Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/314569892?client_source=feed&format=rss
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Saturday, June 22, 2013
Cespedes, Colon lead A's to 6-3 win over Mariners
SEATTLE (AP) ? Yoenis Cespedes just feels more comfortable when he plays the outfield.
Cespedes homered twice and Bartolo Colon won his seventh straight start to lead the Oakland Athletics past the Seattle Mariners 6-3 on Friday night.
Limited to DH duty for seven games because of a sore hamstring, Cespedes celebrated his return to left field with a pair of two-run homers.
"Evidently he likes to play the outfield," Oakland manager Bob Melvin said. "You could see his whole demeanor today, he was just in a better mood."
Jed Lowrie and Coco Crisp also went deep for the Athletics, who maintained their one-game lead in the AL West over Texas.
Cespedes homered in the first inning and again in the ninth for his third career multihomer game ? all this month, and all when playing left field.
"I can't say I'm 100 percent yet, but it feels great to play in the outfield," Cespedes said through a translator. "When I'm in the outfield, my body's completely up, my body's on fire. The difference is when I'm a DH and I sit down in the dugout and I'm doing nothing, I feel like I'm going down a little bit."
Cespedes' hitting took some of the spotlight off Colon's pitching, but the 40-year-old right-hander was on top of his game, too. Colon (10-2) gave up three runs and seven hits over eight innings, tying unbeaten Max Scherzer of the Detroit Tigers for most wins in the American League.
Colon is 11-1 in his career at Safeco Field, the best record for any pitcher with at least seven decisions in the Mariners' home park.
"He's a veteran guy. He knows himself. He knows what works," said Crisp, who hit a solo homer in the sixth. "It's not a fluke."
Colon, who has relied heavily on his fastball this season, said he feels he's pitching as well as he has since winning the AL Cy Young Award with the Angels in 2005. He attributed his recent success to adding more off-speed pitches to the stream of fastballs.
"I think it's because I mix it up better than I did before," Colon said through a translator. "I was always a fastball guy, so now I'm mixing it more."
Mariners manager Eric Wedge, however, said Colon can dominate with only his fastball.
"He knows how to pitch. He recognizes swings," Wedge said. "He does as good a job with his fastball, his movement, where it starts and where it finishes, as anybody in the league."
Grant Balfour worked the ninth for his 18th save this season and 36th in a row dating to May 5, 2012.
Hisashi Iwakuma (7-3) lost at home for the first time this season, giving up four runs and six hits ? including three homers ? in seven innings. His home ERA rose from 0.92 to 1.46.
The matchup between two of the American League's top starters turned into a relative slugfest.
Iwakuma had never given up more than two home runs in a game, and it was the first time in 18 career home starts he allowed more than one homer. He has lost two starts in a row, both to Oakland.
"We really didn't get a whole lot of hits off of him," said Lowrie, who homered leading off the fourth. "We were able to get those big homers, that's the only way we scored off him."
Nick Franklin hit a three-run shot in the third against Colon, the first time the pitcher had allowed a home run or more than two earned runs in a game since May 14, before he started his winning streak.
Cespedes gave Oakland a two-run lead in the first inning with a shot that bounced off the upper-deck railing above the left field out-of-town scoreboard. It wasn't the first big hit Cespedes has had against Iwakuma ? he is 6 for 15 with three homers against the Mariners' starter.
The Mariners were hurt by a baserunning blunder in the sixth. After a leadoff single, Kyle Seager was thrown out trying to take two bases on a passed ball. Kendrys Morales' single and Raul Ibanez's walk gave Seattle two on with one out, but the Mariners were unable to push a run across.
Oakland added two insurance runs in the ninth off reliever Tom Wilhelmsen. Lowrie led off with a single and Cespedes followed with another homer to left field, his 15th.
NOTES: Oakland C John Jaso was a late scratch because of a left palm abrasion he got when sliding Thursday. ... Seattle promoted pitching prospect Taijuan Walker to Triple-A Tacoma. Walker, the Mariners' top pick in the 2010 draft, was 4-7 with a 2.46 ERA and 96 strikeouts in 14 starts for Double-A Jackson. ... Two of Seattle's 2013 draft picks, Austin Wilson (second round) and Lachlan Fontaine (13th), took batting practice before the game.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/cespedes-colon-lead-6-3-win-over-mariners-050408073.html
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New record as haze chokes Singapore
21 June 2013
Last updated at 06:04 ET
Ashleigh Nghiem in Singapore: "This is the fourth day of choking smoke"
Pollution levels reached a new record high for a third day in a row in Singapore, as smoky haze from fires in Indonesia shrouded the city state.
The Pollutant Standards Index (PSI) hit 401 at 12:00 on Friday (04:00 GMT) - the highest in the country's history.
The haze is also affecting Malaysia, with another 100 schools closed in the south of the country.
Indonesia has prepared helicopters and cloud seeding equipment to try to tackle the fires.
Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsieng Loong warned on Thursday that the haze could remain in place for weeks.
"We can't tell how this problem is going to develop because it depends on the burning, it depends on the weather, it depends on the wind," he said.
"It can easily last for several weeks and quite possibly it could last longer until the dry season ends in Sumatra which may be September or October."
'Life threatening'A PSI reading above 300 is defined as "hazardous", while Singapore government guidelines say a PSI reading of above 400 over 24 hours "may be life threatening to ill and elderly persons".
"Healthy people [may also] experience adverse symptoms that affect normal activity," the government says.
Continue reading the main storyThe PSI dropped down to 143 at 17:00 (09:00 GMT), although this is still classed as "unhealthy".
Before this week's episode, the previous air pollution record was from September 1997 during the 1997-1998 South East Asian Haze, when the PSI peaked at 226.
Singapore resident Nicole Wu told the BBC that she had stayed indoors for the past two days.
Continue reading the main story?Start Quote
End Quote Nicole Wu Singapore residentI can't even see what's happening outside my house due to the smog?
"It's terrible. In my flat the windows are all closed with the air conditioning on," she said. "My mother has to wear a mask to go shopping."
"I can't even see what's happening outside my house due to the smog. You can't see birds [or] moving objects," she added.
Philip Koh, a doctor, told AFP news agency that the number of medical consultations he had had in the past week had increased by 20%.
"My patients are telling me they are worried about how long this is going to last and how much higher this is going to go," he said.
In Indonesia's Riau province, where the fires are concentrated, the chief of the health department Zainal Arifin said there was an "increasing number of asthma, lung, eye and skin problems due to higher CO2 levels".
"I call for residents to stay at home and reduce outdoor activities," he said.
Diplomatic strainSingapore's National Environment Agency has started providing hourly PSI updates on its website, in addition to the three-hourly updates it previously provided.
Around 300 schools in southern Malaysia have now been closed as a result of the smog. Schools in Singapore are currently closed for the holidays.
There are also reports of flight delays in both Singapore's Changi airport and Riau province in Indonesia.
The fires are caused by illegal slash-and-burn land clearance in Sumatra, to the west of Singapore.
The smog has strained diplomatic relations between Singapore and Indonesia - two countries that usually share good relations, the BBC's Karishma Vaswani in Jakarta reports.
Mr Lee said Singapore had provided satellite date to Indonesia to help it identify companies involved and said that if any Singapore firms were involved, that would be addressed.
Indonesia's National Disaster Management Agency said it would deploy two helicopters to conduct "water-bombing" operations, as well as planes with cloud seeding equipment.
More than 100 Indonesian firefighters are attempting to put out the fires in Sumatra.
Continue reading the main story?Start Quote
End Quote Ahmad Saerozi Natural resources conservation agencyWe have been fighting fires 24 hours a day for two weeks?
However, an official in Riau province said they were "overwhelmed and in a state of emergency".
"We have been fighting fires 24 hours a day for two weeks," Ahmad Saerozi, the head of the natural resources conservation agency in Riau, told AFP news agency.
He added that the fires were in peat around three or four metres below the ground, making it particularly hard to fight them.
"It is still burning under the surface so we have to stick a hose into the peat to douse the fire," he said.
"We take one to two hours to clear a hectare, and by then another fire has started elsewhere."
Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said "all the country's resources" would be mobilised to extinguish the fires.
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Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-22998592#sa-ns_mchannel=rss&ns_source=PublicRSS20-sa
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Thursday, June 20, 2013
Skyjacker of the Day
In the late 1960s and early 1970s, the United States suffered through a skyjacking epidemic that has now been largely forgotten. In his new book, The Skies Belong to Us: Love and Terror in the Golden Age of Hijacking, Brendan I. Koerner tells the story of the chaotic age when jets were routinely commandeered by the desperate and disillusioned. In the run-up to his book?s publication on June 18, Koerner has been writing a daily series of skyjacker profiles. Slate is running the final dozen of these ?Skyjacker of the Day? entries.
Flight Info: Southern Airways Flight 49 from Memphis, Tenn., to Miami, with scheduled stops in Birmingham, Ala., Montgomery, Ala., and Orlando, Fla.
The Story: The airlines long viewed hijacking as a manageable risk. They believed that if they acquiesced to all of a skyjacker?s demands, a favorable outcome was guaranteed?the passengers would go unharmed, the plane would be returned intact, and any ransom would likely be recovered after an arrest was made. Based on this assumption, the airlines were convinced that it was cheaper to endure periodic skyjackings than to implement invasive security at all of America?s airports. The Southern Airways Flight 49 incident revealed the folly of this mindset.
The hijacking traced back to a dispute between 27-year-old Louis Moore and the city of Detroit. In November 1971 Moore had sued the city for police brutality. Then in October 1972 Moore and one of his friends, Henry Jackson, were arrested for sexual assault?a charge the two men alleged had been trumped up in retaliation for the lawsuit. Moore and Jackson fled the city after posting bail, joined by Moore?s half brother, Melvin Cale, a burglar who had escaped from a Tennessee halfway house. The fugitive trio made a pact to teach Detroit?s authorities an unforgettable lesson.
Armed with guns and hand grenades, which they smuggled aboard the DC-9 in a raincoat, the three men commandeered Flight 49 over central Alabama. Their demands were unprecedented: 10 parachutes, 10 bulletproof vests, and $10 million in cash, along with a White House letter certifying the money as an irrevocable ?government grant.?
Flight 49 headed for Detroit, where the hijackers wanted the ransom delivered, but heavy fog forced the plane to land in Cleveland instead. The hijackers, who had consumed much of the plane?s liquor during the northbound journey, next asked to go to Toronto, where Southern Airways offered them $500,000. Moore rejected this sum and ordered the plane to fly to his hometown of Knoxville, Tenn.
?This is going to be the last chance,? he radioed Southern officials as Flight 49 soared over Lake Ontario. ?If we don?t get what we want, we?re going to bomb Oak Ridge.? Moore was referring to Oak Ridge National Laboratory, 20 miles west of downtown Knoxville. The facility?s centerpiece was a nuclear reactor powered by highly enriched uranium-235, a primary component of many fission bombs.
As Flight 49 circled over Oak Ridge, Southern scraped together every last nickel it could?$2 million in all. The airline had no choice but to gamble that the hijackers would be so overwhelmed by the sheer heft of the ransom?approximately 150 pounds?that they wouldn?t bother to count it.
Flight 49 landed in Chattanooga, Tenn., to pick up the money. Just as Southern had hoped, Moore, Jackson, and Cale were too awestruck by the abundance of cash to realize they had been duped. The hijackers celebrated their new wealth by handing out wads of cash to passengers and crew members; the captain and co-pilot alone received $300,000.
But the ecstatic hijackers reneged on their promise to release the passengers in Chattanooga. They instead demanded to be flown to Havana, where Cuban authorities refused to let them disembark. The flight then went to an Air Force base near Orlando, where FBI agents severely damaged the DC-9?s landing gear with gunfire. Yet the hobbled plane still managed to take off and head back to Havana. This time, after a harrowing landing, Cuban soldiers arrested the hijackers and impounded their ransom so that it could be returned to Southern. A furious Castro promised one of pilots that the three men would spend the rest of their lives in tiny boxes. (A full map of Flight 49?s bonkers journey can be seen here.)
The Upshot: In direct response to Flight 49?s flirtation with nuclear catastrophe, the physical screening of all airline passengers began on Jan. 5, 1973. Cuba returned Moore, Jackson, and Cale to the U.S. in 1980, much to the hijackers? relief. ?The [U.S.] jails will look like a country club, a paradise,? Cale told reporters. Moore, who served another seven years in the U.S., now lives in Knoxville.
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Wednesday, June 19, 2013
Here's what to watch for Wednesday from the Fed
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, May 22, 2013, before a Joint Economic Committee hearing on "The Economic Outlook". Bernanke told Congress Wednesday that the U.S. job market remains weak and that it is too soon for the Federal Reserve to end its extraordinary stimulus programs. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, May 22, 2013, before a Joint Economic Committee hearing on "The Economic Outlook". Bernanke told Congress Wednesday that the U.S. job market remains weak and that it is too soon for the Federal Reserve to end its extraordinary stimulus programs. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)
WASHINGTON (AP) ? What the world hopes to hear Wednesday from the Federal Reserve can be summed up in one word: clarity.
Chairman Ben Bernanke will be pressed to settle the wave of confusion and speculation that's consumed investors since he spoke to Congress last month about the Fed's drive to keep long-term interest rates at record lows.
Would the Fed scale back its $85 billion-a-month in bond purchases within "the next few meetings," as he suggested to Congress at one point? Or does the job market remain too weak for the Fed to slow its stimulus, as Bernanke said at another point?
The Fed's bond purchases have been intended to hold down long-term loan rates to induce Americans to borrow and spend and invest in the stock market. Ultra-low rates are credited with helping fuel a housing comeback, support economic growth, drive stocks to record highs and restore the wealth America lost to the recession.
Conflicting statements from other Fed officials have further clouded the outlook for the bond-buying program. That's why the pressure for the Fed to clarify its message has intensified in recent weeks.
Here's what to look for from each of four key events Wednesday: a statement the Fed will issue when its two-day meeting ends; the Fed's updated economic outlook; Bernanke's news conference; and the reaction of investors:
? FED STATEMENT
A big question is whether the Fed will revise the stance it's taken in the statements issued after its most recent policy meetings: That it will continue to buy $85 billion a month in Treasury and mortgage bonds ? and that its bond purchases will continue until the outlook for the job market "has improved substantially."
The Fed has not defined "substantially." And Bernanke has stressed that the Fed could increase or reduce its bond purchases at any time depending on the economic outlook. He's also said that even after the Fed has begun to curtail the purchases, it could reverse course and step up its bond buying if it felt the economy needed more support.
Almost no one expects the Fed to announce that it will start reducing its bond purchases immediately. But it might specify what it means by a substantial improvement in the job market. Investors could then monitor the monthly employment report to see whether the job market is meeting the Fed's benchmark for substantial improvement.
The statement is expected to repeat the Fed's commitment to keep its key short-term interest rate at a record low near zero. The benchmark short-term rate has remained at that level since late 2008, after the financial crisis erupted.
In December, the Fed said for the first time that it would leave the short-term rate unchanged at least until the unemployment rate reaches 6.5 percent. The rate is now 7.6 percent. Many private economists don't expect unemployment to reach 6.5 percent until mid-2015.
? ECONOMIC OUTLOOK
This is one of four meetings each year when the central bank updates its economic outlook, based on the individual forecasts of 19 Fed officials. If the Fed downgrades its outlook for growth and employment, it would suggest that officials think a still-weak economy continues to need substantial Fed stimulus. Investors would likely conclude that the Fed won't scale back its bond purchases soon.
If, on the other hand, the Fed upgrades its outlook, it would be seen as a signal that it thinks the economy can now manage with less stimulus. The likely conclusion: That the Fed is moving closer to reducing its bond purchases.
That conclusion would upset some investors because it could lead to higher interest rates and lower stock prices. Yet it would amount to a vote of confidence in the U.S. economy.
In its last forecast in March, the Fed predicted that the economy would grow as little as 2.3 percent this year ? not enough to quickly reduce unemployment ? or as high as 2.8 percent. For 2014, it envisioned growth ranging from 2.9 percent to 3.4 percent.
It forecast that the unemployment rate would fall between 7.3 percent and 7.5 percent by the end of this year. By the end of 2014, the Fed envisioned the rate between 6.7 percent and 7 percent.
? BERNANKE NEWS CONFERENCE
The day's major event is Bernanke's session with reporters. And the question is how far he'll go to define a substantial improvement in the job market and to clarify the Fed's timetable for slowing its bond purchases.
However he does it, the chairman will surely address the uncertainty created by the mixed messages he sent in his congressional testimony last month.
Bernanke almost certainly won't say precisely when the Fed will start to slow its bond purchases. Economists generally think the scaling back could begin in September or, if not then, by December. Bernanke might hint as much, without explicitly saying so, in his news conference.
He may also try to ease investors' fears by spelling out the kind of improvement in the job market the Fed will want to see before it starts trimming its bond purchases. And he'll also likely stress the Fed's continued flexibility even after it starts to pull back: It could decide to taper or expand the bond purchases ? or any other Fed program ? at any time depending on the economy's health.
During his news conference, Bernanke will likely be asked to address the widespread assumption that he will leave the Fed when his second four-year term ends in January. President Barack Obama, in an interview with PBS that aired Monday, hinted that Bernanke will be stepping down. Janet Yellen, the Fed's vice chair, is considered the front-runner to succeed him.
? INVESTORS' REACTION
Global financial markets are hoping for a signal that no pullback in the Fed's economic support is imminent. If Bernanke manages to reassure them, the market reaction may be muted.
If, on the other hand, the Fed's message is that it will start scaling back its stimulus as soon as September, investors might send stock and bond prices down and interest rates up.
Even if the Fed makes clear it will delay any pullback in support for at least a few months, the stock market might still drop. Stocks have rallied the past two days on hopes that the Fed will signal that it won't reduce its stimulus until it's sure the economy can handle it.
And investors have a long history of buying on the rumor and selling on the news.
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