Japanese airlines ground Boeing 787s

TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan's two leading airlines grounded their fleets of Boeing 787s on Wednesday after one of the Dreamliner passenger jets made an emergency landing, heightening safety concerns over a plane many see as the future of commercial aviation.

All Nippon Airways Co said it was grounding all 17 of its 787s and Japan Airlines Co said it was suspending all flights scheduled for departure on Wednesday. The two carriers operate around half of the 50 Dreamliners delivered by Boeing to date.

"I think you're nearing the tipping point where they need to regard this as a serious crisis," said Richard Aboulafia, a senior analyst with the Teal Group in Fairfax, Virginia. "This is going to change people's perception of the aircraft if they don't act quickly."

ANA said instruments on domestic flight 692 to Haneda Airport near Tokyo from Yamaguchi in western Japan indicated a battery error, triggering emergency warnings to the pilots. The carrier said the battery was the same type as one that caused a fire on another Dreamliner at a U.S. airport last week.

All 129 passengers and eight crew were evacuated safely via the plane's inflatable chutes. At a news conference, ANA said a smell was detected in the cockpit and the cabin, and pilots received emergency warning of smoke in the forward electronic compartment.

The incident follows a series of mishaps for the new Dreamliner. The sophisticated plane, the world's first mainly carbon-composite airliner, has suffered fuel leaks, a battery fire, wiring problem, brake computer glitch and cracked cockpit window in recent days alone.

SMOKE ON BOARD

Flight 692 left Yamaguchi Airport shortly after 8 a.m. local time (6:00 p.m. EST Tuesday), but made an emergency landing in Takamatsu at 8:45 a.m. after smoke appeared in the cockpit, an Osaka airport authority spokesman said.

Records of the flight show the plane left 10 minutes after its scheduled departure time for a 65-minute flight, according to flight-tracking website Flightaware.com. About 18 minutes later, at 30,000 feet, it began a descent. It descended to 20,000 feet in about four minutes and landed about 16 minutes later.

Japan's Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said five people were slightly injured during the evacuation.

Boeing spokesman Marc Birtel told Reuters: "We've seen the reports, we're aware of the events and are working with our customer."

The Teal Group's Aboulafi said regulators could ground all 50 of the 787 planes now in service, while airlines may make the decision themselves. "They may want to protect their own brand images," he said.

Australia's Qantas Airways said its order for 15 Dreamliners remained on track, and its Jetstar subsidiary was due to take delivery of the first of the aircraft in the second half of this year. Qantas declined to comment further on the issues that have plagued the new light, fuel-efficient aircraft.

Last August, Qantas cancelled orders for 35 787-9 aircraft to cut costs after posting a full-year net loss for the first time in 17 years. It still has options and purchase rights for 50 of the planes from 2016. The Jetstar order is for 787-8s, the smaller variant of the wide-body, twin-engine jet.

India's aviation regulator said it was reviewing the Dreamliner's safety. State-owned Air India has six of the aircraft in service and more on order.

Shares of Dreamliner suppliers in Japan came under pressure on Wednesday, with Fuji Heavy Industries, GS Yuasa Corp -- which makes the plane's batteries -- Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, IHI and Toray Industries Inc down between 1.6 percent and 4.2 percent, while the benchmark Nikkei dropped 1.5 percent. ANA shares slipped 0.5 percent.

Japan's transport minister on Tuesday acknowledged that passenger confidence in the Dreamliner was at stake, as both Japan and the United States have opened broad and open-ended investigations into the plane after the recent incidents.

Japanese authorities said on Monday they would investigate fuel leaks on a JAL-operated 787, and the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) said later its agents would analyze the lithium-ion battery and burned wire bundles from a fire aboard another JAL 787 at Boston's Logan Airport last week.

The NTSB said via Twitter late on Tuesday that it was gathering information on the ANA flight's emergency landing.

(Additional reporting by Tim Kelly, Olivier Fabre, Kentaro Sugiyama and Alwyn Scott; Writing by Ian Geoghegan; Editing by Paul Tait and Alex Richardson)

Read More..

Evanston couple dealt setback in adoption of South Korean baby

A federal judge today terminated an order that gave possession of 7-month-old Sehwa to Christopher and Jinshil Duquet. The Office of Refugee Resettlement now has control over Sehwa while her immigration status is determined.

An Evanston couple fighting to adopt a South Korean baby whom they've raised since shortly after her birth was dealt a setback Monday when a federal judge returned authority over the child to U.S. officials, a step toward the child's possible deportation.

U.S. District Judge Milton Shadur made it clear that he trusted that officials would make decisions in the baby's best interest, scolding federal immigration lawyers for "a level of insensitivity and sometimes even callousness" in the past.

Shadur said it is up to the Office of Refugee Resettlement to decide whether 7-month-old Sehwa Kim should remain with Jinshil and Christopher Duquet, of Evanston, while immigration officials decide whether she should be deported, and if so, when.

But it remained unclear what next steps would be taken in considering the child's temporary and permanent placement.

A spokeswoman for the Office of Refugee Resettlement said that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security — not the ORR — will decide whether Sehwa will remain at least temporarily with the Duquets.

"ORR plays no role in the adjudication of this particular custody case," a department spokeswoman said. "We have nothing to do with immigration."

Homeland Security officials could not be reached.

South Korea has been fighting for the child's return, accusing the Duquets of circumventing their adoption procedures.

The Duquets, who say they were misled by a South Korean lawyer and thought they were participating in a legal private adoption, declined comment.

Customs officials at O'Hare International Airport flagged the child's entry into the United States in June when Jinshil Duquet brought her from South Korea. The officials said Sehwa lacked the proper visa for a prospective adoption.

"The child has a right to her Korean heritage," said Donald Schiller, a Chicago attorney who represents South Korea. "(Sehwa) will overcome it. She'll have a wonderful, loving family."

The couple appeared in Cook County Circuit Court before the federal hearing Monday after filing an application to adopt Sehwa. The judge assigned a legal guardian to represent the child, but it's unclear if that process can proceed, given the federal government's involvement.

"It's a very sad, a very tragic day for the Duquets, for justice and for concepts of fairness," said Jonathan Minkus, a lawyer representing the family.

The child's birth mother lives in a shelter for unwed mothers and does not want the baby back.

The Duquets maintain that the baby is being used as a political pawn in South Korea, which has tightened laws regarding international adoptions while encouraging its own citizens to adopt. Despite policy changes, there remains a cultural stigma against adoption, leaving many children in orphanages, experts say.

lblack@tribune.com

Twitter: @TribLocal

Read More..

TSX off 10-month high, energy weakness offsets RIM jump

TORONTO (Reuters) – Canada‘s main stock index finished short of a 10-month high on Monday as investor optimism for Research In Motion Ltd shares over the upcoming launch of its BlackBerry 10 devices was offset by falling energy shares.

Weakness in the materials sector, which includes mining stocks, also added pressure, while volatile oil prices were a drag on the energy sector. The two heavyweight sectors kept an otherwise positive index in check.

RIM shares extended a 13-percent gain made on Friday. The stock added 10.44 percent to C$ 14.70 and helped the information technology sector gain 2.48 percent.

“The investor confidence is brought about simply because of hope, and hope that the new BlackBerry 10 is going to be an answer to their prayers,” said Fred Ketchen, director of equity trading at ScotiaMcLeod.

“There has been some talk that this is a revival of RIM. We’ll have to wait and see,” he added.

The Toronto Stock Exchange‘s S&P/TSX composite index <.gsptse> finished little changed, up a 0.91 of a point, or 0.01 percent, at 12,603.09. Earlier, it touched 12,636.68, its highest since March 5, 2012.</.gsptse>

The index, which marked its fifth consecutive day of gains, swung back and forth between positive and negative territories in choppy trade.

“There’s a lot of indecisiveness out there. People don’t really know which way to go and you’re getting these markets that aren’t really doing much of anything,” said Julie Brough, vice president at Morgan Meighen & Associates.

Investors kept a close watch on the U.S. debt ceiling talks, seen as a significant catalyst for the markets, with hopes that a compromise will be reached. “There is reasonable optimism that it would be resolved,” Brough said.

The energy sector was down 0.5 percent, with Canadian Natural Resources Ltd slipping 1.81 percent to C$ 29.26 and Talisman Energy Inc falling 2.64 percent to C$ 11.78. Oil prices were volatile, with Brent crude rising to $ 112 on supply concerns.

Encana Corp shares dropped 2.31 percent to C$ 19.05 after the surprise resignation of the chief executive officer of Canada’s largest natural gas producer.

The three energy companies were the three biggest drags on the index.

Materials stocks, home to mining firms, was down 0.3 percent amid a slew of deals within the sector.

Miner Alamos Gold Inc said it will buy Aurizon Mines Ltd for about C$ 780 million ($ 793 million) in cash and stock to get access to Aurizon’s only operating gold mine, Casa Berardi, in northern Quebec. Aurizon shares jumped 34 percent to C$ 4.57, while Alamos Gold fell 11.94 percent to C$ 14.90.

Russia’s state uranium firm agreed to pay $ 1.3 billion to take Canada’s Uranium One Inc private, as the successor to the Soviet Union’s nuclear industry seeks to strengthen its grip on supplies. Uranium One’s stock rose 14.52 percent to C$ 2.76.

In other company news, shares of Harry Winston Diamond Corp rose 4.41 percent to C$ 14.90 on the company’s plans to sell its high-end watches-to-necklaces division to Swatch Group in a $ 750 million cash deal that expands the Swiss watchmaker’s luxury offering and lets the Canadian group concentrate on its diamond mines.

(Additional reporting by Solarina Ho; Editing by James Dalgleish and Nick Zieminski)

Gadgets News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Title Post: TSX off 10-month high, energy weakness offsets RIM jump
Url Post: http://www.news.fluser.com/tsx-off-10-month-high-energy-weakness-offsets-rim-jump/
Link To Post : TSX off 10-month high, energy weakness offsets RIM jump
Rating:
100%

based on 99998 ratings.
5 user reviews.
Author: Fluser SeoLink
Thanks for visiting the blog, If any criticism and suggestions please leave a comment

Read More..

Jodie Foster Kicks Open the Closet Door – What It Means for Gays in Hollywood

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – Jodie Foster spoke frankly about her life as a lesbian Sunday night in a Golden Globes speech that thrust her into the center of the gay rights debate whether she likes it or not.

By deciding to address the subject of her sexuality in a spectacularly public setting, while also articulating a defense of personal privacy, she upended the casual way that other gay movie and music stars have been revealing their orientation in recent years.

They chose to nudge the closet door ajar by dropping the “g” word in interviews – like “The Big Bang Theory” star Jim Parsons – or by tweeting pictures of their significant others lounging on a couch, as “Kyle XY” actor Matt Dallas did last week.

But Foster made coming out a big deal again, shattering her glass closet, while never actually saying the words, “I’m gay.”

“When she decided to address her sexuality last night, however indirectly she did it, she was talking about gay rights at a critical moment,” Dustin Lance Black, the openly gay screenwriter behind “Milk,” said. “There is a case in that will be in front of the Supreme Court soon that will decide if gay and lesbian people will be allowed to marry. By coming out she sends a message to the country that we are everyone and everywhere. We’re your friends, your neighbors and we’re the people who have been entertaining you for the last 47 years.”

The speech itself was fascinating, because it was raw, but also grudging. Some gay activists have long agitated for Foster to speak frankly about being a lesbian and at various points, her speech seemed to be a challenge to any group who would seek to exploit her celebrity for its own ends. My life belongs to me, she seemed to be saying.

“I hope you’re not disappointed that there won’t be a big coming-out speech tonight because I already did my coming out about a thousand years ago back in the Stone Age, in those very quaint days when a fragile young girl would open up to trusted friends and family and co-workers and then gradually, proudly to everyone who knew her, to everyone she actually met,” Foster said, as her two sons, Charles, 14, and Kit, 12, looked on from the audience. “But now I’m told, apparently that every celebrity is expected to honor the details of their private life with a press conference, a fragrance and a prime-time reality show.”

Foster turned 50 last November and her discomfort with addressing her orientation may have been entangled in a different era in which being openly gay was a barrier that prevented actors and actresses from getting A-list roles. Over the past half century, acceptance of gays and lesbians has accelerated dramatically.

In a Pew survey conducted last October, 49 percent of respondents favored gay marriage, up from 39 percent four years earlier.

This greater tolerance has left stars like Foster and to a lesser extent people like CNN anchor Anderson Cooper, who acknowledged that he was gay last summer after years of internet speculation, in an awkward position.

“It catches people like Jodie Foster in a bind,” said Larry Gross, the author of “Contested Closets: The Politics and Ethics of Outing” who is also vice dean at USC’s Annenberg School of Communication and Journalism. “What happens to them is at a certain point the culture moved past them and they find themselves standing out there in a semi-opaque glass closet. Everybody in the world knew that she was gay and it was becoming an embarrassment.”

Foster tried to explain her hesitancy while accepting the Cecil B. DeMille career achievement award Sunday by saying that it was related to issues of personal privacy. She noted that she has been in the spotlight for half a century, but also implied that she was uncomfortable with the tabloid coverage of celebrities and their obsession to open their private lives to scrutiny in everything from prime time interviews to personal Twitter streams.

“If you had been a public figure from the time that you were a toddler, if you’d had to fight for a life that felt real and honest and normal against all odds, then maybe you too might value privacy above all else,” she said. “Privacy. Some day, in the future, people will look back and remember how beautiful it once was.”

For the most part, the reaction among prominent members of the gay community has been positive, but there are some who insinuate that the relative safety in which Foster chose to address the issue had been fought and paid for by earlier generations of gay performers who opened up about their homosexuality at a time when their professional lives could have been snuffed out.

Wilson Cruz, the openly gay star of the 1990s drama “My So Called Life” and now a strategic giving officer at the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, said he was heartened by Foster’s remarks, but also conscious of her place in the history of the gay rights movement.

“I applaud anybody who opens up like that in a way that will effect million of people’s lives for the better,” he said. “One thing I did take umbrage with for personal reasons, is that I like to remember people who came out before it was safe. People like Harvey Fierstein, Ian McKellen and John Gielgud who risked their careers and their lives to do so.”

To that end, activists and public relations experts say that they do not anticipate Foster will be riding the main float at Gay Pride festivals anytime soon. Instead, they expect that after Sunday’s air-clearing, the actress will remain fiercely protective of her privacy – something she had done since John W. Hinckley Jr. said that he had tried to assassinate former President Ronald Reagan to impress her while she was still a college student.

“I don’t expect her to be the cover girl for gay and lesbian causes,” Howard Bragman, vice chairman of Reputation.com, and a publicist who has helped over a dozen actors with their coming out announcements, said. “She may show up to a few events, but I don’t think she will be that involved, and that’s fine.”

Bragman said that on the scale of coming out announcements, Foster’s ranked as a “duh.” Though she had never been explicit about her orientation, she hadn’t pretended to be a heterosexual. In fact, she had thanked her former partner Cydney Bernard as far back as 2007 at the Women in Entertainment Breakfast.

An industry awards gathering, though, is not the same thing as coming out on national television to an audience of 14.8 million viewers. Reaction to Foster’s statements erupted almost immediately on Twitter and on other social media sites, with some griping about her decision to couple her speech about her “modern family” with a plea for privacy.

To Bil Browning, a gay activist and the editor-in-chief of The Bilerico Project, that misses the point. Given Foster’s iconic roles in films like “The Silence of the Lambs,” not to mention her long-standing refusal to address the gay rumors, she had no choice but to command a global platform when the time came for her big reveal.

“Jodie Foster is somebody the gay community has always wanted to be an icon and she came out in a big way and now some people still aren’t satisfied,” Browning said. “Would they have been satisfied if she had just posted a picture of her girlfriend on Instagram? Given her status, I don’t think she would ever have been allowed to just come out casually.”

Gay activists and chroniclers of the movement say that the “coming out” process that has so bedeviled public figures like Foster may soon be an anachronism. As younger actors step into the spotlight, they will do so having grown up in a society that allows gays to serve openly in the military and is weighing the legality of permitting them to marry. The novelty of simply saying, “I’m gay,” could soon seem quaint.

“We’re on the verge of crossing or erasing what was an uncrossable line,” Gross said. “There’s a younger generation of actors, who have been out all their lives and can’t imagine the enforced rigmarole of going on fake dates and ducking questions about their sexuality, who are coming on the stage. Like the Berlin Wall, the barrier is crumbling in front of our eyes.”

Or as Foster herself said in her Golden Globes speech last night, “Change, you gotta love it.”

Movies News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Read More..

Personal Best: Training Insights From Star Athletes

Of course elite athletes are naturally gifted. And of course they train hard and may have a phalanx of support staff — coaches, nutritionists, psychologists.

But they often have something else that gives them an edge: an insight, or even an epiphany, that vaults them from the middle of the pack to the podium.

I asked several star athletes about the single realization that made the difference for them. While every athlete’s tale is intensely personal, it turns out there are some common themes.

Stay Focused

Like many distance swimmers who spend endless hours in the pool, Natalie Coughlin, 30, used to daydream as she swam laps. She’d been a competitive swimmer for almost her entire life, and this was the way she — and many others — managed the boredom of practice.

But when she was in college, she realized that daydreaming was only a way to get in the miles; it was not allowing her to reach her potential. So she started to concentrate every moment of practice on what she was doing, staying focused and thinking about her technique.

“That’s when I really started improving,” she said. “The more I did it, the more success I had.”

In addition to her many victories, Ms. Coughlin won five medals in the 2008 Beijing Olympics, including a gold medal in the 100-meter backstroke.

Manage Your ‘Energy Pie’

In 1988, Steve Spence, then a 25-year-old self-coached distance runner, was admitted into the United States Long Distance Runner Olympic Development Program. It meant visiting David Martin, a physiologist at Georgia State University, several times a year for a battery of tests to measure Mr. Spence’s progress and to assess his diet.

During dinner at Dr. Martin’s favorite Chinese restaurant, he gave Mr. Spence some advice.

“There are always going to be runners who are faster than you,” he said. “There will always be runners more talented than you and runners who seem to be training harder than you. The key to beating them is to train harder and to learn how to most efficiently manage your energy pie.”

Energy pie? All the things that take time and energy — a job, hobbies, family, friends, and of course athletic training. “There is only so much room in the pie,” said Mr. Spence.

Dr. Martin’s advice was “a lecture on limiting distractions,” he added. “If I wanted to get to the next level, to be competitive on the world scene, I had to make running a priority.” So he quit graduate school and made running his profession. “I realized this is what I am doing for my job.”

It paid off. He came in third in the 1991 marathon world championships in Tokyo. He made the 1992 Olympic marathon team, coming in 12th in the race. Now he is head cross-country coach and assistant track coach at Shippensburg University in Pennsylvania. And he tells his teams to manage their energy pies.

Structure Your Training

Meredith Kessler was a natural athlete. In high school, she played field hockey and lacrosse. She was on the track team and the swimming team. She went to Syracuse University on a field hockey scholarship.

Then she began racing in Ironman triathlons, which require athletes to swim 2.4 miles, cycle 112 miles and then run a marathon (26.2 miles). Ms. Kessler loved it, but she was not winning any races. The former sports star was now in the middle of the pack.

But she also was working 60 hours a week at a San Francisco investment bank and trying to spend time with her husband and friends. Finally, six years ago, she asked Matt Dixon, a coach, if he could make her a better triathlete.

One thing that turned out to be crucial was to understand the principles of training. When she was coaching herself, Ms. Kessler did whatever she felt like, with no particular plan in mind. Mr. Dixon taught her that every workout has a purpose. One might focus on endurance, another on speed. And others, just as important, are for recovery.

“I had not won an Ironman until he put me on that structure,” said Ms. Kessler, 34. “That’s when I started winning.”

Another crucial change was to quit her job so she could devote herself to training. It took several years — she left banking only in April 2011 — but it made a huge difference. Now a professional athlete, with sponsors, she has won four Ironman championships and three 70.3 kilometer championships.

Ms. Kessler’s parents were mystified when she quit her job. She reminded them that they had always told her that it did not matter if she won. What mattered was that she did her best. She left the bank, she said, “to do my best.”

Take Risks

Helen Goodroad began competing as a figure skater when she was in fourth grade. Her dream was to be in the Olympics. She was athletic and graceful, but she did not really look like a figure skater. Ms. Goodroad grew to be 5 feet 11 inches.

“I was probably twice the size of any competitor,” she said. “I had to have custom-made skates starting when I was 10 years old.”

One day, when Helen was 17, a coach asked her to try a workout on an ergometer, a rowing machine. She was a natural — her power was phenomenal.

“He told me, ‘You could get a rowing scholarship to any school. You could go to the Olympics,’ ” said Ms. Goodroad. But that would mean giving up her dream, abandoning the sport she had devoted her life to and plunging into the unknown.

She decided to take the chance.

It was hard and she was terrified, but she got a rowing scholarship to Brown. In 1993, Ms. Goodroad was invited to train with the junior national team. Three years later, she made the under-23 national team, which won a world championship. (She rowed under her maiden name, Betancourt.)

It is so easy to stay in your comfort zone, Ms. Goodroad said. “But then you can get stale. You don’t go anywhere.” Leaving skating, leaving what she knew and loved, “helped me see that, ‘Wow, I could do a whole lot more than I ever thought I could.’ ”

Until this academic year, when she had a baby, Ms. Goodroad, who is 37, was a rowing coach at Princeton. She still runs to stay fit and plans to return to coaching.

The Other Guy Is Hurting Too

In 2006, when Brian Sell was racing in the United States Half Marathon Championships in Houston, he had a realization.

“I was neck-and-neck with two or three other guys with two miles to go,” he said. He started to doubt himself. What was he doing, struggling to keep up with men whose race times were better than his?

Suddenly, it came to him: Those other guys must be hurting as much as he was, or else they would not be staying with him — they would be pulling away.

“I made up my mind then to hang on, no matter what happened or how I was feeling,” said Mr. Sell. “Sure enough, in about half a mile, one guy dropped out and then another. I went on to win by 15 seconds or so, and every race since then, if a withering surge was thrown in, I made every effort to hang on to the guy surging.”

Mr. Sell made the 2008 Olympic marathon team and competed in the Beijing Olympics, where he came in 22nd. Now 33 years old, he is working as a scientist at Lancaster Laboratories in Pennsylvania.

---

This post has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: January 15, 2013

An earlier version of this post misstated the year in which Steve Spence competed in the Olympic marathon, finishing 12th. It was 1992, not 2004. It also misidentified the institution at which he is a coach. It is Shippensburg University, not Shippensburg College.

Read More..

Car drives into Apple store in Lincoln Park, injuring one

An elderly person drove a Lincoln Town Car into the Lincoln Park Apple store this evening leaving one person with minor injures, officials said.

Fire Department paramedics were called to the store at 801 W. North Ave. at about 6:30 p.m. this evening, said Chicago Fire Department Spokesman Joseph Roccasalva.

Chicago police were on the scene and investigating the crash, said Chicago News Affairs Officer Joshua Purkiss. The driver was described as elderly, he said.

The dark-colored sedan drove through the glass walls and made it about four or five feet inside, where it seemed to turn and rested near display cases holding headphones and other accessories, according to witnesses.

There were shards of glass strewn on the ground from the impact, according to witnesses.

Initially people refused treatment in the incident but paramedics were later called back to the scene and took an injured person to Advocate Illinois Masonic Hospital in good condition, said Roccasalva.

A store employee refused to comment and referred calls from the media to a media representative who did not immediately return calls.

Phillip Chang, 32, was dining at Burger Bar when his friend's six year old son motioned him over to the window to see a car driving into the window of the Apple store.

"He told us to come see what happened," Chang said.

"I think it was driving too fast," said Jack Dutton, 6, as he sat in Chang's arms.

Chang said the store didn't seem to be crowded at the time of the crash. "The store seemed to be closed already," he said.

The store's website indicated that the store was open until 7 p.m. Sunday.

Chicagobreaking@tribune.com

Twitter: @ChicagoBreaking

Read More..

Iowa man, sister reunite thanks to Facebook, boy

DAVENPORT, Iowa (AP) — An Iowa man has been reunited with his sister 65 years after the siblings were separated in foster care thanks to a 7-year-old friend who searched Facebook.

Clifford Boyson of Davenport met his sister, Betty Billadeau, in person on Saturday. Billadeau drove up from her home in Florissant, Mo., with her daughter and granddaughter for the reunion at a hotel in Davenport.

Boyson, 66, and Billadeau, 70, both tried to find each other for years without success. They were placed in different foster homes in Chicago when they were children.

Then 7-year-old Eddie Hanzelin, who is the son of Boyson‘s landlord, got involved.

Eddie managed to find Billadeau by searching his mom’s Facebook account with Billadeau’s maiden name. He recognized the family resemblance when he saw her picture.

“Oh, my God,” Boyson said when he saw and hugged Billadeau.

“You do have a sister,” Billadeau said.

“You’re about the same height Mom was,” Boyson said.

Billadeau’s daughter, Sarah Billadeau, 42, and granddaughter, Megan Billadeau, 27, both wiped away tears and smiled during the reunion.

“He didn’t have any women in his life,” Sarah said. “We’re going to get that straightened out real fast.”

Boyson said he’s looking forward to visiting Billadeau near St. Louis and meeting more family.

“I’m hoping I can go and spend a week or two,” he said. “I want to meet the whole congregation. I never knew I had a big family.”

Eddie, who enjoys messing around with his family’s iPad, said he’s glad he was able to assist in making the reunion happen and that he learned about helping others at school.

“Clifford did not have any family, and family’s important,” the boy said.

Near the end of their tearful reunion Boyson and Billadeau presented Eddie with a $ 125 check in appreciation of his detective work.

Social Media News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Title Post: Iowa man, sister reunite thanks to Facebook, boy
Url Post: http://www.news.fluser.com/iowa-man-sister-reunite-thanks-to-facebook-boy/
Link To Post : Iowa man, sister reunite thanks to Facebook, boy
Rating:
100%

based on 99998 ratings.
5 user reviews.
Author: Fluser SeoLink
Thanks for visiting the blog, If any criticism and suggestions please leave a comment

Read More..

Christoph Waltz, Adele among early Golden Globe winners

BEVERLY HILLS (Reuters) – Austrian actor Christoph Waltz and Adele notched early wins at the Golden Globe Awards on Sunday, while “Lincoln” and Iran hostage thriller “Argo” were in a close race for the top honor, best movie drama.

Waltz carried off the Golden Globe for best supporting movie actor for his role as a dentist-turned-bounty hunter in Quentin Tarantino‘s quirky slavery Western “Django Unchained.”

“Let me gasp!” said Waltz. “It’s extraordinary … Quentin, my indebtedness and gratitude to you know no words.”

British Grammy-winning singer Adele, in her first major public appearance since giving birth in October, shared the trophy for performing and co-writing the best original song, “Skyfall,” for the James Bond movie of the same name.

Comedians Tina Fey and Amy Poehler, hosting the Globes for the first time, got the ceremony off to a rollicking start with jokes about some of the top Hollywood stars in the audience, and impersonations of Johnny Depp and Julianne Moore.

Pointing out “Zero Dark Thirty” director Kathryn Bigelow at the glitzy dinner, Poehler said she had not been closely following the controversy over the torture scenes depicted in the thriller about the hunt for Osama bin Laden.

But, she added, “when it comes to torture, I trust the lady who spent three years married to James Cameron,” Poehler quipped, to roars from the audience. Bigelow is the former wife of Cameron, director of blockbusters “Avatar” and “Titanic.”

“Meryl Streep is not here. I hear she has the flu, and I’m told she is amazing in it,” Poehler joked about the esteemed actress.

The Golden Globes, handed out by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, has become the entertainment industry’s second-biggest awards show after February’s Oscars, or Academy Awards.

But its influence on the Academy Awards has been somewhat sapped this year because Oscar nominations were announced three days ago, instead of a week after the Globes awards show.

TV HONORS FOR ‘HOMELAND’

Unlike the Academy Awards, the Golden Globes also honor television dramas and comedies.

On Sunday they chose Showtime terrorism thriller “Homeland” as best drama series, and the show’s Damian Lewis as best actor for his role as a Marine returning from Iraq who is turned by Muslim extremists.

HBO’s drama “Game Change” about Sarah Palin’s 2008 run for U.S. vice president won best TV film, while Moore won for her portrayal of the polarizing former Alaska governor.

In the movie category, “Lincoln,” Spielberg’s account of U.S. President Abraham Lincoln’s battle to end slavery, went into the evening with a leading seven nominations.

But it faces strong competition from “Argo,” and “Django Unchained,” which started the evening with five nominations.

“Zero Dark Thirty” and visually arresting shipwreck tale “Life of Pi” round out the best dramatic film contest.

The Golden Globes also hand out prizes for best comedy or musical, where the lavish screen version of hit stage musical “Les Miserables” is facing strong competition from comedy “Silver Linings Playbook.”

Jennifer Lawrence won the award for best actress in a comedy movie for her role as a young widow in “Silver Linings Playbook.”

“Les Miserables” stars Hugh Jackman and Anne Hathaway hoped to take home a Golden Globe later on Sunday.

(Reporting By Jill Serjeant; Editing by Stacey Joyce)

Movies News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Title Post: Christoph Waltz, Adele among early Golden Globe winners
Url Post: http://www.news.fluser.com/christoph-waltz-adele-among-early-golden-globe-winners/
Link To Post : Christoph Waltz, Adele among early Golden Globe winners
Rating:
100%

based on 99998 ratings.
5 user reviews.
Author: Fluser SeoLink
Thanks for visiting the blog, If any criticism and suggestions please leave a comment

Read More..

Pharmacies Pressed to Meet High Demand for Flu Vaccine

Pharmacies around the city struggled to meet the demand for flu vaccinations on Sunday, a day after Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo declared a public health state of emergency in response to a drastic increase in the number of flu cases this year.

Andrew Kelly/Reuters

People lining up for influenza vaccines at a New York drugstore.

In Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, Harlem and places in between, pharmacists were turning away people looking for the last line of defense against a virus that appears to be stronger than ever.

“Just to let you know, I can only take one more on the line,” said Carlos Collazo, a pharmacy intern who was called in to work at a Rite Aid in Park Slope, Brooklyn, on his day off. Those who missed the cut, like Tamika Louissaint and her sister, Doris, had to look elsewhere in the neighborhood or put off the injection at least another day, while drugstores waited for more shipments.

“I was a little bit nervous because of the warning,” Doris Louissaint said, referring to Mr. Cuomo’s declaration. “I’ll go someplace else with her.” The sisters walked away.

The city Health Department said it could not provide data on the availability of vaccines. There were shortages in some areas but they were not pervasive, a spokesman for the department said. Yet an informal telephone survey of a dozen drugstores in neighborhoods across the city found that all but three had run out of the vaccine. Most that had exhausted their supplies said they expected to replenish them by Monday.

The governor’s emergency declaration on Saturday temporarily suspended a state law that prohibits pharmacists from vaccinating children.

There have been nearly 20,000 cases of influenza reported across the state so far this season, according to state health officials. That is four times the number of positive laboratory tests reported last season.

On Friday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta said that the flu had reached epidemic levels nationwide, and local health officials said that was true for New York City as well.

At Mr. Collazo’s store, on the corner of Seventh Avenue and Fifth Street, more than 30 people had signed up for shots by early Sunday afternoon and nearly 60 had signed up on each of the two days before that. The number of vaccinations on a normal day is five.

People who get vaccinated every year joined newcomers prompted, or frightened, into action by the recent warnings.

“It has been insane,” Mr. Collazo said, adding that most people whom he turned away were polite and understanding.

Lucas Watkins missed his usual vaccination in the fall but decided to get the shot when his girlfriend’s boss came down with the flu. When he was turned away from the Rite Aid in Park Slope, his second failed attempt that day, he simply pivoted and left for another drugstore down the way, joining many others on the same parade.

Read More..

Some Illinois coal plants looking to clean up

BALDWIN, Ill. ——

Nowhere is coal's effect more visible than here at Illinois' largest coal-fired power plant, where the train cars are flipped upside down, tracks and all, to feed boilers the size of skyscrapers.

Once reviled as one of the dirtiest coal plants in the U.S., today the Baldwin plant is a different kind of poster child.

Last month, Houston-based Dynegy Inc. completed $1 billion in environmental upgrades at Baldwin and its three sister Illinois plants, a calculated bet that it will emerge as one of the coal plant operators left standing as rivals are clobbered by a depressed electricity market that leaves little money to add federally mandated pollution controls.

Dynegy's move, together with the closures of several coal-fired plants in and around Chicago, should add up to cleaner air for Cook County, which has consistently failed to meet federal health standards for air quality.

The pollution spewing from three massive smokestacks at Baldwin, about a five-hour drive southwest of Chicago, had plagued the city and other downwind communities for decades, contributing to the smog and soot that trigger asthma and other ailments.

"Hundreds of people in the state have died in recent years and thousands have been sickened simply because they had no choice but to breathe the pollution being pumped out by huge coal power plants. What we are starting to see now are the real health benefits of legal enforcement actions taken years ago," said Brian Urbaszewski, director of environmental health programs for the Respiratory Health Association of Metropolitan Chicago.

The closures of the coal-burning Crawford and Fisk power plants in Chicago and the State Line plant just across the border in Indiana mirror a story playing out across the country. The abundance of natural gas, a cheaper fuel than coal, has cut into profits of coal plant operators just as states and the federal government have pressed for expensive pollution upgrades.

The Brattle Group, a financial consulting firm, predicts that one-fourth of the nation's coal-fired electricity will be wiped off the map by 2016; more than 100 coal-fired generating units have been mothballed since 2009. The state's other two major coal plant owners — Ameren Corp.'s generating arm and Edison International's Midwest Generation — largely have been cast off by their parent companies because of poor financial performance. And they have pleaded with regulators for more time to meet pollution standards.

As a result of upgrades, it is more costly to operate Baldwin and Dynegy's other Illinois coal plants in Wood River, Havana and Hennepin than those of competitors. But Dynegy doesn't expect that to be a burden long term. Fewer players making electricity means surviving power plant operators will receive higher payments from grid operators that pay reservation fees for power.

"There's short-term pain until you flush the noncompliers out of the game," said Robert Flexon, Dynegy's president and chief executive.

Longer term, if coal-fired plants keep closing as Dynegy anticipates, it expects to earn $100 million more per year beginning in 2016 in so-called capacity payments from grid operators.

Cleaning up

Dynegy's decision to upgrade its plants was not altogether altruistic. The improvements stem from a 2005 settlement with the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Justice that set deadlines for the company to clean up its plants or close them.

The Baldwin plant, an hour's drive from St. Louis, is massive; its white smokestack plumes can be seen for miles in this flat farming area. Its fuel comes in by rail.

The cars, brimming with 120 tons of coal every 2 1/2 minutes, are flipped over, rails and all, only to return full in an eight-day loop that begins in Wyoming. The amount of coal burned every two months is enough to fill Willis Tower.

It is just the start of a laborious process that strips the coal of toxic pollutants. Truckloads of lime are shipped to the plant each day to supply the sulfur dioxide scrubbers. After the coal is burned, the resulting coal gas is piped to the building-size scrubbers, each containing 20 nozzles that spray a mixture of limestone and ash to chemically remove the sulfur dioxide.

The pollutants bind to the slurry mixture, drop to the bottom and are recycled, while the coal gas pushes through to two smaller buildings called "bag houses," essentially giant filters that catch tiny particles that would otherwise enter the air.

To avoid nitrogen oxide emissions, the coal is burned at a lower temperature.

All told, improvements since 1998 have reduced 93 percent of sulfur dioxide emissions, 85 percent of nitrogen oxide emissions and 88 percent of particulate matter emissions, according to Dynegy.

"All that's really coming out that stack now is carbon dioxide and water vapor," Dave Glosecki, Baldwin's maintenance director, told a group during a recent plant tour.

Read More..