Gartner: Android and Samsung dominate the phone market in Q1

If you've been following the trends, Gartner's mobile phone market figures for the first quarter of 2013 won't surprise. The research firm estimates that Android was on 74.4 percent of all smartphones sold in the period, with Samsung the key beneficiary of such dominance. While the Korean behemoth doesn't release solid sales figures, Gartner believes its market-flooding strategy has paid off, topping the league with 30.8 percent market share -- Apple has a firm grip on second place, with 18.2 percent, which is well ahead of LG, which has 4.8 percent. Samsung is also king of the mobile phone space, owning 23.6 percent of the market, ahead of Nokia, which has fallen to 14.8 percent share. Gartner's research also found that feature phone sales are slowing, so we guess that it's only a matter of time before the humble candybar goes the way of the netbook.

Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile, Apple, Samsung, Nokia, LG

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Via: TechCrunch

Source: Gartner

Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/sPMYzhrcEvA/

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Toshiba Kirabook

The Toshiba Kirabook ($1,999.99) is a high-end ultrabook cut from the same cloth as the Apple MacBook Pro 13-inch (Retina Display) and the Google ChromeBook Pixel. All three are ultraportable laptops with higher than 1080p HD screens. All three will give you the visual fireworks, though the Kirabook has the lock on thinness and lightness. That said, the Kirabook is really pricey for an ultrabook, and while the screen and other features will wow you, the $2,000 price tag puts a serious damper on things. It's a really nice laptop, but not necessarily $2,000 worth of nice.

Design and Features
The Kirabook is a slim, svelte ultrabook that measures about 0.7 by 12.5 by 8.25 inches (HWD) and weighs 2.77 pounds. This is measurably thicker than the 0.47 inch thick Acer Aspire S7-391-9886 ($1,649), and the Kirabook is imperceptibly lighter than the 2.86-pound Acer S7-391. The Kirabook will fit into most travel bags easily, and with its magnesium alloy exterior and Corning Concore glass screen, you won't have to worry about the occasional drop while it's in that bag.

The top lid has a brushed metal finish, while the bottom lid is matte. The keyboard deck has a matching brushed metal finish to it, with a wide one-piece trackpad ringed by a chrome insert. Toshiba has gone minimal with the Kirabook, since the only visible embellishments are the LED ring around the power button and the adjacent single LED to tell you that Wi-Fi is on. There's a charging indicator LED on the left side of the system as well. The sides of the system house the system's three USB 3.0 ports (two left, one right), HDMI-out port, SD card reader, and headset jack. The USB ports are black instead of the more common blue, but that is OK, since there aren't any USB 2.0 ports to confuse the user. This is where the Kirabook's extra girth comes in handy: you won't need an adapter to use the full sized HDMI port, unlike Micro-HDMI on the slimmer Acer Aspire S7-391. The Acer S7-391also has one less USB port than the Kirabook. The Kirabook has a backlit keyboard. The row of function keys above the numbers default to their more usable functions (e.g., volume, play/FF/REW, etc.) rather than F1-F12, which makes more sense for most users. There are a few keys smaller than standard, like PgUP/PgDN, but on the whole the keyboard is comfortable, even with its slightly shallow keystroke.

The Kirabook's 13.3-inch screen is its centerpiece, coming in at a brilliant 2,560 by 1,440 resolution. This is a claimed 221 pixels per inch (ppi), about the same as the 220-ppi Apple MacBook Pro 15-inch (Retina Display) ($2,199), but a smidge lower than the 239-ppi Google ChromeBook Pixel. The screen looked great when we played 4k QFHD (3,840 by 2,160) videos streamed from the Internet, though it's notable that these videos took quite some time to buffer, even over a 40Mbit FIOS connection. Viewing 1080p streaming videos from Amazon and Netflix looked fine as well, though of course without the eye-popping detail that you'd see in 4k. The strength of the 2,560 by 1,440 display comes into play when you use the system for editing photos and videos, since you can concentrate on large swaths of a 12-megapixel image without having to zoom in too far. You can also edit a 1080p HD video at full resolution even if you surround your workspace screen with a plethora of toolbars. To this end, Toshiba has included a copy of both Adobe Photoshop Elements and Premiere Elements. The Kirabook's screen has 10-point touch, which is a must for a Windows 8 laptop at this price.

Toshiba also includes quite a few other pre-loaded apps, including Skype, Vimeo, Netflix, Hulu Plus, Amazon, eBay, Toshiba Book Place, and Norton Internet Security. The copy of Norton Internet Security is notable because it includes a two-year subscription, which is excellent and almost unheard of today, when 30-60 days is the norm. The Kirabook also includes two years of technical support on a specialized Platinum support plan that promises a direct line to support techs including callback service. The top of the line system we reviewed came with a 256GB SSD, plenty of space for many users. All three configurations of Kirabook come with 256GB of storage, and if you need more, it's easy to hook up a USB 3.0 drive.

There are a few drawbacks to the compact design. Though the touch screen has enough friction to avoid bouncing when you touch it , the sides of the screen have very small bezels. While this makes the system look slimmer than other touch screen systems, it also means that swipes from off screen (like the ones used by the Charm bar) can be awkward. The Kirabook also lacks 802.11ac or 5GHz 802.11 a/n Wi-Fi, being strictly limited to 2.4GHz 802.11 b/g/n. This isn't a huge deal for most, but if you live in a crowded neighborhood you'd want 5GHz Wi-Fi to cut through your neighbors' wireless routers. While the screen is brilliant, you may have to fiddle with zoom and screen resolution settings on older games and programs: they may not display correctly scaled up to 2,560 by 1,440.

Performance
Performance on the Kirabook was a mixed bag, but mostly good. The Intel Core i7-3537U processor, 8GB of memory, and 256GB SSD combined to give us an excellent 5,229 point score on PCMark7, which measures day-to-day performance. This compares well to the non-touch Asus ZenBook UX51Vz-DH71, which came in with a 4,926 point score. The Kirabook was very good, but a bit slower than the quad-core powered Asus UX51Vz-DH71 on the multimedia tests (Handbrake and Photoshop CS6).

The big performance issue for the Kirabook is its lack of discrete graphics. In order to shrink down to ultrabook standards, the Kirabook only has integrated Intel HD Graphics 4000. While HD Graphics 4000 is fine for casual and browser-based games, it can't hold a candle to the Nvidia GeForce GT 650M graphics in the ZenBook and the Apple MacBook Pro 15-inch, both of which are in the same $2,000 price league as the Kirabook. While they may not miss the GPU for its 3D gaming prowess, graphic artists and videographers will prefer to have a GPU helping them out with professional graphics apps like the full CS6 versions of Photoshop and Premiere.

The Kirabook received a passable 5 hours 50 minutes on our battery rundown test. This is an hour better than the Acer S7-391 and two hours better than the Asus UX51Vz-DH71. However, the MacBook Pro 15-inch (Retina Display) and high-end ultraportable Editors' Choice Apple MacBook Pro 13-inch (Retina Display) last into the seven-hour range, so the Kirabook is good, but not the best.

And therein lies the problem: The Toshiba Kirabook is really good, but not the best for the money. If you have a need to spend $2,000 on a high-end ultraportable laptop, the Editors' Choice Apple MacBook Pro 13-inch (Retina Display) will give you a higher-than-HD resolution screen, dual-band Wi-Fi, full size HDMI, 8GB of memory, 256GB Flash Storage, and similar performance with a Core i5 processor for the same $2,000 price tag. The MacBook Pro also has more battery life and forward-looking I/O ports like Thunderbolt. The Kirabook is lighter, thinner, and comes with the two-year service and support, but those aren't quite enough to unseat the MacBook Pro as the high end ultraportable EC. High-end ultrabooks like the current EC Asus Zenbook Prime Touch UX31A-BHI5T ($1,199) are unfortunately in a totally different price point, and aside from the screen and its lighter weight, the Kirabook doesn't have the bang for the buck that the Asus Zenbook Prime Touch UX31A brings to the table.

BENCHMARK TEST RESULTS

COMPARISON TABLE
Compare the Toshiba Kirabook with several other laptops side by side.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ziffdavis/pcmag/~3/2vRDNRdhyA0/0,2817,2418968,00.asp

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School lunchbox bans driving parents nuts - The Daily Telegraph

Marita Ishac and seven-year-old daughter Stephanie who has a nut allergy. Picture: Cameron Richardson Source: News Limited

PARENTS are in revolt over school lunchbox restrictions with four out of five complaining schools are overly concerned about food bought to school and one in three objecting to the banning of nuts.

Even the Allergy and Anaphylaxis Association says school-wide bans on nuts in lunchboxes aren't effective and the president of the Primary Principals Association Norm Hart says they are ''wrong'' and can't be enforced.

However Marita Ishac, the mother of seven-year-old Stephanie who suffers from a severe allergy to pistachio nuts, says nuts should be banned.

''The reaction comes on so quickly it's scary,'' she said.

''They should be more sensitive. If they want their kids to have nuts serve them at home,'' she said.

The widespread angst about school food bans was uncovered in a Galaxy survey conducted on behalf of health fund Medibank Private's 24/7 advice line for Food Allergy Week.

It found 79 per cent of the 1000 people surveyed believed schools were overly concerned about the food bought in by pupils and 30 per cent disagreed with banning nuts from packed lunches.

At the same time nearly 40 per cent of respondents admitted they wouldn't know the signs of someone suffering a serious reaction to food and 47 per cent said they wouldn't know what to do if it happened.

''Lunchbox restrictions are an acutely hot topic but this must not be allowed to dilute the seriousness of food allergies,'' Georgia Karabatsos, Medibank 24/7 Health Advice Line Medical Director says.

The president of the Allergy and Anaphylaxis Association Marita Said said there was a ''lot of hysteria'' about food bans and her organisation did not promote them.

''I think schools have thought this is the answer, they are petrified because we have had children die at school or on school camps,'' she said.

Such bans often saw children with allergies stigmatised and bullied and they allowed a handful of parents to focus on the ban rather than the restrictions of the child who had the allergy, she said.

Instead of a school-wide ban schools should look at implementing voluntary restrictions in the allergic child's class and only if they were too young to be fully aware of their diet restrictions, she said.

One in 10 children now developed a food allergy in their first year of life and schools should try to educate all students about allergy problems, how to read the signs and what to do if an emergency happened, she said.

The president of the Primary Principals Association Norm Hart said schools were taking more interest in what was in student's lunchboxes because they wanted parents to work in partnership with teachers to educate children about how to eat a healthy diet.

However, he said school wide bans on nuts were ''wrong'' because they gave a false sense of security to the families of children with an allergy and other parents.

''You can't enforce it, and if you say a place is free of whatever and its not you have a problem,'' he said.

Marita Ishac says she discovered Stephanie's allergy to pistachios when she reacted badly after eating a Lebanese sweet at the age of two.

''I hadn't given her nuts before and she had an itchy throat, then started blotching and her ears started to swell,'' she said.

Mrs Ishac now carries an epipen at all times and has given one to the school in case her daughteR has an attack while at school.

Marita Said says the anaphylactic reactions that are most dangerous are those where there are breathing difficulties or any swelling of the tongue or throat and onlookers should immediately administer an epipen or call an ambulance if they encountered a person suffering these symptoms.

More information on reducing risks for allergy sufferers can be found on the following websites: allergyfacts.org.au and foodallergyaware.com.au.

Source: http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/lifestyle/health-fitness/school-lunchbox-bans-driving-parents-nuts/story-fni0diab-1226640620065

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How to Get Healthy Hair & Nails ? The Health Journal: Fitness ...

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Are your nails brittle, breaking or peeling? Is your hair full of split ends, thinning, or itchy? All of these symptoms indicate a lack of true nutrients in your system. Yes, you may be eating healthy, training hard, and even trying to go more organic, but the truth is our foods are not what our grandparents were eating.

Nail Health

Your nail health is a reflection of the overall health of your bones. Every 10 years, adults rebuild their entire skeletal structure, so yes, you can make changes! If your nails are splitting, breaking, or pealing, your body is deficient in iron, calcium, magnesium, B12, zinc and possible suffering from low folate levels. You could even be under adrenal stress or need to have your thyroid checked.

Good bone minerals, that also help your nails, include calcium, magnesium, vitamin D, and boron.

Hair Health

Your hair loves essential fatty acids and minerals. However, if you have low levels of zinc and biotin, you could be losing your hair and perhaps have a dry, itchy scalp. If you have low levels of Vitamin C, your hair could be breaking. Your hair is truly a reflection of your body?s inner process.

How do we increase our overall hair and nail health?

Get out in the sun more! Increase your water intake. Make sure you?re getting some fish, walnuts, flaxseed and krill in your diet to keep your hair hydrated. For hair loss, increase your eggs, oysters and seeds. If your hair is breaking, increase your citrus fruits and berries. Check your hair products, read the labels, you don?t want anything with parabens in it. There?s a chance of parbens being linked to breast cancer.

And, when in doubt? Make sure you?re taking a quality vitamin and supplements. Even if you?re eating as healthy as you can, our foods are not our only resource anymore. Your food and your vitamins should give you energy and vitality.

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Source: http://www.thehealthjournals.com/2013/05/how-to-get-healthy-hair-nails/

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With help from mom, 20-year-old flies solo around world

>>> how's this for an overachiever? a 24-year-old from california has set his sights on becoming the youngest person to fly solo around the world. and as duncan reports, on mother's day, it's only appropriate he's doing it with some big help from his mom.

>> reporter: jack is hoping to soar into the record books. the youngest person to fly all around the world on his own. nine days into the adventure, he landed in london right on time.

>> good afternoon! [ applause ]

>> reporter: jack, who's 20 years old, set off from california hoping to break the record held by a 22-year-old. so far, his journey has taken him north to canada, iceland, and now great britain. he'll land in 16 more cities across europe, the middle east , asia, and russia before he once again reaches the u.s. it's long been a dream for jack, who started flying gliders at the age of 13 and quickly set his sights high.

>> i think it's been ambition for about four years now. around the age of 17 is when i learned about the record. and i thought to myself i'd really like to try to achieve something like this.

>> reporter: with such determination comes organization. at each stop, checking his bags often, making sure nothing is left behind. it's a lesson jack learned the hard way when he got to canada he realized his passport was still on a photo copier back home in fresno.

>> customs officer --

>> reporter: mom came to the rescue.

>> i set off around the world without one of the most important documents i needed -- my passport.

>> reporter: you will never, ever forget your passport.

>> hopefully, not.

>> reporter: the next stop for this young adventurer, italy, just so long as he remembers that passport. for "today," duncan golestani, nbc news, london.

Source: http://feeds.nbcnews.com/c/35002/f/653381/s/2bd01709/l/0Lvideo0Btoday0Bmsnbc0Bmsn0N0Cid0C51857591/story01.htm

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Ginsburg says Roe gave abortion opponents target (Providence Journal)

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Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/305149771?client_source=feed&format=rss

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Royal Mail could be sold to foreign buyer - report

LONDON (Reuters) - Britain's Royal Mail could fall into foreign hands if trade unions continue to fight plans to launch an initial public offering (IPO) of shares on the London Stock Exchange, Britain's Observer newspaper reported.

In an interview with the paper, British business minister Michael Fallon said that several overseas buyers had expressed "significant interest" in buying the 497-year-old postal service.

He added that Royal Mail boss Moya Greene had already embarked on a global roadshow promoting the business to sovereign wealth funds, foreign trade buyers and institutional investors.

Fallon said that the government's preferred option for the state-owned company is for a stock market listing, with postal workers granted 10 percent of the shares.

"Royal Mail have been testing investor appetite here, in Canada and the United States," Fallon is quoted as saying.

"Our preference is for an IPO, but if that's not possible we would look at alternatives as sovereign wealth funds or other institutional investors."

Royal Mail was unavailable for comment.

(Reporting by Rhys Jones; Editing by David Goodman)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/royal-mail-could-sold-foreign-buyer-report-124518183.html

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Mrs. Obama: Seek out those with different beliefs (The Arizona Republic)

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CivicInfo BC Careers - IT Quality Assurance Specialist - City of ...

Job Posting Title
IT Quality Assurance Specialist - Windows 7 Upgrade

Company
Our employees help Vancouver consistently rank as one of the world's most livable cities. We are one of Canada's Top 100 Employers, BC's Top Employers, Canada's Best Diversity Employers, and Best Employers for New Canadians.

Vancouver is striving to become the greenest city in the world by 2020. You too can make a difference by applying for the following opportunity.

Department
Project Management Office - Financial Services Group

Competition #
2013-0257

Application Close
May 19, 2013

Employment Type
Temporary Full Time

Affiliation
CUPE Local 15 Bargaining Unit (VMECW)

Position Start Date
June 03, 2013

Position End Date
April 04, 2014

Salary Information
Pay Grade 27: $37.11 to $43.85 per hour

Main Purpose & Function
The IT Quality Assurance Specialist is responsible for intermediate analytical and complex technical work in support of the hardware replacement, and client OS upgrade to Windows 7, with a focus on System Quality Assurance. Within general priorities and task areas established by the Project Manager, the incumbent works independently and?participates in IT-related or business process-related projects. Scope of projects can vary from small workgroups to enterprise-wide. The incumbent works with all levels of team members in the project and other City Departments to support internal and external system stakeholders, help determine business processes and ensure quality implementation and sustainment of systems.

Specific Duties & Responsibilities

Quality Assurance and Testing

• Define quality goals for the OS and hardware replacement project.

• Design documents and approach in measuring and tracking QA progress and quality goals.

• Exercising considerable independent judgement, reviews, and analyzes system functions and design quality assurance procedures for all stages of system change process.

• Collects and manages data, or supervises the collection and management of data, against which to examine assets for issues of quality (e.g. broken links; missing content; file sizes; compatibility issues; application functionality).

• Participate and/or oversee the preparation/execution of test plans and scripts with key user groups.

• Coordinates testing at various phases as required.

• Troubleshoots and provides guidance in the resolution of software defects and problems.

• Collect and evaluate test data in support of testing and resolution progress tracking.

• Ensure sufficient testing/QA activities occur in support of overall project timeline.

Change Control

• Exercising considerable independent judgement, schedules and coordinates changes to assets that may arise as a result of software or hardware maintenance, implementation of new technologies or applications.
• Define gating criteria and process for change approval, apply collected QA data to support change approval process.

Issue and problem tracking

• Identify, document and tabulate defect/issues.
• Follows up and manages on-going status of issues and problems.
• Working with key user groups, proposes resolution and/or contingency plan and actions of issues and problems.
• Reviews and analyzes systems post-implementation of changes to ensure inadvertent defects or performance issues have not been introduced.
• Collect and evaluate issue statistics in support of mitigation planning and execution.

Qualifications

Education and Experience:

• Degree or diploma in computer sciences, development or a related area, plus considerable related experience in Software Quality Assurance and testing techniques; or an equivalent combination of education, training and experience.
• Additional and specialized experience providing quality assurance activities to support web based and desktop applications within a complex, multi-faceted, highly integrated, technical environment is an asset.

Knowledge, Skills and Abilities:

• Experience with Windows 7 operating system migration and changes in an enterprise environment.
• Excellent project management and organizational skills.
• Considerable knowledge of software quality assurance and monitoring methodologies, particularly as how they relate to expectations on web based and desktop applications.
• Knowledge of software used for test planning and defect tracking.
• Considerable knowledge of enterprise scale projects, the associated challenges, and required control processes.
• Skilled in analyzing systems and web performance and evaluating outcomes and results.
• Ability to work effectively in a changing environment and perform under pressure.
• Ability to work in a team, coordinate the work of others, and communicate effectively to project, business users, and technical personnel.
• Ability to develop, document, review and revise formal working procedures and techniques.

To apply, please visit www.vancouver.ca/jobs

We thank all applicants for their interest. However, only those selected for an interview will be contacted.

The City of Vancouver is an Equal Opportunity Employer

Source: http://www.civicinfo.bc.ca/161.asp?jobpostingid=19556

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Flawed diamonds promise sensory perfection: Electron spin extended for incredibly tiny magnetic detectors

May 10, 2013 ? From brain to heart to stomach, the bodies of humans and animals generate weak magnetic fields that a supersensitive detector could use to pinpoint illnesses, trace drugs -- and maybe even read minds. Sensors no bigger than a thumbnail could map gas deposits underground, analyze chemicals, and pinpoint explosives that hide from other probes.

Now scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and the University of California at Berkeley, working with colleagues from Harvard University, have improved the performance of one of the most potent possible sensors of magnetic fields on the nanoscale -- a diamond defect no bigger than a pair of atoms, called a nitrogen vacancy (NV) center.

The research team's discoveries may eventually enable clocks smaller than computer chips yet accurate to within a few quadrillionths of a second, or rotational sensors quicker and more tolerant of extreme temperatures than the gyroscopes in smart phones. Before long, an inexpensive chip of diamond may be able to house a quantum computer. The team reports their results in Nature Communications.

A sensor made of diamond

Nitrogen vacancy centers are some of the most common defects in diamonds. When a nitrogen atom substitutes for a carbon atom in the diamond crystal and pairs with an adjacent vacancy (where a carbon atom is missing altogether), a number of electrons not bonded to the missing carbon atoms are left in the center.

The electron spin states are well defined and very sensitive to magnetic fields, electric fields, and light, so they can easily be set, adjusted, and read out by lasers.

"The spin states of NV centers are stable across a wide range of temperatures from very hot to very cold," says Dmitry Budker of Berkeley Lab's Nuclear Science Division, who is also a physics professor at UC Berkeley. Even tiny flecks of diamond costing pennies per gram could be used as sensors because, says Budker, "we can control the number of NV centers in the diamond just by irradiating and baking it," that is, annealing it.

The challenge is to keep the information inherent in the spin states of NV centers, once it has been encoded there, from leaking away before measurements can be performed; in NV centers, this requires extending what's called the "coherence" time of the electron spins, the time the spins remain synchronized with each other.

Recently Budker worked with Ronald Walsworth of Harvard in a team that included Harvard's Nir Bar-Gill and UC Berkeley postdoc Andrey Jarmola. They extended the coherence time of an ensemble of NV electron spins by more than two orders of magnitude over previous measurements.

"To me, the most exciting aspect of this result is the possibility of studying changes in the way NV centers interact with one another," says Bar-Gill, the first author of the paper, who will move to Hebrew University in Jerusalem this fall. "This is possible because the coherence times are much longer than the time needed for interactions between NV centers."

Bar-Gill adds, "We can now imagine engineering diamond samples to realize quantum computing architectures." The interacting NV centers take the role of bits in quantum computers, called qubits. Whereas a binary digit is either a 1 or a 0, a qubit represents a 1 and a 0 superposed, a state of Schr?dinger's-cat-like simultaneity that persists as long as the states are coherent, until a measurement is made that collapses all the entangled qubits at once.

"We used a couple of tricks to get rid of sources of decoherence," says Budker. "One was to use diamond samples specially prepared to be pure carbon-12." Natural diamond includes a small amount of the isotope carbon-13, whose nuclear spin hurries the decoherence of the NV center electron spins. Carbon-12 nuclei are spin zero.

"The other trick was to lower the temperature to the temperature of liquid nitrogen," Budker says. Decoherence was reduced by cooling the samples to 77 degrees Kelvin, below room temperature but still readily accessible.

Working together in Budker's lab, members of the team mounted the diamond samples inside a cryostat. A laser beam passing through the diamond, plus a magnetic field, tuned the electron spins of the NV centers and caused them to fluoresce. Their fluorescent brightness was a measure of spin-state coherence.

"Controlling the spin is essential," Budker says, "so we borrowed an idea from nuclear magnetic resonance" -- the basis for such familiar procedures as magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in hospitals.

While different from nuclear spin, electron spin coherence can be extended with similar techniques. Thus, as the spin states of the NV centers in the diamond sample were about to decohere, the experimenters jolted the diamond with a series of up to 10,000 short microwave pulses. The pulses flipped the electron spins as they began to fall out of synchronization with one another, producing "echoes" in which the reversed spins caught up with themselves. Coherence was reestablished.

Eventually the researchers achieved spin coherence times lasting over half a second. "Our results really shine for magnetic field sensing and for quantum information," says Bar-Gill.

Long spin-coherence times add to the advantages diamond already possesses, putting diamond NVs at the forefront of potential candidates for practical quantum computers -- a favorite pursuit of the Harvard researchers. What Budker's group finds an even hotter prospect is the potential for long coherence times in sensing oscillating magnetic fields, with applications ranging from biophysics to defense.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/computers_math/information_technology/~3/DsQ6cooMeIQ/130510102109.htm

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CBS anchor Pelley: Journalism's house is on fire

NEW YORK (AP) ? Top CBS News anchor Scott Pelley delivered a tongue-lashing to fellow journalists on Friday, urging them to worry less about the "vanity" of being first on a story and more about being right.

"This has been a bad few months for journalism," Pelley said. "We're getting the big stories wrong over and over again."

The "CBS Evening News" anchor made the criticism while accepting a journalism award named for broadcast executive Fred Friendly from Quinnipiac University. He didn't exempt himself, noting that during early reporting of the Newtown, Conn., elementary school massacre last December he mistakenly reported that shooter Adam Lanza's mother was a teacher in the school.

Media organizations were roundly criticized for falsely reporting an arrest of a Boston Marathon bombing suspect two days after the April 15 attack. Stories and pictures spread quickly on social media websites erroneously suggesting some people on the scene were suspects, and the images were used by some news organizations.

"In a world where everybody is a publisher, no one is an editor," Pelley said, "and we've arrived at the point today."

Twitter, Facebook and Reddit are "not journalism," he said. "That's gossip. Journalism was invented as an antidote to gossip."

He repeated a maxim heard often in newsrooms recently: "If you're first, no one will ever remember. If you're wrong, no one will ever forget."

The race to be first on stories is "vanity," he said. "It's self-conceit. We do it to make ourselves feel better."

Media critic Howard Kurtz apologized this week on his CNN show, "Reliable Sources," for messing up a story about NBA player Jason Collins and was sharply criticized by other media critics on the air.

Kurtz had written that Collins, who made headlines by being the first active player in one of the four major U.S. pro sports leagues to come out as gay, had hidden a previous engagement to a woman in his announcement. In fact, Collins revealed the engagement in his first-person Sports Illustrated story and in a subsequent ABC interview.

Kurtz's story was published on The Daily Beast website, which subsequently parted ways with Kurtz in a decision he said was long in the works. Kurtz said the story was riddled with errors and shouldn't have been written in the first place.

CNN chief executive Jeff Zucker said on Friday that he was comfortable with Kurtz's apology and had no plans to replace him on the weekly media criticism show.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/cbs-anchor-pelley-journalisms-house-fire-195955949.html

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Equity Finance Trader Salary | Your Ezbukz Blog

? May 9, 2013Posted in: consumer finance help

If you are in the unfortunate situation of looking as loans for people with bad credit, take heart. You are not alone. More and more people need to take out loans for some financial need, and one possible source is a home equity loan.

People end up with a poor credit rating for a myriad of reasons. Late payments and bankruptcy are obvious factors. Not so obvious is the debt to income ratio factor. If you happen to have college loans that are around ,000 and marry someone with the same amount of college loan debt, you both may now have poor credit. Even if you own a home and have a pristine credit history a large loan taken out for an emergency will greatly affect your credit score. If your credit score is lower than you like, the good news is that it doesn't have to stay that way forever! There are many loans for people with bad credit and a low credit credit home equity loan is one place to start.

A home's equity is the current fair market value of the home, minus any mortgage payments left to be paid. What this boils down to for a lender is what they can get for the home if they have to seize it from the owner for failure to pay. Even with a low credit score, home equity loans are available for up to 90% of the equity in the home. Most lenders are comfortable giving home equity loans for people with poor credit. Since there is collateral involved finding such a loan shouldn't be a problem. The tricky part will be finding a bad credit loan with an interest rate that you're comfortable with.

Reasons behind taking home equity loan vary greatly. Currently, homeowners are opting to take their home's equity and then reinvest it in their home through updating and remodeling. Or, maybe someone is able to pay off a sizeable amount of credit card or school loan debt with a home equity loan. Not only will it be a relief to pay off all your other creditors, your interest rate will go no where but up!

If you're looking at loans for people with bad credit and own a home, a equity loan is a good option. Interest rates will be lower than for any other loan you could get and it's relatively easy for a homeowner with any credit rating to get one of these loans. Regardless of your reasoning behind getting a equity loan, be careful as to whom you choose as your lender. Read the fine print and plan a strategy to increase your credit score with the home loan. Your financial security will increase and your credit score will thank you.

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Source: http://ezbukz.com/consumer-finance-help/equity-finance-trader-salary/

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Turkey testing Syrian refugees for chemical weapon wounds

By Jonathon Burch

ANKARA (Reuters) - Turkey is stepping up chemical weapons tests on casualties arriving from Syria's civil war to help ensure the perpetrators of any such attacks are held accountable, Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said on Thursday.

The United States has said it views any use of chemical weapons in Syria as a "red line", hinting this could lead to some form of foreign intervention. But chastened by the false intelligence that was used to justify the 2003 war in Iraq, Washington says it wants proof before taking any action.

Turkey confirmed last week that it had begun testing blood samples taken from Syrian casualties brought over the border for treatment to determine whether they were victims of a chemical weapons attack.

Some Turkish newspapers said the forensic institute carrying out the tests had found traces of ricin, a highly toxic substance which can be used as a chemical warfare agent. But Davutoglu said it was too soon to draw conclusions.

"Examinations are continuing. When the final result is out, whatever that is, we will share this with the public and inform the relevant international institutions," he told a news conference in Ankara.

The latest blood samples were taken from some 12 people from the Syrian province of Idlib who arrived at a border gate in Reyhanli in Turkey's Hatay province with breathing difficulties, raising fears they had been victims of a chemical attack.

Davutoglu said Ankara had been carrying out such tests for a while but would now examine every patient that arrived from the fighting in its southern neighbor.

RECALLING HALABJA

"We will carry out this examination on every casualty that arrives so that after Halabja nobody will dare carry out such a crime against humanity in Syria," Davutoglu said.

An estimated 5,000 people died in the Iraqi Kurdish city of Halabja in 1988 in a poison gas attack ordered by then-Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, the most notorious use of chemical weapons in the Middle East in recent history.

Turkey's state-run Anatolian news agency said on Thursday a team of eight experts had been stationed at the Cilvegozu border gate in Reyhanli to test wounded victims arriving from Syria.

The civil defense team was equipped with a specialist vehicle which can detect evidence of chemical, biological and nuclear substances, Anatolian said.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's forces and opposing rebels have accused each other of using chemical weapons, and both have denied this.

Britain said on Thursday it believed it was "very likely" that the Syrian government had used chemical arms but that it had "no evidence to date" that the rebels had done so.

Last week a U.N. war crimes investigator said testimony from Syrian casualties and medical staff indicated that rebels had used the banned nerve agent sarin, although other investigators later played down those suggestions.

Davutoglu criticized such declarations made without evidence to support them. He had raised the issue with U.N. Deputy Secretary-General Jan Eliasson in London this week, and said that as a Syrian neighbor, Turkey had the right to know if the United Nations had evidence of poison gas use by rebels.

Davutoglu said Eliasson had told him the assertion was groundless.

(Additional reporting by Humeyra Pamuk in Ankara and Ece Toksabay in Istanbul; Editing by Nick Tattersall)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/turkey-steps-chemical-weapons-tests-syria-casualties-163343182.html

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Police: Ohio captive suffered 5 miscarriages

Ariel Castro appears in Cleveland Municipal court Thursday, May 9, 2013, in Cleveland. Castro was charged with four counts of kidnapping and three counts of rape after three women missing for about a decade and one of their young daughters were found alive at his home earlier in the week. (AP Photo/Tony Dejak)

Ariel Castro appears in Cleveland Municipal court Thursday, May 9, 2013, in Cleveland. Castro was charged with four counts of kidnapping and three counts of rape after three women missing for about a decade and one of their young daughters were found alive at his home earlier in the week. (AP Photo/Tony Dejak)

Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Timothy J. McGinty leaves Fort Huntington Park and chased by the media after holding a news-conference regarding Ariel Castro's involvement in the disappearance of Amanda Berry, Michelle Knight, and Gina DeJesus Thursday, May 9, 2013, in Cleveland. (AP Photo/Tony Dejak)

Law enforcement officials gather evidence at the crime scene where three women were hjeld captive in Cleveland, Ohio, Thursday, May 9, 2013. Ariel Castro, a 52-year-old former school bus driver, is being held on $8 million bail under a suicide watch in jail, where he is charged with rape and kidnapping for allegedly abducting three women and holding them captive in his home for a decade. (AP Photo/David Duprey)

Ariel Castro appears in Cleveland Municipal court alongside defense attorney Kathleen DeMetz, right, Thursday, May 9, 2013, in Cleveland. Castro was charged with four counts of kidnapping and three counts of rape after three women missing for about a decade and one of their young daughters were found alive at his home earlier in the week. (AP Photo/Tony Dejak)

Defense attorney Kathleen DeMetz, second from right, talks with Pedro Castro as Onil Castro, left, watches and Ariel Castro, right, looks down, in Cleveland Municipal court Thursday, May 9, 2013, in Cleveland. Ariel Castro was charged with four counts of kidnapping and three counts of rape. Pedro and Onil Castro, were held but faced no immediate charges. (AP Photo/Tony Dejak)

CLEVELAND (AP) ? Prosecutors said Thursday they may seek the death penalty against Ariel Castro, the man accused of imprisoning three women at his home for a decade, as police charged that he impregnated one of his captives at least five times and made her miscarry by starving her and punching her in the belly.

The horrific allegations were contained in a police report that also said another one of the women, Amanda Berry, was forced to give birth in a plastic kiddie pool.

Cuyahoga County prosecutor Timothy McGinty said his office will decide whether to bring aggravated murder charges punishable by death in connection with the pregnancies that were terminated by force.

"Capital punishment must be reserved for those crimes that are truly the worst examples of human conduct," he said. "The reality is we still have brutal criminals in our midst who have no respect for the rule of law or human life."

Castro, a 52-year-old former school bus driver, is being held on $8 million bail under a suicide watch in jail, where he is charged with rape and kidnapping.

McGinty said Castro will be charged for every act of sexual violence, assault and other crimes committed against the women, suggesting the counts could number in the hundreds, if not thousands.

Among the chilling details in the police report, obtained Thursday by news organizations:

? Berry, now 27, told officers that she was forced to give birth in a plastic pool in the house so it would be easier to clean up. Berry said she, her baby, now 6, and the two other rescued women had never been to a doctor during their captivity.

? Michelle Knight, now 32, said her five pregnancies ended after Castro starved her for at least two weeks and "repeatedly punched her in the stomach until she miscarried." She also said Castro forced her to deliver Berry's baby under threat of death if the infant died. Knight said that when the newborn stopped breathing, she revived the child through mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.

? All three women said Castro chained them up in the basement but eventually let them live upstairs on the second floor. Each woman told a similar story about being abducted after accepting a ride from Castro.

During his brief arraignment Thursday, Castro tried to hide his face, tucking his chin inside his collar. He appeared to close his eyes during the hearing and awkwardly signed documents while handcuffed. He did not speak or enter a plea.

In court, prosecutor Brian Murphy said Castro used the women "in whatever self-gratifying, self-serving way he saw fit."

Kathleen DeMetz, a public defender assigned to represent him at the hearing, didn't comment on his guilt or innocence or object when prosecutors recommended bail be set at $5 million. The judge, instead, ordered Castro held on $8 million.

Castro has been under arrest since Monday, when Berry broke out of his run-down house and called 911 while he was away. Police found the two other women inside. The women had vanished separately between 2002 and 2004 when they 14, 16 and 20.

Berry and former captive Gina DeJesus, 22, went home with relatives on Wednesday. Knight was reported in good condition at a Cleveland hospital.

The police report gave a detailed account of their escape, beginning with Berry's discovery that a door was unlocked, leaving only a bolted outer door between her and freedom.

Berry feared it was a test: She said Castro occasionally left a door unlocked to test them. But she called to neighbors on a porch for help and was able to get out.

Police then entered the house and found the other women, who threw themselves into the officers' arms.

Castro's two brothers, who were arrested with him but later cleared of involvement in the kidnapping case, appeared in court on unrelated charges Thursday and were released.

Ariel Castro's former daughter-in-law, Monica Stephens, told The Associated Press that her former husband said Castro had an extremely violent nature.

"He was always described to me as a violent, just a scary violent person," Stephens said.

"He talked about how his father had beaten him and his mother severely. They were like hostages in their own house. They were locked in," said the woman, who now lives in Florida.

A musician who often practiced at Castro's house said he was there last week and heard noises, "like banging on the wall." Ricky Sanchez said he asked Castro about it, and he blamed it on the dogs. He also said Castro ? a bass guitarist in merengue and salsa bands ? liked to play his music loud.

On his most recent visit, Sanchez said, a little girl came out from the kitchen and stared at him but didn't say anything. He said he also noticed there were four or five locks on the outside door.

"When I was about to leave, I tried to open the door. I couldn't even, because there were so many locks in there," he said.

___

Associated Press writers Mike Householder and freelance reporter John Coyne in Cleveland; Brendan Farrington in Florida; and Dan Sewell in Cincinnati contributed to this report.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2013-05-09-Missing%20Women%20Found/id-63a412a60e22422199b549168167e4b5

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Obama launching ?Opportunity Tour? in Austin

Making good on a pledge to invest in American manufacturing made during his State of the Union address in February, President Barack Obama is scheduled today to outline two executive actions geared toward job growth and boosting the economy.

In a speech he's set to deliver at 1 p.m. CT in Austin, Texas?the first stop in several trips focused on jobs?the president will discuss the need to attract jobs and train workers in the United States focused on two new executive actions made Thursday. He hopes to put the focus back on the economy as the issue has been overshadowed by debates on gun control, sequestration and immigration.

Obama on Thursday established a competition to create three new "manufacturing innovation institutes" similar to the pilot program in Youngstown, Ohio called the National Additive Manufacturing Innovation Institute (NAMII), a consortium of manufacturing firms, universities, community colleges, and non-profit organizations. Like the institute in Youngstown, these new institutes will be partnerships between businesses and universities and the government to help U.S.-based manufacturers develop technologies and to train workers on those technologies to boost the economy.

"When you have that type of strong partnership ? you make the United States more of a magnet for job creation" and innovation," Gene Sperling, Director of the National Economic Council told reporters on a conference call on the initiatives earlier Thursday.

Costs for the $200 million program will be shared by five federal agencies: Defense, Energy, Commerce, NASA, and the National Science Foundation. The Department of Defense will lead two of the new institutes, ?Digital Manufacturing and Design Innovation? and ?Lightweight and Modern Metals Manufacturing?, and the Department of Energy will lead the third institute, ?Next Generation Power Electronics Manufacturing?.

The president in his speech Thursday will also press Congress on his previous request for $1 billion to establish a network of 15 of such institutes.

Obama also issued an executive order Thursday requiring that new government data be made freely available and in usable formats, which the White House believes will help build businesses and create jobs through innovation.

"As one vital benefit of open government, making information resources easy to find, accessible, and usable can fuel entrepreneurship, innovation, and scientific
discovery that improves Americans' lives and contributes significantly to job creation," the executive order reads.

The order notes the decision decades ago to make weather and Global Positioning System data freely available sparked major U.S. innovation.

The administration has directed several additional actions to complement the data executive order, including adding new services to Data.gov, which houses government data.

During his trip to Austin Thursday, the president will also meet with local residents, technology entrepreneurs and technology company Applied Materials.

The trip is billed by the White House as the start of the president's "Middle Class Jobs & Opportunity Tour."

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/obama-push-manufacturing-institutes-government-data-changes-during-133740804.html

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The Weirdest Thing on the Internet Tonight: Take Me to The Fog

No matter how advanced the invading alien culture, rest assured that humanity will find a way to fight back?be it the bacteria from War of the Worlds, Jeff Goldblum from Independence Day, or a pipe rip of the sticky icky from Stephen J Mitchell's awesome stop motion short, Take Me to the Fog.

Read more...

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U.S. makes data available on wide disparity in hospital charges

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. hospital charges for the same procedure vary widely, in some cases by tens of thousands of dollars, even within a particular town or city, according to data the U.S. government released on Wednesday to boost consumer awareness.

In Denver, Colorado, for instance, treatment for heart failure ranges from $21,000 to $46,000 depending on the facility, according to the data on more than 3,000 hospitals that provide services through the government's Medicare program for the elderly and disabled. In Jackson, Mississippi, fees for the same treatment range from $9,000 to $51,000.

Hospital charges are viewed as a major reason U.S. healthcare costs are the highest in the world. Until now, consumers have not had access to such comprehensive price data that experts see as key to restraining healthcare inflation.

President Barack Obama's healthcare reform law aims to provide greater cost transparency on everything from health insurance plans to physician services. The data can be accessed at: http://go.cms.gov/16WaMfH

U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said the data about hospital charges will help consumers make more informed decisions about treatment.

The Department of Health and Human Services announced that it would make about $87 million available to states to help fund rate review programs to encourage pricing transparency.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, an HHS agency, released information on services provided for the 100 most common Medicare inpatient stays. The list includes the amount hospitals typically charge for joint replacements, gall bladder surgery and pneumonia.

(Reporting by David Morgan; Editing by David Gregorio)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/u-makes-data-available-wide-disparity-hospital-charges-165916346.html

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Some hospitals charge vastly more for same care

WASHINGTON (AP) ? Hospitals within the same city sometimes charge tens of thousands of dollars more for the same procedures, according to figures the government released for the first time Wednesday. The federal list sheds new light on the mystery of just how high a hospital bill might go ? and whether it's cheaper to get the care somewhere else.

There are vast disparities nationally. The average charges for joint replacement range from about $5,300 at an Ada, Okla., hospital to $223,000 in Monterey Park, Calif.

It's not just national or even regional geography. Hospitals within the same city also vary wildly. In Jackson, Miss., average inpatient charges for services that may be provided to treat heart failure range from $9,000 to $51,000, the Department of Health and Human Services said.

Hospitals usually receive less money than they charge, however. Their charges are akin to a car dealership's "list price." Most patients won't be hit with these bills, because they are paid by private insurance, Medicare or Medicaid. The government and insurance companies routinely negotiate lower payments with hospitals.

"These charges really don't have a direct relationship with the price for the average person," said Chapin White of the nonprofit Center for Studying Health System Change. "I think the point is to shame hospitals."

But the charges do show up on the bills of people without medical coverage, many of whom try to negotiate smaller fees for themselves. And they could affect people paying for care that is outside their insurance company's network. Hospitals say they frequently give the uninsured discounts.

Some people still pay full price, or try to, because they don't know they can bargain for a discount, White said.

For them, "this is the opening bid in the hospital's attempt to get as much money as possible out of you," he said.

The department released a list of the average charges at 3,300 hospitals for each of the 100 most common Medicare inpatient services. The prices, from 2011, represent about 60 percent of Medicare inpatient cases.

The Obama administration says consumers and businesses can use the information to make better choices and pressure hospitals to set reasonable prices. Hospital charges are typically confusing and unpredictable.

"Currently, consumers don't know what a hospital is charging them or their insurance company for a given procedure, like a knee replacement, or how much of a price difference there is at different hospitals, even within the same city," said Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius. The list will help fill that gap, she said.

The department also is making $87 million in federal money available as grants to states to improve their hospital rate review programs and get more information about health care charges to patients.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2013-05-08-Hospital%20Costs-Disparity/id-1b6003ea925c48e9a85f73426089adb1

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Happ latest pitcher hit in head by line drive

Toronto Blue Jays' J.A. Happ is attended to by medical personnel as he is taken off the field on a stretcher after being hit in the head by a line drive by Tampa Bay Rays' Desmond Jennings during the second inning of a baseball game Tuesday, May 7, 2013, in St. Petersburg, Fla. (AP Photo/Mike Carlson)

Toronto Blue Jays' J.A. Happ is attended to by medical personnel as he is taken off the field on a stretcher after being hit in the head by a line drive by Tampa Bay Rays' Desmond Jennings during the second inning of a baseball game Tuesday, May 7, 2013, in St. Petersburg, Fla. (AP Photo/Mike Carlson)

Toronto Blue Jays starting pitcher J.A. Happ reacts after being hit in the head by a line drive from Tampa Bay Rays' Desmond Jennings during the second inning of a baseball game Tuesday, May 7, 2013, in St. Petersburg, Fla. (AP Photo/Mike Carlson)

Toronto Blue Jays starting pitcher J.A. Happ is taken off the field on a stretcher after being hit with a line drive off the bat of Tampa Bay Rays' Desmond Jennings during the second inning of a baseball game Tuesday, May 7, 2013, in St. Petersburg, Fla. (AP Photo/Mike Carlson)

Toronto Blue Jays starting pitcher J.A. Happ reacts after being hit in the head with a line drive off the bat of Tampa Bay Rays' Desmond Jennings during the second inning of a baseball game Tuesday, May 7, 2013, in St. Petersburg, Fla. (AP Photo/Mike Carlson)

Tampa Bay Rays' Desmond Jennings reacts while medical personnel attend to Toronto Blue Jays starting pitcher J.A. Happ after during the second inning of a baseball game Tuesday, May 7, 2013, in St. Petersburg, Fla. Happ was hit by a line drive off of Jennings' bat. (AP Photo/Mike Carlson)

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (AP) ? J.A. Happ raised his glove in front of his face as quickly as he could, a futile attempt to shield himself from the line drive headed straight for his temple.

It was too late. Thwack!

The sickening sound of a sharply hit baseball striking the Toronto pitcher's skull could be heard all the way up in the press box.

And then, sheer silence.

Happ's frightening injury Tuesday night at Tropicana Field left players on both teams shaken and revived questions about whether Major League Baseball is doing enough to protect pitchers who often find themselves in harm's way on the mound.

"There are always close calls," Blue Jays manager John Gibbons said. "It wakes you up, man ? that's for sure."

Happ was hit squarely on the left side of his head by Desmond Jennings' second-inning liner during Toronto's 6-4 victory over the Tampa Bay Rays. The left-hander was immobilized on a backboard, lifted onto a stretcher and wheeled off the field. He was taken to Bayfront Medical Center, where the Blue Jays said he was alert and undergoing tests.

Nursing supervisor Natasha Keller told The Associated Press that Happ had been admitted to the hospital and was in stable condition.

It was the latest injury to a pitcher struck by a batted ball in the last few years, and baseball has discussed ways to protect hurlers who ply their craft against the world's strongest hitters ? only 60 feet, 6 inches from home plate.

General managers discussed the issue during their meetings in November and MLB presented several ideas at the winter meetings weeks later.

MLB staff have said a cap liner with Kevlar, the material used in body armor for the military, law enforcement and NFL players, is among the ideas under consideration.

The liners, weighing perhaps 5 ounces or less, would go under a pitcher's cap and help protect against line drives that often travel over 100 mph.

"We are actively meeting with a number of companies that are attempting to develop a product, and have reviewed test results for several products," MLB spokesman Pat Courtney told the AP in an email after Happ was injured. "Some of the products are promising. No company has yet developed a product that has satisfied the testing criteria."

Several pitchers around the majors sounded resistant ? even after seeing replays of Happ's injury.

"You know the risks," Angels lefty C.J. Wilson said. "Guys get hurt crashing into fences. Guys get hurt tripping over first base and blowing their knee out. This is professional sports, and we are paid well to take those risks."

MLB could implement the safety change in the minor leagues, as it did a few seasons ago with augmented batting helmets, but would require the approval of the players' union to make big leaguers wear them.

Colorado Rockies left-hander Jorge De La Rosa said if a helmet or liner is developed for pitchers, he'd gladly wear one.

"It wouldn't be hard for me," De La Rosa said. "To protect against those kinds of things, it's good for us."

Cincinnati Reds pitcher Homer Bailey doesn't like the idea of wearing protective headgear.

"The game's been played a long time. Situations like that are unfortunate, but we have to keep it our game," he said. "I don't think you have to adjust the whole program."

And Seattle Mariners right-hander Aaron Harang thinks it would be difficult for veteran major league pitchers to adapt to new equipment.

"I know it's a hot topic," he said, "but I don't think it's a problem that's easily solved. I know a lot of people want pitchers to start wearing helmets. It's a good idea in theory, but I don't know how practical it is. I think you need to start with that at the lower level, I'm talking high school and maybe even lower, and then gradually introduce it into the higher level. I've been pitching since I was 6 years old and I've never worn a helmet. I think it would be tough to make that adjustment while pitching in a major league game."

Texas Rangers manager Ron Washington wondered if there's a viable solution.

"What can you do?" he said. "Tell hitters not to hit it back up the middle?"

Oakland right-hander Brandon McCarthy was hit in the head by a line drive last September, causing a skull fracture, an epidural hemorrhage and a brain contusion that required surgery. He was released from the hospital six days later.

McCarthy, who pitched for Arizona on Tuesday night against the Los Angeles Dodgers, said he won't watch video of Happ getting hit.

"I don't know what the GMs and the owners have to do with anything. It's not like they're pitching," McCarthy said. "Until someone makes something that works, it's going to be tough for someone to wear it.

"Most everything that's come out wouldn't have protected me, and it wouldn't have protected (Happ) if he got hit directly in the ear. You're at a point now where you're looking at batting helmets. You'd have to have something that protected the ear and then the face and beyond. So it's kind of a slippery slope. Someone will have to come up with something really good and really sound. Otherwise, I don't know how you answer that question."

Still, McCarthy maintains hope.

"We've put things on the moon before, so I feel like we can create some sort of a device that sits over your head and protects you," he said. "Someone will do it. It's just a matter of when, not if."

Jennings' liner caromed off Happ's head and halfway up the right-field line in foul territory as Jennings raced around the bases for a two-run triple. The 30-year-old Happ dropped face down at the front of the mound, holding his head with his glove and bare hand.

Team trainers, paramedics and medical officials rushed to Happ's aid as a stunned crowd of 10,273 at Tropicana Field fell into a horrified hush. A shaken Jennings stood with his hands on his head, and other players were visibly concerned as they watched Happ receive medical attention for about eight minutes.

The pitcher was wheeled off the field to a waiting ambulance. Just before he disappeared under the stands, Happ raised his right hand and waved. He received a standing ovation from the crowd, and the game resumed after an 11-minute delay.

"I came in and watched (video of) it and I wish I wouldn't have," Mariners pitcher Joe Saunders said. "It was ugly. It was scary. I just hope he's going to be all right."

___

AP Sports Writers Kristie Rieken in Houston, Arnie Stapleton in Denver and Joe Kay in Cincinnati, and AP freelancers Mark Didtler and Dick Scanlon in St. Petersburg, Fla., John Perrotto in Pittsburgh and Dave Boehler in Milwaukee contributed to this report.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/347875155d53465d95cec892aeb06419/Article_2013-05-08-Blue%20Jays-Happ%20Injured/id-1fbf8916fe2b4446aaea60f10e4b75fa

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