Excerpt found on www.usatoday.com

ESPN 3D expects to showcase at least 85 live sporting events during the first year. There’ll be no reruns initially, so the network will be dark when there’s no 3D event. Among other events planned for 3D broadcast: the Summer X Games (extreme sports), NBA games, college basketball and college football.

ESPN is committing to the 3D network through June 2011. "We’re going to assess the viability of this as we did with all our businesses," says Sean Bratches, an ESPN executive vice president for sales and marketing. He’s confident that sports fans will immerse themselves in the technology.

Broadcasting live events in 3D comes at an extra cost. Locations where cameras are placed to capture a regular high-definition sporting event don’t necessarily translate to a 3D broadcast. If simultaneously broadcasting in regular HD, ESPN needs to employ a second production crew, and different announcers, for the 3D telecast.

In September, it produced the University of Southern California vs. Ohio State football game in 3D, shown on the USC campus and in theaters in Ohio, Texas and Connecticut. In surveys afterward, most viewers said they were "wowed." But some said quick camera changes "were a little hard on the eyes." And the research suggested that willingness to pay for 3D was "extremely dependent on (the) matchup."

ESPN likely won’t have the 3D stage to itself. The HD Guru3D website reports that DirecTV will launch a 3D channel at CES. Robert Mercer, a spokesman for the satellite provider, wouldn’t confirm that. But he says "3D is something we are very interested in."

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Excerpt found on abcnews.go.com

Lee Anthony testified emotionally today about his sister’s pregnancy with Caylee, breaking down in tears as he claimed his family ignored her pregnancy, not talking about it until just days before she gave birth in 2005.

The brother’s dramatic appearance on the witness stand clearly baffled prosecutors who questioned the sincerity of his emotion as well as his memory that seemed to differ from his 2009 deposition.

On Thursday, Cindy Anthony, Casey Anthony’s mother, took credit for some of the chloroform searches on the family computer, a blow to the prosecution’s theory that it was Casey Anthony who searched chloroform 84 times in her computer.

The prosecution argues that Casey Anthony murdered her daughter with chloroform and duct tape. Caylee was reported missing on July 15, 2008, 31 days after she was last seen alive. She could face the death penalty if convicted of first degree murder.

The defense claims she accidentally drowned in the family pool. At one point today Cindy Anthony returned to the stand where defense attorney Jose Baez asked her, "How many times had you advised law enforcement you thought Caylee drowned in the pool?"

Lee Anthony told the court today that the family ignored Casey’s pregnancy even after she was visibly showing in the seventh month and he said no one acknowledged the pregnancy until days before Caylee was born. The testimony by Lee Anthony was the latest effort by Casey Anthony’s lawyers to depict a dysfunctional family that ignored the obvious at times.

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Excerpt found on www.trutv.com

Between June 14, 1962 and January 4, 1964, thirteen single women in the Boston area were victims of either a single serial killer or possibly several killers. At least eleven of these murders were popularly known as the victims of the Boston Strangler. While the police did not see all of these murders as the work of a single individual, the public did. All of these women were murdered in their apartments, had been sexually molested, and were strangled with articles of clothing. With no signs of forced entry, the women apparently knew their assailant(s) or, at least, voluntarily let him (them) in their homes. These were respectable women who for the most part led quiet, modest lives.

Even though nobody has ever officially been on trial as the Boston Strangler, the public believed that Albert DeSalvo, who confessed in detail to each of the eleven "official" Strangler murders, as well as two others, was the murderer. However, at the time that DeSalvo confessed, most people who knew him personally did not believe him capable of the vicious crimes and today there is a persuasive case to be made that DeSalvo wasn’t the killer after all.

This story presents both sides of the argument and lets you make the decision for yourself. It is not an easy decision to make as many psychiatrists, lawyers, criminologists, authors and friends of Albert DeSalvo have discovered.

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Excerpt found on yourlife.usatoday.com

The idea that your job or your boss is leading you to an early grave is one of several myths debunked in an analysis of a 90-year study that followed 1,528 Americans. Among other myths: be optimistic, get married, go to church, eat broccoli and get a gym membership.

Researchers Howard Friedman and Leslie Martin report their conclusions in a new book, The Longevity Project. "Everybody has the ideas — don’t stress, don’t worry, don’t work so hard, retire and go play golf," says Friedman, a psychology professor at University of California-Riverside. "We did not find these patterns to exist in people who thrived."

At the core of their 20 years of research is a study started by Stanford University psychologist Lewis Terman in 1921. Terman died in 1956, but other researchers carried on the study. One participant was biologist Ancel Keys, whose life-long work helped popularize the Mediterranean diet. He died in 2004 at age 100. He enjoyed gardening as an activity much of his life.

"It became really clear to us if your activities rise or stay high in middle age, you definitely stay healthier and live longer," says Martin, a research psychologist at University of California-Riverside. Here are five of their key myths about thriving:

Reality:In the study, children whose parents described them as "extraordinarily cheerful and optimistic," "never sees the dark side" or "never worries" were less likely to live to an old age. This is one of "the biggest bombshells of the project," the researchers write.

"We keep hearing this advice to cheer up and stay happy because it will keep you healthy," Friedman says. "We just disagree with that after seeing the results of the study."

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Excerpt found on www.southkent.org

Email: sue@southkent.org  |  Tel: 616 531-5990  |  Fax 616 531-0252  |  921 47th St SW, Wyoming, MI 49509

The Chamber is the voice for your business with Local, State, and the Federal governements.  The Government Matters Committee is a collaboration of our members working to identify important issues that affect our member’s businesses and community.  The committee works with our elected officials, Chamber Board of Directors and Chamber President to advocate for our members.School Board Candidate Interviews are available here. 

The Chamber’s mission is building better communities by building better businesses.  Our members are committed to the Wyoming and Kentwood communities.  The Santa Parade committee works all year to bring a wonderful celebration of the holidays and joy to the children of Wyoming and Kentwood with the parade on Division Avenue.  The Metro Cruise committee brings 300,000 people to the 28th Street Corridor each August.  Save the Dates: 

2011 Foremost Insurance Metro Cruise – Friday & Saturday, August 26-27th

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Excerpt found on articles.cnn.com

Insurgents Monday targeted key oil sites in Iraq, firing mortar rounds into an oil distribution center in northern Iraq and bombing a pipeline in a southern suburb of Baghdad, Iraqi officials said.

The attack on the oil distribution center triggered a massive fire that halted the flow of crude oil to Iraq’s largest refinery, a Kirkuk police official said.

The attack happened around 6:30 p.m. (10:30 a.m. ET) in Baiji, which is about 15 miles (25 km) northwest of Kirkuk, the police official said.

The refinery in Baiji has a daily production level of about 8.5 million liters of gasoline, 7.5 million liters of diesel and 6.5 million liters of white oil.

The second attack — a bomb planted beneath an oil pipeline in the al-Rashid district — also started a fire at around 11 a.m., an official with Iraqi civil defense said, adding that the civil defense put out the fire in about 2 hours.

Further south, in Muqdadiya, gunmen Monday stormed a mobile phone store, killed the owner and planted explosives which later detonated as people gathered inside, killing four people and wounding 25 others, an official with Diyala Joint Coordination Center told CNN.

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Excerpt found on politics.blogs.foxnews.com

GAO Details Billions in Federal Waste — Report Obtained by Fox News

As members of Congress fight over what to cut in the current federal budget to avert a government shutdown, lawmakers are about to receive a blockbuster report that could provide a roadmap to potentially hundreds of billions of dollars in waste. The nonpartisan Government Accountability Office (GAO) is poised to release a report Tuesday that one senator said "will make us all look like jackasses."

"Go study that (report). It will show why we’re $14 trillion in debt," said Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla. "Anybody that says we don’t look like fools up here hasn’t read the report."

The report, a summary of which was obtained by Fox News, was mandated by Congress the last time it raised the debt limit in January 2010. In its analysis of federal agencies, the GAO found 33 areas with "overlap and fragmentation."

"Reducing or eliminating duplication, overlap, or fragmentation could potentially save billions of taxpayer dollars annually and help agencies provide more efficient and effective services," the report says. In one example, the report found that if the Defense Department were to make "broader restructuring" of its "military health care system" it "could result in annual savings of up to $460 million."

Even more scathing is the duplication investigators found in the nation’s biodefense efforts, with the report essentially saying that the billions of dollars spent annually is the responsibility of no one individual and that there is no plan for post-attack coordination, this on the heels of a 2010 federal commission finding that gave the U.S. a "failing grade" in its prevention measures.

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Excerpt found on blog.artsetter.com

If you’d like to learn more about your favorite Artsetter artists, art galleries or contemporary art in general, follow us on Facebook, Twitter and via RSS

Cy Twombly is the third contemporary artist bestowed with the honor of being commissioned for a work in the Louvre Museum -after Anslem Kiefer’s monumental painting in 2007, and François Morellet’s Lefuel Staircase window installations this year. The Louvre’s practice of inviting works by living artists continues with Twombly’s new painted ceiling in one of the museum’s biggest gallery spaces -the 350m2 Salle des Bronzes.

The ceiling differs from Twombly’s usual style characterized by a graffiti influence. He designed the work to complement the large rectangular space containing the museum’s Classical bronze sculpture. The result is a vibrant blue ceiling decorated with yellow, off-white, and blue spherical orbs and the names of the seven foremost Greek sculptors from the fourth century -including Praxiteles, Polyclitus, and Lysippus. The last artist asked to do a Louvre ceiling was Georges Braque in 1953, in a room which leads to Twombly’s new ceiling.

Cy Twombly, originally from Virginia where he was born in 1928, has lived in Italy since the 1950s and has often traveled to Greece, as his work is strongly influenced by ancient Greek history and mythology. His work for the Salle des Bronzes is a nice synthesis of his contemporary abstract style rooted in antiquity.

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Excerpt found on www.bbc.co.uk

Giant Hogweed Heracleum mantegazzianum is an ‘aggressive competitor’, able to out-compete native plant species, reducing the amount of suitable habitat available for insects, birds and mammals.

Giant Hogweed produces approximately 1500 seeds per flower head in late summer. These seeds can remain inactive in the soil for several years. The movement of soil polluted with Giant Hogweed seeds must be carefully controlled to prevent the spread of the plant.

Dr Lindsay Stenhouse investigates the dangers of Giant Hogweed in Scotland, in a video first broadcast on Landward in August 2007. Image courtesy of Jean-Pol Grandmont.

Giant Hogweed contains a substance within its sap that makes the skin sensitive to ultraviolet light. This can result in severe burns to the affected areas, producing swelling and severe, painful blistering. Damaged skin heals slowly, leaving residual pigmentation that can develop into Phytophotodermatitis, a type of dermatitis that flares up in sunlight and for which there is no straightforward treatment.

DermaNet NZ advises that contact with dead plant parts, pets or other objects which have been in contact with Giant Hogweed parts is dangerous, and protective clothing and goggles and the avoidance of sunlight are necessary during the extraction of the plant.

Due to the density of stands of Giant Hogweed and the safety implications involved in the removal of the plants, footpaths and other amenity areas can be rendered unusable by the presence of this species.

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Excerpt found on abcnews.go.com

The jubilant crowd of an estimated quarter-million people had barely cleared out of the victory party in Chicago when President-elect Barack Obama began shaping his administration.

Emanuel, a veteran of President Clinton’s administration and a close political ally of Obama’s from Chicago, hasn’t immediately given his answer.

Obama likes that Emanuel knows policy, knows politics and knows Capitol Hill and has told associates that he knows Emanuel will "have his back," ABC News’ chief Washington correspondent George Stephanopoulos said of the offer.

Obama didn’t have time to savor his history-making victory over Republican John McCain that made him America’s first black person to win the White House.

The Illinois senator amassed 338 electoral votes to McCain’s 162, although three states — Missouri, Indiana and North Carolina — remain too close to project.

In a Rose Garden statement today, President Bush congratulated Obama on his "impressive" victory and noted the historic significance of electing the country’s first black president.

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