MORGANTOWN - A motorist who killed a West Virginia Universitystudent has been charged with driving under the influence of alcoholand causing death.
Joseph Paul Wolfe, 25, of Bobtown, Pa., had just left his job ataStar City grocery store and was bicycling …
Cotonou, Benin
What does the face of poverty look like? It looks like a man, rail thin, wearing old that are rumpled and torn. He is clean, though. He has come to tell us that his daughter-the one we helped him buy school supplies for last fall-had been very ill in the hospital. She was in the main hospital for three weeks and every day they fed three bottles of serum into her body by IV drip. He spent every cent he had and the church helped him out. This daughter, who was eight years old, was his only child. She died this afternoon at 3 p.m.
Now he needs to figure out what to do with the body. He doesn't have any more money. He can't pay to put the body in the morgue. He …
Spending on health care slowed slightly in 2007 as consumers turned more to generic drugs instead of brand-names to fill their medicine cabinets, the government reported Monday.
Although the cost of buying drugs, visiting the doctor or going to the hospital continued to increase faster than the overall economy, the 6.1 percent growth rate for all health care spending was the slowest since 1998. In 2006, spending increased 6.7 percent.
Officials worry that devoting more and more resources to health care makes it harder for families to meet other pressing priorities and for businesses to compete internationally.
Overall, Americans spent $2.2 …
Maintaining a certified handicap - regardless of how much youplay - can enhance your enjoyment of golf.
A handicap facilitates participation in social outings and theestablishment of friendly, informal matches as well as more serious,big-money battles. Players of different abilities can comparehandicaps and apply them for the purpose of reasonably faircompetition.
Starting Monday, for instance, players with established handicapscan compete for prizes in the Chicago Sun-Times Grand SlamSweepstakes. Any golfer who plays an 18-hole round before May 22 cansubmit the scorecard, with his score adjusted by his handicap, and beeligible for an array of drawing prizes if …
Identification of Cleaner Production Improvement Opportunities Kenneth L Mulholland, AIChE and John Wiley & Sons, Inc, 200 pp., $59.95, February 2006, ISBN: 0-471-79440-6
This book is a practical how-to manual for implementing the best pollution prevention strategies that are economical and efficient for eliminating costly end-of-pipe treatments. The author. Dr. Kenneth L. Mulholland, focuses on eliminating pollution at the source in order to achieve zero pollution and waste, thus lowering treatment …
Republican presidential contender John McCain on Saturday said he wants to again allow the importation of prescription drugs from Canada as a way to bring health care costs under control.
The Arizona senator, speaking to reporters about a mile (1.6 kilometers) from the Canadian border and just across the river from New Hampshire, said too much of health care costs are based on high drug prices.
"Drug companies and the lobbyists they pay in Washington want to keep your drug prices high. Obviously, I want them to be affordable," McCain said, returning to his criticism of how Washington works.
Until drugs are cheaper, the cost of health …
Brown, Clifford (Brownie) important and widely influential 1950s-era jazz trumpeter; b. Wilmington, Del, Oct. 30, 1930; d. in an automobile accident on the Pennsylvania Tpke. near Bedford, Pa., June 26, 1956. He studied at Del. State Coll. and Md. State Coll. and gained experience playing in college jazz bands. He worked and recorded with Chris Powell. Later, Brown joined Tadd Dameron and toured Europe with Lionel Hampton's orch. (1953). Upon returning to the U.S., he worked with Art Blakey. Brown joined the Max Roach Quintet (1954), with Richie Powell on piano, and Harold Land, who was replaced by Sonny Rollins in late 1955. The group was sometimes …
RECOGNIZED WORLDWIDE FOR HIS WORK ON ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE, MANAGEMENT ISSUES AND RE-ENGINEERING, JIM CHAMPY IS NOW WRITING BOOKS ON COMPETITION, CUSTOMERS, PEOPLE MANAGEMENT AND BUSINESS EXECUTION.
JIM CHAMPY FIRST achieved international acclaim for co-authoring Reengineering the Corporation, a mid-1990s study that anticipated the arrival of the Information Age and advised companies on how to adjust their business processes to accommodate it. Now, Champy, the Bostonbased chairman of Perot Systems' consulting practice, returns with Outsmart! How to Do What Your Competitors Can't.
It's the first of four planned books focusing on the search for new business models. The other …
The worst of the nation's credit crisis may have passed, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said Wednesday, though he acknowledged rising gas prices will blunt the effect of 130 million economic stimulus checks.
He ruled out a second stimulus package for now.
In an interview with The Associated Press, Paulson said the turmoil that has gripped Wall Street and that took a turn for the worse again in March has eased somewhat. "There's progress," he said. "I think we're closer to the end of this" than to the beginning.
A prolonged housing slump, a severe credit crisis and soaring energy costs have pushed the economy to the edge of a …
Q. Tony Bennett mentioned in an interview that of all the songs herecorded, his favorite is "I Wanna Be Around," and that it waswritten by Johnny Mercer. I am from Salem, Ohio, and I believe a ladyfrom Youngstown actually wrote the words and that Mercer wrote themusic. Am I remembering this right?
A. Pretty much. Youngstown, Ohio's very own Sadie Vimmerstedtmailed a letter to Johnny Mercer in 1957 suggesting a song with thelyrics: "I want to be around to pick up the pieces when somebodybreaks your heart." When the finished song came out a couple of yearslater as "I Wanna Be Around," the writing credit showed both Mercerand Vimmerstedt as co-writers. Though we know Sadie …
Hybrid Defender
I worry a little when I read this same attitude about HEVs over and over. Toyota and Honda are occasionally lectured to that their sales of hybrids are diminutive (only 0.5 percent of 17million) and limited to small low profit cars that no one wants. When the inevitable time conies that oil really does start to dry up (a large Chinese or Indian middle class?) Toyota and Honda will have had 10 years of customer experience and 15 years of engineering experience in practical hybrids. They are not doing all this R&D for PR, but because the engineering is difficult and they want to be there first. Fortunately for the other companies not making a commitment to develop …
Treasury prices are inching lower as worries ease about Europe's debt crisis.
Borrowing costs fell for Spain and other countries in Europe Friday, and there was speculation that the European Central Bank may loan money to the International Monetary Fund to help support debt-strapped nations there.
In the U.S., an index of leading economic indicators rose more …
LAS VEGAS (AP) — The Latin Grammys are returning to Sin City.
The Latin Recording Academy announced Thursday that the awards show will once again be held at the Mandalay Bay Events Center on the Las Vegas Strip. The 12th annual show is scheduled for Nov. 10.
Univision will continue to broadcast the show live.
Nominations will be announced Sept. 14 in Los Angeles.
The awards show has consecutively been held in Las Vegas since 2009.
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — Democrat Jerry Brown was sworn in Monday as California's 39th governor, returning to the office he left 28 years ago but inheriting a much different and more troubled state than the one he led then.
The man who once was California's most famous bachelor took the oath of office after being introduced by his wife of five years, former Gap Inc. executive Anne Gust Brown, inside Sacramento Memorial Auditorium.
She held a Bible that was her grandfather's and was used during her wedding to Brown.
Brown has predicted a grim future for the financially beleaguered state. Where his predecessor, Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger, expressed optimism at every turn, Brown has been realistic since winning the Nov. 2 election. California has faced several years of deep budget deficits and is confronting another estimated at $28 billion through June 2012.
Its general fund is $15 billion less than it was just three years ago, reflecting a sharp drop in tax revenue from a recession that has battered the economy of the nation's most populous state. Brown, 72, says the choices facing California's 38.8 million people are painful ones.
"The year ahead will demand courage and sacrifice," he said after taking the oath from California Supreme Court Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye.
Brown noted the toll the recession has taken on California and referred to polls showing most voters believe the state is on the wrong track. He urged lawmakers of both political parties to get out of what he called their "comfort zones" and to "rise above ideology" for the good of the state.
The ceremony was a scaled-down affair, reflecting the austere style of the former Jesuit seminarian and Buddhism student.
Brown's speech lasted about 15 minutes, and the only other speaker listed on the one-page program was his wife.
Students from two charter schools Brown started — the Oakland Military Institute and the Oakland School for the Arts — opened the ceremony.
Schwarzenegger and former first lady Maria Shriver, former Gov. Gray Davis, Sen. Dianne Feinstein and outgoing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi were among the roughly 3,000 people attending.
After winning office, Brown promised to travel California and hold what he called a civic dialogue about what Californians want from their government and what they are willing to pay for it. After voters rejected an $18-a-year license fee to stabilize state park funding, Brown declared that Californians were "in no mood to add to their burdens."
Yet his press aides have not quashed speculation that Brown will try to call a special election this spring to extend a set of temporary tax hikes approved in 2009. Brown said he would not raise taxes without voter approval, but will need some Republican help to reach the two-thirds legislative vote necessary to place any tax or fee measure on the ballot.
The new governor will release his budget proposal for the coming fiscal year next Monday, when he is expected to deliver voters a series of stark choices. He said his budgets would not contain "smoke and mirrors," an apparent reference to spending plans signed by Schwarzenegger over the past few years that often contained accounting gimmicks and unrealistic revenue assumptions as a way to balance the budgets on paper.
He promised his version would be painful.
"It's a tough budget for tough times," he said.
Brown has been engaged in the budget problem even before his official swearing-in, visiting lawmakers and finance experts in the capital frequently and hold town hall sessions in Sacramento and Los Angeles to discuss the health of California's finances and public school system.
Brown has spent a lifetime in politics, including terms as the secretary of state, attorney general and mayor of Oakland, but also will be calling upon a set of skills learned outside the political arena as he tries to negotiate with a Legislature that has grown increasingly partisan and in many cases hostile.
His years practicing Buddhism in Japan and working with Mother Teresa in India may come in handy as he tries to broker deals with dug-in lawmakers. Term limits in the Legislature mean many of them have little experience and are eyeing their next office with every vote they take.
Brown becomes only the second person to serve three terms as California governor when he takes over from Schwarzenegger, a Republican who won office during the 2003 recall election. His tenure as the 34th governor, from 1975 to 1983, was before voter-imposed term limits, allowing Brown to seek the office again this year.
He also is the second oldest person to hold the office — behind Gov. Frank Merriam, who tackled budget deficits during the Great Depression and turned 74 during his final weeks in office in 1939.
During his previous two terms, Brown was criticized for being distracted by his continual pursuit of higher office. He sought the Democratic presidential nominations in 1976 and 1980, then lost a bid for U.S. Senate in 1982.
This time around, he said he's too old to run for higher office. But after introducing his 98-year-old aunt, Connie Carlson, Brown offered a caution for those already eyeing his office.
"By the way, those of you who are hankering after my job, it may be a while. So relax. God willing, the genes are good," he said.
Brown adviser Steve Glazer said he was unsure of Brown's plans for his first day on the job. He could drop by any number of celebrations around town, visit the governor's office or even his rented condo across the street from the auditorium.
A late-afternoon reception was planned for the California Railroad Museum in the Old Sacramento tourist section, but all inaugural festivities were expected to cost less than $100,000.
ISSUE ANALYSIS
In recent years, several states have passed laws designed to stifle insurer efforts to steer consumers to certain collision repair facilities. Despite the laws, it's apparent to many that the laws aren't working and the practice isn't going away anytime soon.
"One could make the reasonable assumption that introducing a bill and seeing it become law is the greatest challenge one could face. Unfortunately, the reality is that it is far more difficult to enforce steering legislation than to see it become a law," says Dan Risley, executive director of the Society of Collision Repair Specialists (SCRS).
"I believe steering exists," says Darrell Amberson, the president of the Minneapolis-area Lehman's Garage, Inc. "Some insurance companies are very good about choosing the wording they use to recommend without steering, but others are not. They use a really forceful set of words. I've seen too many examples of people saying I was told to go to this type of shop not to believe they just misunderstood."
Amberson's repair shops are in Minnesota, which he and others say has pretty good steering laws. So why hasn't steering gone away in Minnesota? "The laws don't make a lot of difference because they are difficult to enforce," Amberson says.
Enforcement is the largest problem because the only people who really complain about the effects of steering are collision repair shops.
"Most consumers don't know they've been steered. They think they've been provided a consumer service," says Stephen Regan, spokesman for the Massachusetts Autobody Association.
The nature of the "scripts" that Regan says are often used puts customers at a disadvantage, says Ed Kizenberger, executive director of the New York State Auto Collision Technicians Association. "I don't think it's fair that some insurance companies provide less than the full story about the questionable practice of using a word track that anticipates a consumer's answers and then continues to try to steer them back into a shop of the insurer's choice. That obviously circumvents the law-at least the intent of the law."
Proof of how little consumers know or care about anti-steering laws can be found in the low numbers of complaints that are filed with insurance commissioners throughout the country. An informal survey by ABRN of state agencies that enforce anti-steering laws found that the numbers of complaints were low-usually fewer than 10 per year. In states that did not keep complaint figures, officials couldn't recall the last complaint or said there were "a few."
"We don't keep specific records on steering, but anecdotally, our consumer protection folks say it hasn't been a problem. Most of our complaints are about payments," says Jim Hurley, spokesman for the Texas Department of Insurance.
"We definitely receive more complaints from shops themselves than from consumers," says Kate Kiernan-Pagani, spokeswoman for the Connecticut Department of Insurance. "When these issues have arisen a few autobody shops complain all at once."
And even if a customer who may have been steered mentions that to a shop owner, pursuing the complaint is difficult. Customers must be able to specifically identify the word tracking and that means recording or being able to recite it to know what caused them to believe they were being steered.
Even customers who are aware they have been steered may not file a complaint. "The funny thing about it is that in this fast-paced society it's very difficult to get someone to complain," says Kizenberger. "It's not very often that we get a real solid complaint that we can work with-one with all the facts and figures-because without that it's just a basic he said/she said."
Efforts to educate consumers about the laws can help, but are generally focused the wrong way. "Shops are doing some education, but by the time someone is in the shop it's usually too late," says David McClune, executive director of the California Autobody Association. "If they've been steered away they don't learn, and if they're in the shop with the sign about steering laws they are already there."
With regard to the problem of substantiating steering charges, Regan believes the government should be responsible for investigating these actions. "We don't have strong insurance commissioners who are willing to do so. And that's unfortunate," he says. "The only type of reform that will work is something similar to the insurance fraud bureaus in certain states where they put someone undercover-somebody calling insurance companies and seeing what kind of questions they are asked."
Regan says his state (Massachusetts) already has some of the strongest anti-steering protections for consumers and body shops, but without any specific penalties, insurers won't restrain their actions. "How would we curtail speeding if there wasn't a $200 ticket attached-just say,'Don't do it again, see you later'?" he asks.
"We were successful in getting legislation through the insurance committee [of the Massachusetts House] this year, which would have put $500 per incident fines on each steering occurrence and given the insurance commission a very broad authority to fine, which would really help reduce it," says Regan.
Kiernan-Pagani says the Connecticut Department of Insurance has looked at the scripts insurers have used to make sure they aren't improperly steering. However, she admits she is not sure what the punishment for a violation is in her state. In fact, Connecticut, like most states, doesn't have any penalty provisions in its anti-steering law.
The lack of penalty provisions is an obvious reason why anti-steering laws have little impact. While insurance company executives work to ensure the company is complying with the law they can't oversee every second of every claim phone call. Without penalties, even the most scrupulous insurer is unlikely to be able to root out every instance of steering.
While fines, education and increased investigation may reduce the amount of steering that collision repair shops see, current laws do little in those areas and remain ineffective. The most effective element in achieving the full enforcement effect of current anti-steering laws is proving that the law has been violated.
"It's not really important what the enforcement provisions are," says Risley of SCRS. "It's proving the fact it was actually done so they can enforce it. You can have the best provision in the world, but if you can't validate that it was done, there's nothing to enforce."
[Sidebar]
Many find anti-steering laws lack effectiveness
[Author Affiliation]
By Mark Johnson
Senior Editor
Birthplace: London
Education: Law degree, University of London, King's College
Partner: Colin Ure, dramaturg at Houston Grand Opera
Royal honor: Named an officer of the Order of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II in 2006
Favorite opera: "Whatever I happen to be working on at the moment"
First opera attended: Humperdinck's "Hansel and Gretel," at age 4
Early adapter: At age 11, he began attending opera, theater and ballet. In his early teens, he started going alone three or four times a week. By age 14, he knew he "wanted to run an opera company."
Kiichiro Sato
The summer-long saga to decide who will represent Portugal in the Champions League is set to end next week.
The Court of Arbitration for Sport will hear appeals Monday from Benfica and Vitoria Guimaraes, which want Portuguese champion FC Porto kicked out of Europe's most prestigious and lucrative club competition.
A panel of three lawyers hearing the case is expected to give its decision Tuesday.
Benfica and Guimaraes are challenging a decision by UEFA to reverse a ban it originally imposed last month on Porto taking part because of its involvement in a bribery scandal.
The CAS hearing is likely to focus on whether UEFA had the authority to handle the Porto case while investigations and appeals were ongoing in Portugal.
If Porto is suspended, Guimaraes _ which finished third in the league _ would be exempt from the qualifying rounds and go straight to the group phase alongside league runner-up Sporting Lisbon.
Fourth-place Benfica also stand to gain from Porto's exclusion by entering the Aug. 1 qualifying stage draw instead of the UEFA Cup.
In May, Porto was penalized six points by the Portuguese league for bribing referees in two matches during the 2003-04 season. The deduction didn't affect final placings because Porto led the league by a wide margin.
UEFA rules state that clubs must have a clean record in qualifying to play in the Champions League.
NEW YORK - Stock prices are higher in early trading as investors, having gotten over a bout of economic jitters in the previous session, focused on earnings reports. The Dow Jones industrial average is up 47.96 to 13,966.18 in the opening minutes
The Nasdaq Composite Index is up 18.65 at 2,718.14 and the Standard & Poor 500 index has climbed 5.69 to 1,552.12.
Investors will still be looking at economic news, however. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke returns to Capitol Hill for the second day of his semiannual report to Congress and the Fed is scheduled to release minutes from the June meeting of its Open Market Committee. At the meeting, the central bank again left short-term interest rates unchanged and reiterated its concerns about inflation.
Early Thursday stocks appeared to be extending a partial recovery that started late Wednesday, when the Dow Jones industrial average pulled itself up from a loss of 134 points and ended with just a 53-point deficit.
Light, sweet crude rose 45 cents to $75.50 in premarket electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Oil closed above $75 Wednesday for the first time since last summer.
Bonds fell as stock futures pointed higher, with the yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note rose to 5.05 percent from 5.03 percent late Wednesday. The dollar was mixed against other major currencies, while gold prices rose.
Stocks fell Wednesday amid uneasiness about Bernanke's assessment of the economy and in response to news that two Bear Stearns Cos. hedge funds were left essentially worthless after making bad bets on the subprime lending market.
But analysts noted there was actually little new in what Bernanke had to say, and the subprime problems are really coming as no surprise. Strong earnings from IBM Corp. released after the close of trading Wednesday appeared to give the market a further boost in confidence, so investors were optimistic early Thursday that more good profit news was in the offing.
Earnings news continued to affect investor sentiment. UnitedHealth Group Inc., among companies reporting Thursday, added to the market's upbeat mood, beating expectations and raising its forecast. Continental Airlines also turned in better-than-expected results.
High-tech companies Microsoft Inc., Google Inc. and Motorola Inc. are among the companies also reporting Thursday, along with Bank of America Corp. and Honeywell International Inc.
Beyond earnings, the Fed minutes and Bernanke's testimony will likely remain chief among Wall Street's concerns Thursday, though Bernanke's prepared text will likely be the same as Wednesday's. The market will be looking for any new clues during questioning by lawmakers.
In other economic news, the Conference Board releases its Index of Leading Economic Indicators for June at 10 a.m. EDT. The economic forecasting gauge is expected to drop by 0.1 percent, according to the consensus estimate of Wall Street economists surveyed by Thomson/IFR.
The Labor Department, meanwhile, will be releasing its weekly report on first-time jobless claims.
In market action abroad, Japan's Nikkei stock average rose 0.56 percent. Hong Kong's Heng Seng Index rose 0.76 percent and the often-volatile Shanghai Composite Index fell 0.44 percent. In afternoon trading, Britain's FTSE 100 rose 0.91 percent, Germany's DAX index rose 1.13 percent, and France's CAC-40 rose 0.84 percent.
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On the Net:
New York Stock Exchange: http://www.nyse.com
Nasdaq Stock Market: http://www.nasdaq.com
Police say a grenade attack has killed three people and wounded another 50 at a festival in India's troubled northeast.
Police blame the blast early Sunday on a separatist group called the United Liberation Front of Asom. The group has been fighting for an independent homeland in the area for nearly two decades.
A district official says nearly 15,000 people were participating in a cultural festival when the attack occurred.
What the children of the MC Canada assembly took away from an adult-dominated conference
While their parents listened to budget statements and asset-liability ratios at this year's Mennonite Church Canada assembly in Calgary, Alta., their children watched a skit and made up their own, created crafts and sang songs with actionsall to learn about friendship with God.
One ofthe ways that the children learned about friendship with God was through sharing.
According to John Olfert, director of Camp Valaqua in Alberta, this is because "a big part of being a friend is sharing." This was illustrated through a skit done by the Kids Assembly leaders to show how, when Jesus fed 5,000 people, it was a miracle that was made possible by the sharing of a couple of hungry people who offered their loaves and fish to Jesus.
Along with sharing with God, the participating children said that they like to share toys and books with their peers, among other things. They demonstrated this in the skits put on by their respective age groups.
"We learned about being kind and sharing," Mackenzie Miller, a part of the preschool group, said.
Noah Klassen, who is in Grade 4, said that he learned "how to be a good friend."
Stephanie Jorritsma of Edmonton, Alta., who co-led the pre-school group, believes that Kids Assembly is an important part of a child's life. "[Children] are the future church," she said. "If they aren't here [at the assembly] now, they won't understand [the church] later," she said.
When it came down to it, the best part of the Kids Assembly was "playing games," pre-schooler Jonah Dyck said, as many others of various age groups echoed his opinion.
[Sidebar]
Children both young and older were treated to a variety of activities during this year's assembly in Calgary, Alta.
[Author Affiliation]
STORY AND PHOTOS BY RACHEL BERGEN
National Correspondent
