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The Department for Transport's permanent secretary, Philip Rutnam, is carrying out an internal review, while the civil service's overall chief Jeremy Heywood is also leading an investigation.
In parliament, the Commons' influential public accounts committee (PAC) is planning to probe the franchise fiasco alongside a separate investigation by MPs on the transport committee.
"It exposes in a very stark way that the present conventions on accountability between civil servants and ministers to Parliament and the public aren't working," PAC chair Margaret Hodge told Today.
"It's yet another example ... of where the civil servants themselves have not really captured and taken on the role that is expected of them in today's society."
Greening and Villiers could find their positions vulnerable if more revelations emerge that they carried significant responsibility for the process which led to yesterday's humiliating reversal.
The new transport secretary, Patrick McLoughlin, announced shortly after midnight that the west coast main line franchise competition process was cancelled because of fundamental flaws – including the failure to allow for the effect of inflation on revenue.
His position is thought to be safe as he was not involved in the key decisions that led to the failure, dubbed a "fiasco" by Virgin Rail's Richard Branson.
Virgin Rail is expecting to be asked to continue to run rail services on the route, which serves London, Birmingham, Manchester and Glasgow, while government officials begin the process once more. The cancelled franchise competition could cost the taxpayer as much as £300 million.
Fifteen months have already passed since Virgin, FirstGroup and two other rail companies bid for the lucrative franchise. FirstGroup, which business analysts now expect may be unable to offer an expected dividend to shareholders after being told it had not won the franchise, is considering legal action.
"The government is right to hold up its hands when mistakes have been made, but this illustrates the struggle it sometimes has with major procurements," CBI director-general John Cridland said.
"An urgent focus is needed to improve its commercial skills and expertise so that this does not happen again, especially with several large franchises up for renewal over the next 18 months."
YORK Opera will celebrate its golden anniversary in style this autumn with a blockbuster performance of Puccini’s Turandot at York Theatre Royal.
The society is keen for new members of all experience levels to join at this exciting time, marking 50 years of giving music lovers from York and North Yorkshire the opportunity to take part in amateur operatic productions with the talent and production values of a professional production.
York Opera has encountered many challenges in that time but always has strived to ensure opera as an artistic medium can be appreciated and enjoyed by as many people as possible.
The society already consists of people from all backgrounds and experiences, from those who have joined this year to those who have been involved from the very beginning.
All are linked by none of these singers being paid professionals. Instead they come from a variety of professions, including teaching, farming and accountancy, among many others, but they all meet once a week to share their passion for opera with each other and to demonstrate their musical talents.
Celebrations began in April with Tales of Disguise and Deception at York Guildhall, where York Opera took the bold step to perform themed extracts from several well-known operas to enable many members to showcase their skills. The society then decided to follow this with a far more traditional choice for its golden ann...
One of the most famous and celebrated of all the grand operas, it will provide the cast with the chance to perform on a professional stage in front of a large audience with a full orchestra, which is arguably how opera is best performed.
There is a commemorative reason, too, for picking Turandot. Puccini’s tale of the bloodthirsty princess, featuring the ever popular Nessun Dorma, was the first opera performed by York Opera at the Theatre Royal 30 years ago, laying the groundwork for the society to return there year after year to perform Bizet, Britten...
Performing Turandot this year is made even more poignant, given that it will be York Opera’s first performance in the refurbished theatre. The need to adjust to a new stage and auditorium layout brings fresh excitement to the production as the old mixes with the new.
Chairman Hilary Dyson, who joined York Opera in 2004 for Die Fledermaus, is honoured to be guiding the society forward in this milestone year. “When you consider how few opportunities there are for amateur musicians throughout the country, let alone Yorkshire, to try their hand at opera, it's a wonderful achievement fo...
"It not only shows just how wonderfully talented our group is musically, but how dedicated they are behind the scenes. From the costume team to the stage designers, from the publicity team to the directors and musical directors who bring a show to life, everyone has played their part, leaving us in doubt that York Oper...
"New members are still welcome to join for this production; an exciting opportunity to perform at the newly refurbished theatre”.
David Arquette sure has a great sense of humor about his recent split from Courteney Cox.
On Friday night, at an intimate screening he hosted at Hollywood’s Roosevelt Hotel -- the venue for the upcoming David Arquette Presents Beacher’s Madhouse -- for the new Terry Gilliam-directed short film "The Legend of Hallowdega," in which Arquette stars opposite Justin Kirk, he made a couple of subtle jokes about th...
At the screening, presented by AMP Energy Juice, Arquette was introduced by his business partner Jeff Beacher on a stage in the hotel’s new subterranean space. Arquette told the small crowd, laughing coyly and looking at Beacher, “It was filmed in Alabama…um, where my wife’s from.” That elicited laughing and snickering...
Then, later on during his introduction, Arquette mentioned that while in Alabama, he came in contact with a town called Anniston (think Cox’s BFF Jennifer Aniston), saying, “I should have known that would be an omen.” Again, he and Beacher, along with the audience got a good laugh.
Tia Seaberg of Rockton is going to be riding the bus from now on. The new dial-a-ride bus service in Roscoe, Rockton and South Beloit is just the ticket.
Tia Seaberg of Rockton is going to be riding the bus from now on.
The new dial-a-ride bus service in Roscoe, Rockton and South Beloit is just the ticket.
Talks to start a bus service in northern Winnebago County have been in the works for years — Rockton President Dale Adams proposed the idea in 2002. On Monday, those talks will finally come to fruition.
Riders will be charged up to $3 each way and must make reservations 24 hours in advance for the service, which will bring one of four new 14-passenger buses to their doors six days a week.
The SMTD board signed an agreement with the Rockford Mass Transit District in late November for the service, which has an $147,000 operating budget.
Each community, the state and federal governments and some local businesses kicked in money to make the service a reality. Sharon Hecox, who works for Rockton Township, will serve as executive director of the program as part of the township’s contribution.
Vickie McDonald of South Beloit is also planning to ride. She doesn’t drive and plans to use the bus a couple of times a week to get to jobs, doctor’s appointments and shopping.
Roscoe trustee Kathy Kliebe, who along with Adams and South Beloit commissioner Pam Clifton were instrumental in pushing the project forward, said it’s not just people who don’t drive or are disabled who will benefit.
“Parents who know they can’t pick up their child at school can call the day before and set it up,” said Kliebe. The bus will then drop the child off at the front door.
Roscoe, Rockton, Rockton Township and South Beloit residents are eligible to ride within the new Stateline Mass Transit District service area, which includes the four communities, Rockford Mass Transit District’s bus stop at Target on Illinois 173 in Machesney Park and Beloit Transit System’s Broad Street bus stop. Rid...
Rides are available weekdays and Saturdays by calling 877-561-3330 at least 24 hours in advance from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. One-way fare is $3, $1.50 for seniors, children 7 to 16 and the disabled. Children under 7 with a paying rider and personal-care attendants ride free.
Riders must be registered by RMTD. Applications are available at city or village halls, the Rockton Chamber of Commerce and South Beloit’s Web site, southbeloit.org. Mail applications to Stateline Mass Transit, 520 Mulberry St., Rockford, IL 61101 or fax to 815-961-9892. For more information, call 877-561-3330.
The stars and scares came out for the premiere of the long-awaited fourth installment of the "Scream" franchise at Mann's Chinese Theater in Los Angeles on Monday, April 11.
You can watch the likes of Neve Campbell, David Arquette, Courtney Cox, Emma Roberts and Hayden Panettiere -- as well as some surprise guest appearances by some "Scream" alums and others -- work the red carpet magic, thanks to NowLive.
Check it all out below and prepare for your own "Scream 4" experience when it slashes its way into theaters on April 15.
Conor McGregor is now so rich and famous that he doesn’t have to roll out of bed before two o’clock on any hot August afternoon in Las Vegas. This past weekend, laced with heavy spending and partying, a 3pm Sunday interview was far too early for the Irish fighter and new sensation of UFC, the booming business of mixed ...
A 90-minute wait for McGregor is not that surprising, especially from a media phenomenon who calls himself ‘The Notorious’ and was barely known outside his old Dublin neighbourhood of Crumlin two-and-a-half years ago. McGregor once worked as a trainee plumber. Now he is such a huge star that 70,000 people applied for t...
Most of Ireland’s World Cup rugby squad also got up at the dead of night to watch and whoop, led by the normally unflappable Jonny Sexton and Conor Murray, when McGregor became the UFC’s featherweight champion last month after he fulfilled his usual prediction and knocked out Chad Mendes in the second round.
Before the fight, at the MGM Grand, 11,500 fans squeezed into a crammed arena to watch McGregor’s weigh-in. Sinead O’Connor then sang live to accompany McGregor’s walk to the cage where he completed his crushing victory over Mendes. His next fight, against José Aldo in a unification contest, will be another record-brea...
Moving from Crumlin coincided with his mum’s grand plumbing plan. “It just wasn’t for me,” he says of life as an apprentice plumber. “I was waking at 5am and walking in the dark, freezing cold until I reached the motorway and waited for a guy I didn’t even know to take me to the site, where I worked for 12 hours and th...
His professional MMA career began as a cage fighter in March 2008 – when he was only 19. He won his first bout at an event called Cage of Truth 2 in Dublin. He lost twice as a young pro but then a nine-fight winning streak, coupled with his outrageous capacity for promotional hype, won him his first UFC contract in ear...
“It amuses me how many so-called experts claim he won the first round. He was done in the first round. He was breathing heavily and I attacked his body relentlessly. I had him badly hurt even before he got the takedown. In a fight to the death what does a takedown mean? In the jungle a lion knows he must attack the nec...
Weeks later the emotion spills out of him. “She had never been inside the Octagon and my coach, John Kavanagh, made sure she was there. Many years ago my mother rang John when I was drifting. John came to the house and got me back on track. That night he told my mother: ‘When Conor wins the world title I will bring you...
“It’s hard for them when I go in the cage. They endure their own emotional struggles. It’s a very intense experience – the purest form of adrenaline and excitement. I’m addicted to it. There is so much else in this game – so much business, so much media, so much work.
The fighter is ominously quiet when I suggest that, for all his mockery of Aldo, who withdrew from their showdown last month through injury, to be replaced by Mendes, he surely respects the Brazilian? “I don’t know him,” he eventually says. “The only way I would gain respect is through battle. He has been around a long...
The S&P 500 is up 23.3% year-to-date, but scores of broad-based, or so-called market, exchange traded funds have done even better.
The examination of how 2012’s best market ETFs fared in 2013 starts with an ETF that has risen noticeably in popularity. All 2012 data courtesy Dorsey Wright & Associates.
Samoa's gold medalists at the recent Commonwealth games in India have been honored by their government with an official luncheon and big financial awards.
The gold medal winners, weightlifters Faavae Faauliuli, and sister and brother Ele and Niu Sila Opeloge each got just over 21 thousand US dollars with their coach, Tuaopepe Jerry Wallwork, being given nearly 13 thousand US dollars.
The prime minister, Tuila'epa Sailele Malielegaoi, thanked the medalists, who were the first to win Commonwealth gold for Samoa.
The Manu Samoa sevens rugby team, which came fifth at the Games, also attended the function and were told by the prime minister they would not be forgiven unless they retained their IRB sevens title next year.
Brett Favre wants to clear up something: He didn’t guarantee a victory over the Dallas Cowboys.
The Vikings quarterback is aware how his words can be interpreted as bulletin board material, even if he had no intentions of making a bold statement. His optimism and line of positive thinking can be taken out of context.
It was delivered in the context that he isn’t allowing negative thoughts to creep into his mind, and that he hasn’t started thinking about the future because he’s focused on winning this game.
“How could I sit there and say, ‘Well, next week possibly [we] could be home,’ ” Favre said.
But of course, the Cowboys might already be using Favre’s original comment as motivation.
A: Saturday, my office and the California Office of Emergency Services held a “community resilience exercise” at Sacramento State with 30 members of the region’s Muslim community and 30 representatives from the FBI and eight local law enforcement agencies. The president said the best solutions are going to be community...
Q: More than 3,400 westerners are believed to have joined the Islamic State. In March, Lodi-area resident Nicholas Teausant, a former member of the California National Guard and recent convert to Islam, was arrested for allegedly trying to go to Syria to join ISIL. How are these groups recruiting, and why are they succ...
A: They are very heavy on the Internet and very sophisticated, and once they get people on the line they work them very assiduously to try and draw them in. A mayor from Belgium (at the summit) said 28 people had gone from his town to the Middle East. Much of the Muslim population in Europe is somewhat socio-economical...
Though Obama said ISIL has portrayed itself as “holy warriors” – the only ones standing up for Islam – a lot of people who have been recruited didn’t have a long-term, religious involvement. A lot of this seems to be a teenaged fantasy – “We have all of these buffed-out warriors, we’re changing the world, we’re stickin...
Q: What are the challenges facing law enforcement?
A: There’s sort of an online battle going on. ... A lot of young people ripe for recruitment by ISIS and al-Qaida tend to be isolated and shut out grown-up voices around them, and the only effective way to reach these young people is to present an alternative point of view. Last year, after two hostages and their capto...
Bill Braniff, executive director of the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism, said we’ve seen a drastic rise in the number of lone actors who radicalize on their own, and that’s problematic because they can move to act quickly... . If you have groups of people acting in concert, it’...
Q: Are Californians in danger from the Islamic State and al-Qaida?
A: I would say it’s not a very high threat. It’s important that people be alert without being frightened. ISIS has been saying to people online and elsewhere if you can’t come to Syria, take action in your own communities, attack police, government buildings. They’re mostly recruiting people one at a time, and there ar...
What I’m more concerned about is some sort of backlash crime here – something gruesome will happen in Syria and someone will take revenge on the local community. Obama has said repeatedly, “We are not at war with Islam. We are at war with people who have perverted Islam.” Religion doesn’t cause terrorism; people cause ...
John R. Delaney Toshiba 55L7200U Toshiba's very good looking L7200 3D LED HDTV line delivers accurate colors and nice, dark blacks. And you get some neat features, but backlight uniformity issues hold this series back from true greatness.
Beautiful design. Accurate colors. Good black levels. Wide viewing angles.
Patchy screen uniformity. Backlight seepage. Limited Web apps.
Toshiba's very good looking L7200 3D LED HDTV line delivers accurate colors and nice, dark blacks. And you get some neat features, but backlight uniformity issues hold this series back from true greatness.
There's a lot to like about Toshiba's L7200U series, its high-end LED backlit HDTV line. Its (so-called) bezel-less design and thin profile make it one of the best looking TVs to hit PCMag Labs, and its color accuracy is quite good. We tested the 55-inch 55L7200U ($2,399.99 list), which delivers good measured black lev...
The 55L7200U boasts Toshiba's Aero design, which does away with bezels on the top and sides but contains a one-inch curved bottom bezel with silver trim. Throw in a relatively slim 1.7-inch matte black cabinet with a slim band of brushed aluminum around its perimeter and edge-to-edge glass and you've got one visually s...
Channel, Volume Up/Down, Power Up/Down, Menu, and Input buttons are located at the rear of the set on the lower left side. Their placement certainly helps maintain the cabinet's clean lines but makes it difficult to adjust settings while actually looking at the screen. You're better off using the 59-button remote for t...
Searching the Web and using Web services such as Facebook and Twitter is a breeze with the included wireless QWERTY keyboard. At 5.5 by 12.7 inches (HW) it's around the same size as a 14-inch laptop keyboard and connects to the TV using a USB dongle, letting you surf the Web from the comfort of your couch. A built-in t...
All inputs are located on the back of the cabinet with the most widely used ports facing left, including three HDMI inputs, two USB ports, digital and analog audio outputs, and an IR blaster jack. There are several down-facing ports that can be difficult to access when the set is mounted on a wall, including a fourth H...
The 55L7200U's Audyssey-powered sound system is plenty loud and features a simulated surround sound effect that is decent when used in smaller rooms but sounds hollow when used in large open areas. You may want to add a subwoofer for some much needed bass, in which case you may as well go with a dedicated multi-channel...
Picture settings are extensive. You get all the basics, including Brightness, Contrast, Backlighting, Color, Tint, and Sharpness. The six picture presets include Standard, Movie, Dynamic, Game, PC, and AutoView modes (AutoView uses an ambient light sensor and on-screen content to automatically adjust brightness, contra...
You can connect to the Web (and networked devices) via the aforementioned wired LAN port or use the built-in Wi-Fi to connect wirelessly. You don't get nearly as many Web apps with the 55L7200U as you do with Samsung's UN46ES6500F but you do get a handful of quality online services such as Vudu, Netflix, and CinemaNow ...
A firmware update will add several features to the L7200U in the coming weeks, including support for three new Android apps: A/V Remote, Media Guide, and Send & Play (an app that lets you stream movies from your phone to the HDTV). It also will add Flash and HTML5 support to its Web browser.
Bottom Line: Toshiba's very good looking L7200 3D LED HDTV line delivers accurate colors and nice, dark blacks. And you get some neat features, but backlight uniformity issues hold this series back from true greatness.
T EN o'clock, and nothing here looks like night. Or like evening. The white sky is as light as at four in the afternoon-some hushed, overcast afternoon in summer. Sum- mer: a past, a time remembered, a season buried at the antIpodes. I recall with surprise that this, in fact, is sum- mer; thIs too: this glassy air empt...
Gerald Glenn Keefer, 70, Berlin, died Dec. 22, 2009 at Memorial Medical Center, Johnstown. Born Aug. 19, 1939 in Melcroft, a son of William Lloyd and Alta (Coughenour) Keefer. Preceded in death by father and a sister: Wanda Leer. Survived by his mother; children: Michelle married to Ron Putman; Mark married to the form...
Despite encountering largely disheartening results, and some very tedious googling, I very much enjoyed and am proud of the work I completed. I found it personally interesting and, more importantly, culturally relevant. Music is ubiquitous in society, and so are queer folk – whether we realize it or not. Thus, it’s vit...
You might be looking at concept art, but this is really happening.
I imagine the inside is a rather-looking bullet train, but damn, the outside is striking. It’s designed after Evangelion Unit-01.
Don’t see it? Here’s a comparison.
According to Buzz News, the Neon Genesis Evangelion-covered bullet train will begin service this fall from Osaka to Fukuoka. It will run until March 2017.
I never even held an infant until my son Bill was born. It wasn't that I was averse to small children, it's just that I was never really exposed to them, or given any training about how effectively to raise them as they grew up. So with the understanding that there must be many other people out there just like me, my C...
To start at the beginning, understand that babies cry. Sometimes, of course, it is for a good reason, and that reason should be addressed. But once they have been fed, burped, changed and put to bed, leave them there. It's almost as if babies are human, because if you reward them by holding and petting them each time t...
Also develop the team approach that if one parent gets too frazzled by the baby's crying, or bad behavior, that is the automatic time for the other parent quickly to take over. Obviously it's hard to raise young children, and sometimes we can lose our tempers when we are stressed or tired. So team parenting is the answ...
After they begin to talk, young children should also be taught to use words instead of whining, even when having a temper tantrum. If they are not able to use words, it means that they are too sleepy to behave, so it is time for bed.
On another matter, never make idle or false promises to your children. So, for example, if you say that your children will be put to bed if they continue to whine, you simply must follow through!

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