Women gather on the steps of an apartment building opposite the scene of a brutal fatal stabbing, Sunday, Oct. 27, 2013, in New York. Police say a mother and her four young children were killed in a late night stabbing rampage at a Sunset Park, Brooklyn, home. A Chinese immigrant, 25-year-old Ming Don Chen, was arrested Sunday on five counts of murder in the deaths of his cousin's wife and her four children. (AP Photo/Kathy Willens)
Women gather on the steps of an apartment building opposite the scene of a brutal fatal stabbing, Sunday, Oct. 27, 2013, in New York. Police say a mother and her four young children were killed in a late night stabbing rampage at a Sunset Park, Brooklyn, home. A Chinese immigrant, 25-year-old Ming Don Chen, was arrested Sunday on five counts of murder in the deaths of his cousin's wife and her four children. (AP Photo/Kathy Willens)
Crime scene detectives investigate the scene of a multiple fatal stabbing Sunday, Oct. 27, 2013, in New York. Police said a mother and her four young children were stabbed to death in a brutal rampage just before 11 p.m. Saturday in the Sunset Park neighborhood of Brooklyn. The New York Police Department said a suspect, 25-year-old Ming Don Chen, a Chinese immigrant, was arrested Sunday on five counts of murder in the deaths of his cousin's wife and her four children in the stabbing rampage in their Brooklyn home. (AP Photo/Kathy Willens)
A crime scene detective leaps up the steps at the scene of a multiple fatal stabbing Sunday, Oct. 27, 2013, in the Sunset Park neighborhood of Brooklyn, in New York. Police said a mother and her four young children were stabbed to death in a brutal rampage just before 11p.m. Saturday. The working-class neighborhood is home to many Chinese immigrants. (AP Photo/Kathy Willens)
Crime scene specialists work at the scene of a fatal stabbing, Sunday, Oct. 27, 2013, in the Brooklyn borough of New York. Police say a mother and her four young children were killed in a late night stabbing rampage at the Sunset Park, Brooklyn home, far right. (AP Photo/Kathy Willens)
Medical Examiner Transport personnel prepare to place a loaded body bag into their vehicle after exiting the residence of a crime scene in the Sunset Park neighborhood of Brooklyn Sunday, Oct. 27, 2013 where five people, including a toddler, were stabbed to death in New York. Emergency responders found three of the victims dead at the residence just before 11 p.m. Saturday. Two others were taken to Brooklyn hospitals, where they were pronounced dead. (AP Photo/John Minchillo)
NEW YORK (AP) — A Chinese immigrant was arrested Sunday on five counts of murder in the deaths of his cousin's wife and her four children in a stabbing rampage in their Brooklyn home.
The suspect, 25-year-old Ming Don Chen, implicated himself in the stabbings late Saturday in the Sunset Park neighborhood, police said. Chief of Department Phil Banks said the victims "were cut and butchered with a kitchen knife."
Two girls, 9-year-old Linda Zhuo and 7-year-old Amy Zhuo, were pronounced dead at the scene, along with the youngest child, 1-year-old William Zhuo. Their brother, 5-year-old Kevin Zhuo, and 37-year-old mother, Qiao Zhen Li, were taken to hospitals, where they also were pronounced dead.
Chen is a cousin of the children's father and had been staying at the home for the past week or so, Banks said. He came to the United States from China in 2004 and seemingly struggled to make it, Banks said.
"Ever since he came to this country, everybody seems to be doing better than him," he said.
On Saturday night, Chen had apparently been acting in such a way that concerned Li, Banks said. She tried to call her husband, who wasn't home, but couldn't reach him.
Banks said Li called her mother-in-law in China, who also was unsuccessful in reaching her son. The mother-in-law reached out to her daughter, who lives in the neighborhood, Banks said.
She and her husband came to the house and banged on the door, then called 911. Officers in the area investigating another matter responded, Banks said.
"It's a scene you'll never forget," he said. The victims had wounds in their necks and torsos.
Chen was in custody and wasn't immediately available to comment. He also faces counts of assault on a police officer, which happened while he was being processed, and resisting arrest, Banks said.
Bob Madden, who lives nearby, was out walking his dog when he saw a man being escorted from the building by police. He was barefoot, wearing jeans, and "he was staring, he was expressionless," Madden said.
Yuan Gao, a cousin of the mother, said the man had recently moved to the area and had been staying with different people.
Fire department spokesman Jim Long said emergency workers responded just before 11 p.m. to a 911 call from a person stabbed at the residence in Sunset Park, a working-class neighborhood of adjoining two-story brick buildings with a large Chinese community.
Neighbor May Chan told the Daily News it was "heartbreaking" to learn of the deaths.
"I always see (the kids) running around here," Chan said. "They run around by my garage playing. They run up and down screaming."
Former President Bill Clinton prepares to speak at a campaign event, "Putting Jobs First", for Democratic gubernatorial candidate for Virginia, Terry McAuliffe, left, in Dale City, Va., Sunday, Oct. 27, 2013. (AP Photo/Molly Riley)
Former President Bill Clinton prepares to speak at a campaign event, "Putting Jobs First", for Democratic gubernatorial candidate for Virginia, Terry McAuliffe, left, in Dale City, Va., Sunday, Oct. 27, 2013. (AP Photo/Molly Riley)
Former President Bill Clinton campaigns for Democratic gubernatorial candidate for Virginia, Terry McAuliffe, at a "Putting Jobs First" event in Dale City, Va., Sunday, Oct. 27, 2013. (AP Photo/Molly Riley)
Former President Bill Clinton campaigns for Democratic Virginia gubernatorial candidate, Terry McAuliffe, centerleft, during a "Putting Jobs First" events in Dale City, Va., Sunday, Oct. 27, 2013. (AP Photo/Molly Riley)
Former President Bill Clinton campaigns for Democratic gubernatorial candidate for Virginia, Terry McAuliffe, right, at a "Putting Jobs First" event in Dale City, Va., Sunday, Oct. 27, 2013. (AP Photo/Molly Riley)
Sarah, of Alexandria, Va., who preferred not to give her last name, adds a button to her hat while waiting in line to see former President Bill Clinton and Virginia gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe at an election campaign event "Putting Jobs First" in Dale City, Virginia, Sunday, Oct. 27, 2013. (AP Photo/Molly Riley)
RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — Fanaticism is fueling conservative voters who could threaten Democrat Terry McAuliffe's political chances, former President Bill Clinton warned Sunday as he joined his longtime buddy's campaign for Virginia governor.
With little more than a week before Nov. 5's Election Day, McAuliffe and Republican Ken Cuccinelli each have sought to energize their strongest supporters, by inspiration or fear. McAuliffe has opened a lead in polling and is heavily outspending Cuccinelli on television ads, but turnout is expected to be low and the result could be decided by a few thousand votes.
"Political extremism does have one redeeming virtue in terms of pure politics," Clinton said here at a packed high school auditorium.
"If you can get somebody into a fanatic frame of mind," Clinton said, then they will vote because they are convinced the deck is stacked against them.
It was a shift in roles. For decades, it has been McAuliffe championing the personal and political futures of Bill Clinton and, later, his wife, Hillary Rodham Clinton. Now, the former president is here to pitch in during the campaign against Republican Ken Cuccinelli during its final week.
"Terry's gotten so good on the stump, I don't think he needs me anymore," Clinton said to laughter at the pair's first stop in Dale City.
Clinton planned other stops throughout the state with his longtime pal and fundraiser during the coming day. Former first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, who is considered a strong contender for 2016's presidential nomination, used her first political event after stepping down as secretary of state to endorse McAuliffe earlier this month.
Bill Clinton predicted that Cuccinelli's supporters, who are deeply conservative and align to the tea party, would vote and he urged Democrats to be just as motivated.
"Just remember, the people who aren't here today, who go to the other fella's rally, they will be there on Election Day," he said.
That "other fella," as Clinton called Cuccinelli, sought to turn one of the Democratic Party's stars into another way to build enthusiasm among his conservative supporters. Even before the pair arrived at a veterans' hall near Washington, Cuccinelli's campaign had sent reporters a memo recounting the years of Clinton-McAuliffe collaboration for Democrats.
Yet what Republicans called "the McAuliffe-Clinton baggage" — questions over the Clintons' finances, Bill Clinton's affair with a White House intern and his subsequent impeachment — seems to have faded for many voters.
And between Clinton's first and second stops for McAuliffe, Cuccinelli organized a conference call with reporters to again raise separate questions about McAuliffe's investment with a man who has pleaded guilty to stealing the identities of the terminally ill.
Cuccinelli has acknowledged the investments were not against the law but also said McAuliffe needs to explain the details to voters. He also wants to know why the investment did not appear on McAuliffe's financial disclosure forms when he ran for governor in 2009.
"I'm tripping over myself to be as open as humanly possible with the voters of Virginia, and Terry McAuliffe is taking every step possible to hide, to bury and obfuscate and lie, let's face it," Cuccinelli said. "He knows how dirty it is."
McAuliffe says he was a "passive investor" and was never aware of the details. Much of what Cuccinelli raised had been out there for weeks, campaign spokesman Josh Schwerin said.
Clinton and McAuliffe's four-day swing was sending them to stops in Democratic-leaning parts of the state.
"In the parlance of my native state and my culture, I am fully aware that I am just preaching to the saved," as Clinton put it.
But they're not always reliable parishioners.
In 2008, 75 percent of the state's registered voters turned out during the heat of a presidential campaign, and 2012's campaign drew 72 percent. Obama won both campaigns.
But in 2009, that number was 40 percent and Republican Bob McDonnell won.
To help inspire turnout, Clinton and McAuliffe spent almost an hour at a Red Lobster restaurant near Richmond to meet with a largely black crowd who ate after attending church services. The pair signed autographs, posed for cellphone photos, snacked on biscuits — and came away with voters pledging their support.
Darlene Gilchrist-Dailey of Richmond said the Clinton stop cemented her vote for McAuliffe.
"I was planning on voting for him anyway but having President Clinton and his wife endorse him has even made it a stronger commitment for me to get out there and vote for him," she said.
Bill Clinton's approval ratings have improved since he left the White House in 2001 and voters have not lost interest in Hillary Rodham Clinton since she stepped down as President Barack Obama's top diplomat earlier this year.
Every step Hillary Rodham Clinton has taken since leaving the State Department has been examined for its 2016 implications. And Bill Clinton's return to full-time campaigning — even if for only a few days — was sure to add to speculation about whether a Clinton could call the White House home again in 2017.
Democrats have been relentless in painting Cuccinelli — who is known best outside the state as the first to challenge President Barack Obama's health care law — as a political ideologue and someone who is unwilling to compromise.
Clinton happily added his voice to that message.
"If we become ideological, then we're blind to evidence," said Clinton, who as president sometimes bucked his party and worked with Republicans. "We can only hear people who already agree with us. We think we know everything right now, and we have nothing to learn from anybody."
___
Associated Press writer Steve Szkotak in Richmond contributed to this report.
___
Follow Philip Elliott on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/philip_elliott
Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius is under fire for possible mishandling of the healthcare.gov website.
Photo by Jim Bourg/Reuters
Washington think tanks, your moment has arrived! Healthcare.gov is a mess and someone must chronicle exactly what went wrong. The press is trying, of course, but we also must cover the aftermath—the parade of predictable behavior that obscures more than it illuminates. Did you see the hearing in the House Energy and Commerce Committee yesterday? Despite the best efforts of Chairman Fred Upton, between the grandstanding, confused questions, and the witness fog machine, it's a wonder anyone got out alive. Meanwhile, Republicans are pointing fingers, placing blame, and otherwise showing disgust that a program that they have tried to kill is being run so badly. (Perhaps they're jealous that the administration is better at undermining Obamacare than they are.) Administration officials, on the other hand, are caught between covering their backsides, spouting plumes of happy talk, and hiring more people to collect the springs and sprockets from the launch pad where the whole thing went kaput. On Friday, officials in charge of the #techsurge said that healthcare.gov would be running smoothly by late November, two months after the launch.
Here's why a controlled witch hunt is needed: This episode is about much more than a website. That’s true with respect to health care, as Ezra Klein points out, and it’s also true because there are big national issues at stake that have nothing to do with the specific issues of sickness and health. Can government do big things? Sen. Lamar Alexander famously said during the health care debates, "We don't do comprehensive well"—meaning that any law that is big and complicated will fail. Is that right?
Alternatively, have partisanship and gridlock created a situation where small flaws in a law can't be fixed through tweaking legislation because such legislation can never pass? Is there something about complex technology that confuses the bureaucracy? Is the procurement system nuts? Does the political nature of all administration activity mean that no one is capable of reporting that the launch of a key element of the president's signature legislation is going to throw a rod? Some of the states seem to be doing just fine. Is that because they are smaller enterprises or because the people working on state health exchanges have more flexibility?
What's needed is expertise, patience, and methodical reasoning. These have long since been banned from congressional hearings.
These are sloppy questions; experts can come up with better ones. But whatever questions are asked should be broad and sloppy, because right now everyone is scheduled to leave this drama with the answer they want. The experience will confirm their pre-existing views. That's no good as a matter of logic, but it's also a waste of rich material. This crack-up is a genuine disaster—it is expensive, it is worrying people who need and want insurance, and it is a huge waste of time. But it also provides rich material for a case study about the effectiveness of government.
Precision in this hunt is the key. Usually in investigations you need subpoena power. That doesn't seem to be an issue. (Though I'd still put a hand on the shredders at Health and Human Services and the White House just to see if they're warm.) In this case, what's needed is some expertise, patience, and methodical reasoning. These attributes have long since been banned from congressional hearings. There are nevertheless people in Washington think tanks who will be excited to think through these matters.
A precise example of the kind of thinking that's required is in David Auerbach's wonderful deconstruction of yesterday's hearing. Talking about the watery responses from the witnesses, Auerbach writes, "They don’t seem to understand the difference between acceptable and unacceptable bugs, and worse, they don’t seem to know that there is a difference." The point is that there's a distinction between garden-variety problems and catastrophic problems that you could either have seen coming or for which you should have been on guard because they’re so damaging. So, using that same fine screen: What problems here are the normal ones you'd have in any big enterprise, what are the problems that are the result of unique one-time-only stupidity, and what are the problems that result from this being a government rather than private enterprise?
This project should be one everyone loves. Only the most devout libertarian doesn't want the government to do anything. Those who want a smaller government should still want it to operate efficiently. Liberals, and people like the president, who believe in smart government, should be pushing hard for answers. If they're not interested in a thorough deconstruction of what went wrong for policy reasons, they should care for political ones. Healthcare.gov is now a very good excuse for anyone who wants to oppose an activist federal government. All a lawmaker has to say is that they don't want the same government that ran healthcare.gov in charge of X, where X is anything you want to see stopped in its tracks.
Right now, no one in this drama is trying to learn from the mistake. That's understandable, but it also guarantees that the mistake will be repeated.
TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Banners that suddenly cropped around Tehran in the past week depict an American diplomat dressed in a jacket and tie, while under the negotiating table he is wearing military pants and pointing a gun at an Iranian envoy.
The anti-American images were ordered taken down Saturday by Tehran authorities. But they made their point.
It was another salvo by hard-liners who are opposed to President Hassan Rouhani's pursuit of better ties with Washington and worried that Iran could make unnecessary concessions in its nuclear program in exchange for relief from Western sanctions.
The banners and posters were something of a warm-up to the main event: Rouhani's critics are planning major anti-U.S. rallies — and amped-up "Death to America" chants — on the Nov. 4 anniversary of the U.S. Embassy takeover in 1979 following the Islamic Revolution.
Anti-American murals have long been part of the urban landscape in Iran, and include images of the Statue of Liberty transformed into a creepy skeleton and bombs raining down from the Stars and Stripes. The storming of the U.S. Embassy is marked every year with protests outside the compound's brick walls.
Now, however, the images reflect internal divisions in Iran and suggest more intrigue ahead.
Rouhani's groundbreaking overtures to the U.S. appear to have the backing of Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. This means that — at least for the moment — he has the ultimate political cover to try to reach a nuclear deal and perhaps find other ways to cross the 34-year diplomatic no man's land between the countries.
However, the criticism and protests by hard-line resisters, led by the Revolutionary Guard, are as much directed at Rouhani's government as they are intended as a message for the supreme leader.
The Guard and others know that Khamenei does not want to risk an open confrontation that could sow further discord in Iran. The subtext of the posters and banners: More pressure could come if Rouhani's government is perceived as moving too fast toward concessions when nuclear talks resume next week in Geneva with the U.S. and other world powers.
The signs had an ad-agency quality that is rare compared with the usual anti-American fare of simple fliers and hand-lettered placards.
"American Honesty," read one in Farsi and slightly mangled English, showing the U.S. negotiator with the gun under the table.
Another depicted an American negotiator in a suit, a black attack dog by his side. The third one showed an open hand facing the open claws of what appeared to be an eagle, the symbol of the U.S.
On Sunday, with most of the images taken down, new posters popped up around Tehran. They contained just one sentence, in Farsi: "We don't oppress and don't allow to be oppressed."
The high production values of the banners and posters suggest possible connections to the powerful propaganda machinery of well-funded groups such as the Revolutionary Guard or its nationwide paramilitary network, known as the Basij.
Mohsen Pirhadi, head of Basij's Tehran branch, said he ordered the posters put up, but gave no further details on the designers or financial backers.
"These posters were in line with the interests of the (ruling) system," the Bahar newspaper quoted him as saying Saturday.
A day earlier, protesters trampled posters of Wendy Sherman, the chief U.S. nuclear negotiator with Iran, who said earlier this month that past experience suggests "deception is part of the DNA" of the nuclear talks. Iran's hard-line media, however, added "Iranian" to the quote and stirred outrage.
"Our people have seen nothing but dishonesty, deception of public opinion, betrayal and back-stabbing by Americans during the past years. ... Therefore, there is no way they can trust American promises and deceiving smiles," hard-line politician Hamid Reza Taraqi told The Associated Press on Saturday.
Israel and others suspicious of Iran have used similar language to question Rouhani's sincerity.
A conservative lawmaker, Hamid Rasaei, decried the order to take down the posters and banners. "Why is a group seeking to erase the 34-year-old honor of the Iranian nation?" he told Parliament on Sunday.
A moderate lawmaker, Mohammad Javad Kowlivand, demanded a probe into the U.S.-bashing campaign.
Political analyst Hamid Reza Shokouhi said opposition to Rouhani's outreach reflects the insecurities that come with any bold diplomatic gestures.
"Public opinion cannot easily digest that everything has suddenly changed," he said.
SAP is planning to rely heavily on HTML5 and open standards within its products for building mobile applications, and is embracing the concept of BYOT (bring your own tools) in order to draw interest from developers.
Version 3.0 of SAP Mobile Platform, which was announced Tuesday during the Tech Ed conference in Las Vegas, will combine SAP's NetWeaver Gateway, Sybase Mobiliser and Syclo Agentry products "to meet current and future mobile app use cases," according to the announcement.
SAP's mobility tools will support open-source standards such as OSGi, OData and Apache Cordova. Developers can also expect "extensive use of HTML5," SAP said.
Under the BYOT approach, developers can use their desired tools alongside those from SAP's platform. SAP is also planning to offer a cloud version of the mobile platform, according to the announcement.
The company announced updates to its Mobile Secure product portfolio on Tuesday as well.
An upcoming cloud-based version of SAP Mobile App Protection will help companies apply "fine-grained" security to applications running on iOS and Android devices, SAP said. The company has also upgraded its Mobile Documents product, adding iPhone and Android support, and has created a new secure mobile browser.
SAP gained a set of mobility products through the 2010 acquisition of Sybase.
It has been emphasizing mobile-friendly software development heavily of late, and earlier this year launched Fiori, a set of lightweight mobile applications that tie into its core Business Suite ERP (enterprise resource planning) system.
The Mobile Platform 3.0 release also represents a fresh start of sorts for SAP, according to one observer.
"When SAP assumed Sybase's mobile assets, they basically did not have a complete or stable product," said analyst Ray Wang of Constellation Research. "This new release is a major overhaul which allows them to write once, deploy everywhere."
SAP did make tweaks to the Sybase technology as part of the 3.0 upgrade, said executive board member Vishal Sikka, who heads all development, during a press conference on Tuesday at Tech Ed.
SAP has also had some time to rethink what is truly important for mobile developers, Wang added.
"Embedded security, mobile apps stores, and community are key to their potential success this time around," he said. "The challenge will be the price points as IBM is also aggressively competing in this space."
Chris Kanaracus covers enterprise software and general technology breaking news for The IDG News Service. Chris' email address is Chris_Kanaracus@idg.com
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. (AP) — Two Indiana University students were charged Sunday morning in connection with a stabbing that injured another student at a campus apartment building, school officials said.
University police arrested 18-year-old Zesen Shen and 21-year-old Kaiyu Lao, IU spokesman Mark Land said in a news release. Shen has been charged with intimidation and battery and Lao was charged with intimidation, Land said.
Police said Shen, Lao and a 20-year-old IU student were in the Tulip Tree apartment's parking lot around 3:30 a.m., Land said. Witnesses told campus police the three were there "to resolve a dispute when the suspects began chasing victim and wounded him with a knife," Land said.
University police Lt. Craig Munroe told the Indianapolis Star (http://indy.st/1ckrtoX) the student was stabbed in the back. The 20-year-old was taken to IU Health hospital in Bloomington with an injury that isn't life-threatening, Land said.
The incident prompted university officials earlier Sunday to tell students to seek shelter behind locked doors. The school gave students the all clear around 7 a.m. CDT.
Contact: Christa Stratton cstratton@geosociety.org Geological Society of America
2013 GSA Annual Meeting
Boulder, CO, USA - U.S. National Parks are not just beautiful vistas and great family vacation destinations; they are also key scientific field laboratories and rich repositories of the record of Earth's history. Some recent discoveries to emerge from scientists working in U.S. National Parks will be presented in two sessions, Geology in the National Parks: Research, Mapping, and Resource Management I and II, at the 125th Anniversary meeting of The Geological Society of America in Denver next week.
Some abstracts of interest include:
18-1: (8:15 AM) Findings by Robert B. Smith (University of Utah) and colleagues, that the Yellowstone crustal magma reservoir is three times larger than previously thought, and the biggest Yellowstone Plateau threat is from large M7+ earthquakes, not from giant volcanic eruptions: https://gsa.confex.com/gsa/2013AM/webprogram/Paper234134.html
18-3: (8:45 AM) A new National Park Service (NPS) inventory lists 128 parks with documented plant fossils, including petrified wood, leaves, flowers, seeds, cones, nuts, roots, pollen, and amber. These span the Precambrian to the Holocene, aiding our understanding of past climates and ecosystems that have existed across North America through time. Vincent Santucci (NPS) will describe the comprehensive inventory of paleobotanical resources: https://gsa.confex.com/gsa/2013AM/webprogram/Paper233514.html
18-4: (9:00 AM) After South Dakota's Fossil Cycad National Monument was created in 1922, scavengers stole all the fossils on the surface, and the park was decommissioned in 1957. Now researchers are trying to find the remaining buried fossils. John M. Ghist (NPS) will relate the interesting tale of this almost forgotten national monument: https://gsa.confex.com/gsa/2013AM/webprogram/Paper229546.html
18-7: (10:00 AM) "Street view" comes to Denali! Four vehicle-based cameras (facing to the front, rear, left, and right) will make an overlapping series of several hundred thousand high-resolution images capturing 360-degree views at bus window height along the 92.5-mile length of the park road. The aim is to establish a photographic baseline for monitoring future changes in the views of Alaska's Denali National Park and Preserve. In addition, Ronald D. Karpilo Jr. (Colorado State University) and Lacy N. Karpilo (University of Alaska-Anchorage) are using repeat photography of historic images (and showing the resulting photo pairs) to help document and interpret how park natural resources (such as glaciers, rivers, lakes, and vegetation) and cultural resources (such as roads, buildings, and mines) have changed during the past century: https://gsa.confex.com/gsa/2013AM/webprogram/Paper233873.html
78-3: (1:45 PM) Rising seas will alter the natural and cultural resources of 105 national parks in future years. At Cape Hatteras National Seashore and Everglades National Park, large areas will be submerged. Storm surges will make things worse. Maria A. Caffrey (University of Colorado-Boulder) outlines the work that is underway to respond to climate change in coastal national parks: Abstract: https://gsa.confex.com/gsa/2013AM/webprogram/Paper221754.html
WHAT: Sessions 18 and 78
Geology in the National Parks: Research, Mapping, and Resource Management I, https://gsa.confex.com/gsa/2013AM/webprogram/Session32622.html
Geology in the National Parks: Research, Mapping, and Resource Management II, https://gsa.confex.com/gsa/2013AM/webprogram/Session34404.html
WHEN: Sunday, 27 October 2013: 8:00 AM-12:00 PM and 1:00 PM-5:00 PM
WHERE: Colorado Convention Center Room 404
For more from the national parks, take a look at Monday's session "16 Years of GeoCorpsTMGeoscience Projects Impacting America's Public Lands and Natural Resources I and II." At 1:15 PM Monday (abstract: https://gsa.confex.com/gsa/2013AM/webprogram/Paper226877.html), the National Park Service's Lisa Norby will give a retrospective on 16 successful years of the Geoscientistin-the-Parks (GIP) program. In partnership with GSA's GeoCorpsTM America program, GIP places geoscientists in national parks where they have contributed nearly 450,000 hours of service to the American public on projects such as inventory and monitoring of Earth system resources, geoscience research, GIS projects, and education and outreach. This talk will showcase outstanding projects, accomplishments and benefits.
WHAT: Sessions 110 and 175
16 Years of GeoCorpsTMGeoscience Projects Impacting America's Public Lands and Natural Resources I, https://gsa.confex.com/gsa/2013AM/webprogram/Session33312.html
16 Years of GeoCorpsTMGeoscience Projects Impacting America's Public Lands and Natural Resources II, https://gsa.confex.com/gsa/2013AM/webprogram/Session34234.html
WHEN: Monday, 28 October 2013: 8:00 AM-12:00 PM and 1:00 PM-5:00 PM
WHERE: Colorado Convention Center Room 404
###
ON-SITE NEWSROOM
Contact: Kea Giles
Colorado Convention Center, Room 608
+1-303-228-8431
The Geological Society of America, founded in 1888, is a scientific society with more than 25,000 members from academia, government, and industry in more than 100 countries. Through its meetings, publications, and programs, GSA enhances the professional growth of its members and promotes the geosciences in the service of humankind. Headquartered in Boulder, Colorado, USA, GSA encourages cooperative research among earth, life, planetary, and social scientists, fosters public dialogue on geoscience issues, and supports all levels of earth science education.
http://www.geosociety.org
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Treasures found and lost in US National Parks
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27-Oct-2013
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Contact: Christa Stratton cstratton@geosociety.org Geological Society of America
2013 GSA Annual Meeting
Boulder, CO, USA - U.S. National Parks are not just beautiful vistas and great family vacation destinations; they are also key scientific field laboratories and rich repositories of the record of Earth's history. Some recent discoveries to emerge from scientists working in U.S. National Parks will be presented in two sessions, Geology in the National Parks: Research, Mapping, and Resource Management I and II, at the 125th Anniversary meeting of The Geological Society of America in Denver next week.
Some abstracts of interest include:
18-1: (8:15 AM) Findings by Robert B. Smith (University of Utah) and colleagues, that the Yellowstone crustal magma reservoir is three times larger than previously thought, and the biggest Yellowstone Plateau threat is from large M7+ earthquakes, not from giant volcanic eruptions: https://gsa.confex.com/gsa/2013AM/webprogram/Paper234134.html
18-3: (8:45 AM) A new National Park Service (NPS) inventory lists 128 parks with documented plant fossils, including petrified wood, leaves, flowers, seeds, cones, nuts, roots, pollen, and amber. These span the Precambrian to the Holocene, aiding our understanding of past climates and ecosystems that have existed across North America through time. Vincent Santucci (NPS) will describe the comprehensive inventory of paleobotanical resources: https://gsa.confex.com/gsa/2013AM/webprogram/Paper233514.html
18-4: (9:00 AM) After South Dakota's Fossil Cycad National Monument was created in 1922, scavengers stole all the fossils on the surface, and the park was decommissioned in 1957. Now researchers are trying to find the remaining buried fossils. John M. Ghist (NPS) will relate the interesting tale of this almost forgotten national monument: https://gsa.confex.com/gsa/2013AM/webprogram/Paper229546.html
18-7: (10:00 AM) "Street view" comes to Denali! Four vehicle-based cameras (facing to the front, rear, left, and right) will make an overlapping series of several hundred thousand high-resolution images capturing 360-degree views at bus window height along the 92.5-mile length of the park road. The aim is to establish a photographic baseline for monitoring future changes in the views of Alaska's Denali National Park and Preserve. In addition, Ronald D. Karpilo Jr. (Colorado State University) and Lacy N. Karpilo (University of Alaska-Anchorage) are using repeat photography of historic images (and showing the resulting photo pairs) to help document and interpret how park natural resources (such as glaciers, rivers, lakes, and vegetation) and cultural resources (such as roads, buildings, and mines) have changed during the past century: https://gsa.confex.com/gsa/2013AM/webprogram/Paper233873.html
78-3: (1:45 PM) Rising seas will alter the natural and cultural resources of 105 national parks in future years. At Cape Hatteras National Seashore and Everglades National Park, large areas will be submerged. Storm surges will make things worse. Maria A. Caffrey (University of Colorado-Boulder) outlines the work that is underway to respond to climate change in coastal national parks: Abstract: https://gsa.confex.com/gsa/2013AM/webprogram/Paper221754.html
WHAT: Sessions 18 and 78
Geology in the National Parks: Research, Mapping, and Resource Management I, https://gsa.confex.com/gsa/2013AM/webprogram/Session32622.html
Geology in the National Parks: Research, Mapping, and Resource Management II, https://gsa.confex.com/gsa/2013AM/webprogram/Session34404.html
WHEN: Sunday, 27 October 2013: 8:00 AM-12:00 PM and 1:00 PM-5:00 PM
WHERE: Colorado Convention Center Room 404
For more from the national parks, take a look at Monday's session "16 Years of GeoCorpsTMGeoscience Projects Impacting America's Public Lands and Natural Resources I and II." At 1:15 PM Monday (abstract: https://gsa.confex.com/gsa/2013AM/webprogram/Paper226877.html), the National Park Service's Lisa Norby will give a retrospective on 16 successful years of the Geoscientistin-the-Parks (GIP) program. In partnership with GSA's GeoCorpsTM America program, GIP places geoscientists in national parks where they have contributed nearly 450,000 hours of service to the American public on projects such as inventory and monitoring of Earth system resources, geoscience research, GIS projects, and education and outreach. This talk will showcase outstanding projects, accomplishments and benefits.
WHAT: Sessions 110 and 175
16 Years of GeoCorpsTMGeoscience Projects Impacting America's Public Lands and Natural Resources I, https://gsa.confex.com/gsa/2013AM/webprogram/Session33312.html
16 Years of GeoCorpsTMGeoscience Projects Impacting America's Public Lands and Natural Resources II, https://gsa.confex.com/gsa/2013AM/webprogram/Session34234.html
WHEN: Monday, 28 October 2013: 8:00 AM-12:00 PM and 1:00 PM-5:00 PM
WHERE: Colorado Convention Center Room 404
###
ON-SITE NEWSROOM
Contact: Kea Giles
Colorado Convention Center, Room 608
+1-303-228-8431
The Geological Society of America, founded in 1888, is a scientific society with more than 25,000 members from academia, government, and industry in more than 100 countries. Through its meetings, publications, and programs, GSA enhances the professional growth of its members and promotes the geosciences in the service of humankind. Headquartered in Boulder, Colorado, USA, GSA encourages cooperative research among earth, life, planetary, and social scientists, fosters public dialogue on geoscience issues, and supports all levels of earth science education.
http://www.geosociety.org
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Contact: ESC Press Office press@escardio.org 33-049-294-8627 European Society of Cardiology
World Stroke Day is 29 October 2013
Sophia Antipolis, 29 October 2013: The global campaign to tackle stroke is highlighted today on World Stroke Day with the slogan "Because I care". The phrase showcases the role of caregivers in supporting people who have suffered a stroke and aims to correct misinformation about the disease, such as the misconception that stroke only happens later in life.
Every other second, stroke attacks a person, regardless of age or gender. Of the 15 million people who experience a stroke each year, six million do not survive. Worldwide about 30 million people have had a stroke and most have residual disabilities. Recent data published in the Lancet, shows a striking 25% increase in the number of stroke cases in people aged 20 to 64, worldwide (1). This younger age group now accounts for 31% of stroke cases (up from 25% before 1990).
But stroke can be prevented, treated and managed in the long term. The campaign theme "Because I care" emphasises these areas. See http://www.worldstrokecampaign.org/2012/About/Pages/WorldStrokeDay2013.aspx
Research presented at ESC Congress 2013 showed that there are plenty of steps young obese women can take to reduce their risk of stroke (2). The research found that in young women without metabolic disorders (high blood pressure or abnormal glucose metabolism in relation to or outside pregnancy, or high cholesterol), being overweight or obese did not increase the chance of having a stroke compared to normal weight women without metabolic disorders. But the risk of stroke increased by 3.5 times in women who were overweight or obese and had metabolic disorders.
Study author, Dr Michelle Schmiegelow from Denmark, said: "Obesity puts young women at a major risk of developing high blood pressure, diabetes or high cholesterol, which dramatically increases their likelihood of having a stroke. Young women who are overweight or obese probably have a window of opportunity to lose weight and keep a healthy lifestyle so that they reduce their risk of getting high blood pressure, diabetes and high cholesterol. In this way they can protect themselves from having a stroke or heart attack."
ESC spokesperson Professor Gregory Lip said: "Overall women get more strokes than men each year, mainly because stroke occurs more frequently at older ages and women generally live longer than men. Thus, approximately 55 000 more women than men have strokes each year. Awareness of important risk factors, such as atrial fibrillation (an irregularity of the heart rhythm) and high blood pressure, is crucial. Of note, women are twice more likely to die from a stroke than breast cancer each year."
ESC spokesperson Professor Joep Perk said: "Women are at the same risk of stroke as men, and the level of risk is completely steered by the underlying risk factor pattern they have. The majority of people who have a stroke are disabled for the rest of their lives and may be paralysed or lose their ability to speak. The devastating consequences of this disease for patients and their loved ones make prevention even more important."
He added: "Prevention for all cardiovascular disease follows the same pattern, be it stroke, heart attack, or peripheral arterial disease. Step one for women is absolutely to stop smoking that beats everything. The second most important thing is to know your blood pressure to see if you are at risk. And finally, adopt healthy behaviours like eating heart healthy food and keeping the amount of salt you eat under control."
The global campaign against stroke asks people to commit to six stroke challenges:
Know your personal risk factors: high blood pressure, diabetes, and high blood cholesterol
Be physically active and exercise regularly
Maintain a healthy diet high in fruit and vegetable and low in salt and keep blood pressure low
Limit alcohol consumption
Avoid cigarette smoke. If you smoke, seek help to stop now
Learn to recognise the warning signs of a stroke and how to take action.
###
Authors: ESC Press Office
Tel: +33 (0)4 92 94 86 27
Fax: +33 (0)4 92 94 86 69
Email: press@escardio.org
References
1) The Lancet Global Health: http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(13)61953-4/abstract
2) ESC Congress 2013 abstract 2659: Associations between being obese but metabolically healthy and risk of myocardial infarction, stroke and mortality - a nationwide study of fertile women
Notes to editor
About the European Society of Cardiology
The European Society of Cardiology (ESC) represents more than 80 000 cardiology professionals across Europe and the Mediterranean. Its mission is to reduce the burden of cardiovascular disease in Europe.
About the World Stroke Organization
The World Stroke Organization (WSO) is the world's leading organization in the fight against stroke. It was established in October 2006 through the merger of the International Stroke Society and the World Stroke Federation with the purpose of creating one world voice for stroke. Today, WSO has more than 1 200 individual members and over 60 society members from 85 different countries.
About the World Stroke Campaign
World Stroke Day 2013 is part of the World Stroke Campaign, which aims to disseminate essential life-saving information and share knowledge about actions and lifestyle behaviours that could avert the assault of stroke. The campaign will also identify opportunities to improve and educate the lay public on the fundamental need for appropriate and quality long-term care and support for stroke survivors, including the empowerment of stroke care-providers.
To illustrate your articles, campaign posters available here: http://www.worldstrokecampaign.org/2012/get/Pages/CampaignPosters.aspx and poster gallery available here: http://www.worldstrokecampaign.org/2012/get/Pages/WSDPhotoGallery.aspx
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Young obese women could reduce their stroke risk
PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:
25-Oct-2013
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Contact: ESC Press Office press@escardio.org 33-049-294-8627 European Society of Cardiology
World Stroke Day is 29 October 2013
Sophia Antipolis, 29 October 2013: The global campaign to tackle stroke is highlighted today on World Stroke Day with the slogan "Because I care". The phrase showcases the role of caregivers in supporting people who have suffered a stroke and aims to correct misinformation about the disease, such as the misconception that stroke only happens later in life.
Every other second, stroke attacks a person, regardless of age or gender. Of the 15 million people who experience a stroke each year, six million do not survive. Worldwide about 30 million people have had a stroke and most have residual disabilities. Recent data published in the Lancet, shows a striking 25% increase in the number of stroke cases in people aged 20 to 64, worldwide (1). This younger age group now accounts for 31% of stroke cases (up from 25% before 1990).
But stroke can be prevented, treated and managed in the long term. The campaign theme "Because I care" emphasises these areas. See http://www.worldstrokecampaign.org/2012/About/Pages/WorldStrokeDay2013.aspx
Research presented at ESC Congress 2013 showed that there are plenty of steps young obese women can take to reduce their risk of stroke (2). The research found that in young women without metabolic disorders (high blood pressure or abnormal glucose metabolism in relation to or outside pregnancy, or high cholesterol), being overweight or obese did not increase the chance of having a stroke compared to normal weight women without metabolic disorders. But the risk of stroke increased by 3.5 times in women who were overweight or obese and had metabolic disorders.
Study author, Dr Michelle Schmiegelow from Denmark, said: "Obesity puts young women at a major risk of developing high blood pressure, diabetes or high cholesterol, which dramatically increases their likelihood of having a stroke. Young women who are overweight or obese probably have a window of opportunity to lose weight and keep a healthy lifestyle so that they reduce their risk of getting high blood pressure, diabetes and high cholesterol. In this way they can protect themselves from having a stroke or heart attack."
ESC spokesperson Professor Gregory Lip said: "Overall women get more strokes than men each year, mainly because stroke occurs more frequently at older ages and women generally live longer than men. Thus, approximately 55 000 more women than men have strokes each year. Awareness of important risk factors, such as atrial fibrillation (an irregularity of the heart rhythm) and high blood pressure, is crucial. Of note, women are twice more likely to die from a stroke than breast cancer each year."
ESC spokesperson Professor Joep Perk said: "Women are at the same risk of stroke as men, and the level of risk is completely steered by the underlying risk factor pattern they have. The majority of people who have a stroke are disabled for the rest of their lives and may be paralysed or lose their ability to speak. The devastating consequences of this disease for patients and their loved ones make prevention even more important."
He added: "Prevention for all cardiovascular disease follows the same pattern, be it stroke, heart attack, or peripheral arterial disease. Step one for women is absolutely to stop smoking that beats everything. The second most important thing is to know your blood pressure to see if you are at risk. And finally, adopt healthy behaviours like eating heart healthy food and keeping the amount of salt you eat under control."
The global campaign against stroke asks people to commit to six stroke challenges:
Know your personal risk factors: high blood pressure, diabetes, and high blood cholesterol
Be physically active and exercise regularly
Maintain a healthy diet high in fruit and vegetable and low in salt and keep blood pressure low
Limit alcohol consumption
Avoid cigarette smoke. If you smoke, seek help to stop now
Learn to recognise the warning signs of a stroke and how to take action.
###
Authors: ESC Press Office
Tel: +33 (0)4 92 94 86 27
Fax: +33 (0)4 92 94 86 69
Email: press@escardio.org
References
1) The Lancet Global Health: http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(13)61953-4/abstract
2) ESC Congress 2013 abstract 2659: Associations between being obese but metabolically healthy and risk of myocardial infarction, stroke and mortality - a nationwide study of fertile women
Notes to editor
About the European Society of Cardiology
The European Society of Cardiology (ESC) represents more than 80 000 cardiology professionals across Europe and the Mediterranean. Its mission is to reduce the burden of cardiovascular disease in Europe.
About the World Stroke Organization
The World Stroke Organization (WSO) is the world's leading organization in the fight against stroke. It was established in October 2006 through the merger of the International Stroke Society and the World Stroke Federation with the purpose of creating one world voice for stroke. Today, WSO has more than 1 200 individual members and over 60 society members from 85 different countries.
About the World Stroke Campaign
World Stroke Day 2013 is part of the World Stroke Campaign, which aims to disseminate essential life-saving information and share knowledge about actions and lifestyle behaviours that could avert the assault of stroke. The campaign will also identify opportunities to improve and educate the lay public on the fundamental need for appropriate and quality long-term care and support for stroke survivors, including the empowerment of stroke care-providers.
To illustrate your articles, campaign posters available here: http://www.worldstrokecampaign.org/2012/get/Pages/CampaignPosters.aspx and poster gallery available here: http://www.worldstrokecampaign.org/2012/get/Pages/WSDPhotoGallery.aspx
[
| E-mail
Share
]
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Copy machines can be found in every office, and most of us take them for granted. But 75 years ago, the technology that underpins the modern photocopier was used for the first time in a small apartment in Queens.
Inventor Chester Carlson used static electricity created with a handkerchief, light and dry powder to make the first copy on Oct. 22, 1938.
The copier didn't get on to the market until 1959, more than 20 years later. When it did, the Xerox machine prompted a dramatic change in the workplace.
The first commercial model, the Xerox 914, was bulky and cumbersome. It weighed nearly 650 pounds. It was the size of about two washing machines and was prone to spontaneous combustion.
But even literally going up in flames wasn't enough to kill the product. In fact, it was in high demand.
"There was a distinct need for simple copying like this, and it just took off," says Ray Brewer, historical archivist for Xerox Corp. "We sold thousands of these machines, and the demand was such that we were manufacturing them in large quantities."
Brewer says the popularity of Xerox technology abroad inspired more clandestine uses for the copier. Some machines actually had miniature cameras built into them during the Cold War for the purpose of spying on other countries.
Back at home, the copier was proving to be a godsend for secretaries. One Xerox commercial features a female secretary saying:
"I make perfect copies of whatever my boss needs by just turning a knob and pushing a button. Anything he can see I can copy in black and white on ordinary paper. I can make seven copies a minute. ... Sometimes my boss asks me which is the original, and sometimes, I don't know."
Author and historian Lynn Peril says the machines had to have been "fabulously liberating."
"Oh my God, you didn't have to work with all the lousy carbon paper," she says. "You could just take it and put it on this glass surface and press a button and you've got as many copies as you wanted."
The beauty of the technology, Peril says, was that it saved time for office workers without making their workplace role obsolete.
Angele Boyd is a business analyst at the International Data Corp. She says copier technology created a more democratic information system.
"Until then, you needed to go to a press or you needed to go to a third party external print shop to produce that kind of quality output," she says.
The core technology in the copier, later transferred to printers and scanners, has remained the same since the 1930s.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The government official identified as being responsible for a last-minute decision that helped jam up the Obamacare health insurance website has been a frequent presence at the White House, according to visitor logs.
Henry Chao, deputy chief information officer at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), was named Thursday in congressional testimony as the one who ordered the lead contractor to make consumers register before browsing for price information, a step avoided by popular online shopping sites such as Amazon.com.
As a result of this decision made just two weeks before the website went public on October 1, Healthcare.gov was overwhelmed with so many people trying to register at once that the site crashed, Cheryl Campbell, senior vice president of lead contractor CGI Federal, told U.S. lawmakers wanting to know why the site had so many problems.
"I believe it was Henry Chao and members of his team," Campbell told the House of Representatives Energy and Commerce Committee.
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, part of the Department of Health and Human Services, is the agency spearheading the health care program.
Republican opponents of Obamacare who are looking into the website's troubles have been attempting to find out why the change was made and whether the White House was involved in it, theorizing that the administration was trying to erect a barrier that would keep consumers from finding out the true costs of the premiums they would be paying.
They have offered no evidence to support that claim, however, and the administration has denied any such motive. A spokeswoman for CMS said on Friday that the agency was trying to "prioritize the ability for us to launch live so consumers could conduct the full online application process."
She would not comment on whether Chao made the decision that Campbell said had led to problems.
White House visitor records show Chao visiting the White House 36 times between November 2011 and May 2013, with one visit in December 2009, to see President Barack Obama's advisers including health care and technology officials.
The records, which were voluntarily disclosed by the White House, provide information about visits through August 2013. No records were yet available for the month leading up to the launch, so it was not possible to determine whether Chao visited the White House during that period.
Chao, asked for comment, referred Reuters to CMS. Neither the White House nor others at CMS responded immediately to requests for comment on Chao's role.
Starting in May 2012 Chao began visiting often, spending time in the White House or Old Executive Office Building, where many administration offices are based, multiple times per month. He visited at least once monthly between May 2012 and May 2013.
Though he met with an array of officials, he most frequently saw White House healthcare official Jeanne Lambrew.
Two of Chao's visits with Lambrew followed his comments at a conference on March 14, 2013, when he said he was "pretty nervous" about the roll-out of the law's online system.
"Let's just make sure it's not a third-world experience," CQ reported Chao saying at the time. He then visited the White House on March 19 and March 26.
Chao also met White House Chief Technology Officer Todd Park twice - in April 2012 and January 2013 - and then-Chief Information Officer Steven VanRoekel in February 2012.
Chao was a point of contact for contractor CGI Federal as it worked to build the technology backbone of the Healthcare.gov website. CGI Federal is a unit of Canada-based CGI Group Inc.
Some Republicans, notably House Oversight Committee chairman Darrell Issa, say they believe the White House was trying to hide the "sticker shock" of insurance premiums online so as to attract people to sign up for insurance under the 2010 Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare.
But when asked whether Chao and others at CMS had given reasons for not making the "browser" option live on the website and whether the decision was political, Campbell told lawmakers: "I can't answer whether it was political or otherwise."
She also said she was not aware of any political intervention by the White House itself into her work on Heatlhcare.gov.
(Reporting By Susan Cornwell and David Morgan; Editing by Fred Barbash and Ken Wills)
The glitchy roll out of the Affordable Care Act federal health exchange website has had the Obama administration scrambling — for tech support, explanations, patience, and foot soldiers to help spread the word about the president's signature achievement.
From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Audie Cornish.
MELISSA BLOCK, HOST:
And I'm Melissa Block.
The Obama administration plans to begin daily briefings tomorrow. The reason: to provide updates on its efforts to fix the problem-plagued website for the new government-run health insurance markets. The move comes after days of complaints from opponents and allies alike about the lack of information coming from the White House.
Polls suggest, so far, the site's problems haven't damaged the president's signature health care initiative. But NPR's Scott Horsley reports that could change if the glitches aren't fixed quickly.
SCOTT HORSLEY, BYLINE: Even the most affordable health care coverage isn't much good if customers can't get past the computerized error message to sign up for it. That's presented a juicy target for congressional Republicans who unanimously opposed the president's health care overhaul.
REPRESENTATIVE ERIC CANTOR: The rollout of Obamacare is nothing short of a debacle.
HORSLEY: House Republican leader Eric Cantor complained this morning, while the administration offered a briefing about the website's problems to House Democrats, there was no similar explanation given to the GOP.
CANTOR: All we're hearing from the administration, really, is unsatisfactory in terms of answers to the many, many unanswered questions. That is adding to the fear of so many American people. And what's not helping is a lack of transparency on the part of this administration.
HORSLEY: Even former White House insiders say the administration needs to be more upfront about the websites problems and what's being done to fix them. To date, the administration's offered no information about how many people have overcome the obstacles to sign up for health insurance. It's discouraged insurance companies from providing that information themselves and it's announced no timeline for when the website should be working properly.
That official silence could end tomorrow with the new daily briefings. Ezekiel Emanuel, who advised the White House on health care policy during the first two years of the administration, says it's about time.
DR. EZEKIEL EMANUEL: Look, I put it like this - you're sitting on a plane and something has gone wrong, or you're delayed, right? You like to hear immediately from the pilot what the problem is and you like to hear regular updates from the pilot as to how things are progressing and when you can expect to hear the next update. I think the same has to happen regarding this.
HORSLEY: Emanuel, who's a doctor, says he's confident the website will be fixed eventually. And he insists the health care overhaul has a good long-term prognosis.
CANTOR: These are blocking and tackling issues. They're not rocket science issues that's getting a website to work. A year from now, two years from now, this thing is going to be great.
HORSLEY: Emanuel says it's important not to let the website's problems tarnish the overall Obamacare brand. And a new Gallup poll released today shows despite the troubled launch, support for the health care overhaul actually inched up in the last two months, though the program remains deeply divisive.
That ongoing political controversy surrounding Obamacare may have contributed to the website's problems. Robert Blendon, who studies health policy and politics at Harvard, says even the most technocratic decisions about the program have become opportunities for political point-scoring.
ROBERT BLENDON: This remains very polarized in politics. And every announcement that the administration makes turns out to be not an administrative announcement but a win or loss in this battle between the two parties about the future of the law.
HORSLEY: Emanuel suspects that politically charged atmosphere made the administration reluctant to draft final rules for the new health care exchanges during the run-up to the 2012 election. By the time the election was over, there was less than a year to design and test the website for this month's launch. The administration's now under pressure to fix the site in time for people to sign up for coverage early next year and avoid paying a penalty.
Asked by CNN this week when the website should be working properly, Health Secretary Kathleen Sebelius was vague.
SECRETARY KATHLEEN SEBELIUS: Well, as quickly as we can get it fixed.
HORSLEY: Sebelius declined an invitation to answer questions from a congressional committee tomorrow. She is expected to testify next week.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by a contractor for NPR, and accuracy and availability may vary. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Please be aware that the authoritative record of NPR's programming is the audio.
This picture taken on Oct. 14 shows the current fresco in Yunjie temple in Chaoyang, northeast China's Liaoning province.
AFP/Getty Images
This picture taken on Oct. 14 shows the current fresco in Yunjie temple in Chaoyang, northeast China's Liaoning province.
AFP/Getty Images
One official was fired and another reprimanded in China for allowing an unauthorized "restoration" of Qing Dynasty frescoes in a Buddhist temple that produced results described as "cartoons."
The botched restoration in the 270-year-old Yunjie temple in Chaoyang, northeast of Beijing, was exposed by a Chinese blogger, who complained that the "last trace of history" had been "erased."
NBC News interviewed the blogger, Tuo Liu, who goes by the handle "Wujiaofeng." He said he was "amazed to see the reaction" his post has generated:
This 2011 photo shows one of the ancient frescoes in Yunjie temple that now are covered by cartoonlike paintings.
AFP/AFP/Getty Images
This 2011 photo shows one of the ancient frescoes in Yunjie temple that now are covered by cartoonlike paintings.
AFP/AFP/Getty Images
"He explained that he had originally visited the temple in 2011 and liked the ancient frescoes so much that he took some friends back to see them during the National holidays at the beginning of October, but he was flabbergasted at what he saw.
" 'This is a crime. I am heartbroken,' wrote one blogger, responding to the photos.
"Another blogger chimed in, 'Cartoons drawn by my daughter are better than this.'
" 'Nothing is real among Chinese relics except their names,' said another."
"An official in charge of temple affairs and the head of the cultural heritage monitoring team in the city of Chaoyang, where the temple is located, have been sacked over the affair, the Global Times reported.
"The Communist Party chief of the office responsible for the scenic area surrounding the temple has also been given a warning, the paper quoted city official Li Haifeng as saying."
The unfortunate incident is reminiscent of another one last year in which an 81-year-old woman took it upon herself to restore a 19th century fresco of Jesus by painter Elias Garcia Martinez in the town of Borja, Spain. As we reported at the time, the "restored" Borja fresco sparked equal amounts of outrage and amusement.
CrunchWeek: Pinterest’s Big Raise, The iPad Air And OS X Mavericks, And NSA’s Foreign Surveillance
It’s that time of week for a new episode of CrunchWeek, the show that brings three writers, three TechCrunch TV cameras, and a whole lot of opinions together to dish on the most interesting stories from the past seven days in tech news.
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