Guns in schools: Arkansas district will arm 20 teachers and staff

A small school district in Arkansas will arm 20 volunteer teachers and staff with handguns starting in the fall, reigniting debate about the best way to protect children in schools.

The district will be the first in the state to arm teachers and is doing so under a state law that allows licensed, armed security guards on campus. The school?s participants in the program, whose identities will be kept secret, will be considered security guards after undergoing 53 hours of training.

"The plan we've been given in the past is, 'Well, lock your doors, turn off your lights and hope for the best,' " Superintendent David Hopkins told the Associated Press. "That's not a plan.?

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Mr. Hopkins said a wave of parent calls after the Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings last December caused him to reevaluate their procedures, even though the town of 9,200 people about 100 miles northwest of Little Rock isn't known for being dangerous.

State officials have not blocked the plan, even though Arkansas Education Commissioner Tom Kimbrell has said that he opposes arming teachers and staff. Instead, he supports hiring law enforcement officers as school resource officers.

Participating staff in Clarksville?s schools will be given a one-time $1,100 stipend to purchase a handgun and holster. The district will pay about $50,000 for ammunition and for training by Nighthawk Custom Training Academy, a private training facility in northwest Arkansas.

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?That teacher is going to respond to one thing and one thing alone, and that's someone is in the building either actively or attempting to kill people," Jon Hodoway, director of training for Nighthawk said. "That's it. They're not going to enforce the law. They're not going to make traffic stops. If somebody is outside acting the fool, they're going to call the police."

At a recent training session teachers and administrators practiced using airsoft pellet guns to shoot a student pretending to hold another at gunpoint.

One of the student simulators, Sydney Whitkanack, said she?s not concerned about having teachers or staff armed.

"If they're concealed, then it's no big deal," she said. ?It's not like someone's going to know, 'Oh, they have a firearm.' "

Others, like former president of the Arkansas Education Association Donna Morey, strongly opposed the plan, citing concerns over a student accidentally getting shot or taking a gun.

"We just think educators should be in the business of educating students, not carrying a weapon," she said.

The Clarksville school district is the latest example of localities trying to form responses to the Sandy Hook shooting last December that killed 20 children and six teachers.

Like Clarksville, some districts have decided to beef up armed security, in line with the National Rifle Association?s recommendation for every school to have an armed security guard, police officer, or staff.

In May, a rural Colorado school district voted to allow two top administrators to carry guns. They were able to circumvent Colorado?s gun laws by changing the job title of the superintendent to security officer. In Arizona's Maricopa County, Sheriff Joe Arpaio organized a posse of armed volunteers to patrol local schools, although he drew criticism for hiring a former child-sex offender.

In 2013, seven states passed legislation permitting teachers or administrators to carry guns in schools and more than 30 state legislatures introduced bills that would permit staff members to carry guns in public or private schools, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

But most proposals to arm teachers or staff have failed, even in conservative states more likely to support an expanded role for guns, according to The New York Times.

A key reason for fewer districts arming teachers is the potential cost, according to the Times report. Some insurance companies are declining coverage to schools that allow employees to carry handguns, or are raising their premiums.

In Kansas, for instance, the liability insurance provider for about 90 percent of Kansas school districts said it would not cover schools that permit employees to carry concealed handguns. A dozen Kansas school districts that were considering arming their staff changed their minds after the decision, the state employee who oversees insurance programs at the Kansas Association of School boards told the Times.

?Some [insurance providers] are saying this is so high risk we?re not going to touch it,? Kenneth Trump, the president of National School Safety and Security Services, which discourages districts from implementing concealed carry policies told the Times. ?Others may say this is so high risk that you?re going to pay through the nose.?

? Material from the Associated Press was used in this report.

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Source: http://news.yahoo.com/guns-schools-arkansas-district-arm-20-teachers-staff-190939220.html

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Outline+ for iPad: The perfect note taking option for the overly compulsive!

Outline+ for iPad is a note taking app that focuses on keeping your notes organizes in outline format. You can create different notebooks for different purposes and organize and drill down inside of those as well. You also get Dropbox, Skydrive, iTunes, and Box syncing support.

Whether you're overly compulsive about organization or you struggle to keep thoughts and notes organized, Outline+ is a great solution. Outside of syncing with all of the popular services, you can also share notebooks with other users and stay in sync with each other. Outline+ also supports embedding images and other types of media which makes it perfect for school or design projects.

The price tag may be hard to swallow for some so there's also a free version available that only supports iTunes syncing. It at the very least makes a good option for trying before you buy. While apps like Evernote let you take free hand notes, they can be somewhat hard to manage. For those that like more structure and the ability to be completely OCD about their notes and how they organize them, Outline+ will give you those options and then some.

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Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheIphoneBlog/~3/zyUCKobQyGI/story01.htm

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Football Talk: Warning to Bangura, Lukas Podolski does Partridge

Football Talk as you may have guessed likes a joke or two.

We tried our best note to detest some of the new comic scamps on the scene.

However we find comfort in some of the classics.

Neil Doncaster produced his best Dad's Army impression as the financial worries continue at Hearts as well as Dunfermline.

And now Lukas Podolski has produced his very own Alan Partridge impression for everyone's amusement.

There's also plenty of analysis of Gareth Bale's potential move to Spurs.

Don't panic

SPFL boss Neil Doncaster refuses to panic as crisis at Hearts and Dunfermline threatens to ruin new league kick-off
The footballing supremo says he thinks that the Pars and the Jambos will weather their financial troubles, despite both clubs standing on the brink of ruin. (Daily Record)

Hearts warned creditor will liquidate club if offers do not improve
Ukio?s administrator Valnetas UAB say that the offers so far to buy Hearts were ?not satisfactory?.

Jim Jefferies holding on to hope as both Dunfermline and Hearts stand on the brink
The Pars boss has his say on the crisis at his current and former club. (Daily Record)

Joe Ledley warns Mo Bangura that he risks becoming a Celtic outcast
No pressure Mo. (Scottish Sun)

Gary McAllister ? I still say Uri put us out Euros
Boo to the celeb spoon bender. (Scottish Sun)

Kilmarnock's Sammy Clingan to miss start of season with knee injury
The Northern Irishman could be out for four to six weeks.

Paul Lawson keen to keep proving himself after stepping up with Motherwell
The ex-Ross County man in ready for the club's European adventure.

Take a look

Footballers post tributes to Christian Benitez on Twitter
The former Birmingham player died aged 27. (ITV.com)

'We are interested in the stories around the sport'
Hugh MacDonald on BT Sport's move into the Scottish game. (The Herald)

Gareth Bale, Real Madrid and the anatomy of the mega transfer
The metro take a look at the saga involving the Wales attacker.

Gareth Bale, Tottenham Hotspur and Real Madrid: the key questions
Do Spurs need to sell? Why are Real Madrid so rich? And what about the clubs' strategic alliance? (The Guardian)

Must watch

Aha! Lukas Podolski unwittingly mimics Alan Partridge on Arsenal tour via The Metro

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Source: http://sport.stv.tv/football/clubs/dunfermline/234445-football-talk-warning-to-bangura-lukas-podolski-does-partridge/

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Elderlaw As Family Law - Jotwell: Family Law

How do American law and culture accommodate the fact that old age is almost everyone?s fate, and that?though we know for sure that it ends at last in death?its course and the kinds of dependency it brings are so profoundly unpredictable and often categorically intense? ?In this brilliant, grimly humane page-turner of a book, Hendrik Hartog lays out three different historical periods marked by very different answers to this question.

Before the rise of a market economy in the middle of the nineteenth century, old people were cared for and died in their households, surrounded and aided by relatives and, if they had them, servants or slaves.? But as the master/servant relation was replaced by employment in the rapidly industrializing private sphere, and as the household nuclearized into the husband/wife, parent/child family, this ready-to-hand supply of helpers dwindled, often disappearing entirely.? In response to these changes, old people who had property started promising to bequeath it to children, other family members, and even housekeepers in exchange for their staying at home and devoting themselves to filling what we would now call the care gap.

Using New Jersey court records, Hartog?s archival research traces this large social transformation through a small legal shift: people started suing for specific enforcement of these promises, framing them as contracts no different from those typical of the marketplace, and courts started enjoining these inheritances or, in cases with weaker facts, granting unpaid wages payable from the decedent?s estate.? Finally, in post-World-War-II America, these lawsuits disappear from the archive as care for the old and the dying became a commodity paid for by social security programs, pensions, and private savings in the now-burgeoning care industrial complex.

By far the bulk of Someday focuses on the century-long middle chapter of this story, running roughly from 1850 to 1950.? The book?s first part takes the point of view of the old person, desperate to avoid solitude and the poor house and advised on all sides to retain control over property as the only way to gain any leverage over the young.? The family dramas that occupy these chapters are so vividly told, in such loving detail, that the chapters seem to be punctuated with perfect little short stories of human misery.? The second part of the book tells the story of the law, starting with the advice a potential plaintiff would get under the main theories of recovery, and then laying out in transfixing detail how the caselaw evolved to manage, catch up with, and even drive social change.

By the time Hartog reaches this stage of his story, he has built up so much narrative detail, so much social history, and so much law that he is able to trace minute but enduringly important sub-plots: the ways in which gender expectations for sons and daughters could skew decisions about who was doing ?extraordinary? work in the home; the ways in which family members sought to intensify status relations that had no legal backing using the tools of contract and property law; the ways in which nonfamily members entered into the care world ever so slowly, bringing contract even deeper into the home.? It is so fascinating to watch the old turn from spouses to children to nieces to stepsons to housekeepers for care, and to see how the legal rules that these relationships cue up shifted from those of traditional family law to those of the market. When is a housekeeper like a daughter?? When is a daughter like a housekeeper?? Throughout, large legal and social transformations appear in the form of highly specific institutional shifts.? For instance, the unpaid-wage cases boosted the rise of nursing as a profession and of the legal distinction between housework and care work that even today marks efforts to regularize domestic labor.? Equally intelligible as employment law and as family law, these cases persistently belie the idea, being cemented into American legal ideology during this very period, that the family and its law were the opposite of the market and the bodies of law peculiar to it, contract and property.

Hartog never loses sight of a large, highly paradoxical dynamic, in which the family, the market and the state have continually morphed around each other in response to changing social strategies for meeting human needs for care and freedom.? Every chapter refutes the dichotomy embedded in Henry Sumner Maine?s motto ?the movement of the progressive societies has ? been from Status to Contract.? ?Instead, as Hartog demonstrates again and again, liberal individualism and the market economy depend continually on some allocation of dependency needs among the market itself, the family and the state.?

A second major theme of the book is the problem of legal informality.? Old people promised to bequeath their farms and later their homes in exchange for care?but everyone seems to have known perfectly well that testamentary freedom meant that the elderly could die without performing their side of the bargain.? How many caregivers simply acquiesced when they did?? We will never know.? But courts confronted with the ones who sued could invoke the doctrine of partial performance to convert the promise into a binding contract, override the Statute of Frauds, and force the inheritance.? Hartog shows courts making diametrically opposite decisions on the basis of the same matrix of rules and similar facts, presenting a deeply ambivalent attitude about what to do when the need for formality collided with the need for substantive justice, when the moral complexity of the cases beggared the impulse for predictability.

To take another example that vexes family law today: what to do about informal family relationships that resemble formal ones in every other respect?? This theme is threaded throughout Someday, but we can focus on Hartog?s fascinating substory about informal children.? As indentured servitude, slavery and child labor became unthinkable, up came the practice of informal adoption?families bringing distant relatives or even complete strangers into their homes when they were infants or children and hoping that they would remain to care for the old and dying.? When they did, and were excluded from wills, and sued?what were they?? Were they children?? Did the onset of legal adoption make saying yes to that question harder or easier?? Were they lucky beneficiaries with no equitable claim on further largess?? Were they employees?? Anyone concerned about the policy problems we face in family law today, as nonmarital cohabitation and childbearing begin to compete demographically with their marital counterparts, will find this and many related strands of Hartog?s narrative endlessly fascinating.

Finally, the Epilogue produces a succinct account of the massive transformations that produced old age as Americans live it now: public law, public welfare, and individual savings meant and often required to be spent down to nothing, have almost evanesced the direct responsibility of family members, making them at most the managers of their elders? care in commercial establishments.? And yet, for all the grandeur of these shifts, Hartog concludes with a ?reversal? of the account, tallying all the ways in which, even in this diametrically new world, the same anxieties, fears, loves, resentments and regrets permeate the lives of the dying old and their family members today as he found in testimony before New Jersey?s equity courts in the 1880s.

Hartog tells us on his first page that he researched this book while his own mother was waning in a retirement community; the book?s last words dedicate it to his grandchildren.? He put himself into the story, and so I found it impossible to read this book without thinking of my own precarious place on the great conveyor belt of life.? This is family law writing at its best: legally subtle, socially precise, theoretically comprehensive, steadily engaging the human capacity to form productive, life-affirming, loving associations and to crash them in bitter conflicts, and fully exposed to the hard, brute facts of human existence.

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Source: http://family.jotwell.com/elderlaw-as-family-law/

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Judge Napolitano at Mises University

David Gordon at 11:30 am EDT on July 29, 2013

http://www.lewrockwell.com/lrc-blog/judge-napolitano-at-mises-university/

Mises University this year featured a? ?conference within the conference?.? The distinguished jurist and television commentator Judge Andrew Napolitano offered a course of five lectures on ?The Growth of the Commerce Clause as an Instrument of Federal Power.? Judge Napolitano presented a masterful survey of how the Supreme Court has interpreted the commerce clause, from Gibbons v.Ogden (1824) to the present. In clear defiance of the plain meaning of the constitutional text, the Court expanded the scope of the clause so that the power of Congress to regulate the entire economy had by the 1940s become little short of plenary. Wickard v. Filburn (1942) was perhaps the culminating case in this sorry record of biased construction. Fortunately, the Court has recently indicated some willingness to recognize limits to the power of Congress in this area. In his final lecture, Judge Napolitano noted that in its recent opinion upholding the individual mandate of Obamacare? as an exercise of the taxing power, the Court also held that use of the commerce clause for this purpose was unconstitutional.

Judge Napolitano followed the Socratic method in teaching the course, but he was a Socratic interlocutor of great kindness, and it was clear that he had won the heart of his students. His impressive command of the the intricate legal issues at stake was everywhere apparent, and no less apparent was his devotion to individual liberty.

Source: http://www.lewrockwell.com/lrc-blog/judge-napolitano-at-mises-university/

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Three loud explosions heard in Libya's Benghazi: witnesses

TRIPOLI (Reuters) - Three loud explosions rocked the eastern Libyan city of Benghazi on Sunday, in what appeared to be attacks on judicial institutions there, a resident and a security source said.

Resident Hassan Bakoush told Reuters by telephone that he heard an explosion at the court in the north of the city: "It was very loud and I saw the smoke."

"Some balconies of nearby buildings are damaged," he added.

A security source said there were two more explosions - one in the vicinity of an office of the justice ministry and the other near a court in the south of the city.

(Reporting by Ghaith Shennib and Feras Bosalum; Writing by Marie-Louise Gumuchian; editing by Mike Collett-White)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/three-loud-explosions-heard-libyas-benghazi-witnesses-184910527.html

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Pakistani military claims firing by Indian troops

Islamabad: The Pakistani military on Saturday claimed Indian forces had fired across the border in Sialkot region of Punjab province though there were no reports of casualties.

"India's Border Security Force resorted to unprovoked firing on the boundary near Sialkot this evening," said chief military spokesman Maj Gen Asim Saleem Bajwa.

He said no loss to forces or civilians had been reported. Pakistani troops responded "effectively" to the firing, he said.

The allegation came hours after the reported killing of a Pakistani soldier and injury to another due to firing across the Line of Control in Jammu and Kashmir.

Pakistan condemned the killing and asked India to investigate the incident.

PTI

First Published: Saturday, July 27, 2013, 23:41

Source: http://zeenews.india.com/news/south-asia/pakistani-military-claims-firing-by-indian-troops_865002.html

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Civic Stadium bids adieu to old artificial surface | High Schools | The ...

"It's not the years ... it's the mileage," as Indiana Jones uttered in "Raiders of the Lost Ark."

In recent years, the artificial playing surface at Bellingham's Civic Stadium has looked like a graying, beat-up version of its former self, sending anyone who walked across it home with a gift of green fibers and rubber pellets clinging to their shoes and pant legs.

But, oh, if only what's left of the old surface could talk - what stories it would have to tell of all the champions it's had contact with and the many, many spectacular games and athletic performances of all kinds it's witnessed.

After 13 years, the field has seen its last game.

Following the conclusion of the Bellingham United's Pacific Coast Soccer League home schedule on Sunday, July 21, crews began removing the old synthetic surface from the 51-year-old Civic Stadium last week and are expected to begin installation of the new field this week.

"We're very excited about this project, especially since synthetic turf has evolved so much since 2000," City of Bellingham Parks/Design and Development Division project engineer Gina Austin said in a phone interview. "Products have gotten so much better since we put the current field in. Not only are we getting a new field, but a new product and something that will perform better."

Sprinturf of Atlanta won the contract to install the new surface, submitting a low bid of less than $400,000, Austin said, which included removal of the old surface.

Money to pay for the project included $180,000 from Western Washington University and $300,000 from the 1997 Beyond Greeway levy, Austin said, leaving $80,000 for contingency funds on the project.

Like FieldTurf, which last year installed football surfaces at Seattle's CenturyLink Stadium and at Lummi, Sprinturf has a number of fields gracing athletic facilities around the state. The most notable - or notorious if you're a purist - is the bright red football field at Woodward Field on the Eastern Washington University campus in Cheney, but Sumner's Sunset Chev Stadium and the surface at the lacrosse/soccer field at Whidbey Island U.S. Naval Station are prime examples of Sprinturf's more traditional green fields in the area.

According to sprinturf.com, the company has been in business since 1998 and installed more than 800 fields in North America.

"We expect to have a good surface," Bellingham Parks and Recreation Department recreation manager Greg Hatch said in a phone interview. "Sprinturf is a growing company. They may not have as many fields in this area as FieldTurf does, but they are very qualified, according to their specs. ... All these companies have different levels of product, and this is their top one. We're expecting it to be a good surface."

It will replace Civic's FieldTurf surface that was installed in the summer of 2000 as part of $1.4 million project to switch from a natural surface, eliminating the sloppy, muddy mess that usually developed in the rains of late fall and early spring.

The old field certainly held up its end of the bargain, as Parks and Recreation Department is now able to schedule about 400 events a year, Hatch estimated. That's a monumental increase over the approximately 30 events the facility annually could host on a grass field, not to mention the greatly reduced maintenance costs associated with the synthetic surface.

"It's definitely on the upper end of high use," Austin said of Civic.

While the three city high schools have been the most frequent visitors to the turf with their football and girls' soccer teams in the fall and boys' soccer teams in the spring, a number of other area teams have also utilized the field, including the Bellingham United soccer team the past two years, a number of semi-pro football teams, Western Washington University's football team until it was discontinued after the 2008 season and a number of other community teams. And that's not including the countless community pickup games and practices sessions when nothing else was scheduled.

In addition to regularly hosting Northwest District soccer tournaments and football playoff games during the life of the FieldTurf surface, Civic Stadium has played host to 36 Washington Interscholastic Activities Association state football playoff games and 36 more state soccer games.

And with that much use over the past 13 years, the surface has definitely started to show its age.

"Typically, the warranty on a field like this is eight years," Austin said. "The manufacturer told us to expect it to last eight to 10 years, so obviously we've gone beyond that."

The new surface will have a similar manufacturer's warranty from Sprinturf, Austin said, that includes an eight-year maintenance plan.

Hatch said the company removing the old surface, Sports Field Removal of Oklahoma City, actually has been impressed with how good of condition the field is in considering its age and usage.

In spite of that, Austin said, the city and the Parks and Recreation Department have wanted to replace the old surface for the past couple of years.

"This year, the funding was available, and it was a priority of the facilities director and the mayor, so it all happened," Austin said.

Finding a five- to six-week window to allow to happen among the 400-plus events was another story.

"We were a little worried about the commitment to the Bellingham United to allow them to finish their season and get it done before the high school football season starts (on Sept. 6, when Sehome hosts Nooksack Valley)," Hatch said. "But as it turns out, that's kind of a slower point of the year for us, so it gave us enough of a window that we could get it done. ... We still get a lot of walk-in users that like to run on the track or kick of the surface, but we've had to close it to everyone for six weeks. The facility has to be completely closed during construction, and we appreciate everyone's understanding with that."

Hatch said another casualty of the construction process has been the Parks and Recreation Department's All-Comers Track meets, which saw its summer schedule shortened to accommodate the work this summer.

But by the time early September roles around, it should all seem worth it.

Not only will local football and soccer teams enjoy the new surface, but it also will be lined for lacrosse, opening the field up for even more use.

Hatch said he hopes the new field also will combat the lakes that start to form in both end zones - particularly the east - during heavy rain.

"As part of the process, we pulled up a section in the spring to take a look underneath, and all the drains looked OK," Hatch said. "Over time, compaction and the holes underneath the carpet get plugged up, and it doesn't drain as quick. We hope this will help us get those problems fixed as well."

NOTABLE SPRINTURF FIELDS

A look at some of the more than 800 facilities that Civic Stadium will join when Sprinturf is installed later this week:

Site	Sports
Central Missouri State	Football
Concordia University (St. Paul, Minn.)	Football/soccer
Dacotah Field (North Dakota State University)	Football/soccer
Dickinson (N.D.) State University	Football
Franklin Field (University of Pennsylvania)	Football
Greene Stadium (Howard University)	Football
Hoover (Ala.) High School	Football
Kansas City Chiefs indoor/outdoor practice fields	Football
Los Angeles Valley College	Football
Maymoor Park (Redmond)	Soccer/baseball/softball
Memorial Stadium (University of North Dakota)	Football
Oral Roberts University (Tulsa, Okla.)	Baseball
Rip Miller Field (U.S. Naval Academy)	Soccer/lacrosse
Robinson Stadium (Pasadena City College)	Football/soccer
Sacred Heart (Conn.) University	Football/soccer
Spalding Field (UCLA)	Football
St. Mary's (Minn.) University	Soccer
Underhill Field (Cal)	Soccer/lacrosse
University of New Haven (Conn.)	Football
Ventura (Calif.) College	Football
Washington Grizzly Stadium (University of Montana)	Football
Whidbey Island U.S. Naval Station	Soccer/lacrosse
Whittier (Calif.) College	Football
Woodward Field (Eastern Washington University)	Football

SOURCE: SPRINTURF.COM

Reporter Zoe Fraley contributed to this report. Reach David Rasbach at 360-715-2271 or david.rasbach@bellinghamherald.com .

Source: http://www.bellinghamherald.com/2013/07/28/3114978/civic-stadium-bids-adieu-to-old.html

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Spain to mourn train crash victims; driver freed pending trial

By Tracy Rucinski

SANTIAGO DE COMPOSTELA, Spain (Reuters) - Spain was to hold a memorial service on Monday for the 79 people who died in the country's worst rail disaster in decades, hours after the driver of the train was freed pending trial on charges of reckless homicide.

The ceremony takes place at 1900 (1 p.m.ET) in the cathedral of Santiago de Compostela, a world-famous pilgrimage city in northwestern Spain where the high-speed train derailed.

Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, several ministers and the King's children Prince Felipe and Infanta Elena will attend.

At 2041 local time on Wednesday the eight-carriage, high-speed train crumpled and caught fire after slamming into a concrete wall. The impact was so strong that one of the carriages was thrown several meters over an embankment.

The death toll rose to 79 after one injured person - a woman from the United States - died on Sunday. Seventy people remain in hospital, with 22 in critical condition.

The train driver, Francisco Garzon, 52, appeared to take the train too fast through a tight curve. He had been under arrest since Thursday.

Examining Magistrate Luis Alaez formally charged Garzon with "79 counts of homicide and numerous offences of bodily harm, all of them committed through professional recklessness," the court said in a statement on Sunday night.

In a closed-door hearing, Garzon admitted taking the curve too fast, blaming it on a momentary lapse, according to media reports.

Among conditions of his release, Garzon was ordered to surrender his passport and check in regularly with the court.

None of the parties in the case, which include state train operator Renfe, state railway firm Adif and two insurance companies, had asked for Garzon to be jailed pending trial, and he was not seen as a flight risk, the court statement said.

INVESTIGATION

Garzon has worked for Renfe for 30 years, 10 as a driver. His father also worked for the service and he grew up in Renfe-owned housing in northwestern Spain.

Neither lawyers nor members of Garzon's family could be reached for comment.

The investigation will also look at whether the train, the tracks or safety systems were at fault.

The Alvia train involved in the accident, one of three types of high-speed service that run in Spain, received a full maintenance check on the morning of the journey, the head of Renfe said, and security systems were in good shape.

The Alvia trains run both on traditional tracks, where drivers must heed warning systems to reduce speed, and on high-speed tracks where a more sophisticated security system will automatically slow down trains that are going too fast.

At the section of the track where the accident happened, it was up to the driver to respond to prompts to slow down.

The city of Santiago was meant to be celebrating the yearly festival of St. James on July 25, with thousands of Christian pilgrims arriving after walking the famous Camino de Santiago trail.

A week of concerts and other cultural events was cancelled after the train crash on the eve of the festival. On Sunday, black ribbons of mourning hung on the empty stages that had been set up.

At the cathedral gates, along with flowers and candles commemorating the dead, some people left walking sticks from their journeys and others placed shells, the symbol of St. James and badge of honor for the pilgrims who complete the journey.

(Writing by Elisabeth O'Leary and Julien Toyer; Editing by John Stonestreet)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/driver-derailed-spanish-train-charged-79-counts-homicide-010916839.html

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Most Beautiful Items: July 19 - 26, 2013

From an abandoned asylum that the Department of Homeland Security is moving into, to beer labels turned into animated GIFs, we posted all kinds of lustworthy things this week. So before you head off into weekend, check out the wonders of design, art, and architecture we've got for you.

Read more...

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/ORITBdeI6HE/most-beautiful-items-july-19-26-2013-927069825

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Korean divide lives on 60 years after end of war

PANMUNJOM, North Korea (AP) ? Some Americans call it the "Forgotten War," a 1950s conflict fought in a far-off country and so painful that even survivors have tried to erase their memories of it.

The North Koreans, however, have not forgotten. Sixty years after the end of the Korean War, the country is marking the milestone anniversary with a massive celebration Saturday for a holiday it calls "Victory Day" ? even though the two sides only signed a truce, and have yet to negotiate a peace treaty.

Signs and banners reading "Victory" line the streets of Pyongyang, the North Korean capital. The events are expected to culminate with a huge military parade and fireworks, one of the biggest extravaganzas in this impoverished country since leader Kim Jong Un took power in late 2011.

Here at the border in Panmunjom, the war never ended. Both sides of the Demilitarized Zone are heavily guarded, making it the world's most fortified border, and dividing countless families with sisters and brothers, fathers and mothers, on the other side. The North Koreans consider the presence of 28,500 U.S. troops in South Korea a continued occupation.

In some ways, war today is being waged outside the confines of the now-outdated armistice signed 60 years ago.

The disputed maritime border off the west coast of the Koreas is a hot spot for clashes. In 2010, a South Korean warship exploded, killing 46 sailors; Seoul blamed a North Korean torpedo. Later that year, a North Korean artillery attack on a front-line South Korean island killed four people, two of them civilians.

Earlier this year, Kim Jong Un enshrined the pursuit of nuclear weapons as a national goal, calling it a defensive measure against the U.S. military threat. In recent months, the warfare has extended into cyberspace, with both Koreas accusing the other of mounting crippling hacking attacks that have taken down government websites in the North and paralyzed online commerce in the South.

Sixty years on, as both Koreas and the United States mark the anniversary Saturday, there is still no peace on the Korean Peninsula.

___

The two sides don't even agree on who started the war.

Outside the North, historians say it was North Korean troops who charged across the border at the 38th parallel and launched an assault at 4 a.m. on June 25, 1950.

North Korea agrees that war broke out at 4 a.m. ? but says U.S. troops attacked first. A photo offered as proof at a Pyongyang war museum shows U.S. soldiers advancing, rifles cocked, as they run past the 38th parallel.

"The real history is that the U.S. started the war on June 25, 1950," Ri Su Jong, a 21-year-old guide at a flower show in Pyongyang, said Tuesday. "They first attacked our country, and we quickly counterattacked."

Ri, whose grandfathers both fought in the war, said she was taught that the North Koreans marched into Seoul three days later, "liberating" South Korea from U.S. forces. A panoramic diorama at the war museum shows soldiers hoisting the North Korean flag in a sea of fire and destruction.

As North Korean troops advanced further south, the U.S. retaliated with bombing campaigns that left both Seoul and Pyongyang in rubble.

"The U.S enemy engineered the war, boasting of the advantage of their air power, flying normally 500 or 700 flights, sometimes up to 1,000 flights a day, both on the front and in the rear," said North Korean Maj. Gen. Kim Sung Un, a war veteran who is now 84. "All the factories and workplaces ... were reduced to ashes."

Then came the counterattack.

Dick Bonelli was a 19-year-old from the Bronx, a self-professed troublemaker, who was shipped off with the U.S. Marines to fight in a country he never knew existed. He arrived in September 1950 with the amphibious assault known in as the "Inchon Landing," the surprise attack that helped the U.S.-led U.N. forces push the North Koreans back.

Bonelli later took part in one of the most costly fights of the Korean War: the 17-day winter campaign in the mountainous region of the North then known by its Japanese name, the Chosin Reservoir. Several thousand were killed in combat, and thousands more died of frostbite.

"I tried for 30 to 40 years to forget it all," Bonelli said in Pyongyang on Thursday, an American flag pinned to his blazer. "Who wants to remember that? It's war. It was terrible."

In all, the fighting took more than 1.2 million lives. More than 500,000 North Korean troops died, along with 183,000 Chinese who fought alongside them. On the other side, 138,000 South Koreans were killed, and 40,670 more from the U.N.-led force, including 36,900 Americans. Civilian deaths totaled almost 374,000 in South Korea and are unknown in the North.

Bonelli is back in North Korea for the first time since 1950. His hope is to revisit Fox Hill, the remote spot that he guarded that first cold winter of the war. Tears in his eyes, he called it an emotional journey to a place that he tried for decades to forget.

___

How the main players in the war will mark Saturday's anniversary is a telling indication of how each country considers the conflict.

North Korea is treating it as a celebration, an occasion to rally support for the country's leader and draw attention to the division of the Korean Peninsula.

In South Korea, it's a day of remembrance. For the government, it's a day of thanks to the 16 U.N. nations that came to South Korea's defense during the 1950-53 war. For many, it's also a day of sorrow as they remember family members left behind in the North, forever divided from their loved ones.

Park Jong-seon doesn't know what happened to his older brother and sister, lost in the tumult of war. "To this day, I still have not heard from them," he said, eyes glistening. "I wonder where they are, and whether they're still alive."

In Washington, President Barack Obama on Thursday declared July 27 National Korean War Veterans Armistice Day. He paid tribute in his proclamation to the veterans who fought to "defend a country they never knew and a people they never met." He is to speak Saturday at the Korean War Veterans Memorial.

___

Back in 1953, the architects of the armistice that took two years to negotiate were so sure the truce would be temporary that they cobbled together corrugated sheds to serve as conference halls in just a handful of days.

Sixty years later, those once-temporary buildings are still standing. On the North Korean side, the drafty building that served as the venue for armistice talks is now the "peace pagoda," a popular stop on a fledgling tourist trail from Pyongyang. A tattered version of the armistice agreement and the U.N. flag are displayed.

The sheds straddling the border where the two sides sometimes meet are still called T1, T2 and T3: the "T'' stands for "temporary."

Peace is up to Washington, North Korean Lt. Col. Nam Dong Ho told The Associated Press recently.

"The division of the Korean Peninsula is less an issue between the North and South and more of an issue between North Korea and the U.S," he said. "Last time, we negotiated an armistice agreement. But next time, we will bring the U.S. to its knees to sign a letter of surrender."

Ri, the flower show guide, also blames the U.S.: "Of course we want peace. ... But the American imperialists keep provoking us with their hostile policy."

The visiting U.S. veteran, Bonelli, says simply that a peace treaty is long overdue.

"It's ridiculous to have an armistice this long and not to sit down, break bread and make peace," he said. "The future is about the children. Let's stop it."

___

Associated Press writer Elizabeth Shim contributed to this report from Seoul, South Korea. Follow AP's Korea bureau chief at www.twitter.com/newsjean.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/korean-divide-lives-60-years-end-war-092932888.html

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Billion Dollar Deal Sees Acitivision Blizzard Breaks Off From Media ...

By Pashford MuranoPublished: 25 July 2013 11:32 PM UTC

Posted in: Indi Games, News, Nintendo News, Online, Online News, PC, PC Games, PC News, Playstation News, PS3, PS3 Games, PSP, PSP Games, Social Gaming, Video Games, Vita, Wii, Wii Games, Xbox 360, XBOX Live, Xbox News

Tags: activision, Billions, blizzard, Bobby Kotick, call, call of duty, Dollars, duty, Pashford, Pashford Murano, Vivendi, warcraft, world, world of warcraft

In a move that is sure to effect millions of gamers in the coming years, Activision Blizzard has finally broken away from Vivendi as an independant video game publisher in a deal worth $8.2 Billion dollars.

In an article posted on Gamasutra, ?we find that the deal had been in the making for some time, with Activision Blizzard seeking financial independence for themselves in the long haul. The deal was over seen by Activision CEO and noted public gaming figure, Bobby Kotick.

Bobby Kotick issued a statement about the deals finalization:

?We?should emerge even stronger ? an independent company with a best-in-class franchise portfolio?The transactions announced today will allow us to take advantage of attractive financing markets while still retaining more than $3 billion cash on hand to preserve financial stability.?

While Bobby Kotick has received large volumes of criticisms involving harsh sentiments about developing video games, the giant that is Activision has seen a pretty substantial and stable financial profit over the past several years. With franchises like Skylanders, Call of Duty, and the still popular World of Warcraft, Activision Blizzard is in no short supply of cash cows that still have milk to give.

Rumors report, Blizzard is going to put a new pet up for download on the World of Warcraft store in the next week, to fully recoup the cost of the $8.2 billion dollar deal.

(Via Gamasutra)

Article from Gamersyndrome.com

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2. Bobby Kotick comments on Spider-man games
3. Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 Racks in 1 Billion Dollars
4. Acitivsion to sell in-game cut scenes as digital downloads or theatrical releases?
5. Call of Duty Franchise Rakes in Over $3 Billion

Game advertisements by Game Advertising Online require iframes.

Source: http://gamersyndrome.com/2013/video-games/billion-dollar-deal-sees-acitivision-blizzard-breaks-off-from-media-conglomerate-vivendi/

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Study finds sports drug testing to be costly and futile

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?Red 2? Needs a Dose of Energy | Triangle Arts and Entertainment

Combining tongue-in-cheek humor with outlandish gunplay and an everything old is new again mentality, the first ?Red? became a sleeper hit back in 2010. Based on the comic series by Warren Ellis and Cully Hammer, the film followed a bunch of retired CIA agents in their golden years as they showed the uppity youngin?s how the old school did things. The gang is back for ?Red 2,? a sequel that ditches the young vs. old dynamic that made ?Red? a cut above the standard action film, making the sequel?a standard action film.

Bruce Willis, John Malkovich, Mary-Louise Parker and Helen Mirren all return, which finds them on the hunt for Nightshade, an experimental nuclear bomb created back in the ?70s developed by an insane Anthony Hopkins. Hot on their tail is a sadistic CIA bag man, a Korean hitman and the Russian ex-flame of Frank (Willis), played by Catherine Zeta-Jones without a hint of Russian dialect.

Dean Parisot, director of the 1999 ?Star Trek? homage ?Galaxy Quest,? knows how to a fun movie that winks at the audience. He should have been a perfect choice to take the reigns for Robert Schwentke, but the screenplay by ?Red? writers Jon and Erich Hoeber, who also wrote the dud ?Battleship,? is so lifeless and devoid of original ideas the entire film can?t help but sink under the weight of their bad writing. Things are so bland at one point David Thewlis (Professor Lupin in the ?Harry Potter? series) shows up in a bit role looking so much like John Hodgman it takes a close-up to realize its Thewlist and not the deranged millionaire. Hopkins spouts out every cliched English professor line in existence, including ?jolly good? and ?cheerio.? Some bits rekindle the fun of the original, mostly thanks to Malkovich, who seems to have ditched most of his lines in favor of improvisation. Even Bruce Willis seems bored, forced to walk around acting emasculated because of Frank?s concern for his girlfriend. Without that clash of young and old, ?Red 2? almost completely misses the mark, forgetting why the original was a surprise success to begin with.

?Red? was a sort of blast from the past, capitalizing on the impending retirement of many baby-boomers, showing that just because you were over 50 didn?t mean there wasn?t any gas left in the tank. ?Red 2? is the morning after, limping along like a bad hangover until its time to go back to sleep.

Tagged as: action, bruce willis, catherine zeta-jones, john malkovich, mary-louise parker, Red, red 2

Source: http://triangleartsandentertainment.org/2013/07/red-2-needs-a-dose-of-energy/

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Goodbye, Darkness: Light Pollution Is Making Us Forget the Night Sky

Did you know that eight of every ten kids born today won?t experience a night sky dark enough to see the Milky Way? We?re living in an age when light pollution is making stars a rarity?and not just in cities. Paul Bogard, the author of a new book on darkness, even goes so far as to describe it as a natural resource.

Read more...

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/C2aBX9iwxtM/goodbye-darkness-light-pollution-is-making-us-forget-899753147

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State on hook for insurance-deal payouts - KRQE-TV.com

SANTA FE (KRQE) - State employee Martin Hoefler could not have foreseen the unbelievable cold-hearted tragedy that unfolded last November.

Martin was a firefighter with the Energy and Minerals Department. He died last year at the age of 50 leaving behind his wife Lena and eight children.

"It's just hard without him," Lena Martin told KRQE News 13 in November.? "We all just miss him."

Martin had a life insurance policy through his state job. But shortly after his untimely death, the insurance company refused to pay Martin's $33,000 death benefit.

A similar fate befell Bob Allard, a state park technician at Heron Lake. He died in 2010 survived by his wife and two adult children.

Allard paid his life insurance premiums through state payroll deductions. However, after his death, the insurance company said Allard wasn't covered and refused to pay his widow the $22,000 death benefit.

"When a family is expecting that money to pay for death benefits, and [then they] find out that they are not getting anything, I think that's obscene," State Personnel Officer Gene Moser said last year.? "Their response was immoral. It's wrong."

At the center of the storm is the Standard Insurance Company of Portland, Ore., which provides life insurance policies for state employees.

"What we discovered was employees who had died and their families were thinking they had insurance coverage were finding out they weren't covered," Moser added.? "This was a big deal. This was a very big deal.?

The impact was most acutely felt by the survivors, as Moser recalled from a conversation with one widow last fall.

"An 80-year-old woman who had been denied claims that her husband had died, she was distraught," Moser said. "She never thought this was going to be fixed. This was somebody who was living in a trailer by herself in a very rural area. It made a huge difference in her life."

The state ended up paying the Hoefler and Allard insurance claims and then sent Standard a bill for $55,000.

That was nine months ago. Now KRQE News 13 has learned of at least 10 other state employees who have been victimized.

According to internal state documents, Standard Insurance has denied more than $200,000 in death benefits to the families of a dozen state employees. And even though some of those cases go back four years, all of them - and probably more - have been kept under wraps.
?
"I was surprised to learn that there were this many claims that should have been paid but had been denied by the Standard," said Ed Burckle, cabinet secretary for the state's General Services Department, which manages employee insurance benefits.? "There are 12 that have been disclosed today. There are likely to be a few more.

"We just don't know.? Until Standard conducts a 100 percent review of all of its previously denied claims, we don't know."

Last November, Standard refused to talk about denied claims on the phone or in person. When KRQE News 13 paid a visit to the firm's Portland headquarters, corporate security guards were dispatched to protect the financial giant from unwanted scrutiny.

The state and Standard launched independent investigations. In April, following a lengthy negotiation, both parties agreed to resolve disputed life insurance claims. According to a written agreement, all previously denied death claims will be paid.

"When we talked last November, we didn't even have Standard at the negotiating table," Burckle told KRQE News 13.? "I think it was your story that brought sufficient amount of publicity to the issue that actually created the situation where Standard came to the bargaining table.

"We were able to strike a deal where everyone was going to be covered if they had been paying premiums."

Standard is not solely to blame for what's happened. New Mexico also made mistakes. As a part of the settlement, New Mexico taxpayers will pick up the tab for future death claims made by state employees or their dependents up to a total of $300,000 a year. Any claims more than that amount will be paid by Standard.

But why would the state of New Mexico pay death benefits when it's not an insurance company?

"As part of the settlement with the Standard, neither party admitted any guilt whatsoever," Burckle continued.? "However, the state has admitted that we had poor training, we did have inconsistent enrollment processes dating back to 2007.

"So, we admitted that and said we'll take on a minimal increase in the state's risk provided that Standard takes on the lion's share of the increased responsibility."

Former State Insurance Superintendent Don Letherer called the deal one of the strangest he's ever run into.

"I don't know how in the heck that can happen," Letherer said.? "To me, it doesn't make any sense at all. They're not an insurance company. They're not licensed as an adjuster. And I don't know how in the world they can do that."

Letherer added he has never seen this kind

of situation before.?

The agreement with Standard does not resolve all of the outstanding issues. For example, out of the thousands of state employees who have been paying life insurance premiums, none have been provided with an important document called a certificate of insurance even though it is required by law.

"When somebody dies, people don't always know what they are insured for or not insured for," Letherer said.? "How in the world would people know where to go to cash in on the life insurance if they have no certificates?"

While Burckle conceded employees paying for Standard policies have not received those certificates, Letherer points to that as a violation of state law.

"It's a super problem because, for one thing, the state statutes on insurance say a group program must include group certificates to the individual insureds, and it wasn't done in this case," Letherer said.

As the state continues to battle Standard, Burckle has a message for state employees.

"We have got your back," he said.? "We are going to make sure that if you've been paying premiums and you suffer a death or your dependent suffers a death that you will be covered.

"No state employee has to worry whether they are covered or not covered."

The State Personnel Office also said employees will be protected.

"My job is to make sure that our employees are properly being covered in compliance with the Personnel Act and that we're insuring their safety and their welfare," Moser said. "We have an obligation. We made a promise that we would do certain things. We have to fulfill that promise."

Letherer still considers the situation "mind-boggling" and said he doesn't understand how it was allowed to happen.

"Life insurance especially has to be certain," he continued.? "If it's not certain, you need to seek who's responsible for it not being certain. I think there's a lot of fault to go around, and I think it's both sides."

As a direct result of what?s happened with Standard Insurance, the state has now contracted with a private Human Resources firm to handle state employee benefits. The third party administrator will be paid $1.4 million a year to service benefit plans for all state employees.

Meanwhile, some state employees have filed a class action lawsuit naming both Standard and the state of New Mexico for failing to protect their life insurance benefits. The case is pending.

Source: http://www.krqe.com/dpp/news/larry_barker/state-on-hook-for-insurance-deal-payouts

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Franken: We need transparency on domestic spying (CNN)

Share With Friends: | | Politics - Top Stories Stories, News Feeds and News via Feedzilla.

Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/321310744?client_source=feed&format=rss

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Samsung scheduled to release the Galaxy S5 as early as late 2013

Can Samsung get away with releasing the Galaxy S5 just six months after the Galaxy S4 launch? Whether yes or no, it looks like Samsung may actually be doing so.
First of all, Samsung did not meet analyst sales target at $8.8 billion. Instead, they sold slightly under at just $8.3 billion, costing them a fall in market share of $8.3 million. The competition in this market is fierce and smaller players are weighing in. Companies such as Huawei and ZTE are growing with lower-cost devices. More importantly, Samsung's main competition is the Moto X.


The Google owned Moto X device is scheduled to launch on August 26, 2013, which could potentially get a huge head start on the next generation smartphones. Google already spent half a billion dollars marketing the first smartphone to be assembled in America.


Unlike with Apple devices, Google and Motorola lets the public know well in advance of the nitty-gritty details of the device and this, hopefully, will also pay off.


Samsung, in order to stay in the spotlight, has moved up its schedule to launching the Galaxy S5 line as early as the end of this year. Samsung sales are already slumping and won't be generating another wave of sales with the Galaxy S4 and the Galaxy S4 Mini models. They plan on moving ahead of schedule, but can they get away with it?


Samsung really has no choice. In order to hold a market share and compete with the upcoming Moto X, LG G2, and the iPhone 5S (possibly iPhone 6), they really have run out of options. The LG G2 has already been scheduled for August 7, 2013. The release date for the upcoming iPhone is still unknown.


This will definitely disappoint current Galaxy S4 owners, especially Galaxy S4 Mini owners with the devices launching only half a year and just few months respectively. At the same time, this will also cause a major price drop with the Galaxy S4, possibly making it the perfect opportunity to save some big bucks.

Source: http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/354992

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Britain's new prince enjoys privacy, for now

LONDON (AP) ? After the frenzy and the flashguns, Britain's new royal baby and his parents spent Wednesday out of the media spotlight. But for how long?

The 2-day-old prince doesn't have a name yet, but he's the most famous infant on Earth, and as a future British king he faces a lifetime of celebrity.

Palace officials say Prince William and his wife Kate are spending "private and quiet time for them to get to know their son" ? and, perhaps, to figure out ways to shield him from intense public and media interest.

At least the relationship got off to a good start. The baby slept through his first photo op outside London's St. Mary's Hospital, while his parents beamed as they chatted easily with reporters. For a royal family that has had a fraught relationship with the media, it was a positive sign.

"I thought, is this an Oscar-winning performance?" said Ingrid Seward, editor-in-chief of Majesty magazine. "But I think they were so genuinely overjoyed that they wanted to show off the baby."

After leaving the hospital, the couple introduced their son to his uncle, Prince Harry, and to great-grandmother Queen Elizabeth II, keen to see the baby before she starts her annual summer vacation in Scotland later this week.

Then they headed to see Kate's parents in their village near London ? pretty much like any regular family.

There has been so much royal drama in the last few decades that it's easy to forget that William had, by royal standards, a relatively normal childhood.

His parents' troubled marriage may have ended in divorce, but Prince Charles and Princess Diana were devoted parents who tried to spend as much time as possible with their children ? albeit with an assist from nannies. The queen was sometimes away on official tours for months at a time when her children were young, but Charles and Diana took William along on a tour to Australia when he was just 9 months old.

The queen was educated at home, in keeping with royal tradition. But she sent her own children to boarding schools, and Charles and Diana did the same with William and his younger brother Harry ? choosing Eton, one of the biggest and most prestigious boys' schools in the country.

"William's childhood was normal by upper-middle-class standards? private schools, expensive holidays, McDonald's in a smart part of town as opposed to a grotty part of town," said royal historian Robert Lacey. "I think really one is going to see more of the same."

Lacey thinks Kate's middle-class background will also help ensure her son gets a broader world view than some of his royal predecessors.

The baby's maternal grandparents, Carole and Michael Middleton, are self-made millionaires who run a party-planning business from the village of Bucklebury, west of London.

"From Buckingham Palace to Bucklebury ? these are the two elements that will be in this child's upbringing," Lacey said.

Lacey noted that on Kate's side the baby prince had "a grandfather who started off dispatching aircraft from Heathrow Airport and a grandmother who started out as a flight attendant and grew up on a council estate, who came from coal-mining stock in Durham (in northern England). That is all funneling through."

Historian Antonia Fraser noted on BBC radio that the Middletons also provide an example of marital stability ?"unlike so many royal marriages recently."

William's childhood normality was possible because the palace struck a deal with the media ? privacy in exchange for a number of agreed photo opportunities at birthdays and during school holidays.

Seward said Kate and William would try to arrange a similar deal for their son.

"When they have got time to think, they will have to do some kind of deal with the press," she said. "In return for some really beautiful photographs, they will be left alone."

The British press adhered to the agreement while William and Harry were children. But once they reached adulthood, all bets were off. Photos soon appeared of Prince Harry on drunken nights out, or wearing a Nazi outfit to a costume party. Tabloid reporters were also secretly hacking the mobile phone voicemails of royal aides in quest of scoops.

The revelation of the scale of that illegal eavesdropping ? on celebrities, politicians and crime victims as well as the royals ? horrified the British public and chastened the rambunctious press, although that may be a temporary state of affairs.

Palace officials still have some sway over newspaper editors. When they complained about photos of William and Kate walking on a beach near their home in Wales, British newspapers did not run them.

But the foreign press is impossible to control, as the palace learned when an Italian magazine ran topless pictures of Kate taken during a holiday in France.

But, Lacey points out, the media can cut both ways. This baby will be the first future monarch to grow up in the era of Twitter, Facebook and other social media.

"That will give him an incredible insight into how the country and population he is supposed to represent live and breathe and enjoy themselves and corrupt each other," he said.

"In the Middle Ages we have legends of idealistic princes who would dress in ordinary clothes and go out into the streets of town after dark to see how their subjects lived. The electronic media, for all their hazards, do offer this new dimension to an heir."

___

Jill Lawless can be reached at http://Twitter.com/JillLawless

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/britains-prince-enjoys-privacy-now-152657556.html

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The Florida International Rally & Motorsport Park (The FIRM) Names Ken Grammer Managing Director

Grammer Will Oversee Continued Expansion of Facilities & Curriculum

STARKE, Fla.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Florida International Rally & Motorsport Park (The FIRM) announces that Ken Grammer has joined the company as managing director. Grammer comes to The FIRM from VIRginia International Raceway (VIR) where he served as its driver?s club director. Grammer will oversee the day-to-day operation of The FIRM while expanding both its motorsport and military training business units.

?Ken?s background in motorsports complements our long-term goal of making The FIRM the most exciting multi-purpose motorsport facility in the southeast.?

Grammer will manage enhancements to The FIRM?s?450 acre facility in?north central Florida, including ongoing improvements to its?road course, gravel and dirt motorsport trails, off-road tracks and courses and its?classrooms, tuning shop, private garages?and firing ranges. Used for both public and private special events, The FIRM is one of the most challenging and diverse motorsports parks in the country. Grammer will supervise the expansion of The FIRM?s?road course and redevelop The FIRM?s driver?s club, while continuing to expand The FIRM?s off-road and defensive driving programs.

?We are excited to have Ken join The FIRM,? said Robert Bunn, President and General Counsel of The FIRM. ?Ken?s background in motorsports complements our long-term goal of making The FIRM the most exciting multi-purpose motorsport facility in the southeast.?

?I am very pleased to be joining The FIRM,? Grammer said. ?I see The FIRM as a fantastic pencil drawing that is ready to have the final color applied. I find the prospect of helping build The FIRM into a premier southeast motorsports destination very exciting.?

In addition to his work with VIR, Grammer has competed in several club and professional sports car race series, served as the director of operations for SCCA Pro Racing and managed championship winning race teams in SCCA, NASA and Grand-Am. In 2008, Grammer served as the first managing director of New Jersey Motorsports Park. Grammer has also promoted and managed major motorsports events throughout North America and served as race director for several professional race series. Prior to his career in motorsports, Grammer worked for 20 years in the computer software industry.

About The FIRM

The Florida International Rally and Motorsport Park?(The FIRM) is located in Starke, Florida and is the most unique, diverse and challenging action and motorsports facility in Florida. Offering professional rally-based driver training, security training, track rentals and full-service special events. For more information, visit?www.gorally.com or www.facebook.com/MotorsportHeaven.

Source: http://feeds.businesswire.com/click.phdo?i=74776c266321368cf59bb70a6d166c42

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