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Biden pledged that the task force will conduct its business in the open, and announced a Web site, www.astrongmiddleclass.gov, for the public to get information. He also announced that the panel's first meeting will be Feb. 27 in Philadelphia and will focus on environmental or "green jobs."
“I’ve never encountered, and I don’t think that we will in our lifetimes, a case where literally thousands of kids’ lives were just tossed aside in order for a couple of judges to make some money,” said Marsha Levick, an attorney with the Philadelphia-based Juvenile Law Center, which is representing hundreds of youths sentenced in Wilkes-Barre.
The high court, meanwhile, is looking into whether hundreds or even thousands of sentences should be overturned and the juveniles’ records expunged.
Many appeared without lawyers, despite the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark 1967 ruling that children have a constitutional right to counsel.
Ciavarella, 58, who presided over Luzerne County’s juvenile court for 12 years, acknowledged last week in a letter to his former colleagues, “I have disgraced my judgeship. My actions have destroyed everything I worked to accomplish and I have only myself to blame.” Ciavarella, though, has denied he got kickbacks for sending youths to prison.
For years, youth advocacy groups complained that Ciavarella was ridiculously harsh and ran roughshod over youngsters’ constitutional rights. Ciavarella sent a quarter of his juvenile defendants to detention centers from 2002 to 2006, compared with a statewide rate of one in 10.
The criminal charges confirmed the advocacy groups’ worst suspicions and have called into question all the sentences he pronounced.
Hillary Transue did not have an attorney, nor was she told of her right to one, when she appeared in Ciavarella’s courtroom in 2007 for building a MySpace page that lampooned her assistant principal.
“I felt so disgraced for a while, like, what do people think of me now?” said Hillary, now 17 and a high school senior who plans to become an English teacher.
Kurt Kruger, now 22, had never been in trouble with the law until the day police accused him of acting as a lookout while his friend shoplifted less than $200 worth of DVDs from Wal-Mart. He said he didn’t know his friend was going to steal anything.
“Never in a million years did I think that I would actually get sent away. I was completely destroyed,” said Kruger, who later dropped out of school. He said he wants to get his record expunged, earn his high school equivalency diploma and go to college.
In the spring of 2006 I was lucky enough to attend a geology conference in Mendoza, Argentina, which is in the foreland of the central Andes east of, and just over the continental divide from Santiago, Chile. Part of the program was a day trip up to the Andes to look at the fold-thrust belt structure. This is very close to Aconcagua, which is the highest peak in the western hemisphere (almost 7,000 meters).
I snapped this photo on the last stop of the day (near the divide/border) of a landslide that occured about 100 years ago. Apparently, the timing of this is known from notes and observations from European explorers/settlers. Note the building in the lower right foreground for scale.
Age: Debatable. Many of its underlying ideas first came together in 1962, when Rachel Carson published the groundbreaking book Silent Spring, highlighting the dangers of industrial malpractice and emphasising the inherent fragility of the natural world. But like George Clooney, it may be a good 10 years younger than it looks: the 1972 Stockholm Declaration emphasised, among other things, the need to safeguard human rights and natural resources, protect the environment and support developing countries.
Appearance: Shrouded in mystery. Just about everyone in the development community would love to know what it looks like, but no one's ever seen it.
So why are we talking about it? Because sustainable development is the holy grail of the development world.
Ooh! So it probably looks like that gold cup in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade! Is that why we don't know what it looks like? Do people tumble into a giant abyss whenever they're about to get their hands on it? No. Although it would be fair to say it's something of a poisoned chalice.
Oh? Do tell. What exactly is it then? That's just it, nobody knows. In June last year, world leaders – hopeful of discovering the answer to that very question – converged on Brazil for the Rio+20 conference. The plan was to agree a new set of global development targets based on the principles of sustainable development; by striking a balance between the three pillars of economy, society and environment, they would put the world on the path to a more sustainable future. The outcome was somewhat different.
Why, what happened? Unable to reach consensus on some of the big issues, said world leaders conceded defeat and instead set up a working group of 30 countries to formulate a plan for developing a new set of global development targets; by striking a balance between the three pillars of economy, society and environment, they would … well, you know the rest.
Too many caipirinhas? Perhaps. But then maybe someone should have told them about the Brundtland commission's 1987 declaration that sustainable development "meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs".
You mean it was codified a quarter of a century ago and still hasn't been put into practice? What on Earth are we waiting for, doomsday? Funny you should say that. Then again, you can't just jump into these things: they have to be properly discussed and planned. That's why there have been three high-level international conferences on sustainable development in two decades.
Three?!? Yep. They didn't call it Rio+20 for nothing: the original Rio Earth summit was held in 1992, and that was followed in 2002 by the world summit on sustainable development in Johannesburg.
So sustainable development is all about having major international conferences in far-flung locations every 10 years to discuss how to achieve sustainable development? Now you're getting the hang of it.
Do say: "What we need is a set of global development targets that cover not only extreme poverty but also climate change, resource efficiency and the preservation of ecosystems."
Don't say: "This idea just hasn't got legs."
Each pink, oval, biconvex, chewable tablet debossed with "MTK" over "4" on one side and nothing on the other side, contains 4 mg of montelukast. Nonmedicinal ingredients: aspartame, cherry flavor (artificial), croscarmellose sodium, hydroxypropyl cellulose, iron oxide red, magnesium stearate, mannitol, and microcrystalline cellulose.
Each pink, round, biconvex, chewable tablet debossed with "MTK" over "5" on one side and nothing on the other side, contains 5 mg of montelukast. Nonmedicinal ingredients: aspartame, cherry flavor (artificial), croscarmellose sodium, hydroxypropyl cellulose, iron oxide red, magnesium stearate, mannitol, and microcrystalline cellulose.
Each beige, rounded square, coated tablet, debossed with "MTK" over "10" on one side and nothing on the other side, contains 10 mg of montelukast. Nonmedicinal ingredients: croscarmellose sodium, hydroxypropyl cellulose, lactose monohydrate, magnesium stearate, microcrystalline cellulose, sodium lauryl sulfate. The film-coating consists of: black iron oxide, hydroypropyl cellulose, hypromellose, polyethylene glycol, red iron oxide, talc, titanium dioxide, and yellow iron oxide.
The spiritual leader of the Taliban said the group's insurgents have succeeded in foisting the ranks of the Afghan security forces, allowing them to attack their fellow NATO service members. The admission comes amidst a rise in friendly fire attacks.
Rogue shootings of foreign troops claimed lives of nearly 40 soldiers in several dozen attacks in 2012.
The latest instance of Afghan security forces turning their weapons against US troops came in two separate attacks on Friday. In one of the attacks, an Afghan man who had been recruited to a the Afghan Local Police (ALP), a special security force for villages, shot and killed two US service members in the western province of Farah. He was later shot dead by other US troops. Just hours later, an Afghan soldier turned his gun on foreign troops in the southern Kandahar province, wounding two of them before being gunned down himself.
The so-called “green-on-blue” or "insider incidents" shootings are responsible for 13 per cent of foreign troop deaths in Afghanistan, the Long War Journal website reported.
ISAF command insists the friendly-fire shootings have nothing to do with the Taliban infiltrating Afghan police, but are rather the result of stress and personal disagreements between NATO service members training Afghan forces.
Pentagon chief Leon Panetta admitted that the Taliban had been behind at least some of the attacks, but downplayed their overall significance.
“The Taliban has not been able to regain any territory lost, so they're resorting to these kinds of attacks to create havoc," Panetta said, adding that the Taliban’s new tactic does not "reflect any kind of broad pattern."
Mullah Omar urged Afghan nationals serving in the police, army and government to cease supporting the occupying forces and back the Taliban as the 2014 deadline for NATO troop withdrawal approaches.
The Taliban is creating a shadow Afghan government called the Department of Call and Guidance, Luring and Integration, successfully setting up branches across Afghanistan, Mullah Omar said.
And as the Taliban readies itself to return to the realms of power, fellow militants have also been told to become more civilian-friendly – literally.
In a seven-page statement issued Thursday ahead of the Eid al-Fitr festival that marks the end of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, the usually reclusive Omar urged insurgents to "employ tactics that do not cause harm to life and property of the common countrymen," Reuters reported.
"The instructions given to you for the protection of civilian losses are, on you, a religious obligation to observe," Mullah Omar said in a message that has been translated into five languages.
The Taliban commander is likely attempting to improve the organization's image in Afghanistan, where it has been blamed for 80 per cent of civilian casualties in the country in a recent UN report.
The fact that Afghan security forces, who are meant to serve as a bulwark against the Taliban, have been infiltrated by the militant group is only a blaring illustration of the “miserable failure of the war,” John Glaser, assistant editor at Antiwar.com, told RT.
This means peace is probably not in the cards in Afghanistan's future.
But in vying for power in a post-ISAF Afghanistan, the Taliban doesn’t want to make the mistake al-Qaeda made in Iraq by killing civilians, alienating the majority of the population in the process.
Dorman grad Will Muzika has gotten of to a great start in college ball this year. He has just swept the SoCon’s top freshman awards.
I was shooting the Gamecocks-Paladins game at Fluor Field in March, and scanned the rosters looking for local guys, as I normally do. I saw the hometown of Spartanburg and grabbed a few shots of Muzika, and I’m glad I did.
Monday the second baseman won the Southern Conference Freshman of the Year award from the league’s coaches, and yesterday he won the same award from the media.
Muzika finished the season with a .330 average, 14 home runs and 53 RBIs in 53 games. His 14 homers is fifth nationally among freshmen and third most in Furman history.
POLICE have named a man who died in a crash on the M6 motorway near Holmes Chapel yesterday (Sunday) as 20-year-old Rajdeep Das from Loughborough.
Mr Das suffered fatal injuries after his red MGZR left the carriageway and overturned, coming to rest on its side, at around 1.40am just south of Junction 19 at Knutsford.
Police are appealing to anyone who may have witnessed the incident itself, or who may have seen the red MGZR prior to it leaving the carriageway, and who may have any information which could assist the collision investigator.
If you can assist, please contact the North West Police Motorway Unit on 0845 458 0000.
A Doritos/EA Sports promo is giving fans the vote on who makes this year's Madden cover. The candidates are Minnesota defensive end Jared Allen, New Orleans quarterback Drew Brees, and Indianapolis wide receiver Reggie Wayne.
Of the three, Brees - a Super Bowl quarterback - could be considered the front-runner. Allen's candidacy is remarkable, and admirable. No lineman of any type has made the main Madden cover, and just two defensive players have: Baltimore linebacker Ray Lewis for Madden 2005, and Pittsburgh safety Troy Polamalu, who shared it with Arizona wide receiver Larry Fitzgerald for Madden 10. Fitzgerald is also the only receiver to make the cover.
And oh, LOL regarding this: During the voting window, Madden cover alums Shaun Alexander, Eddie George and Marshall Faulk will appear on Doritos bags "to help inspire people to get out there and vote." All three were among worst victims of the Madden Curse. I wonder what tragedy will befall them now for appearing on a snack food bag.
You want my endorsement? Jared Allen, just to be different. But I'm sure if the Saints win the Super Bowl, Brees will win in a landslide. He might beat out Wayne even if the Colts win. You may vote at the link below.
The First United Presbyterian Church of Dunkirk will present on Wednesday, April 17, at noon in the church sanctuary, Dr. Linda Phillips on piano along with Robert Strauss, vocalist.
Dr. Linda Phillips is a performing pianist active as an accompanist in Western New York. A former faculty member of the Fredonia School of Music at State University of New York, she taught piano, African American Music and History of Jazz and was co-coordinator of the class piano program. Her History of Jazz radio course was previously broadcast throughout Chautauqua County.
Robert Strauss has served on the voice faculty of the Fredonia School of Music since 2007. He is also a member of the National Association of Teachers of Singing, (NATS), serving on the Executive Board for the Central New York-Finger Lakes Chapter as Auditions Chair since 2010. As a full-time Lecturer at the Fredonia School of Music, he teaches applied voice, is Producer for the annual Hillman Opera, and runs the Honors Solo Vocal Camp for high school singers.
The Marsh Memorial Lenten Recital Series is presented as a traditional program begun in 1978, under the direction of First United Presbyterian Church of Dunkirk’s Organist and Musical Director Howard Marsh.
This free musical program is designed to provide members of the church community and the general public with an opportunity for a period of peaceful reflection and contemplation during the hour at mid-week, throughout the Advent and Lenten seasons.
American International Group CEO Robert Benmosche says he's staying put, firing back at a Wall Street Journal story yesterday that claimed the insurance head was considering leaving due to compensation restraints, just three months after taking up the post.
At a board meeting last week, the strong-willed industry executive told fellow AIG directors that he was “done” but agreed to think it over after other board members reacted with shock, according to the people.
The executive is chafing under constraints imposed by AIG's government overseers, particularly a recent compensation review by the Obama administration's pay czar, Kenneth Feinberg, according to the people. AIG, 80% government owned since a rescue last year, is one of the companies under Mr. Feinberg's purview.
Benmosche responded with a letter to AIG employees, in which he stated he remains "totally committed to leading AIG through its challenges," asking colleagues “not to be distracted by speculative media stories.” The New York-based company is currently looking to sell assets and improve profits while it attempts to pay back the government following September 2008's bailout.
Sea shanties have been a part of the Assassin’s Creed series ever since Black Flag. These lively songs breathe life into lengthy ocean voyages. Assassin’s Creed Odyssey gives you a ship to sail around ancient Greece and a variety of crews. One small detail helps bring their songs to life.
Most of the crews you’ll find during your journey are run entirely by burly and reliable men, but every now and then you’ll unlock a crew of women. Not only does this allow you to live out your Amazonian fantasies, it actually changes how sea shanties work. While they’ll sing some of the same songs as men, all-female crews also have a few of their own songs. It’s a small little touch, but one that helps Odyssey’s world feel a little more believable.
MUMBAI (ICIS)--India’s Bharat Petroleum Corp Ltd (BPCL) plans to build a 3m tonne/year petrochemical residual fluidized catalytic cracking plant (PRFCC) at its Mumbai complex in western Maharashtra state by 2022, a company source said on Monday.
The Indian rupee (Rs) 68.8bn ($993m) project, which is part of BPCL’s refinery modernization plan, will replace the refinery’s catalytic cracking unit (CCU) commissioned in 1955 and the fluidized catalytic cracking unit (FCCU) commissioned in 1985.
The PRFCC project will include a main fractionator and unsaturated gas plant (USGP); a regenerator flue gas scrubber; an unsaturated liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) treating unit (LTU); a propylene recovery unit (PRU); and a sulphur recovery unit.
BPCL expects to receive required environmental clearances for the project soon, the source said.
The PRFCC will help maximize the company’s polymer-grade propylene production, which will feed its upcoming polypropylene (PP) unit at Rasayani in Maharashtra, the source said.
The Mumbai refinery will supply propylene feedstock to BPCL’s planned 450,000 tonne/year PP plant, which is expected to be commissioned by 2022-23.
What's the difference between Class A, B and C mutual-fund shares?
QUESTION: I see Class A, Class B and Class C mutual-fund shares. What is the difference?
ANSWER: At first glance, the alphabet soup you're referring to can be confusing. But a few general guidelines will help you decipher what all those letters mean.
Sometimes a load fund makes sense, however — perhaps because a portfolio's performance is sufficiently outstanding to outweigh the load or perhaps because you want the advice the commission-based broker offers. So if you do choose to go that route, you'll quickly find yourself in a sea of letters. Each one identifies a share class and they are distinguished by a specific kind of load. There is no standardized system for labeling share classes — it's up to each fund firm — but a sort of de facto standard has emerged.
Before we spell out what each letter means, be aware that no matter what share class you choose, your fund purchase most likely will be subject to a so-called 12b-1 fee intended to cover annual marketing and distribution expenses. (Even no-load funds can levy a 12b-1 fee, as long as it doesn't exceed 0.25%.) The 12b-1 fee and other fund operating expenses comprise the expense ratio that is deducted from your investment each year.
Most often, Class A shares carry a front-end load ranging from 1% to 5.75%, although the maximum permitted by the Securities and Exchange Commission, or SEC, is 8.5%. A front-end load is deducted from your original investment when you buy your shares — so you end up actually investing less than the amount you pay. But Class A shares usually bear a relatively low annual 12b-1 fee.
Class B shares generally carry a back-end load, also referred to as a "contingent deferred sales charge," or CDSC. This fee — often 4% or 5% — is applied when you redeem your shares. The good news is that back-end loads usually decline over time, often disappearing altogether after six or seven years. The bad news is that the 12b-1 fee is relatively high. In some cases, B shares convert to A-share status — and the lower expense ratio that comes with it. By that time, though, you will have paid the high 12b-1 fee for as long as seven years.
Finally, Class C shares increasingly carry what's known as a "level load" — a 1% or 2% back-end load coupled with a 1% 12b-1 fee — the maximum permissible. Alternatively, Class C may signify a 1% 12b-1 fee alone.
Investors who lean toward Class A shares generally like getting the load out of the way early so they can benefit from a lower expense ratio. Others investors prefer B and C class shares because if they stay in a fund for several years, they can exit with only a small back-end load. But they shouldn't overlook the high annual fees, warns Barbara Levin, executive director of the nonprofit Forum for Investor Advice. "Be aware that if you're buying a B- or C-share class of fund, you will be paying every year out of assets."
Since these A, B and C definitions aren't the same at every fund company, you should check the fee table in a fund's prospectus for precise information. Chances are, you'll find still more letter-designated share classes, ranging from D to Z. Those may identify other variations of the back-end load or perhaps point to an institutional or pension-fund share class.
Above all, remember that your broker is being compensated for selling you these share classes, and you should get the information you need in return. San Francisco-based financial planner Norman Boone says investors "shouldn't be afraid to ask what costs are involved" in the purchase of mutual funds. He recommends that investors query advisers about sales charges, expense ratios and 12b-1 fees. And always follow up, he says, with the question, "How am I going to be informed about these costs now and over time?"
The Forum for Investor Advice offers a free guide, "Sorting It Out: Payment Options for Financial Advice," which is available through the organization's Web site. It tells investors to ask their advisers questions such as, "How are you compensated, and how do I benefit?" and "Can you give me concrete examples of the potential differences in payment methods over various periods?"
If you're taking the load road, the most important question to ask yourself is whether you prefer upfront sales charges or pay-as-you-go fees. Once you answer that, making fund choices becomes much simpler. Says the Forum's Levin: "We try not to confuse investors by trying to get into the alphabet too much."
The new Intelligent Automation/Artificial Intelligence contract will be housed in Health and Human Services but available to any agency looking for AI solutions.
The Health and Human Services Department sees value in integrating automation and artificial intelligence technologies into its workflows and is building a contract vehicle to help other agencies, as well.
The Program Support Center, a shared services agency within Health and Human Services, released a request for proposals Thursday for the Intelligent Automation/Artificial Intelligence, or IAAI, contract. The five-year, $49 million contract vehicle will offer a host of automation and AI technologies and support services, including robotic process automation, machine and supervised learning and machine vision.
“PSC believes that IAAI solutions will be doing everything from reducing backlog and cutting costs to performing functions, such as predicting fraudulent transactions and identifying critical suspects via facial recognition, which are considered difficult for an individual to complete on their own,” contracting officers wrote in the RFP.
The center’s efforts fall in line with the administration’s policy of shifting federal employees from low-value to high-value work by automating rote processes that can be digitized. The Office of Personnel Management expects automation could cut the workloads of 60 percent of federal employees by up to 30 percent and make 5 percent of jobs redundant entirely.
Last year, the Program Support Center established the Advanced Technologies Program to identify “disruptive, breakthrough, incremental and sustaining” emerging tech. Once awarded, the IAAI contract will be the procurement arm for that effort.
and engineering, prototyping and model making support.
The final contract will include another six function areas, including test and evaluation, quality assurance, user training and logistics, operations and maintenance support.
The center plans to award multiple spots on the contract to cover each functional area, though the total number of awards and how vendors will be divided among the areas was not set out in the RFP.
Once established, Health and Human Services components will be able to issue task orders through PSC, as will other federal agencies and programs, for a small surcharge.
Contracting officers expect individual task orders to be around $300,000, though they could be as high as $8 million depending on the mix of functional areas.
Questions on the solicitation must be sent by email no later than 12 p.m. Jan. 16. Bids are due by 8 a.m. Jan. 30, also through email.
Under no pressure from editorial staff at Federal Computer Week, I’ve forced this obligatory “end of year predictions” post on myself. People always ask me where I think government 2.0 is going anyway, so I may as well get some writing mileage out of it, right?
So, here are some non-exhaustive, somewhat creative and entirely debatable trends and ideas that I foresee taking shape in the next year or so.

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