Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/267581395?client_source=feed&format=rss
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A group of young bloggers conducted a poll on live, real-time telemedicine visits in the U.K.? They found that more than half of those surveyed liked the idea, but there was a sizeable number of skeptics.
Sebastian Lahtinen, Andrew Ferguson and John Hunt are the team behind the Broadband Blog, and they decided to conduct a poll to see?how their fellow countrymen feel about a proposed ?telehealth initiative that aims to get 100,000 of us in UK talking to our doctor over broadband by 2013.?
They asked: Do you think the idea of video conferencing with a health professional is a good idea?? Of those responding, 56%?said yes.??Three of ten people said no with 12% not knowing.? Two percent checked ?none of the above.?? The blogging team says the high number of those who said no indicates that many Britons are wary.? They suggest that it would be good to know whether video conference consultations work better if the patient has previously met the person at the far end.
Have you ever contacted your GP (primary care provider) or other health professional using your Internet connection?? Only 16% had done so at least once, while 82% had not.? Even for routine things like making an appointment, the Brits still use the telephone rather than an online system.
If telemedicine leads to savings (both time and money) for the Health Service, should these savings be invested in more home visits for those who need them?? Nearly three-fourths (72%) said ?yes.?
Have you ever used your Internet connection for a two-way webcam video call, using Skype, MSN, Yahoo, etc.?? The response by 25% that they have never done that was surprising to the bloggers.? They also noted that the low number of people who have tried to do home videoconferencing and failed (8%) will likely disappoint critics of the UK broadband infrastructure who complain it is too slow.
The bloggers conclude there ?should be no problem with video conferencing as a way of interacting with health professionals starting in 2013? because people in their country support the idea.
Source: http://healthworkscollective.com/rdowney14/66236/poll-telemedicine-popular-britain
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Source: http://www.lacarmelaweb.com.ar/content/recommendations-choosing-proper-web-hosting-firm
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ScienceDaily (Nov. 29, 2012) ? A photograph taken by Wildlife Conservation Society scientists of a little known Bolivian cat species called an oncilla has won a BBC Wildlife camera-trap photo competition.
The photo, which won the New Discoveries category, documents the first-known occurrence of this extremely rare spotted cat in Madidi National Park.
The Oncilla (Leopardus tigrinus) occurs across the Amazon and along the tropical Andes. About the size of a house cat, they are the smallest cat species of South America's lowlands. Very little is known about their life history.
WCS researchers Guido Ayala, Maria Viscarra, and Robert Wallace submitted the photo taken last July during camera trap surveys of jaguars and other wildlife living in Madidi -- considered to be among the most biodiverse protected areas on the planet.
More than 1,300 entries were submitted from around the world. The winning entry received ?1,000 (approximately $1,500), courtesy of Paramo Directional Clothing Systems and the World Land Trust.
The new record for oncilla in Madidi pushes the number of confirmed cat species in the park to six with at least two more waiting to be confirmed. Madidi National Park contains 11 percent of the world's birds, more than 200 species of mammals, almost 300 types of fish, and 12,000 plant varieties. The 19,000 square-kilometer (7,335 square mile) park is known for its array of altitudinal gradients and habitats from lowland tropical forests of the Amazon to snow-capped peaks of the High Andes.
The Greater Madidi-Tambopata Landscape Conservation Program aims to develop local capacity to conserve the landscape and mitigate a variety of threats, including road construction, logging, and agricultural expansion.
WCS's work in the Madidi-Tambopata Landscape has been made possible by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the blue moon fund, the Beneficia Foundation, the Disney Worldwide Conservation Fund, and other generous supporters.
The Wildlife Conservation Society saves wildlife and wild places worldwide. We do so through science, global conservation, education and the management of the world's largest system of urban wildlife parks, led by the flagship Bronx Zoo. Together these activities change attitudes towards nature and help people imagine wildlife and humans living in harmony. WCS is committed to this mission because it is essential to the integrity of life on Earth.
The Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, established in 2000, seeks to advance environmental conservation, patient care and scientific research. The goal of the Foundation's Andes-Amazon Initiative is to maintain the climatic function and biodiversity of the Amazon Basin by promoting forest conservation and addressing the drivers of deforestation and forest degradation.
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Astronomers have seen a distant galaxy that blasts away material with two trillion times the energy the sun emits ? the biggest such eruption ever seen. That ejection of matter could answer an important question about the universe: why are the black holes in the centers of galaxies so light?
Computer models of the early universe usually produce a virtual cosmos that looks like ours except for one thing. The ratio of the mass of black holes in galaxy centers to the rest of the matter in galaxies is larger in the simulations than in the real universe.
Scientists think somehow galaxies are ridding themselves of much of the mass that would have ended up falling into their central black holes. However, until now researchers have been at a lack for an explanation of how this might happen.
To expel matter from galaxies takes energy. "We needed some input of energy from supermassive black holes," Nahum Arav, an astrophysicist at Virginia Tech told SPACE.com.
Supermassive black holes are obvious candidates, because they are the most energetic objects known. Some galaxies containing active black holes, called quasars, shine more brightly than anything else in the universe. "Our simulations showed that if we allowed the quasar to release a lot of mechanical energy, then the masses of galaxies would match observations," Arav said.
Arav led a team that observed a quasar, called SDSS J1106+1939, which dates back to when the universe was only 3 billion years old (it is now about 13.7 billion years of age). Most quasars are millions or even billions of light-years distant, which means we see them as they were long ago. As such, they offer a unique window back in time, to when galaxies were young.
The researchers used an instrument called a spectrometer, which spreads light out into its constituent wavelengths, attached to the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope in Chile. This instrument revealed a giant cloud of hot, ionized gas that was blasted away from the galaxy at nearly 5,000 miles per second (8,000 kilometers per second), or about 2.6 percent the speed of light. The gas is mostly hydrogen with some helium and traces of other elements such as carbon. [Most Powerful Black Hole Quasar Discovered (Video)]
The energy needed to fire that blast is five times greater than any other quasar has displayed to date.
The sheer size of this ejection demonstrates a way for young galaxies to off-load mass: The energy in a quasar we usually see as radiation can be turned into kinetic energy, or energy of motion. This eruption is throwing up some 400 times the mass of the sun every year, and such events last for anywhere from 10 million to 100 million years.
That, Arav said, could be the key to why galaxies are generally less massive than they should be, and why the black holes at their centers are the sizes that they are. "It gives the theorists something to work with," he said.
Arav said the exact mechanism for these mass ejections still isn't clear, and his own observations don't yet point to what it might be. Future work might enable astronomers and cosmologists to build hypotheses.
Saavik Ford, an associate professor of astronomy at Bronx Manhattan Community College and research associate at the American Museum of Natural History, said that if this phenomenon proves to be common, then it could also help answer a lot of other questions. One is why there some clusters of galaxies are embedded in gas radiating X-rays, which would require some source of energy. The finding could also help astronomers understand why star formation in some massive elliptical galaxies seems to stop when it does.
But the discovery isn't a clear-cut smoking gun. Arav said he wants to do more observations and see if he and his colleagues can't find more quasars like this one. If not, or if such outflows are more rare, then there is some other phenomenon at work. "I hope in two years to have a nice sample of about 10," he said.
The new observations will appear in a paper led by Benoit Borguet of Virginia Tech, to be published in an upcoming issue of The Astrophysical Journal.
You can follow SPACE.com on Twitter?@Spacedotcom. We're also on?Facebook?&?Google+.?
Copyright 2012 SPACE.com, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.Source: http://news.yahoo.com/biggest-black-hole-blast-ever-could-solve-cosmological-124649425.html
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PARIS (Reuters) - Libya is still in the race to save France's Petit-Couronne refinery from liquidation, trade unions said late on Tuesday, as the embattled workers press the French government to help bidders or requisition the plant.
France's Industry Minister said earlier this month he had received a non-binding letter of interest from Libya's sovereign wealth fund to buy the refinery of insolvent Swiss refiner Petroplus.
But French media said this week the Libyan Investment Authority had withdrawn its bid to take over the refinery, the oldest in France, citing a report from Libya's LANA news agency.
"The Libyans were withdrawing yesterday, but today they're not withdrawing anymore, they're still there, so much the better," Yvon Scornet, the trade union representative for the refinery, told reporters outside the Prime Minister's office.
The chairman of the Libyan Investment Authority, Mohsen Derregia, told Reuters last week they had started due diligence to invest in the refinery and would send a team to France to evaluate the investment opportunity.
"Now they have access to the data room," Scornet told Reuters on Tuesday after a late evening meeting with government advisors.
French daily newspaper Le Monde said earlier this month that the French government favored a deal with Libya. Unions prefer a bid by Dubai-based NetOil.
"We have a bid which is well advanced, it's NetOil's. We ask the government to take its responsibilities. If the government needs to do something to tip the balance in their favor, it should do it," Scornet said.
NetOil, a company led by Middle Eastern businessman Roger Tamraz, submitted an improved offer after a court in Rouen in northern France rejected its initial bid on financial and technical grounds earlier this month.
The court has reset to February 5, 2013, the new deadline to submit bids for the refinery and will review offers next week.
But unions want the sale process to be sped up, as a oil reprocessing deal with former owner Shell that has kept the plant alive since January is due to stop mid-December.
"We can't wait until February, unless Shell accepts to continue producing with us, which they don't want at the moment," Scornet said.
"If we can't manage that, the government should requisition the refinery, and keep it under protection for one, two or three years, when the market is better and industry picks up."
(Reporting by Michel Rose; editing by Carol Bishopric)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/libyan-rescue-french-refinery-not-ruled-unions-235732471--sector.html
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Source: http://educationreference839.blogspot.com/2012/11/astronomy-and-space-sticker-book.html
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BOWLING GREEN, Ohio (RNS) Until his recent retirement, the Rev. Dale Schaefer spent most Sunday mornings wearing vestments and leading worship services at St. Mark's Lutheran Church.
But whenever he had the time on his off days, the soft-spoken preacher would slip a helmet over his gray hair, don an asbestos racing suit, and climb into the cockpit of a 750-horsepower dragster he built from the ground up.
"There is kind of a rush when you launch this thing off the starting line," Schaefer said, giving his customized 1980 Plymouth Arrow a loving slap. "Your eyes go back in their sockets and they don't pop back until you're about at the hot dog stand. Then you can see again. It's a rush."
Pastoring a church of 500 had kept him too busy to take the car to Norwalk, Ohio, where he often competes in the Super Gas and Super Pro divisions at Summit Motorsports Park.
Now in his second month of retirement, the 68-year-old minister got to race in the drag strip's Halloween Classic, a weeklong event that draws 1,500 cars from around the country.
Schaefer usually tops 140 mph in the quarter mile, crossing the finish line in under 10 seconds.
That's a Sunday stroll in the park compared to the top-level pro dragsters that can pack up to 8,000 horsepower and reach speeds of more than 340 mph on a 1,000-foot straightaway, he said.
But it's plenty of speed for a "sportsman" or hobbyist like the Racing Rev.
"He is a real car guy -- and I mean a real car guy," said Bill Bader Jr., president and co-owner of Summit Motorsports Park. "With him, I don't think it matters whether he wins or loses. His winning percentage might not be as high as he would like it to be. But he just loves cars and he loves to race."
Bader described Schaefer as "without question one of the most quality, caring, genuine human beings I know."
Schaefer is the track's chaplain and leads worship services for drivers and families. He also says the invocation before races and has presided at memorial services and other religious occasions at the track.
When he prays before a race, he added, "It's certainly not to win, but for safety and that I might demonstrate God's love to somebody else and be a witness."
Ginger Schaefer, his wife of 46 years, said she supports her husband and his passion for racing 100 percent. "He's had that hobby since before I met him. It's like if he didn't have it, you could cut off his right arm. It's just a part of him," she said.
Indeed, Schaefer practically grew up with motor oil pumping through his veins. His father was a mechanic who owned a garage and liked to restore vintage cars.
"He was a perfectionist, and right or wrong, I've inherited some of that," Schaefer said.
He started racing when he was 12 or 13 years old, speeding around a dirt track in a'49 Studebaker on his grandparents' farm in his hometown of Salem, Ohio.
By 14, he managed to connive his way onto a real race track, the Quaker City Drag Strip, and built his first race car at age 18.
"It's just evolved. I keep collecting tools and thinking I need to go faster and faster," he said with a grin.
As much as he loves the track, Schaefer equally enjoys getting his hands greasy working on cars in the spacious shop behind his rural house.
"I love it. I enjoy it actually more than competing _'Wow, it works! Yeah!'" he said, pumping his fist in triumph.
He does most of the mechanical work himself, sometimes taking parts to machine shops or specialty garages.
His bright red 1939 Buick street rod, for example, arrived as a "pile of rust" in 2004, Schaefer said. He stripped it down to bare metal, installed a 455-cubic-inch engine, redid all the electrical wiring, and, after eight years of painstaking effort, is ready to put the finishing touches on the street-legal racing machine.
The ministry was a second career for Schaefer, who started out selling insurance after being discharged from the Army during the Vietnam War era.
He and his wife had been active in church when, in the middle of the night, he said he heard an audible voice asking, "Have you considered my ministry?"
He was convinced God was speaking to him. And he answered back.
"I said,'No! But if it's to happen, you'll ready my wife for that kind of an adventure.'"
Schaefer said he "never told a soul" about the midnight message. "Two years later, my wife said to me,'Have you ever considered full-time ministry?'"
The couple had three young children when Schaefer enrolled in seminary in 1978. He graduated in 1982 and has been an Evangelical Lutheran Church in America pastor until retiring Sept. 30.
Schaefer has submitted a proposal to the ELCA's Northwest Ohio Synod to fill in for pastors for a month at a time, allowing them to take a needed break with no cost to the church or synod.
He said he doesn't know of any other ministers who would use the free time to build or race dragsters.
"Most of them are a little more sedate than me," he said.
(David Yonke is the editor of Toledo Faith & Values.)
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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/27/dale-schaefer-racing-reverend_n_2194557.html
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By Stephanie Ehrler 5 hours ago
The Bear State, the Land of Opportunity and the Wonder State have all been past nicknames of Arkansas. The Arkansas Fisheries Society takes pride in Arkansas? current nickname of the Natural State as it aims to utilize the state?s natural water resources and wildlife for environmental purposes.
There are over 100 American Fisheries Society chapters nationwide, with a total of over 9,000 members.
?The mission of the American Fisheries Society is to improve the conservation and sustainability of fishery resources and aquatic ecosystems by advancing fisheries and aquatic science and promoting the development of fisheries professionals,? said Dustin Lynch, Ph.D. student and AFS president. ?We promote interest in this through activities such as involving education, recreation and environmental cleanup.?
The national organization was founded in 1870 as the American Fish Culturists? Association, according to the national website. The dues are $20 for a student member and $80 for a regular member.
?The Arkansas Fisheries society at the UA currently has around 15 members,? Lynch said. ?People can join by sending a message to the AFS Facebook page with email contact info, and we will include them on our mailing list with time and place for the meetings.?
The UA chapter of AFS is also involved with the state chapter, and in September of 2013, the national AFS meeting will be held in Little Rock, Ark.
?This past spring, several members of the club attended the Arkansas chapter of the American Fisheries Society meeting,? said Brad Austin, biological sciences Ph.D. student. ?At the meeting, members learned about research in the fields of stream ecology and fisheries, providing an experience that members would not normally get in the classroom.?
The Natural State has hundreds of lakes to fish in, according to Arkansas.com, but many people are still foreign to the sport. AFS is mainly comprised of experienced members who are avid about having new members engage in their hobby. AFS envisions a future where worldwide fishery? production is optimized and sustained while structural and functional conditions of marine, freshwater and estuarine ecosystems are maintained, according to the national website.
?Currently, our membership consists mainly of undergraduate and graduate students within the department of biological sciences,? said Brad Austin, biological sciences Ph.D. student. ?So, one of our goals is to increase our membership, bringing in members from across campus.?
AFS has a division specifically for ?fish culture,? which was formed in 1974, according to the national AFS website. The local chapter in Arkansas also participates in promoting and engaging in fish culture.
?Fish culture refers to advancing cultivation technology of aquatic organisms for food, commercial and recreational fisheries enhancement, ornamental purposes, and conservation, emphasizing things like nutrition, economics, breeding, et cetera,? Lynch said.
The AFS national website has a tab for job postings so that members have the opportunity to apply for graduate assistant, research and full-time jobs within the organization?s many fields.
?This RSO has provided the ability to invite speakers in to talk about their work in the field of fisheries management,? Austin said. ?I think this is good for myself and other members because it makes us aware of the potential jobs that we are preparing ourselves for in the fields of fisheries management and stream ecology.?
The Arkansas Fisheries Society is close in friendship among its members, but it is also involved with other RSOs on campus.
The club assisted in putting on a booth with Springfest 2011 with the biological graduate student association, Austin said. ?With our booth, BGSA members talk about the impacts of improper waste disposal and not recycling our trash on the environment, while the AFS club focuses on the diversity of organisms that can be found in local streams, and in the past our booth has included live fish and bugs that kids can touch and/or hold.?
The RSO began in the spring of 2011, and since then it has focused on creating clearer lakes. Members participate in cleaning up the area around Lake Fayetteville every semester. ASF allows those who enjoy the outdoors of Arkansas to be in an organization that brings a diverse group of fish culture interests together.
?The types of people who join this organization are varied and have a wide variety of interests and reasons for joining,? Lynch said. ?A lot of people are primarily into sport fishing for recreation, and game fish species. I actually am not a fisherman myself and have more of an interest in smaller non-game stream fish, their ecology and conservation. It?s an organization that encompasses a lot of different interests.?
Source: http://www.uatrav.com/2012/11/26/arkansas-fisheries-society-promotes-various-fish-culture-interests/
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Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-20510112#sa-ns_mchannel=rss&ns_source=PublicRSS20-sa
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In 2011, even though the U.S economy was sluggish, shopping grew by 15% over the previous year. In addition, about 35% of Americans now have smartphones which enable them to purchase goods and services over the internet and this figure is expected to rise significantly in subsequent years. In actual fact, about half of smartphone users have used their phones for one purchase or the other. On Christmas day of 2011 alone, about 6.8 million iOs and Android smartphones were activated. Top internet retailer, Amazon, recorded a whooping net sale of $48.08 billion in 2011 which represents 40.6% increase over $32.20 billion recorded in 2010. This figure is expected to rise in 2012 and subsequent years. What then is the implication of all these to physical retailing?
Since many people now decide to shop over the internet due to the benefits derivable in doing so like convenience, easy access to market, price comparison, avoidance of crowd, better prices and so on, can we really say that that the traditional way of shopping is being threatened? In my own opinion, technology will enhance the traditional method and not kill it. The popularity of video cassette recorder (VCR) in the 80's was seen by many as a threat to movie theaters then, but today, the film industry has been strengthened by the new technology and the demand for films has increased.
Moreover, when the email became very popular, a lot people thought that the traditional postal service would die, but today, it is waxing stronger. The point I'm driving at here is that, if traditional shop owners can embrace new technology, shopping on the internet would not be a threat to them but a blessing.
If physical retailers can monitor shopping behavior through the use of Wi-Fi signals from smartphones, they would be able to compete favorably in a fast-changing world. They can use technology to measure loyalty, make better staffing decisions, improve store layouts, reduce wait times in checkout lines and so on. Online shopping has come to stay but it is not a threat to traditional shopping because many consumers still value some of its features like quality of customer service, the experience of trying and buying products, how products are displayed and so on.
Olushola Otenaike is an online shopping expert.
Source: http://mysoupbaby.blogspot.com/2012/11/will-traditional-shopping-die-because.html
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LAGOS, Nigeria - A blast has hit a church in a major military establishment in northcentral Nigeria, an official said Sunday, a month after a church bombing in the same state killed at least seven people and injured more than a hundred others.
The explosion occurred after a church service in military barracks in Jaji town in Kaduna state, said National Emergency Management Agency spokesman Yushau Shuaib.
Shuaib said the casualties are unknown.
Police spokesman Aminu Lawan declined to comment, saying that it was a military matter. A military spokesman could not immediately be reached for comment.
Jaji is home to one of the country's most important military bases and civilian authorities in Nigeria are generally reluctant to comment on military affairs.
It is not clear how the blast occurred and there was no immediate claim of responsibility for Sunday's attack.
However, the blast came a month after another church was attacked in the city of Kaduna, about 25 miles (40 kilometres) away.
In that attack, a suicide bomber rammed an SUV loaded with explosives into St. Rita's Catholic church holding Mass on Oct. 28 in Kaduna, killing at least seven people and wounding more than 100 others.
The killings sparked instant reprisals in a city with a history of religious violence, leaving at least two more people dead.
Churches have been increasingly targeted by violence in Nigeria. In Kaduna state, there were church attacks on three weekends in a row in June. These attacks and the ensuing reprisals left at least 50 people dead.
A radical Islamist sect known as Boko Haram claimed responsibility for the June attacks, but nobody has claimed responsibility for the latest attacks ? last month and Sunday ? which have again rocked the volatile state.
Kaduna state sits on Nigeria's dividing line between its largely Christian south and Muslim north.
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I've used this name on another site, and most people there started calling me Key, so go ahead and do that if you want, I guess.
On that site, I started Jan. 17. I started role playing the same week, so that makes it eleven months that I've been roleplaying. Lots of people there said I was pretty good at it, but I don't really think so.
Likes:
Dragons
Homestuck
Pokemon
Magic/fantasy role plays
Well-written original Role Plays
Fan-ficts
Anime
Video Games/RPG, Simulation
Music
Art/drawing/painting
reading/writting
NCIS
NCIS Los Angelos
Castle
Dislikes:
mean/stupid people.
(and other things that I won't mention just yet...)
Oh, fair warning: I do most of what I do on a whim with little if any planning. It just works better for me. I also do a lot of fanfic role plays.
Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RolePlayGateway/~3/9Q0riZGmoYY/viewtopic.php
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"I'd worked with the director (Peter Hewitt) before, and we worked up in Winnipeg, which is quite a beautiful city. It was very comfortable and very nice doing it ... though it was all-night shooting, which wasn't that great. I'd also worked with Debi Mazar, her having been on 'Entourage,' but I don't think we ever got to play a scene together there. We bonded on this, and it was great."
McDowell also praises young co-star Martyn as "very good, the equivalent of Macaulay Culkin, who was extraordinary in that part. That's very hard to follow."
Martyn explains that he "did an audition in Toronto, then they wanted to see me again with the director, because they didn't have him yet the first time I auditioned. And apparently, he liked me. Yay!"
Comparisons to Culkin are inevitable, Martyn realizes, and that's OK with him. "I kind of tried to play it like an over-animated kid, because that's the kind of character this is, and the kind that people want to see. My mother's known for 12 years (in other words, since Martyn was born) that I've always wanted to be acting and doing 'Home Alone,' and now, I wonder if this will be my new reputation."
It well could be for Martyn, who has done voices for the animated Canadian series "Monster Math Squad" and "Franklin and Friends." He says he enjoyed matching talents with a long-time performer such as McDowell. "He really played his character how I thought he should have, kind of a comedic but smart bad guy. He's funny, but he's not stupid."
Recently given a Lifetime Achievement Award for his horror and fantasy work by the nonprofit sCare Foundation that assists homeless and impoverished youth, McDowell is happy to share a project with Asner, who's on Broadway in the comedy "Grace" until early January.?However, the two acting veterans didn't cross paths physically on the latest "Home Alone.""The day he arrived, I left," reports McDowell. "Actually, I met his son at the forecourt of the hotel as I was leaving for the airport. I know Ed, and I love him. To me, he's an icon, and the work that he's done through the years is incredible. He's such a wonderful actor and activist and person, I'm really sorry I didn't get to hang out with him."
Also just seen in a return guest shot on CBS' "The Mentalist," McDowell has been doing considerable television work. That has encompassed regular runs on ABC's reboot of "Fantasy Island," NBC's "Heroes," and TNT's continuing "Franklin & Bash" ... as well as HBO's now-finished "Entourage," for which McDowell hopes he'll be summoned back for the much-rumored feature-film spinoff.
"Honestly, it's not something I planned out," McDowell maintains of his home-screen appearances. "I used to work a lot in independent movies, because they were made for more mature audiences than the usual fare from the studios. Then the financing for those movies kind of got wiped out, along with everything else, with the meltdown.
"Cable television literally has filled the gap of the independent movie," McDowell reasons. "The writing is of such a high standard, and it started years ago. 'The Sopranos' was like an incredible movie every week, and that really was a game changer for everybody. All these companies -- HBO, TNT, USA, Syfy -- they're making extraordinary product now, and they've really upped the game."
Photo/Video credit: ABC Family
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WATERTOWN, Mass. (AP) ? Thousands of Black Friday shoppers, many squeezed by economic uncertainties, lined up in freezing overnight temperatures or got up early to snag the best bargains to kick off the holiday shopping season in Massachusetts.
With high unemployment, a slow economic recovery and a looming "fiscal cliff," many residents said they're shopping smarter this year, sniffing out deals online and doing a lot more comparison shopping. Others complained about shops opening on Thanksgiving, infringing on family time and forcing retail workers to work on a holiday.
Kala Gurung looked happy and satisfied as she walked out of Best Buy at the Watertown Mall on Friday, accompanied by her 6-year-old son, Adrian. She bought phones, and Adrian will soon get an iPad.
Gurung, who works at a private consultancy firm, said she plans to spend just over $500 on holiday shopping, slightly more than what she spent last year.
"No, we'd definitely not go over the budget because of the economic situation, but we'll be buying a little bit more," the 31-year-old Watertown resident said.
Joe Russell was hunting for a great deal on a large flat-screen TV and went to the Best Buy store in Watertown shortly after midnight Friday, but the long line of shoppers gunning for door-buster promotions deterred him from braving the cold. He returned to the store after sunrise and got a different TV for "a decent price."
"This is the earliest I've ever shopped. Usually I wait until two weeks before Christmas then I go," Russell said.
Russell isn't setting a budget for this year's shopping. "I really want to go with the flow there. If I can get it, I get it ? I get some overtime coming up, so I'm gonna kind of put that away" for holiday shopping, he said.
The flat-screen TV he just bought, he said, is the most expensive item he'll probably buy this year.
"The money is tight these days. You gotta try to get the deals you can," he said.
Still, some shoppers were unhappy that Black Friday openings were turning Thanksgiving into Super Thursday.
Lizzy Casanave, who's in her 40s, and her mother, Anne Linn, who's in her 60s, said that, unlike previous years, they didn't go out to grab the best bargains because retailers started offering those on Thanksgiving night.
"And we refuse to shop on Thanksgiving Day," said Casanave, an Arlington resident. "We don't like people making people go to work on Thanksgiving Day, so we banned that, decided to come this morning ? but we didn't get up as early as usual because we knew that a lot of the bargains will probably be gone."
Spector, an author from Newton, shared the sentiment from the Arsenal Mall in Watertown.
"Get rid of Black Thursday. Don't do any shopping on Thanksgiving. It's terrible," she said.
The 48-year-old Spector plans to spend up to $500, including on designer handbags for her two daughters.
"I did much more online shopping than I ever expected to do," especially compared to last year, she said.
"It was much easier. I've really stayed away from doing online shopping, but everybody talks about it, and I found myself to be really one of those ? it saves time, money, gas, energy. You just point and click and make your purchase," she said.
The shopping season stretching to December historically accounts for about 19.5 percent of annual retail sales, with some stores seeing 25 to 40 percent of their sales and profits during the period, Retailer Association of Massachusetts President Jon Hurst said.
He said the group is forecasting a 3.5 percent increase in retail sales during the holiday season when compared with last year. The two-month season generates about $14 billion. Consumer spending accounts for about 70 percent of the national economy and Massachusetts tracks that figure, Hurst said.
"It is important that our consumers understand that retail supplies about 17 percent of all jobs in Massachusetts and ... we hope that they remember the importance of local shopping and the importance of the Main Street and the importance of keeping local jobs in local stores," Hurst said.
___
Ngowi can be reached at www.twitter.com/ngowi
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/mass-shoppers-line-cold-snag-bargains-201926442--finance.html
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?Was the food hot? How was the service? What did you think of the fried green tomatoes??
These are just a few in a string of questions posed by chef Nicholas St. Clair in our pre-print interview. As the owner of the five-month-old, farm-to-table restaurant Antebellum in Flowery Branch, this chef-turned-business-owner genuinely wants feedback on ways to improve customers? experiences. It shows.
St. Clair relocated to Atlanta after beginning his career in West Coast restaurants. The move, designed to land St. Clair and his wife closer to her family, afforded St. Clair experience in the kitchens of popular Atlanta restaurants including Watershed and Woodfire Grill. He now had the confidence to open a restaurant of his own.
More of a small-town person, St. Clair scouted locations in less populated areas outside of Atlanta and in Alabama. He claimed the classically Southern 1890?s home in Flowery Branch, complete with a wraparound porch, which became Antebellum.
There?s a certain danger in opening a Southern farm-to-table restaurant in an older home decorated with oversized prints of Charleston?s plantations and architectural details. With beverages served in Mason jars and the obligatory fried green tomatoes gracing the menu, how quickly it can all become cliche. Yet, with glowing lanterns scattered about the dining room, a 72-year-old jazz guitarist strumming tunes and St. Clair and his wife chatting at each table, Antebellum has developed its own unique personality.
The real character of Antebellum can be found in St. Clair?s food. This non-native?s take on Southern-inspired cuisine reveals his expert hand at seasoning and in layering textures and flavors. His execution is so smooth that a recent line cook loss is unapparent.
After hearing multiple tables comment on Antebellum?s fried green tomatoes ($11), we requested two orders to pass around our party. The vertical stack of cornmeal-battered tomatoes, layered with a sweet bacon-y jam and toasty rounds of buttered brioche, comes topped with a fried egg, waiting to yield its silky yolk to the assemblage. The dish includes a shot of shaved mimosa-flavored ice, a fun little gift from the kitchen. Should?ve ordered three.
All of our appetizers hit their mark. The sausage and chicken dish ($12) offers a balanced combination of textures and flavors with smoky Louisiana Andouille paired with with a thick-crusted buttermilk-fried chicken. A little spice comes into play with the creamy Cajun remoulade and house-made green tomato chow chow. This same moist chicken can also be found on the Watershed-inspired Thursday fried chicken night ($15).
If the salads catch your eye, go for the local farm greens mingled with a simple pimento cheese, thin ribbons of celery, a boiled egg and cumin spiced pecans ($10). Wait until you try it with the cream-based boiled dressing, so light and tangy.
While successful appetizers don?t necessarily guarantee a home run with entrees, here they do. Try the grilled wild salmon ($20), so well seasoned with a nice sear and soft interior. It?s the crispy Logan Turnpike cheddar and buttermilk grits cake and the slurpable smoked tomato vinaigrette that will cement the dish in your memory.
The flavor of the dry-aged ribeye ($28) easily competes with many of Atlanta?s favorite intown steakhouses. The high-choice beef is well marbled, cooked to temperature and properly seasoned with only salt and pepper (but the added dollop of crawfish butter definitely makes for good company).
We also ordered the mustard-and-rye crusted Niman Ranch pork chop ($22) after hearing another patron exclaim, ?I want to take a bath in the beer cheese!? The juicy chop comes layered in a bowl with bits of bacon, potatoes and a smooth beer cheese soup rich enough to merit the proclamation.
Now isn?t the time to start counting calories. Order the maple pot de creme with ?trail mix? ($6). The delicate flavors of the maple-flavored custard play nicely with the sugared pecans and tiny crisped sweet potatoes. You might also order the sweet potato soup appetizer ($6), which leans toward the sweet side with apple cider cream, brown sugar and pie spices like cloves, allspice and nutmeg. Fried strips of collards on top put me in mind of fried pie.
I?ll be the first to admit that Flowery Branch is a bit of a haul. But I have no reservations about sending you on that drive. This chef has skill and a desire to grow, which has catapulted him to the top of his game. There?s no question that Antebellum will only improve with age.
ANTEBELLUMFood: Contemporary Southern
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BAGHDAD (AP) ? Baghdad and Iraq's autonomous Kurdish region accused each other Thursday of rushing troops into disputed border regions amid heightened tensions between the rival governments.
This latest flare-up, triggered by a shoot-out last week between Kurdish guards and Iraqi police, reflects longstanding grievances between the two sides over how to share natural resources, territory, and power dating back to the 2003 U.S.-led invasion that toppled longtime dictator Saddam Hussein.
Both sides have forces in the provinces bordering the Kurdish autonomous zone, but any new deployments are seen as a provocative show of force by one side to assert dominance over the other.
Relations took a step back in October, when Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki formed a new military force to oversee command of the security forces in the area, that include several disputed cities and swaths of oil-rich territory claimed by Iraqi Arabs, Turkomen and Kurds.
On Wednesday, the Kurds sent troops into the disputed town of Khanaqeen, claiming that it was a routine redeployment.
Baghdad's military spokesman Col. Dhia al-Wakeel said that Kurdish regional forces known as the peshmerga, backed by rocket launchers and artillery, reinforced troops already in Khaniqeen and the nearby oil center of Kirkuk on Thursday, "despite efforts to produce calm."
Al-Wakeel said some were in civilian clothes. He would not elaborate further.
Jabar Yawer, a spokesman for the peshmerga, said their troops had not advanced. "It is exactly the opposite," he said, accusing Iraqi commanders of sending artillery-backed forces to seven different disputed areas bordering the Kurdish region over the past few days.
"Maliki just wants to create problems and war," Yawer said. He said tensions could only be diffused with an international force patrolling the disputed area, as U.S. forces once did.
Tensions in the region escalated on Friday, when a gun battle between Iraqi police and Kurdish guards in the disputed northern city of Toz Khormatu left a civilian dead and four policemen wounded.
One-third of Iraq's considerable oil wealth is in the Kurdish region, which holds up to 45 billion barrels in reserves.
Kurdish officials have unilaterally signed scores of oil deals with mostly mid-sized oil companies offering terms more generous than Baghdad's, prompting the central government to blacklist those companies.
Kurdish officials have also allowed oil companies to operate in disputed areas, although their ownership has not been settled.
Iraq's central government fears those areas could slip from its control, which is partly why it has reinforced its troops in the area.
Political efforts to try resolve the tensions continued Thursday as Iraq's parliament speaker Osama al-Nujeifi went to the Kurdish city of Erbil to meet with leaders there, an aide said.
Any deterioration into actual fighting in the broad swath of northern Iraq could spread into Turkey, which has a large Kurdish minority. On Wednesday, the Turkish prime minister said his government feared the Iraqi central government was dragging the country toward internal conflict.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/baghdad-kurds-trade-accusations-troop-buildup-162643424.html
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If utilized correctly, inbound marketing can be an extremely effective way to market your small business website. By creating a distributing content around the Internet, you can raise awareness of your website and your business. Creating high quality content for blogs, social media accounts, podcasts and newsletters are all great inbound marketing strategies you can use for your small business website.
One great tip to keep in mind when looking to use inbound marketing for your small business website is to have your consumers create your content for you. With social media readily prevalent these days, personal reviews are a very powerful marketing tool. If you can get your customers to speak about the positive experiences they have had dealing with your business, there is a better chance that other consumers will purchase your products or services after reading those comments.
Social media websites make it extremely easy for consumers to share their experiences with their social circles. Encouraging your customers to share their experiences via different social media websites is one of the best ways you can use your current customers to generate more business for your company.
Before you start any type of inbound marketing campaign, it is important to sit down and think about who your ideal customer is. Once you have a good idea as to who is your target consumer, you can then find out which websites they hang out at while online. This will help you create content that will speak directly to your target customer as well as save you time by not posting inbound marketing content on websites where your target customer will never see it.
When you are able to create and distribute high quality content only on websites frequented by your ideal customer, you will see a much better response to your inbound marketing efforts.
One of the keys to running a successful inbound marketing campaign is to respond to any feedback that you receive. Once you start posting content all over the Internet, it is inevitable that you will see some type of response from the consumers viewing your content. When you start to see these responses being posted, you will want to respond immediately to them so consumers will take notice of your excellent customer support.
Even if the responses are negative, you still want to respond as quickly as possible. Providing a quick response can help you alleviate any negative feelings a consumer may have with your business, even if you are unable to fully correct their issue. Responding directly to a consumer?s feedback can leave a long lasting impression with that person, which can lead to further business down the road.
While it may be tempting to create your own customer reviews and use them in your marketing material, this is a bad idea for a variety of reasons. Aside from it being illegal, it is also highly unethical. If you are caught creating fake customer reviews for your business, the negative attention your business will receive will far outweigh any minor gains you received because of the positive?feedback. To avoid having to deal with this type of PR nightmare, it is best if you avoid creating?your own customer comments and stick to using genuine consumer comments.
In order to draw attention to your small business website, you will need to undergo an inbound marketing campaign. Having your customers create your marketing content for you is one of the best tips you can use when running an inbound marketing campaign. Once you have the content that speaks highly of your business, you will want to post it on websites where your ideal customer
frequently visits in order to see the best response. Using this inbound marketing strategy will help you raise awareness of your small business website while helping you secure loyal customers.
Ben is Internet Marketing Strategist for more than half of a decade. In this article Ben shared with us some of his great inbound marketing tips for small business websites, which he implemented in online marketing strategy for Vandko Candles, one of his NYC clients.
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With several ways of doing this ?tracking?, one of the things that I would like you to heed is the following warning, ?If you are searching for foreclosures and bank owned inventory ? make sure you are using a local Real Estate agent?s website and resources??
This could mean the difference between you keeping a cellular number and email address you love or having to change them for another. ?Why? ?Because when you are searching for things like homes, foreclosures, bank owned and auctions, the real estate?syndication?websites know those are ?big trigger? items and people are searching for them hand over fist with millions of inquires a week.
Because they have been built with the ?monetizing of your personal?information? in mind, they work very hard at getting you to give it up. ?While that does not seem like a big deal for some, ask around within your sphere if anyone has ever given away their personal?information?on -line, even innocently, to find out their doing so caused them to be teleported into a SPAM abyss.
It could have been when you were looking for ?cheap homes? or ?best moving companies?. ?Look at the address on the page, is it local? What about the real estate the page is displaying? ?Is if within where you want to buy. ?And I?m not talking about if they have a map of the whole United States ? it should be a bit more localized than that
One of the things we love, as Local Santa Clarita real estate agents, is for people to subscribe to become part of our conversation. This is easy and will give you the BEST Santa Clarita housing news has to offer. ?It comes twice a month, no more, no less. ?It?s free and it?s put together by REMAX of Santa Clarita?s Paris911 Team. ?Click here to subscribe to SCV Realtor News and thanks ahead of time for doing so!
Your New Foreclosures alert, All Santa Clarita Cities ? NOD filings ? Updated, found a match.
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Stage Radar ID Street City Zip State Type Sq Ft Beds Baths Sale Date Est. Value Est. Bid
Preforeclosure 513318490 26825 SASSAFRAS CT CANYON COUNTRY 91387 CA SFR 3456 5 4.00 03/15/2013 $482,431.00 $464,013.00
Preforeclosure 23961752 15551 CALLE CABANAS SAUGUS 91390 CA SFR 1296 3 2.00 03/14/2013 $147,763.00 $336,935.00
Preforeclosure 1051370b 18657 VICCI ST CANYON COUNTRY 91351 CA SFR 1595 4 3.00 03/15/2013 $286,417.00 $319,078.00
Your New Foreclosures alert, Paris911?s Sold to Third Alert for Santa Clarita Valley CA, found a match.
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Stage Radar ID Street City Zip State Type Sq Ft Beds Baths Sale Date Est. Value Est. Bid
Sold to 3rd 50881 24771 SAGECREST CIR SANTA CLARITA 91381 CA SFR 2312 4 3.00 11/21/2012 $484,412.00 $410,500.00
Sold to 3rd 714079b 11714 ADOBE WAY SAUGUS 91390 CA SFR 1457 3 2.00 11/21/2012 $327,761.00 $243,100.01
Your New Foreclosures alert, Paris911?s Santa Clarita Bank Owned Real Estate Alert, found a match.
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Bank Owned 23814660 25307 VIA ARTINA VALENCIA 91355 CA SFR 1429 3 2.00 11/21/2012 $312,547.00 $550,614.33
Your New Foreclosures alert, Paris911?s Auction Alert for Santa Clarita Valley, found a match.
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Auction 517157261 25665 FROST LN STEVENSON RANCH 91381 CA SFR 2289 4 3.00 12/17/2012 $479,431.00 $564,214.00
Auction 517006282 25765 HOGAN DR G1 VALENCIA 91355 CA CND 1296 3 2.00 12/05/2012 $219,113.00 $334,635.00
Auction 507648424 31904 TIMBER PL CASTAIC 91384 CA SFR 2470 6 3.00 12/05/2012 $339,939.00 $566,427.00
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If you are a chef, Thanksgiving holds a special place in your heart. To get you in the mood for some turkey, read this article about Thanksgiving called A Thanksgiving Love Story. It is a great story.
I hope you all have a joyous Thanksgiving holiday and try not to eat too much!! :)
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ScienceDaily (Nov. 21, 2012) ? Studying the genetic variability of endangered species is becoming increasingly necessary for species conservation and monitoring. But, endangered species are difficult to observe and sample, and typically harbour very limited genetic diversity. Until now, the process of finding genetic markers was time consuming and quite expensive. These obstacles make the collection of genetic data from endangered animals a difficult task to fulfill. A research team led by Loun?s Chikhi, group leader at the Instituto Gulbenkian de Ci?ncia (IGC) and CNRS researcher (in Toulouse, France), has now contributed to change the odds when looking for diversity.
Taking advantage of cutting edge DNA sequencing methodology and the collaborations with the Sabah Wildlife Department in Malaysia, Rachel O'Neill's laboratory? (University of Connecticut) and a private company (Floragenex), they were able to identify the genetic markers for the Bornean elephant, an endangered species, using blood from very few animals. The results showed that Bornean elephants have very low genetic variability that can impact on their survival to a threatened habitat, but that variable genetic markers can still be identified.
The study now published in the journal PLOS ONE, besides contributing to the conservation of the Bornean elephant, opens new avenues for the conservation of other endangered species.
The Bornean elephant is a unique subspecies of the Asian elephant, with a quite distinct morphology and behavior. They are generally smaller than other elephants, with straight tusks and a long tail. Currently, there are around 2000 individuals, located only in the North of Borneo. It remains unknown how this population of elephants evolved to become so different and why its distribution is so restricted.
Despite being one of the highest priority populations for Asian elephant conservation, until now there were limited genetic tools available to study its genetic variability and none that had been specifically designed for this species. Now, in the work conducted by Reeta Sharma, a Post-Doctoral fellow in Loun?s Chikhi's group, for the first time DNA sequences that characterize the genome of the Bornean elephants, called genetic markers, were identified. The research team used two different DNA sequencing technologies that are fast and increasingly cheaper. This kind of technology has been used for common laboratory species such as mice and fruit-flies, but they are only now starting to be used on endangered and "non-model" species.
Until now, in order to determine whether the species still harboured sufficient genetic diversity it was necessary to look through huge regions of the genome, using classical genetics methodologies, or use markers developed for other species, with varying levels of success. This approach can become unsustainable for the endangered species, whose numbers have gone bellow a certain size for long time. The only study that previously had tried to analyse Bornean elephants, using genetic markers developed for other Asian elephants had found nearly no genetic diversity. The work now developed demonstrates that if the methodology can be applied to the Bornean elephant, it should be possible to find the needles we need, and not get stuck with the hay, i.e., to find variable genetic markers in many other species.
The DNA analysis done resulted from blood samples collected only from seven Bornean elephants from the Lok Kawi Wildlife Park (Sabah, Malaysia) and from Chendra, the star elephant of Oregon zoo (Portland, USA). But, the research team is confident that these DNA sequencing methods can be used to type genetically other biological samples, such as hair or faeces, easier to obtain from wild animals, even though blood or tissue samples are still necessary to identify the markers during the first steps.
Reeta Sharma, first author of this work, says: 'The methodology applied to identify the genetic markers for the Bornean elephant can be used in the future for studies on the genetic variability of other species or populations facing the risk of extinction.'
The Bornean elephants live in an environment where natural habitats disappear quickly, due to oil palm plantations and populations get isolated from each other. Having access to variable genetic markers will be crucial to identify populations that are isolated and genetically depauperate, and monitor them in the future.
The origin of these elephants in Borneo raises controversy that has been long discussed. The only study done on the basis of genetic data concluded that they had been present in Borneo for more than 300,000 years. This theory does not satisfy all researchers as there is lack of elephant fossils in Borneo to support it. Another theory is that the sultan of Java sent Javan elephants as a gift to the sultan of Sulu, who would have introduced them to Borneo.Lounes Chikhi suggests: 'The new genetic markers that we found may also allow us to unravel the mystery of the origin of these elephants in Borneo, and perhaps reconstruct part of their demographic history. This is very exciting '.
This research was carried out at the IGC in collaboration with the Laboratoire Evolution et Diversit? Biologique in Toulouse, and with the School of Biosciences, Cardiff University (UK), the Sabah Wildlife Department (Malaysia), the Danau Girang Field Centre (Malaysia), the Center for Applied Genetics and Technology, University of Connecticut (USA) and Floragenex, Inc. (USA). Research was funded mainly by Funda??o para a Ci?ncia e a Tecnologia (FCT), Portugal, and Laboratoire d'Excellence (LABEX), France.
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SEATTLE (AP) ? Residents in Washington and Oregon braced for more wet weather after a fierce storm swamped streets, toppled trees and large trucks, cut power to nearly 50,000 residents, and caused at least one death.
Though the main threat is over, the rain will continue but shouldn't disrupt Thanksgiving holiday travel plans, since all major roads and passes in the Northwest are open.
Flood warnings were issued for a handful of western Washington rivers, with moderate flooding expected Tuesday along the Chehalis River in the Centralia area. Residents there were told where to find sandbags and were directed to move any endangered livestock to higher ground.
Nearly 2 inches of rain fell in six hours Monday in one Seattle neighborhood ? a total that Seattle Public Utilities meteorologist James Rufo-Hill called "extraordinary."
"It was a pretty big storm for most of the city ? lots of rain in a relatively short amount of time," he said, but several neighborhoods "really got drenched."
The rain caused widespread reports of flooded roads and highways, some mudslides and residential flooding, and even sewage overflows in parts of Seattle and Everett. Several blocks of downtown streets were briefly flooded in Port Orchard, west of Seattle.
Puget Sound Energy reported 24,000 electricity outages at mid-afternoon in its western Washington service area, with most service restored by Monday evening.
In Oregon, the storm knocked out electricity to as many as 24,000 Pacific Power customers. Several thousand remained in the dark Monday night, mainly in Clatsop, Lincoln and Coos counties.
BNSF Railways imposed a 48-hour moratorium on passenger and commuter trains travel between Everett and Seattle, starting around noon Monday, after at least 10 mudslides affected the tracks, spokesman Gus Melonas said.
Wet weather was expected to continue through the week, but National Weather Service meteorologist Jay Neher in Seattle said Monday night that the "heavy rain is over."
"We're into showers now," Neher said.
On Oregon's northwest coast, a hunter was killed Monday morning when a tree crashed on his tent near Nehalem. Two hunters in an adjacent camp heard the tree snap as gusts reached more than 70 mph and saw it lying across the tent. They cut it away in an attempt to rescue the man, to no avail.
Tillamook County Sheriff Andy Long identified the hunter as Nathan Christensen, 52, of Seattle.
A Portland police officer was seriously injured during all-terrain vehicle training when a tree fell. Sgt. Pete Simpson said the accident on Hayden Island in the Columbia River appeared to be weather-related.
Also in Oregon, a woman who identified herself as Susan Seale and said she was homeless called 911 Monday afternoon to report that her Clackamas campsite southeast of Portland was surrounded by rising water.
Rescuers used a small boat to rescue Seale and her dog, Clackamas County sheriff's Sgt. Adam Phillips said.
In southwest Washington, a Washington State Patrol car and another vehicle were struck by a tree carried by a mudslide on U.S. Highway 101 near Naselle.
The patrol car started burning, and the trooper had to break a window to crawl to safety. The trooper was unhurt, and the female driver of the other vehicle was OK except for neck pain. Both vehicles were destroyed by the fire.
Four Seaside, Ore., firefighters narrowly avoided injury when a tree fell on their fire truck. Fire Chief Joey Daniels said the four had gone to U.S. Highway 26 to help clear a tree. When they got back into the truck, they saw another one starting to fall.
"They all opened their doors and jumped out," Daniels said.
Strong winds overturned large commercial trucks on two highways Monday. One tractor-trailer tipped over while crossing the Astoria-Megler Bridge that carries U.S. 101 across the Columbia River. That caused a lengthy traffic headache.
Another semi was blown onto its side in the middle of the Chehalis River Bridge in Aberdeen, on the Washington coast, Aberdeen police said.
In Washington, peak storm gusts reached 101 mph on the Megler bridge linking Oregon and Washington and 61 mph at Hoquiam on the Washington coast. They hit 114 mph on isolated Naselle Ridge in the mountains of southwest Washington, the Weather Service reported.
On the Oregon coast, strong gusts included 98 mph at Yaquina Head, 85 mph at Lincoln City and 80 mph at Newport, the Weather Service said. In Newport, the wind peeled back the roof of a restaurant.
The Weather Service reported 24-hour Washington rainfall totals as of Monday evening that included 4.09 inches in Bremerton, west of Seattle; 2.97 inches at Hoquiam on the Washington coast; and 6 inches at Cushman Dam on the Olympic Peninsula.
In Oregon, Lincoln City saw 3.55 inches of rain in 24 hours while 2.13 inches fell at the Portland airport and 2.08 inches in Salem. The Portland suburb of Hillsboro reported 3.42 inches, the Weather Service said.
Grand Ronde in the Oregon Coast range reported 6.10 inches.
In Portland, Weather Service meteorologist Kirsten Elson said powerful Northwest storms are not uncommon even as early as November. The storms, however, generally include either heavy winds or drenching rains, not both.
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Associated Press writer Steven DuBois in Portland, Ore., contributed to this report.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/wind-rain-pummel-pacific-northwest-cause-1-death-143944842.html
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