 574 billion pounds of apples.

Consider the buying power of $700 billion: - It could buy 935 million models of the iPhone 6 Plus with 16 gigabytes of storage. That would be nearly enough to distribute Apple’s latest gadget du jour to everyone living in North America and Europe. Or you could just buy 1.4 billion units of the 16GB iPad Air 2, enough to give Apple’s latest tablet to everyone in China. - It could pay for Thanksgiving dinner - and not just for the Americans who celebrate it. The American Farm Bureau estimates the average Thanksgiving dinner with all the fixings for 10 people will cost $49.41 this year. At that price, $700 billion would cover 14.2 billion Thanksgiving meals. That’s twice the world’s population. - It could pay for the annual tuition for 15.5 million students at Stanford University, Silicon Valley’s hub of higher education and the alma mater of many Apple engineers. Stanford estimates its tuitions and fees will cost each student $45,201 during the current school year. - It could pay for the average annual salary of 146,000 software engineers for the next 40 years, based on the average compensation data that Apple’s own engineers submitted to the company-tracking service Glassdoor.com. Apple’s software engineers currently make slightly more than $119,000 annually, according to the website.

The Apple logo hangs in the glass box entrance to the company’s Fifth Avenue store, in New York. Apple, already the world’s most valuable company, surpassed $700 billion in market capitalization Tuesday, Nov. 26, 2014, as its stock hit another all-time high.

- It could fill the gas tanks of every driver in the U.S. for the next 22 months, based on the current average price of $2.81 per gallon, according to the American Automobile Association. The federal government estimates that the country burns through 135.5 billion gallons of gas annually, or about 371 million gallons per day. - It could buy every team in the National Football League, Major League Baseball, National Basketball Association and National Hockey League and still have nearly $600 billion left over, based Forbes’ latest estimates of the franchise values in each of the major professional sports leagues. With the remaining money, all 750 players in Major League Baseball could be paid the same $325 million, 13-year contract that the Miami Marlins just awarded Giancarlo Stanton. Even after that spending spree, there would still be about $350 billion left in the kitty, plenty to build a new stadium or arena for every team in the NFL, MLB, NBA and NHL.

4 S H O P P I N G A P P S T H A T W I L L S A V E Y O U M O N E Y coupons. That places them into a separate folder to use when you get to the store. At Macy’s, I used a 20 percent discount coupon that was scanned from the app at the register. You can also print out coupons if you prefer. I tried four different apps that digitize circulars, but Retale was the easiest to use and had the best design. - RetailMeNot (available for Apple and Android devices) I tested several coupon apps, but I end up coming back to RetailMeNot. It’s easy to use, and its map function can find deals at stores near you. Tap the heart icon to select your favorite shops. You’ll be able to see deals at those stores quickly when you open the app. I used a 20 percent off coupon at Best Buy, saving me about $10 off a $50 Magic Bullet blender set.

shows the app that links to shopping on Amazon.com on the new Amazon Fire Phone, in Seattle. The best tool for saving money while holiday shopping can be a smartphone packed with the right apps.

NEW YORK (AP) -- Want to save some cash while holiday shopping? The best tool can be a smartphone packed with the right apps. Some apps give you coupons you can hand to the cashier to scan, while others let you flip through advertising deals and promotions. Others let you scan barcodes at the store and check if there are cheaper options online. I found four apps to recommend after testing more than a dozen over the past month. All four are easy to use and nicely designed. Before you hit the mall, though, you might want to turn off notifications for these apps. Some of them will send you an alert every time a deal pops up, which can get annoying. - Retale (available for Apple and Android devices) Promotional circulars found in newspapers can now be delivered to your phone or tablet. Open the Retale app to get fliers for stores near you. I found circulars for Macy’s, Target, Toys R Us, Best Buy and other national retailers. If a circular has coupons, Retale slaps a small green icon with scissors on it. This way, you don’t have to sift through each page to find them. When you open a circular with coupons, you simply tap it once to “clip” all the

G O O G L E ’ S L AT E S T: A S P O O N T H AT STEADIES TREMORS

You get both in-store coupons and codes for stores’ websites. While I was at Gap and Steve Madden, for instance, there wasn’t a coupon available for in-store use. But I saw a 30 percent coupon for Gap.com and a 20 percent coupon for SteveMadden.com, so I left and bought the items online. - Amazon and RedLaser (available for Apple, Android and Windows devices) Price matching is spreading to more stores, and you’ll need these two apps to do it. Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is the latest company to promise to match cheaper prices you find online. Other retailers, including Best Buy Co. Inc., Target Inc. and Toys R Us Inc., have been price matching for a few years. Use the Amazon App to scan barcodes of items in the retail store and see how much the online retailer charges. If you find a better price, show the app to a cashier. To find prices elsewhere, use RedLaser. The app, which is owned by eBay Inc., shows prices for other online stores when you scan a barcode. Policies vary, and retailers typically accept matches only from specific rivals. For example, all of them exclude third-party merchants that use Amazon. The item shown on the Amazon App must be sold and shipped by Amazon.com Inc. I was rejected at Best Buy for one item sold by a third party. With RedLaser, the store will honor only some prices found. Target, for instance, accepts online matches from its own website, Amazon, Wal-Mart, Best Buy and Toys R Us. So if you find a lower price at Sears or Kmart, you still have to pay the regular price. Even with those restrictions, I have still gotten cashiers at Best Buy and Target to knock as much as $15 off an item.

h t t p : / / w w w . l i p t o n t o y o t a . c o m /

Shirin Vala, 65, who is an essential tremor patient, uses a Liftware Spoon to eat without spilling at her home in Oakland, Calif. Just in time for the holidays, Google is throwing it’s money, brain power and technology at the humble spoon. Not surprisingly, the company that has brought the driverless car and Internet glasses is bringing a unique improvement to the utensils. Built with hundreds of algorithms, these specially designed spoons make it much easier for people with tremors and Parkinson’s Disease to eat without spilling. The spoons sense a shaking hand and make instant adjustments to stay balanced.

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. (AP) -- Google is throwing its money, brain power and technology at the humble spoon. But these spoons (don’t call them spoogles) are a bit more than your basic utensil: Using hundreds of algorithms, they allow people with essential tremors and Parkinson’s disease to eat without spilling. The technology senses how a hand is shaking and makes instant adjustments to stay balanced. In clinical trials, the Liftware spoons reduced shaking of the spoon bowl by an average of 76 percent. “We want to help people in their daily lives today and hopefully increase understanding of disease in the long run,” Google spokesperson Katelin Jabbari said. Other adaptive devices have been developed to help people with tremors - rocker knives, weighted utensils, pen grips. But until now, experts say, technology has not been used in this way. “It’s totally novel,” said UC San Francisco Medical Center neurologist Dr. Jill Ostrem, who specializes in movement disorders like Parkinson’s disease and essential tremors. She helped advise the inventors and says the device, which has a fork attachment, has been a remarkable asset for some of her patients. “I have some patients who couldn’t eat independently, they had to be fed, and now they can eat on their own,” she said. “It doesn’t cure the disease - they still have tremor - but it’s a very positive change.” Google got into the no-shake utensil business in September, acquiring a small, National of Institutes of Health-funded startup called Lift Labs for an undisclosed sum. More than 10 million people worldwide, including Google co-founder Sergey Brin’s mother, have essential tremors or Parkinson’s disease. Brin has said he also has a mutation associated with higher rates of Parkinson’s and has donated more than $50 million to research for a cure. But the Lift Labs acquisition was not related, Jabbari said. Lift Lab founder Anupam Pathak said moving from a small, four-person startup in San Francisco to the vast Google campus in Mountain View has freed him up to be more creative as he explores how to apply the technology even more broadly. His team works at the search giant’s division called Google(x) Life Sciences, which is also developing a smart contact lens that measures glucose levels in tears for diabetics and is researching how nanoparticles in blood might help detect diseases. Joining Google has been motivating, said Pathak, but his focus remains on people who are now able to eat independently with his device. “If you build something with your hands and it has that sort of an impact, it’s the greatest feeling ever,” he said. “As an engineer who likes to build things, that’s the most validating thing that can happen.” Pathak said they also hope to add sensors to the spoons to help medical researchers and providers better understand, measure and alleviate tremors. Shirin Vala, 65, of Oakland, has had an essential tremor for about a decade. She was at her monthly Essential Tremor group at a San Ramon medical clinic earlier this year when researchers developing the device introduced the idea and asked if anyone was interested in helping them. As it was refined, she tried it out and gave them feedback. And when they hit the market at $295 apiece, she bought one. Without the spoon, Vala said eating was really a challenge because her hands trembled so hard food fell off the utensils before she could eat it.

continued on page 8

“I was shaking and I had a hard time to keep the food on a spoon, especially soup or something like an olive or tomatoes or something. It is very embarrassing. It’s very frustrating,” she said. The spoon definitely improved her situation. “I was surprised that I held the food in there so much better. It makes eating much easier, especially if I’m out at a restaurant,” she said.

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________

‘THIS IS C A S E

The Weekly News Digest, Nov 24 thru Dec 1, 2014

M Y J A I L’ : C O R R U P T I O N G O E S T O T R I A L There are too many models to list, so I’ll use Microsoft’s own Surface Pro 3 as an example. You type on a touch screen or attach a $130 keyboard cover. The Surface itself starts at $799, though configurations go as high as $1,949 for those serious about ditching the PC. The Surface’s built-in kickstand can be adjusted to a range of positions, some better for desks and others for the lap. The best thing about Windows tablets is their ability to run regular Windows software, such as Office and Photoshop. Other tablets have, at best, a light version.

NEW YORK (AP) -- Time for a tablet? People tend to hold onto tablets longer than smartphones, so take time to weigh your options. A major consideration is what phone you or your gift recipient already has. Although it’s possible for Android owners to have Apple’s iPads, for instance, there are advantages to sticking within the same system. You often can buy apps just once and share them across both devices, and you don’t need to learn two different systems. Here are some buying tips organized by system. Prices listed are for base models. You can typically spend more for additional storage or LTE cellular connectivity. APPLE’S iOS The iPad remains top of the line among tablets. The selection of apps designed specifically for it is unmatched. Those who already have iPhones will appreciate the ability to start email and other tasks on one device and finish on the other. You can even make phone calls from iPads, if you have an iPhone on the same Wi-Fi network. The downside is the $499 price tag for the latest full-size model, the iPad Air 2. Many Android tablets are cheaper. You do get a light and skinny device for the price, with a camera that matches the iPhone’s 8 megapixels (though the iPad still lacks a flash). The new Air also has a fingerprint sensor to bypass security passcodes and to authorize online purchases using Apple Pay. It won’t work with in-store payments, though. If you are on a budget or want a smaller device, consider last year’s iPad Mini 2 for $299. This year’s Mini doesn’t have many improvements over last year’s model, except for the fingerprint and Apple Pay capabilities. The convenience might not be worth spending more for the $399 iPad Mini 3. You might consider putting the savings toward a mid-tier or higher-end model. With both the Air 2 and the Mini 3, you can upgrade to 64 gigabytes of storage from 16 GB for just $100 more. Or get 128 GB for $200 more than the base model. GOOGLE’S ANDROID Android phones and tablets don’t let you switch back and forth as easily as Apple devices do. The advantage of sticking with an Android tablet for Android phone owners is having a unified library of apps. Samsung’s Galaxy Tab S is the best of the Android tablets I’ve tried. The display uses a technology called AMOLED to produce colors that pop out as you view video or browse the Web. But the Tab S also comes with a high price tag - $500 for the full-size model and $400 for the smaller one.

Photo shows a visitor trying out Samsung Electronics Co.’s 10.5-inch Galaxy Tab S tablet during an event in Tokyo. People tend to hold onto tablets longer than smartphones, so take time to weigh your options. A major consideration is what phone you or your gift recipient already has. Although it’s possible for Android owners to have Apple’s iPads, for instance, there are advantages to sticking within the same system. You often can buy apps just once and share them across both devices, and you don’t need to learn two different systems.

Samsung does offer an even-pricier Pro series, with screens of up to 12.2 inches diagonally, but that’s really aimed at professionals. Full-size models tend to be nine or 10 inches, while mini models are seven or eight inches. At the small and cheap end, Samsung offers the 7-inch Galaxy Tab 4 for about $180. Book lovers can choose a Nook edition, made in partnership with Barnes & Noble. Google’s $399 Nexus 9 has the advantage of running an Android version that’s closest to Google’s vision. Samsung and other manufacturers typically add their own twists, which can confuse consumers. The Nexus does have a wireless chip for in-store mobile payments using Google Wallet, if you feel like waving it around in the checkout line. I’m including Amazon’s Fire HDX tablets under Android, even though the system’s been modified so much that there’s little resemblance. App selection isn’t as good as what you get on purer Android devices. But Amazon is able to add such features as one-button access to live video help. It is great for first-time tablet owners and comes at a nice price the full-size model for $379 and the smaller one for $179. --MICROSOFT’S WINDOWS Until Windows 10 comes out next year, there’s a huge divide between Windows phones and Windows tablets. Apps aren’t compatible, and Windows tablets have more in common with Windows desktops and laptops. A Windows tablet is best suited for someone looking to replace a PC. In fact, many Windows tablets are just laptops with detachable keyboards.

T H A N K S G I V I N G T R AV E L W O E S ? T H E R E ’ S A N A P P F O R

from airport departure boards at over 3,000 airports worldwide. If you’re picking up at the airport, it’s one way to find out whether the flight will land on time. Or, if you want to keep it simple, get the app of the airline you’re flying. That will typically let you do things such as get a boarding pass or - gulp - rebook your flight. TRAINS While Amtrak has an app that lets you make or change reservations and check the status of your train, local and regional public transit doesn’t have the same range of resources as air travel.

This cell phone screen capture shows traffic alerts along a route displayed on a cell phone app called Waze, in Los Angeles on Monday, Nov. 24, 2014. Whether traveling by plane, train or automobile, getting from Point A to Point B can be a headache. Technology provides relief in the form of apps that can let you know which roads are clogged, how long the wait is at the airport and whether the trains are running on time. (

Traveling by plane, train or automobile can be a headache. Mixing in Thanksgiving can make it a throbbing migraine. Technology provides some pain relief in the form of apps to let you know which roads are clogged, what gate your flight leaves from and whether trains are running on time. The American Automobile Association forecasts that the Wednesday through Sunday period will see more than 46 million Americans travel at least 50 miles from home - the most Thanksgiving road warriors since 2007. About nine in 10 are expected to drive - or be driven - with about 3.6 million flying. Here are some ways to make the journey a bit less taxing. PLANES FlightAware tracks not only your flight’s status but also any delays or cancellations, even gate changes. Set it up for a specific trip and it will send alerts so you don’t have to keep checking for changes. Seats matter, especially if you’re traveling with kids. The ExpertFlyer app has a feature called “seat alert,” which informs you when a seat you want to snag becomes available. If you have the pleasure of a connecting flight, consider FlightBoard. Every five minutes, it updates with the latest

At least 70 percent of larger transit agencies have apps that offer real-time travel information, according to Darnell Grisby, director of policy development and research at the American Public Transportation Association. As for using your phone to buy and manage tickets - that’s not as common an option, but some agencies offer it. AUTOMOBILES Traffic apps are a familiar friend for many commuters. Some, such as Sigalert, offer color-coded highway maps red for “jammed up,” yellow for “slow,” green for “full speed ahead.” Sometimes the data that inform the maps are just outdated enough that they can lead a driver onto a freeway that may have been traffic-free five minutes ago, but now has a building bottleneck.

CALORIE COUNT TO APPEAR WITH MANY P R E PA R E D F O O D S WASHINGTON (AP) -- Diners will soon know how many calories are in that bacon cheeseburger at a chain restaurant, the pasta salad in the supermarket salad bar and even that buttery tub of popcorn at the movie theater. The Food and Drug Administration announced long-delayed calorie labeling rules Tuesday, requiring establishments that sell prepared foods and have 20 or more locations to post the calorie content of food and beverages “clearly and conspicuously” on their menus, menu boards and displays. Companies have until a year from now to comply. “Americans eat and drink about one-third of their calories away from home, and people today expect clear information about the products they consume,” FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg said. WHERE YOU’LL SEE THE LABELS Calorie content will appear on menus and menu boards in chain restaurants, bakeries, coffee shops, pizza delivery stores, movie theaters, amusement parks and any other locations that are part of a larger chain and serve prepared foods. They will also apply to some prepared foods in supermarkets and convenience stores. The idea is that people may avoid that burger and fries if they add up the calories - and retailers may make their foods healthier to keep calorie counts down. The menus and menu boards will tell diners that a 2,000-calorie diet is used as the basis for daily nutrition, noting that individual calorie needs may vary. Additional nutritional information beyond calories, including sodium, fats, sugar and other items, must be available upon request. WHY THE RULES WERE DELAYED Calorie labeling became law as part of health overhaul in early 2010, almost five years ago. Hamburg says writing the rules was challenging because of the need to navigate concerns of the varied establishments that sell food. Supermarkets, convenience stores and pizza deliverers lobbied hardest against the rules. Restaurant chains went along with the rule as a way to dodge an uneven patchwork of local rules and pushed for the other establishments to be included. GROCERY STORE CONFUSION Representatives of supermarkets have said the rules could cover thousands of items in each store, far more than restaurants. To address that, FDA excluded prepared foods that are typically intended for more than one person to eat and require more preparation, like deli meats, cheeses or bulk deli salads. But a sandwich sold in a grocery store would have to have a calorie label. In some cases foods will have to be labeled in one part of the store but not in another. Cut fruit would be labeled in a salad bar, for example, but not in a container for sale, because that is generally meant to take home and eat over a period of time. The FDA says the idea is to label calories of foods that are meant to be eaten at the store or as takeout, rather than for further preparation at home. Leslie G. Sarasin, president and CEO of the Food Marketing Institute, said the group is extremely disappointed in the rules, which she said will affect stores’ offerings of “fresh, minimally processed, locally produced items” such as cut cantaloupe, mixed salads or steamed seafood. BOOZE INCLUDED One surprise in the final rules is that alcoholic drinks will have to be labeled if they are listed on menus. Alcohol had been exempted in rules proposed three years ago. Nutrition advocates say customers often don’t realize how many calories they are drinking when they order beverages like margaritas and ice cream drinks. Drinks ordered at the bar won’t have to be labeled if they aren’t on a menu. WILL IT WORK? New York City was first in the country to put a calorie-posting law in place, and other cities and states have followed. McDonald’s and other restaurant chains already put calorie labels on menus and menu boards. The labels are popular with many, but it’s too soon to know whether they’ll affect obesity rates. A recent Agriculture Department study found the diets of people who use nutritional information are markedly better than those who don’t, and healthy eaters had more interest in the labels. The USDA paper concluded that it “may be too optimistic” to expect that those who don’t use nutrition information will adopt healthier diets if exposed to it.

The popular app Waze tries to solve that problem by asking drivers to report traffic and other problems, which the app then shares with other users.

WHAT’S NEXT

AND JUST IN CASE

Sen. Roy Blunt, a Missouri Republican, introduced a bill in the Senate earlier this year that would narrow the scope of the labeling. He said in a statement Tuesday that the regulations could hurt job growth and impose unnecessary costs on some businesses. He said he would “continue to push back” on the rules.

Should everything go sideways, and you’re suddenly stranded, Priceline and Hotel Tonight can help you find a room nearby.

Even before the new rules were announced, some Republicans in Congress had expressed concern that they would be too burdensome.

10 The Weekly News Digest, Nov 24 thru Dec 1, 2014

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

HONG KONG PROTEST MOVEMENT’S U N L I K E L Y T E E N L E A D E R HONG KONG (AP) -- At age 14, he stepped into the spotlight to take on - and ultimately help defeat - Hong Kong authorities’ plans to launch a “national education” curriculum, calling it a ploy to brainwash the city’s youth with unquestioned support for the Chinese Communist Party.

the city’s more prestigious institutions because of mediocre college entrance exam results. Wong first gained notoriety when in 2011 he started a group with some student friends called Scholarism to oppose the Hong Kong government’s plan to introduce Beijing-style “moral and national education” curriculum into the territory’s schools. Many residents viewed the move as an attempt to indoctrinate young people and inculcate support for the Communist government. After weeks of protests, authorities scrapped the plan.

Now, at 18, Joshua Wong is helping spearhead a mostly student-led protest movement that is pressing for greater democratic reforms in the semiautonomous Chinese territory. Slender and serious, with a shock of shaggy black hair, Wong does not cut an imposing figure. He usually wears black eyeglasses and is often seen hunched over his smartphone - a key tool used by the young protesters to get their message out via social media and group chats. Yet he carries himself with a maturity found in few teenagers and speaks concisely and with conviction while addressing crowds, microphone in hand. He is admired among supporters for being willing to speak up - and doing so articulately - at such a young age. “He’s outstanding in leading the mass movement,” said Terry Ng, an insurance agent in his 30s who has joined some protests. Wong has a power to inspire and get people to think critically about government policy, said Angel Chow, an 18-year-old high school student. “He’s very young and he can lead a large amount of people to have a protest to the government,” she said. “It is not an easy job, I think.” Wong has plenty of detractors. He has been attacked by pro-Beijing media in the city, including an article in the Wen Wei Po newspaper accusing him of working for the CIA. This week, he and his lawyer were pelted with eggs by two men after he was arrested for a second time since the street protests began two months ago. Wong, Lester Shum, another popular student leader, and about 150 others were detained Wednesday when police cleared out a protest site in the gritty Mong Kok neighborhood where demonstrators had often clashed with police, as well as angry residents. A Hong Kong court on Thursday banned him from going to that area. After paying HK$500 ($65) in bail, he was released and his obstruction case was adjourned until Jan. 14. On leaving court, Wong showed journalists small cuts and bruises on his neck that he said came from police hitting him. He also said “they injured me six or seven times in my private parts.” The arrests of Wong and Shum appear to reflect Hong Kong authorities’ attempts to sideline leaders of the movement amid increasing

Wong steadfastly believes it falls to the students to take the lead in pushing for change in Hong Kong, where the younger generation has become increasingly worried about its future because of widening inequality and the growing influence of mainland China on the former British colony. Prominent Hong Kong student protest leader Joshua Wong talks to reporters outside a court in Hong Kong Thursday, Nov. 27, 2014. Wong and other democracy protesters were arrested during a police operation to remove barricades from a protest camp in the unruly Mong Kok district. Wong was given bail and his case adjourned until January 14.

impatience from Beijing to shut down the protests that started in late September. Students and others have taken to the streets to oppose the Chinese central government’s decision that a pro-Beijing committee must approve all candidates running in the territory’s first direct election for leader, scheduled for 2017. Wong played a key role in kick-starting those demonstrations when at a rally outside the government headquarters he spontaneously called on the crowd to storm a courtyard dubbed Civic Square. More than 100 people scaled a tall fence or pushed past a gate. Wong, Shum and other student leaders were arrested.

It remains to be seen what kind of impact Wong’s second arrest will have on the protesters, who find themselves cornered and exhausted and losing public support. In a recording made before police cleared the Mong Kok protest area, Wong called for perseverance. “The aim of the movement is to fight for results, not for an exit plan,” he said. “Even if I’m detained I hope everybody else will persist because we have no room to lose.”

Public anger at the pair being held nearly the 48-hour legal limit without charge drove more people into the streets, where police responded by firing tear gas. That in turn boosted the protests that have come to be called the “Umbrella Movement,” a reference to the umbrellas demonstrators used as shields against pepper spray. As the weeks have dragged on, the numbers of protesters camped out in the streets has dwindled, though barricades and tents remain in place at two other street encampments. The government held televised talks with student leaders - though Wong didn’t participate - but offered little in the way of concessions and has made little attempt to respond to demands. Wong was raised a Christian in a middle-class family that nurtured his concern for social issues, with his father reportedly taking him on visits to the city’s less fortunate starting at the age of 6 or 7. He graduated from a private Christian high school and this fall began going to the Open University of Hong Kong, having failed to get into

R U S S I A N D O C T O R R E B E L L I O N C A U S E S H E A D A C H E F O R P U T I N In this photo taken on Thursday, Nov. 20, 2014, Dr. Semyon Galperin speaks during an interview with The Associated Press at Hospital 11 in Moscow, Russia. Dr. Galperin spent a decade in medical research in Russia and as much time in the United States, working at top hospitals and research companies. Despite his expertise, Galperin was recently given a stark ultimatum from the Moscow hospital where he works: Leave or stay on as a lowly hospital attendant. Galperin’s job is being eliminated as part of a sweeping reform in which at least 28 Moscow hospitals are to be closed and up to 10,000 medical staff fired, an overhaul that officials say is needed to modernize a decrepit Soviet-era health system. At the hospital, Galperin is vowing to stay on even if that means working as an attendant: “I can’t leave work because we decided to fight till the end,” he said.

“In different countries, in different generations it’s the same thing: students are always the ones who stand in the front line in democracy movements,” he told the AP in July. “Students have less pressure on their future, job or family. ... They can stand more at the front compared to others.”

low unemployment of about 5 percent in the last decade because of heavy subsidies to state enterprises, schools and hospitals. Following the political protests, Putin won his third term office in 2012 largely because state employees believed in his promise to increase their living standards. Now, that very promise seems to be backfiring. Moscow officials are carrying out the health care reform in order to make good on Putin’s election pledge to boost the livelihoods of public servants including a vow to make doctors’ salaries twice that of the average employee by 2018. Moscow Deputy Mayor Leonid Pechatnikov says that had it not been for Putin’s pledge, the health reform would not be so fast or brutal. Moscow’s health care system is a relic of the communist health care system under which every citizen was entitled to free medical services. In a bid to save funds, Moscow health care officials are focusing on promoting neighborhood clinics that will provide comprehensive care and keep people out of hospital beds.

Improves the health and lives of people affected by poverty, disaster, and civil unrest.

www.directrelief.org

The health department’s Nikolayeva told The Associated Press that Hospital 11’s “doctors are abusing their position” and that the city does not need as many neurologists now that Moscow purchased high-tech MRI equipment making it easier to diagnose multiple sclerosis. Galperin and his colleagues say they provide multiple sclerosis treatment that cannot be obtained elsewhere in Moscow. Their suggestion to set up a multiple sclerosis clinic on the grounds of the hospital in order to keep the expertise and equipment in one place has not received a response. Galperin says he was probably targeted because of his union activities: He was given notice the day after he made a speech at a trade union committee, demanding a fairer pay scheme. But other doctors who kept a low profile were given the boot, too. Meanwhile, Putin’s objection to the Moscow health reform appears to be making its mark. In a statement last week, the presidential human rights council called for a halt to the layoffs and insisted that in its current form, the reform violates a constitutional right to free health care. The Moscow health department held a number of roundtables with medical professionals, while Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin offered additional severance pay of up to 500,000 rubles ($10,700) per doctor. But that has not yet translated into any concrete action. Meanwhile, some patients fear that the reform will hurt them the most.

MOSCOW (AP) -- Dr. Semyon Galperin spent a decade in medical research in Russia and as much time in the United States, working at top hospitals and research companies. Despite his expertise, Galperin was recently given a stark ultimatum from the Moscow hospital where he works: Leave or stay on as a lowly hospital attendant.

The reforms were not discussed with the medical community, however, and their details only became public in October following a leak in the press. Doctors and hospitals that found themselves in the vortex of the reform have not been told why they are being phased out or what is going to happen to their patients.

Galperin’s job is being eliminated as part of a sweeping reform in which at least 28 Moscow hospitals are to be closed and up to 10,000 medical staff fired, an overhaul that officials say is needed to modernize a decrepit Soviet-era health system. On Sunday, thousands of doctors and their patients are set to march against the reform as part of the first mass social protest in Russia in nearly a decade - a threat to President Vladimir Putin who faced down a wave of political protests launched in 2011 and is now struggling with a faltering economy.

At Hospital 11 where Galperin works, 136 out of its 320 medical staff, mostly doctors, were given the notice and the hospital is to be shuttered by April.

“They taught me to walk five times,” the young artist says of Hospital 11. “It’s a scary disease. It can strike at any moment. A couple of times I was sitting with friends drinking coffee, and within 15 minutes it would strike.”

Grilled about the hospital’s closing, Deputy Mayor Pechatnikov told a session of the presidential human rights council last week that the hospital “monopolized” the treatment of multiple sclerosis in Moscow, making it impossible to get treatment elsewhere in the city.

On a recent afternoon, Kochevnik went to Red Square to lay down on its cobbled pavement in protest. Supporters stood by, each carrying an IV drip. One held a poster reading: “A hospital without doctors is a mortuary.”

The doctors’ rebellion started early this month, when thousands took to the streets to protest the layoffs and hospital closures. Last time a similar protest happened in 2005, Putin became so alarmed that within a week he overturned the scrapping of social benefits for millions of pensioners and the disabled, and in fact doubled pensions instead. Aware of the potential fall-out of this protest, Putin last week asked the Moscow government to reconsider the reform as his human rights council hosted a round table discussion with prominent doctors and trade unions that were not consulted when the reform was launched. At Moscow’s Hospital 11, Galperin is vowing to stay on even if that means working as an attendant: “I can’t leave work because we decided to fight till the end,” he said. Moscow officials say they are only complying with a 2010 Russian law designed to help hospitals complete a transition from the Soviet-era economy and make them self-reliant by cutting budget subsidies to a minimum. Moscow Health Care Department spokeswoman Elina Nikolayeva defended the firings as inevitable: “Some of the doctors who are being fired are underqualified,” she said. “Some of them don’t have enough workload.” The doctors’ unrest is particularly problematic for Putin because almost all of them are state employees - the core of his support base. Russia has enjoyed

Ales Kochevnik, 29, was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis two years ago. Treatment allows her to live a more or less a normal life, albeit one interrupted by fits that can leave parts of her body temporarily paralyzed.

h t t p : / / w w w . l i p t o n t o y o t a . c o m /

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________

The Weekly News Digest, Nov 24 thru Dec 1, 2014

E Y E I N G 2 0 1 6 , C L I N T O N S E L E C T I V E O N P O L I C Y I S S U E S

Since then, Clinton has taken a more circumspect posture in public events, appearing at charity events and voicing support for issues related to her work at the Clinton Foundation. That approach allows her to stay above the political fray in the aftermath of Democrats’ poor showing during the midterm elections.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Hillary Rodham Clinton offered praise for President Barack Obama’s executive actions to stave off deportation for millions of immigrants living in the U.S. illegally. But the Democrats’ favored presidential hopeful has been less forthcoming on other issues in these early days of the 2016 contest.

Clinton has stayed close to Obama on immigration, releasing a statement that noted that previous presidents of both parties had taken similar steps.

Clinton is not, so far, a candidate, and she’s limiting her commentary about the daily news cycle confronting Obama - a strategy that could keep down chatter about where she and the unpopular president agree and where they diverge. The former secretary of state, senator and first lady is not talking about the Keystone XL pipeline, rejected by one vote in the final weeks of the Democrat-led Senate. She has yet to speak publicly about a sweeping climate change agreement between the U.S. and China, an extension of talks over Iran’s nuclear program or the Senate’s move to block a bill to end bulk collection of Americans’ phone records by the National Security Agency. When Obama announced his moves to prevent the deportations for nearly 5 million immigrants living in the U.S. illegally, Clinton quickly embraced the decision on Twitter. The president, she wrote, was “taking action on immigration in the face of inaction” in Congress. In doing so, she signaled that as a candidate, she would run against the Republican-led House and Senate that convenes next year. Clinton also drew a distinction from her would-be GOP opponents who have spoken of immigration reform in large part as a border security problem. On other weighty policy matters, however, Clinton is mum. “You’ve got to make choices if you’re not a candidate,” said Lanny Davis, a White House special counsel during the Clinton administration who attended law school with Bill and Hillary Clinton. “She is not a candidate for president. When she becomes a candidate, she has to start answering questions.”

The following night, in an interview at a New York Historical Society event, Clinton reiterated the need for Congress to act on a comprehensive immigration bill. She also put the issue in the context of families, saying the decision probably affected wait staff who were serving the dinner.

Hillary Rodham Clinton listens before delivering remarks at an event in New York. Clinton has offered praise for President Barack Obama’s executive actions to stave off deportation for millions of immigrants living in the U.S. illegally. But the Democrats’ favored presidential hopeful has been less forthcoming on other issues in these early days of the 2016 contest. Clinton is not, so far, a candidate, and she’s limiting her commentary about the daily news cycle confronting Obama.

Clinton is expected to make her political intentions known in the coming weeks, likely in early 2015. Her speeches are closely watched for signs of how she might offer a rationale for her candidacy. Clinton campaigned for Democratic candidates during the fall, often pointing to pocketbook issues like equal pay for women, raising the minimum wage and expanded family leave policies. “A 20th century economy will not work for 21st century families,” she said at an October rally.

Clinton has called climate change the nation’s “most consequential” issue but has yet to weigh in on the agreement Obama reached with China to set new targets for cutting emissions. The deal was negotiated by John Podesta, a Clinton White House chief of staff who is expected to play a prominent role in a Clinton presidential campaign.

Wednesday that any immigrant considered lawfully present and holding a Social Security number would be entitled to Social Security and Medicare upon retirement because they would have paid into the system. Stephen Miller, a spokesman for Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama, a leading Republican opponent of Obama’s executive actions, said making immigrants illegally in the U.S. eligible for Social Security and Medicare “is an attack on working families.”

Under Obama’s actions, immigrants who are spared deportation could obtain work permits and a Social Security number. As a result, they would pay into the Social Security system through payroll taxes. No such “lawfully present” immigrant, however, would be immediately entitled to the benefits because like all Social Security and Medicare recipients they would have to work 10 years to become eligible for retirement payments and health care. To remain qualified, either Congress or future administrations would have to extend Obama’s actions so that those immigrants would still be considered lawfully present in the country. None of the immigrants who would be spared deportation under Obama’s executive actions would be able to receive federal assistance such as welfare or food stamps, or other income-based aid. They also would not be eligible to purchase health insurance in federal exchanges set up by the new health care law and they would not be able to apply for tax credits that would lower the cost of their health insurance. The issue of benefits for immigrants who are illegally in the United States is a particularly sensitive one for the Obama administration. As a result, the White House has made it clear that none of the nearly 5 million immigrants affected by Obama’s actions would be eligible for federal assistance. The decision to deny them access to health care exchanges and tax credits has especially disappointed immigrant advocates. “They were specifically carved out of that, which is deeply unfortunate because it cuts directly against the spirit” of the health care law, said Avideh Moussavian, an attorney at the National Immigration Law Center. “They should have had the opportunity to buy health insurance just like anybody else.” Less clear until now was their eligibility for retirement benefits for which they would have paid into through payroll taxes. Describing the administration’s position, one official said

Other policy issues carry more political risk. Clinton has avoided weighing in on the Keystone XL pipeline, saying it wouldn’t be appropriate for her since the environmental review by the State Department happened during her watch. The issue is tricky for Democrats because labor unions have supported the plan but environmentalists adamantly oppose it.

Nick Merrill, a Clinton spokesman, declined to comment.

IM M I G RANTS SOC IA L S EC U R ITY E L I G I B L E I N O B A M A P L A N

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Many immigrants in the United States illegally who apply for work permits under President Barack Obama’s new executive actions would be eligible for Social Security and Medicare benefits upon reaching retirement age, according to the White House.

“There is probably no more pressing issue at this time than to fix this immigration system,” said Alex Padilla, California’s secretary of state-elect. “As a leader, it was right for her to speak up. A lot of people wanted to know what she thought.”

“The amnestied illegal immigrants are largely older, lower-wage and lower-skilled and will draw billions more in benefits than they will pay in,” he said. Beneficiaries would have to be of retirement age and have worked for at least 10 years. Immigrants would also be eligible for survivor benefits if the deceased worker had worked for 10 years. For disability insurance, they would have to work for 5-20 years. A report by the White House Council of Economic Advisers this week concluded that Obama’s executive actions would expand the U.S. tax base because about two-thirds of immigrants illegally working in the United States don’t pay taxes. But many immigrants currently working illegally still pay into the Social Security system because they have obtained an Individual Taxpayer Identification Number. Moussavian said the number has declined because the Internal Revenue Service has made it harder to apply for the identification number. The Social Security Administration estimates that out of about 11 immigrants who either entered the U.S. illegally or have overstayed their visas slightly more than 3 million paid payroll taxes of about $6.5 billion in 2010, with their employers contributing another $6.5 billion. Those payments would not qualify toward the 10 year requirement needed to be eligible for benefits, the administration official said. The official was not authorized to describe the policy by name and spoke on the condition of anonymity. “It’s one of many reasons why they would want to come forward,” Moussavian said. “Many immigrants have contributed enormously through payroll taxes and income taxes and they go to programs that they can’t currently access.”

Both issues could receive attention from Clinton on Monday, when she is scheduled to address the League of Conservation Voters in New York. On NSA surveillance, Clinton has talked broadly about the need to balance the need for security without infringing upon Americans’ privacy amid a debate over the government’s collection of data. But she has kept a low profile on the issue. Republicans contend Clinton is being overly political in the lead-up to a presidential campaign. “Everything Hillary does is for political purposes,” said Republican National Committee spokeswoman Kirsten Kukowski, “which includes taking positions for political expediency and not answering tough questions for political reasons.”

ENERGY SHARES S L I D E A F T E R O P E C D E C I S I O N HONG KONG (AP) -- Crude oil and energy shares tumbled Friday as OPEC’s decision to keep production steady rippled across the globe. Japanese stocks rose after a slew of uninspiring economic data raised hopes that more stimulus was in the pipeline while other global indexes were mixed. KEEPING SCORE: European shares opened lower, with France’s CAC 40 down 0.6 percent to 4,356.26. Britain’s FTSE 100 fell 0.8 percent to 6,673.24 and Germany’s DAX slipped 0.7 percent to 9,905.45. U.S. shares were poised to fall at the open, with Dow futures dipping 0.2 percent to 17,773. Broader S&P 500 futures lost 0.2 percent to 2,067. ENERGY SLUMP: The oil cartel decided to maintain production at 30 million barrels a day despite global oversupply, as the Saudis and their Gulf allies hope to pressure rival producers in the U.S. That sent oil prices to four-year lows. Benchmark U.S. crude oil tumbled 6.8 percent, or $4.99, to $68.70 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Brent crude, used to price oil sold on international markets, slipped 61 cents to $71.97 after losing about $5 in the previous session. BIG MOVERS: Oil-related stocks were the big losers following the slide in crude prices. Chinese state owned oil giant CNOOC, the country’s biggest crude producer, plunged 5.5 percent and PetroChina slid 3.3 percent. Shares of Anglo-Australian miner BHP Billiton, which has crude oil interests, slipped 3.4 percent in Sydney. BP dived 3.9 percent in London and Total sank 4.6 percent in Paris trading. ASIA’S DAY: Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 index rose 1.2 percent to close at 17,459.85 while South Korea’s Kospi slipped 0.1 percent to 1,980.78. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng edged 0.1 percent lower to 23,987.45 while in mainland China the Shanghai Composite Index gained 2 percent to 2,682.83. Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 tumbled 1.6 percent to 5,313.00. Benchmarks in Taiwan, Singapore and the Philippines rose while in Thailand, Indonesia and New Zealand they fell. JAPAN DATA: A raft of data releases gave mixed signs about the state of Asia’s second biggest economy but the Nikkei surged nonetheless, a sign that investors thought that the initial reaction to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s renewed stimulus efforts wasn’t enough and that more was in the pipeline. Inflation edged lower while industrial output edged up from the month before and unemployment eased slightly. THE QUOTE: “If our forecasts are correct, the (Japanese) central bank is likely to come under pressure to deliver additional easing sooner than markets expect,” with the announcement coming as early as the second quarter of 2015, HSBC economist Izumi Devalier said in a research report. CURRENCIES: The euro slipped to $1.2450 from $1.2453 in late trading Thursday. The dollar eased to 118.10 yen from 118.12 yen.

12 The Weekly News Digest, Nov 24 thru Dec 1, 2014

U S I N

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________

T I G H T E N S S M O G B I D T O P R O T E C T

L I M I T S H E A L T H

WASHINGTON (AP) -- In a fresh confrontation with Republicans, the Obama administration on Wednesday proposed stricter emissions limits on smog-forming pollution linked to asthma and respiratory illness. The move fulfilled a long-delayed campaign promise by President Barack Obama but left environmental and public health groups wanting more.

only partially satisfied and vowed to push for the stricter limit of 60 parts per billion. That’s the lower end of what scientists and an EPA report have recommended. But McCarthy conceded there’s “more uncertainty with the science at that level,” and it’s unlikely the administration would adopt a limit that would be difficult to defend scientifically.

Business groups panned the Environmental Protection Agency’s new ozone regulations as unnecessary and the costliest in history, warning they could jeopardize a resurgence in American manufacturing. But EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy argued that the public health benefits far outweigh the costs and that most of the U.S. can meet the tougher standards without doing anything new.

“Wherever they set that standard is defining what is considered `safe,’” said Lyndsay Moseley of the American Lung Association. “It’s critically important to get that right.”

“We need to be smart - as we always have - in trying to find the best benefits in a way that will continue to grow the economy,” McCarthy said. Of reducing ozone, she added: “We’ve done it before, and we’re on track to do it again.” Ozone joins a long list of pollutants that Obama has wanted to limit using EPA regulations, seeking to cement an environmental legacy by sidestepping Congress and its opposition to new pollution laws. After pledging during his first presidential campaign to tighten ozone limits, Obama backtracked in 2011 by yanking the EPA’s proposed ozone limits amid intense pressure from industry and the GOP. At the time, Obama said it was important to cut regulatory red tape while the economy was recovering from the Great Recession. Public health groups sued, and a federal court ordered the EPA to issue a new draft smog rule by Dec. 1, with an October 2015 deadline to finalize it. Rather than settling on a firm new ozone limit now, the EPA is proposing a range of 65 parts per billion to 70. Yet in a nod to concerns on both sides, the EPA will also take public comments on an even stricter standard of 60, as well the existing standard of 75 that President George W. Bush put in place in 2008. Cutting ozone emissions to 70 parts per billion would cost industry about $3.9 billion in 2025, the EPA estimated, while a stricter limit

READING HARRY POTTER GIVES CLUES TO BRAIN ACTIVITY Scott Kurdilla, a medical research technologist at Carnegie Mellon University, waits for a volunteer for a brain scan experiment on campus in Pittsburgh on Wednesday Nov. 26, 2014. The brain-scanning MRI machine at the center was used in a recent experiment where each word of a chapter of “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone” was flashed for half a second onto a screen inside a brain-scanning MRI machine. Images showing combinations of data and graphics were collected.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Reading about Harry Potter’s adventures learning to fly his broomstick activates some of the same regions in the brain we use to perceive real people’s actions and intentions. In a unique study, scientists who peeked into the brains of people caught up in a good book emerged with maps of what a healthy brain does as it reads. The research reported Wednesday has implications for studying reading disorders or recovery from a stroke. The team from Carnegie Mellon University was pleasantly surprised that the experiment actually worked. Most neuroscientists painstakingly have tracked how the brain processes a single word or sentence, looking for clues to language development or dyslexia by focusing on one aspect of reading at a time. But reading a story requires multiple systems working at once: recognizing how letters form a word, knowing the definitions and grammar, keeping up with the characters’ relationships and the plot twists. Measuring all that activity is remarkable, said Georgetown University neuroscientist Guinevere Eden, who helped pioneer brain-scanning studies of dyslexia but wasn’t involved in the new work. “It offers a much richer way of thinking about the reading brain,” Eden said, calling the project “very clever and very exciting.” No turning pages inside a brain-scanning MRI machine; you have to lie still. So at Carnegie Mellon, eight adult volunteers watched for nearly 45 minutes as each word of Chapter 9 of “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone” was flashed for half a second onto a screen inside the scanner.

EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy speaking to the Center for American Progress’ Second Annual Policy Conference in Washington. The Obama administration took steps Wednesday to cut levels of smog-forming pollution linked to asthma, lung damage and other health problems, making good on one of President Barack Obama’s original campaign promises while setting up a fresh confrontation with Republicans and the energy industry.

of 65 would push the cost up to $15 billion. A price tag that high would exceed that of any previous environmental regulation in the U.S. McCarthy predicted the savings in health costs from cleaner air would deliver a 3-to-1 return on any investment, but industry groups like the National Association of Manufacturers dismissed those estimates and predicted far higher costs. Although Republicans balked at the proposal, it was unclear what steps opponents will take to stop it. Congressional action to block regulations rarely succeeds. Still, GOP leaders promised tough oversight of the limits, while incoming Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said the new Congress would “take appropriate action.” “The American people just said clearly that they want to see more bipartisanship in Washington and more jobs in their communities,” McConnell said, referring to GOP gains in the midterm elections. “This latest Obama regulation would take our country in just the opposite direction.”

In the atmosphere, ozone forms a protective shield that protects the Earth from the sun’s ultraviolet rays. But at the ground level, scientists say, ozone causes smog that can lead to serious respiratory illness, particularly for children, the elderly and those with lung disease. Ozone is formed when chemicals emitted by power plants, cars, refineries and factories react in sunlight. Aiming to smooth the transition, the EPA plans to give states that have the most ozone up to 2037 to come into compliance. But McCarthy said most of the U.S. won’t have to take any action, thanks to existing pollution programs and previous EPA limits on pollutants like mercury and carbon dioxide that have the side benefit of reducing ozone. The EPA said only nine U.S. counties would fail to meet a standard of 70 parts per billion in 2025, or 68 counties if the EPA goes with the stricter 65 parts per billion. But those figures - as well as the agency’s cost estimates - don’t include California, whose smog problem is among the worst in the U.S. because of its unique geography. Consequently, California is on a separate timeline to cut ozone emissions.

S PA C E S TAT I O N ’ S 3-D PRINTER POPS O U T 1 S T C R E AT I O N CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) -- The first 3-D printer in space has popped out its first creation.

Yet on the other end of the spectrum, environmental groups were

story and watch where in your brain the neural activity is happening,” said senior author Tom Mitchell, director of Carnegie Mellon’s Machine Learning Department. “Not just where are the neurons firing, but what information is being coded by those different neurons.”

head casing.

The 3-D printer delivered to the International Space Station two months ago made a sample replacement part for itself this week. It churned out a new faceplate for the print

Wehbe had the idea to study reading a story rather than just words or phrases.

Space station commander Butch Wilmore removed the small plastic creation from the printer Tuesday, a day after its manufacture.

But parsing the brain activity took extraordinary effort. For every word, the researchers identified features - the number of letters, the part of speech, if it was associated with a character or action or emotion or conversation. Then they used computer programming to analyze brain patterns associated with those features in every four-word stretch.

Some of the plastic piece stuck to the print tray, said NASA spokesman Dan Huot. He noted it’s part of the learning process and will be further investigated.

They spotted some complex interactions. For example, the brain region that processes the characters’ point of view is the one we use to perceive intentions behind real people’s actions, Wehbe said. A region that we use to visually interpret other people’s emotions helps decipher characters’ emotions. That suggests we’re using pretty high-level brain functions, not just the semantic concepts but our previous experiences, as we get lost in the story, she said. A related study using faster brain-scanning techniques shows that much of the neural activity is about the history of the story up to that point, rather than deciphering the current word, Mitchell added. The team’s computer model can distinguish with 74 percent accuracy which of two text passages matches a pattern of neural activity, he said, calling it a first step as researchers tease apart what the brain does when someone reads.

About 20 objects will be printed in the next few weeks, all for return to Earth for analysis, NASA said. The space agency hopes to one day use 3-D printing to make parts for broken equipment in space - “an on-demand machine shop,” according to project manager Niki Werkheiser. Made in Space, the Northern California company that supplied the space station’s 3-D printer, called it “a transformative moment.” The newly created, rectangular faceplate - considered functional by the company includes the Made in Space name, as well as NASA’s. “When the first human fashioned a tool from a rock, it couldn’t have been conceived that one day we’d be replicating the same fundamental idea in space,” Aaron Kemmer, chief executive officer, said in a statement. Similar 3-D items will be duplicated at the company’s offices in Mountain View for comparison. The stronger-than-expected adhesion to the print tray could mean that the layer-by-layer bonding process is different in weightlessness, NASA noted. The company will replace the orbiting demo machine with a much bigger commercial printer next year. The European Space Agency, meanwhile, plans to fly its own 3-D printer in 2015.

DUTCH SEEK TO HARNESS ENERGY F R O M S A L T W A T E R M I X AMSTERDAM (AP) -- Dutch researchers are seeking to add a new, largely untapped renewable energy source to the world’s energy mix with the opening of a “Blue Energy” test facility on Wednesday. Blue energy takes advantage of the difference in salt concentration between sea water and fresh water to produce electricity.

The technique uses two specialized filters with salt and fresh water on each side. One filter lets positively charged sodium ions seep through, while the other admits negatively charged chlorine ions, creating a natural battery. Each square meter of the filter panel can generate roughly one watt, and the filters are then arranged in stacks of hundreds to multiply the effect.

Why that chapter? It has plenty of action and emotion as Harry swoops around on his broom, faces the bully Malfoy and later runs into a three-headed dog, but there’s not too much going on for scientists to track, said lead researcher Leila Wehbe, a Ph.D. student.

Rik Siebers of REDstack BV, the company overseeing the project, said the goal is to improve the technology to the point where it will be profitable to build blue energy plants commercially in the 2020s.

The research team analyzed the scans, second by second, and created a computerized model of brain activity involved with different reading processes. The research was published Wednesday by the journal PLoS One.

“For wind turbines you need wind, and solar panels work in the day, but water is always flowing,” he said in a telephone interview Wednesday.

The test plant is strategically located on the Afsluitdijk, the long dike built off the Dutch coast in the 1930s that turned part of the North Sea into an enormous freshwater lake.

The Dutch plant has a theoretical maximum capacity of 50 megawatts, about enough to power 100 Dutch homes. A more limited trial of similar technology began in Norway in 2009.

The project is being funded by a mix of government and private sponsors, with participation by the University of Twente.

“For the first time in history, we can do things like have you read a

Siebers said blue energy will one day have its own niche.

It’s no coincidence the technique is being pioneered in the Netherlands, which has a wealth of river-coast interchanges including the Rhine and Meuse river deltas.