Scherzer wins 16th, Tigers beat White Sox 3-0

Detroit Tigers' Jose Iglesias rounds the bases after hitting a solo home run during the fourth inning of a baseball game against Chicago White Sox starting pitcher John Danks in Detroit, Saturday, Aug. 3, 2013. (AP Photo/Carlos Osorio)

Detroit Tigers' Jose Iglesias rounds the bases after hitting a solo home run during the fourth inning of a baseball game against Chicago White Sox starting pitcher John Danks in Detroit, Saturday, Aug. 3, 2013. (AP Photo/Carlos Osorio)

Detroit Tigers second baseman Ramon Santiago jumps over Chicago White Sox's Alejandro De Aza as De Aza steals second during the third inning of a baseball game in Detroit, Saturday, Aug. 3, 2013. (AP Photo/Carlos Osorio)

DETROIT (AP) ? With almost two months left in the season, Max Scherzer has already equaled his career high in wins.

He's also closing in on another lofty mark ? 1,000 strikeouts.

"Wins are important for the team, and I'm up about that," Scherzer said. "But to reach milestones for your career, sometimes that's a better personal reflection of yourself."

Scherzer will have to wait for that 1,000th strikeout after falling one short Saturday night, but the Detroit right-hander took a shutout into the eighth inning, and the bullpen held on in the Tigers' 3-0 victory over the punchless Chicago White Sox. Scherzer became baseball's first 16-game winner.

The White Sox have lost nine straight. The AL Central-leading Tigers have won 11 of 12, despite playing most of that stretch without slugger Miguel Cabrera.

"I've always said that we have so much talent in this clubhouse," Scherzer said. "Miggy's a big part of it, but even without Miggy, there's plenty of guys in here that are very capable of dominating in the major leagues."

Cabrera has been bothered by hip and abdominal problems and sat out Saturday.

Scherzer (16-1) allowed three hits in 7 2-3 innings. Jose Veras got the third out of the eighth, and Joaquin Benoit finished for his 12th save in 12 chances.

John Danks (2-9) allowed six hits in seven innings, including solo homers by Torii Hunter, Jhonny Peralta and Jose Iglesias.

Scherzer is the first pitcher to win at least 16 of his first 17 decisions since Roger Clemens started 16-1 in 2001, according to STATS. Scherzer walked three and struck out six.

"It is pretty tough to do much against Scherzer right now," White Sox manager Robin Ventura said. "He's just got too much stuff. He can throw all of his off-speed pitches exactly where he wants them, and you can't tell them apart from his fastball. So you are watching for the break, and you don't have a chance to catch up to his velocity."

Scherzer also won 16 games last season. He's been the beneficiary of a lot of run support this year, but he didn't need much against the White Sox. Hunter opened the scoring with a homer to left in the first.

"These are real baseball games. We love those close games, those tight games," Hunter said. "Good pitching beats good hitting any day. Whenever they make a mistake, you just don't want to miss it."

Peralta ? who faces a possible suspension from Major League Baseball's drug investigation ? made it 2-0 with a drive to the bushes beyond the center-field wall in the second.

Iglesias, acquired just before the trade deadline ? partly as insurance against a possible suspension to Peralta ? added a homer of his own in the fourth.

This was the second game with the Tigers for Iglesias. He hit one homer in 63 games for Boston this season.

The White Sox, meanwhile, got another sold start that they failed to take advantage of. The Chicago starters have a 2.72 ERA during this losing streak.

Chicago pinch-hitter Jordan Danks hit a long flyball in the eighth that center fielder Austin Jackson caught at the wall in left-center. When Veras came in, Alexei Ramirez jack-knifed out of the way on his first pitch ? only to have the breaking ball drop across the heart of the plate for a strike.

The White Sox have scored two runs in their last three games.

NOTES: Chicago has requested waivers on OF Dewayne Wise for the purpose of granting his unconditional release. Wise has been on the DL since May 30 with a strained right hamstring and right oblique strain. ... The Tigers wore jerseys that said "Tigres" while honoring the contributions of Hispanic and Latino players. ... Detroit tries for a three-game sweep Sunday, with RHP Rick Porcello (8-6) taking the mound against Chicago RHP Andre Rienzo (0-0).

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/347875155d53465d95cec892aeb06419/Article_2013-08-03-BBA-White-Sox-Tigers/id-2e2004f390844bae92ee5b025e96e737

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Analysis: Mexico bets on reforms to boost wages, but no quick fix

By Alexandra Alper and Pablo Garibian

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexicans hoping their president will make good on a campaign promise to boost wages may be in for a long wait, as the country aims to dodge Brazil's mistakes by betting on economic reforms that will take years to translate into labor gains.

President Enrique Pena Nieto came to office in December promising to boost productivity and raise low wages in Latin America's No. 2 economy, which have changed little in over a decade, averaging $21 a day in the formal sector.

A boost in wages would help consumption, which has been flagging since the money that Mexicans living abroad send home tapered, government spending slowed and U.S. demand for Mexican exports grew shaky.

The boom-and-bust situation in regional rival Brazil, where rising wages and easy credit have given way to weak growth and high inflation, serves as a cautionary tale.

So Pena Nieto is betting a host of ambitious economic reforms will translate into productivity gains that eventually boost salaries - just not right away.

"It would be at least three to five years, before you would begin to notice an impact," said Claudio Loser, a former IMF economist, who added that Brazil's consumption-fed model was bound to lead to overheating.

"Boosting consumption gives a short-term push, but it's not like an oil lamp, it's like a match," he said.

While many economists agree boosting productivity through reforms is key to sustainable wage rises, Mexicans may not be content to wait, as remittances so far this year hit a three-year-low.

"I don't have even one extra peso," said Ana Martinez, an 18-year-old office cleaner in Mexico City who earns 3,000 pesos ($230) a month for 12-hour work days.

"I would like to buy myself one of those cell phones with Internet, but just think, given what I earn," she said.

CHEAPER THAN CHINA

Mexico's low wages, a drag on consumption, are helping Mexican exports regain market share in the United States and luring firms like German carmaker Volkswagen to open plants.

At under $2.50 an hour, manufacturing wages are nearly 20 percent cheaper than in China, according to a recent Bank of America study.

The average tax-paying worker earns 271.58 pesos ($21.26) a day, up just over a dollar from the average wage adjusted for inflation a decade ago, according to IMSS, Mexico's social security institute.

"It's a very comfortable situation for the government and businessmen, and for companies, it's very profitable," said Alfredo Coutino, Latin America director for Moody's Analytics.

But it is weighing on consumption, which has lost steam over the past year.

Bulk sales - which predict the rhythm of retail sales - fell 5.5 percent from January to May, and consumer confidence in June hit its lowest level in nine months.

"It's a constraint of the Mexican model because if you have an export model, it's all based on cost," said Enrique Alvarez, an analyst at IDEAglobal in New York. "Unfortunately, those costs have to stay low, so you never really have a great deal of expansion in the consumer class."

The drag has been more worrying as a slowdown in the United States, Mexico's biggest trading partner, has hit industry and reduced remittance flows, which totaled $10.7 billion in the first half of the year, down nearly 10 percent from 2012.

Factory exports eased slightly in June, while the HSBC PMI data showed factory activity contracted in July for the first time since the series began over two years ago.

The government is now expecting the economy to grow 3.1 percent this year, down from 3.9 percent in 2012. Analysts polled by the central bank are more pessimistic, and have cut their 2013 growth forecast to 2.65 percent.

Economists say Mexican wages face headwinds from a slack labor market and low productivity.

In Mexico, an estimated 1 million new job seekers compete for half as many jobs each year, putting little pressure on employers to boost wages.

Mexican employee productivity grew only 16 percent from 1992 to 2012, while Brazilian, Chilean and Peruvian workers became 30, 57 and 113 percent more productive respectively, according to the Conference Board Total Economy Database.

Pena Nieto has said he wants to tackle the problem.

"This is the final goal ... that our economic policies are pushing for: That families can earn more, have better incomes, by being more productive," he said in May.

He signed a pact with opposition parties when he took office to spearhead reforms including bids to boost the country's paltry tax take and production at ailing state oil giant Pemex, to raise growth to 6 percent per year.

The reforms, including an already approved overhaul of the school system and a measure to buoy competition in the telecoms sector, are designed to boost worker productivity by improving education and making companies more efficient.

But Pena Nieto's labor reform, which took effect in December, has yet to translate into a promised boost in hiring.

Since he took office, Mexico has created 62,485 jobs, just a quarter of those created in the same period a year earlier.

The average minimum wage adjusted for inflation continued its fall over the past decade to 58.10 pesos ($4.55) a day in 2013 from 60.06 pesos, according to Mexico's minimum wage commission.

KEEP OFF THE STEROIDS

But slow change is better than overheating, economists say, pointing to Brazil.

There, a tight labor market, wages indexed to growth and easy credit pumped up a consumption-fueled boom that helped growth average nearly 4 percent a year over the past decade, and allowed millions of Brazilians to join the middle class.

That boom is fading as default rates have hit record highs over the past two years, and high inflation is curbing Brazilian spending. Growth last year notched a paltry 0.9 percent.

"You cannot make the economy grow on steroids," said Alberto Ramos, an economist with Goldman Sachs.

Average monthly wages of Brazilian workers rose by nearly a third in real terms over the past decade, and Mexicans may yet see a nudge.

"Mexico is going in the right direction, but it's going to take time," said Coutino.

($1 = 12.7752 Mexican pesos)

(With additional reporting by Alonso Soto in Brasilia; Editing by Simon Gardner and Peter Cooney)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/analysis-mexico-bets-reforms-boost-wages-no-quick-052225482.html

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Dempsey leaves England, joins Seattle Sounders

SEATTLE (AP) ? Clint Dempsey waited on the small stage at midfield.

Finally he unzipped his sweatshirt and made official a surprising career move.

Dempsey is leaving behind the Premier League to play for the Seattle Sounders.

Dempsey was introduced as the newest designated player for the Sounders on Saturday night prior to Seattle's match against FC Dallas.

It concluded a whirlwind 48 hours of rumors and speculation that Dempsey was leaving Tottenham Hotspur and returning to Major League Soccer.

ESPN first reported Friday that a transfer was imminent and Tottenham confirmed Dempsey's move back to MLS early Saturday. Terms of Dempsey's deal were not announced by the club.

"This is a historic day for Sounders FC and our fans," Sounders majority owner Joe Roth said in a release. "Clint is a world-class soccer player who can take this club to a higher level. We have been consistent in our message to the fans that we will spare no expense to win trophies."

Dempsey was expected to address the reasons behind his move during a news conference scheduled for Monday. Seattle coach Sigi Schmid brought Dempsey into the locker room and introduced him to the team before Seattle's 3-0 victory over Dallas.

"I'm happy for him. It's good for the league having a player like Clint come back at a young age who still has many more years of soccer left in him," Seattle forward Eddie Johnson said.

"It just shows you where soccer is in this country having guys like that come back says a lot about how much the league has grown, how much better the soccer is here in America. It's only going to attract many other good football players throughout the world."

The 30-year-old Dempsey played for the New England Revolution from 2004-06 before joining Fulham in 2007.

He moved to Tottenham last summer and scored 12 goals in 43 games, but wasn't a regular starter for the Spurs while being used in rotation with other attacking players.

The move is surprising as Dempsey is giving up a chance to play in one of the top leagues in the world in the prime of his career and a year before the World Cup in Brazil.

"I was a little bit surprised about it, sure. Because it is an interesting step career wise at a point in time where you would kind of maybe question that," former U.S. national team goalkeeper and current Sounders TV analyst Kasey Keller said before Saturday's announcement.

"But when you look more at the details and who is involved and what we're talking about financially it all kind of comes into place."

There were signs Seattle was on the verge of making a big splash before the international transfer window closed.

The Sounders cleared one of their three designated player slots earlier this week when midfielder Shalrie Joseph restructured his contract to no longer be counted as a designated player.

The team's website also asked fans to arrive early for Saturday night's game against FC Dallas for what the club called a "special presentation."

At 7:26 p.m., a video chronicling Dempsey's career highlights played on the CenturyLink Field video board and moments later he revealed his new rave green jersey.

"I think we'll accomplish some great things here, so thank you," Dempsey told the roaring fans.

Dempsey raved about Seattle when the city hosted the U.S. against Panama in a World Cup qualifier in June.

"It's great to see the game is building and there are markets like this where people have so much passion for the game," he said then.

A star for the U.S. national team, Dempsey wasn't a regular in Andre Villas-Boas' starting lineup with Tottenham.

Even so, his move is somewhat surprising because Tottenham could also lose forward Gareth Bale this offseason to Real Madrid.

One of the most successful Americans to play in England's top league, Dempsey was first sold from the Revolution to Fulham in 2007.

Dempsey spent five years playing at Craven Cottage, where he scored 50 goals in 184 league appearances and became a fan favorite. Last year with Tottenham, Dempsey scored seven goals in 29 Premier League matches, scored three times in two FA Cup matches and had two more goals in 10 other games.

As his stock in Europe rose, so did Dempsey's role on his national team. He's played in eight games in 2013 for the United States and scored five times.

His next international appearance for the Americans will be his 100th, and he's served as the U.S. captain most of this year when Landon Donovan was out.

Dempsey came to England as an attacking midfielder but has developed into a potent forward in recent seasons, starting up front for the U.S., too.

Outside of CenturyLink Field on Saturday, fans were already buzzing about Dempsey's arrival prior to the official announcement.

At retailers around the stadium, custom Sounders jerseys with "Dempsey" across the back and No. 2 were being printed with regularity all afternoon in both versions of Seattle's jersey.

During the pregame march near the stadium, fans chanted "Deuce upside the head, I said Deuce upside the head," and carried head shots of Dempsey attached to sticks.

"Major League Soccer is thrilled to have Clint Dempsey, arguably one of the best players the United States has ever produced, return to the league to play for the Sounders," MLS Commissioner Don Garber said in a statement.

"Clint could have played in any league throughout the world, and he chose MLS and the Sounders. Our vision is to become one of the best leagues in the world, and we look forward to Clint being a part of that legacy."

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/dempsey-leaves-england-joins-seattle-sounders-022957589.html

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Tornado damage

Matt Augustine

Taken at the Shadowood Apartments off Monument Rd. in Arlington, which saw some of the worst of Thursday's EF-2 tornado

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Video Games Boost Visual Attention But Reduce ... - Eurasia Review

By Eurasia Review

August 3, 2013

A person playing a first-person shooter video game like Halo or Unreal Tournament must make decisions quickly. That fast-paced decision-making, it turns out, boosts the player?s visual skills but comes at a cost, according to new research: reducing the person?s ability to inhibit impulsive behavior. This reduction in what is called ?proactive executive control? appears to be yet another way that violent video games can increase aggressive behavior.

?We believe that any game that requires the same type of rapid responding as in most first-person shooters may produce similar effects on proactive executive control, regardless of violent content,? says Craig Anderson, Director of the Center for the Study of Violence at Iowa State University. ?However, this is quite speculative,? he warns. But what is not so speculative is the growing body of research that links violent video games ? and to a certain extent, total screen time ? to attention-related problems and, ultimately, to aggression.

People?s ability to override aggressive impulses is dependent in large part on good executive control capacity, as will be presented at a symposium at the American Psychological Association (APA) annual meting in Honolulu. And social psychologists are looking how a variety of factors ? including media exposure, anger, and alcohol ? affect that capability. Two types of cognitive control processes play a large role: proactive and reactive. ?Proactive cognitive control involves keeping information active in short-term memory for use in later judgments, a kind of task preparation,? Anderson explains. ?Reactive control is more of a just-in-time type of decision resolution.?

In three new, unpublished studies, Anderson and colleagues found that playing action video games is associated with better visuospatial attention skills, but also with reduced proactive cognitive control. ?These studies are the first to link violent video game play with both beneficial and harmful effects within the same study,? Anderson says.

In one of the studies, Anderson?s team had participants ? none of whom were frequent gamers ? either play the fast-paced and violent video game Unreal Tournament (2004), the slow-paced game Sims 2, or nothing for 10 sessions, each 50 minutes long over the course of 11 weeks. His team tested the participants? proactive cognitive control and visual attention before and after the video game playing. They found marked decreases in proactive cognitive control among the action game players versus the Sims players or non-game players. At the same time, there were marked increases in the visual attention skills of action gamers.

In another study, Anderson and Edward Swing, also of Iowa State University, assessed the TV and video game habits of 422 people to further examine the links between screen time and attention-related problems and aggression. In keeping with past research in this area, they found that total media exposure and violent media exposure both contributed directly to attention problems. Violent media exposure had a direct association with greater aggression and anger/hostility, while total media exposure was not significantly related to aggression or anger/hostility.

The analyses looked at both premeditated and impulsive aggression. ?Impulsive aggression, by definition, is aggressive behavior that occurs automatically, or almost automatically, without evidence of any inhibition or thought about whether it should be carried out,? Anderson says. They found significant links between both types of aggression and attention problems, although the link between attention and premeditated aggression was weaker than the link between attention and impulsive aggression. ?This is theoretically consistent with the idea that attention problems interfere with people?s ability to inhibit inappropriate impulsive behavior,? Anderson says.

Most screen media ? TV, movies, video games ? are fast paced and essentially train the brain to respond quickly to rapid changes in images and sounds, Anderson says. Violent video games, in particular, are designed to require quick response to changes on the screen. ?What such fast-paced media fail to train is inhibiting the almost automatic first response,? he says. ?This is the essence of ADD, ADHD, and measures of impulsivity,? and he says, ?that?s why attention problems are more strongly related to impulsive aggression than to premeditated aggression.?

Source: http://www.eurasiareview.com/03082013-video-games-boost-visual-attention-but-reduce-impulse-control/

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Even when jobs return, Detroit's workers fall short on skills

By Nick Carey

DETROIT (Reuters) - Detroit emergency manager Kevyn Orr has a long list of things to fix in the city and among them is one that may sound surprising: there are not enough skilled workers to fill job openings as they become available.

"Every problem in this city revolves around jobs," said Lindsay Chalmers, vice president of non-profit Goodwill Industries of Greater Detroit. "That's at the heart of the issue for Detroit."

The decline of manufacturing jobs, above all in the automotive industry, has played a major role in the slide of the Motor City's population to 700,000 from a peak of 1.8 million in the 1950s. Despite recent gains, Michigan has 350,000 fewer manufacturing jobs than in 2000.

Seismic shifts in the local labor market have left many unskilled workers behind.

"In the old days you could graduate on Friday, get hired at the Ford plant on Monday and they'd train you," said Sheldon Danziger, a professor of public policy at the University of Michigan. "But in Detroit as in other manufacturing cities, employers are demanding that workers come to jobs with more skills than they used to have."

There are jobs on the horizon for Detroit, with some $8 billion in potential infrastructure investments including a light rail line and a new bridge to Canada, which alone is expected to generate 25,000 jobs. Once these projects begin, they are expected to fuel a surge in service-related jobs.

But Pamela Moore, chief executive of Detroit Employment Solutions Corporation (DESC), a non-profit focused on retraining the city's unemployed, said Detroit's labor force is unprepared for the jobs that may be coming.

"The question is whether we can prepare a lot of people in Detroit for those jobs," Moore said. "Right now, a lot of them don't have the necessary skills."

"SETTING THEM UP FOR FAILURE"

Detroit's official unemployment rate topped 11 percent in June, well above the national rate of 7.6 percent for that month. Taking into account people who have given up looking for work or may never have worked, unofficial estimates put the jobless rate at well over 20 percent.

Public-sector efforts at job training have shown scant results. After then-governor Jennifer Granholm established a $500 million job training program in 2007, roughly $100 million was spent in Detroit through 2010, but few got jobs because so few positions were available, said Jose Reyes, chief operating officer of the DESC job training agency.

"In many ways, we set them up for failure," Reyes said.

The not-for-profit sector is trying to step in. Goodwill Industries has formed businesses in Detroit that it uses to train workers. An automotive supply business fills orders for Ford, Chrysler and GM, and a company called Green Works strips down power generators, mostly from local power company DTE Energy, for copper and other metals that it sells to customers.

"We cannot do everything for the folks here, but we can get them on the bottom rung of the economic ladder," said Green Works president Jay Wilber.

Kim Allen, 47, served two 10-year prison terms including for second-degree murder before landing a temporary, part-time job with Green Works in 2011. Now a permanent employee, she aims to take a welding course Green Works offers.

"This job has given me an opportunity we ex-cons usually don't get," she said. "Now it's time to keep moving up."

DESC's Moore said many Detroiters lack "soft skills" such as showing up for work, or even staying off cell phones during job interviews. In some cases, she said, "no one in their families has worked for two generations."

In the last three years, Detroit has cut the city workforce by more than 2,700 workers, to 9,560.

Jim Jacobs, president of Macomb Community College in the Detroit suburb of Warren, said Detroit's chief labor problem remains a lack of demand.

At Detroit's high unemployment levels, employers in the Detroit area can "afford to be picky," Jacobs said.

"Workers here often need training for new skills, but why should an employer bother doing that when there are thousands of workers to choose from?" he said.

(Reporting By Nick Carey; Editing by David Greising and Claudia Parsons)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/even-jobs-return-detroits-workers-fall-short-skills-050905382.html

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Dems hit GOP on immigration in top critic's home

AMES, Iowa (AP) ? Kicking off an August of likely intense debate over immigration, the Senate's second-ranking Democrat traveled to Iowa Friday to rebuke House Republicans who oppose major changes embraced by the Senate.

Sen. Richard Durbin's strategically targeted visit was a fairly small and calm foretaste of planned demonstrations by opponents and supporters of the proposed immigration changes during Congress' summer recess. The Senate measure would heighten border security and provide a pathway to citizenship for millions of immigrants living here illegally.

Durbin, of Illinois, joined Iowa Democratic Sen. Tom Harkin at a forum in a college town represented in Congress by Republican Rep. Steve King. King is among Congress' fiercest opponents of granting citizenship to immigrants now here illegally. Republican leaders have denounced King's most inflammatory remarks, but some Democrats depict him as a symbol of widespread GOP resistance.

Harkin said Iowans "are compassionate, caring people and we don't characterize people with hateful, spiteful, degrading language."

King said in a July interview that some Hispanics brought to the country illegally as children become high school valedictorians. But for each of those, he said, "there's another 100 out there who weigh 130 pounds, and they've got calves the size of cantaloupes because they're hauling 75 pounds of marijuana across the desert."

Durbin focused on the so-called DREAM Act, which would offer eventual citizenship to some immigrants brought illegally to the U.S. as children.

"If we can fix this immigration system, we can build the American economy and we can do the right thing," Durbin told the Ames gathering. "To suggest these are petty criminals or drug smugglers just doesn't square with the reality of the DREAM Act."

The forum featured potential DREAM Act beneficiaries.

Hector Salamanca, 20, came from Mexico as a child with his parents, who stayed in the United States after their tourist visas expired. His undocumented status made him ineligible to attend a state university or receive government-sponsored grants or loans, he told the audience of about 200.

Now studying politics and law at Drake University in Des Moines, Salamanca said he hopes to become an immigration lawyer. "I engage Latino youth," he said, and he urges them to pursue their goals regardless of their legal status.

Some House Republicans have expressed interest in a version of the DREAM Act, although King calls it "backdoor amnesty."

The Obama administration and many activist groups have said they will not settle for the DREAM Act alone. They are pressing the GOP-controlled House to embrace something similar to the Senate bill.

Many House Republicans resist the idea. They point to GOP primary voters in their districts who oppose "amnesty" for people here illegally, and who say a Democratic administration can't be trusted to keep promises to tighten the border with Mexico.

Durbin noted that President Barack Obama won re-election with strong backing from Hispanic voters. Many Republican strategists say their party must improve its relationship with the fast-growing Hispanic electorate, and backing broad immigration changes could help.

If House Republicans don't embrace some version of "comprehensive" immigration reform, Durbin told reporters, the issue will dominate politics in crucial parts of the country.

Opponents of the Senate bill say they will use the August recess to stiffen House resistance. About 100 individuals and groups, led by the Tea Party Patriots, sent a letter this week to all House members expressing opposition to any legislation "that bears any resemblance to ... the Senate amnesty bill."

Meanwhile the pro-immigration-reform group America's Voice said its activists "are on the move with hundreds of grassroots events planned from coast to coast" this summer.

Demonstrators, who support legalization for millions now here illegally, blocked a major street outside the U.S. Capitol on Thursday, and some were arrested.

Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., said such protesters do their cause more harm than good.

"People just see it as a campaign," Nunes said in an interview Friday. "People get their feet set in cement when they see campaigns going on."

King, meanwhile, said he was mourning the death of a Vietnam War hero on Friday rather than responding to Durbin's and Harkin's visit to his district.

----

Editor's Note: Associated Press writer Erica Werner in Washington contributed to this report. Babington reported from Washington.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/386c25518f464186bf7a2ac026580ce7/Article_2013-08-02-Immigration-Politics/id-4563917ead4546fc92448adbe72881a0

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Netflix Makes Recommendations More Personalized By Adding Individual User Profiles

Netflix is rolling out its long-anticipated user profiles, allowing multiple members of a household to create personalized accounts and get personalized recommendations based on their own individual viewing habits, rather than the habits of an entire household.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/0V9_Bitwtog/

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pics from Real Estate and Cassie Ramone's show at Maxwell's ...

photos by Matt Schiels

Real Estate @ Maxwell's - 7/29/13

Hoboken rock club Maxwell's is on its last day ever today (7/31) with a farewell block party and a show inside from The Bongos and more. One of the final shows was Monday's (7/29) late show with Real Estate (joined by The Feelies' Glenn Mercer), which we recently posted the setlist, a video and a recap from. Now, we've got a set of pictures from that show in this post.

Cassie Ramone (Vivian Girls, The Babies) opened the show. Regarding her set, Speak Into My Goodeye writes:

Always a good songwriter, her new material showed that her songs have gotten even smarter, sharper with experience. Ramone also seems much more confident in her unconventional singing voice. She pointed out that, like the members of Real Estate, she'd been to many shows at Maxwell's while growing up in New Jersey and that she was grateful for the opportunity to participate in the send-off.

More pictures of Cassie and Real Estate below...

Source: http://www.brooklynvegan.com/archives/2013/07/pics_from_real.html

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Atlanta Falcons Drop Idea of New Stadium at Historic Church Site; Says It's 'Unfeasible'

• (Photo:Facebook/Friendship Baptist Church)

  Friendship Baptist Church is Atlanta's oldest black church, dating back to 150 years.

July 31, 2013|4:59 pm

"Atlanta Falcons Stadium Company (StadCo) today notified the Georgia World Congress Center Authority (GWCCA) that it has determined that development and construction of the New Stadium Project on the south site is not feasible at this time for a number of reasons, including that the Mount Vernon Baptist Church and the Friendship Baptist Church properties and other necessary parcels have not been acquired, and that StadCo has been unable to complete environmental and other required testings on these properties," said the Falcons in a statement released on Monday.

Both Friendship Baptist Church and Mount Vernon Baptist Church stand in the way of the desired land where the Falcons had hoped to build their new stadium. Last month, The Christian Post?reported?that FBC asked Atlanta's mayor for $24.5 million to sell their church to the city and negotiations were simultaneously underway for Mount Vernon, which sits directly across from FBC. However, city officials agreed to move on to the north site if an agreement was not reached by August.

But when CP contacted FBC, Lloyd Hawk, chairman of the board of trustees of FBC, said that "there was a miscommunication in the message delivered to us and that was corrected."

"Friendship is still in negotiations with the city and the Atlanta Falcons regarding the proposed new stadium site," he asserted. "The negotiations are positive and ongoing."

Initially, the south site was considered an option for the stadium at the request of city officials even though the Falcons favored the north site. According to Atlanta-based Fox affiliate, WAGA-TV, the new proposed location faces a few challenges before any decision can be made, including contaminated soil under a parking lot and several overhead power lines that would be removed. The GWCCA recently voted to allow the Falcons to begin soil testing and other studies on the north site in order to proceed with negotiations as the team hopes the new stadium can be debuted in time for the 2017 football season.

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"We are going to turn attention to the north side and start working through the feasibility analysis of the north," said GWCCA Executive Director Frank Poe, according to WAGA-TV.

Although the north site has only recently been chosen as a default location, there is already opposition in place from surrounding neighbors and from people who object the proposed stadium's inaccessibility to the nearest metro rail station.

"The neighborhoods are adamantly against the north site. There is a consensus I'd like to put positively in favor of the south site," said Mike Koblentz of the Norwest Community Alliance in Atlanta, according to WAGA-TV.

If negotiations with the north site proceed any further, Hawk told CP that FBC will remain unfazed.

"We will continue to serve God in this community as we have for the last 151 years wherever the stadium is located," said Hawk.

Source: http://www.christianpost.com/news/atlanta-falcons-drop-idea-of-new-stadium-at-historic-church-site-says-its-unfeasible-101295/

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EU Faces Uphill Battle in China Trade Disputes

BRUSSELS?The European Union, in its own polite way, has tried to get tough with China in recent years. Led by EU trade chief Karel De Gucht, officials in Brussels have pushed several proposals that would penalize what they see as unfair treatment of Europe by China's brand of "state-administered" capitalism.

But glaring weaknesses in that strategy have been revealed in a dispute over cheap Chinese solar panels that threatened to mushroom into a full-scale trade war between China and the EU. In the end, the European Commission, the EU's executive arm, watered down a plan to impose steep tariffs to counteract the "dumping" of these solar panels in European markets, after a lobbying campaign from China that blitzed EU capitals.

The fundamental problem facing the commission and Mr. De Gucht is that many of the bloc's member states don't appear to have the stomach for a fight with China. Germany, the EU's largest economy, has enjoyed the fruits of an increasingly tight relationship with Beijing over the past five years. Unwilling to jeopardize that relationship for the sake of a few solar-panel producers, Berlin opposed the commission's tariff plan?even though many of those producers were German.

"The commission fought an uphill battle over the last two months," said Fran?ois Godement, an Asia expert at the European Council on Foreign Relations.

Commission officials have pressured China to cut the large subsidies that they contend the government hands out to an array of industries, including solar-panel producers, giving them an unfair advantage on world markets. Mr. De Gucht has proposed increasing trade penalties that the commission imposes to counteract subsidies?a measure largely aimed at China.

Mr. De Gucht has also proposed a system of "reciprocity" in government contracting: If a company is based in a country that prevents European companies from winning government contracts, European governments would be able to block that company from winning its government contracts. Officials say China is a big culprit here.

Yet both proposals face opposition from some member states.

The solar-panel episode highlights what has become an uneasy three-way relationship between Brussels, Berlin and Beijing. The EU treaty gives the commission the power to investigate trade complaints, impose tariffs and negotiate trade agreements. But many of these decisions must be approved by member states, giving China an opening to negotiate with?and some say?squeeze national governments.

"I don't think we should ignore that Germany was under pressure," Mr. Godement said.

New Chinese Premier Li Keqiang made Berlin his only stop on his first trip to the EU in May. The trip came at a crucial time in the dispute over solar panels. The day after he arrived in Berlin, national governments were due to tell the commission whether they supported its plan to impose tariffs of up to 68% on Chinese solar panels.

The commission had received indications from Germany that it would abstain from voting on the plan, an EU official said, giving leverage to the commission for what were sure to be contentious talks with the Chinese.

Yet following meetings between Mr. Li, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and other German ministers, the government decided to oppose the commission's tariff plan. EU officials feel that dealt a blow to Europe's negotiating position with the Chinese.

A dispute over cheap Chinese solar panels had threatened to mushroom into a full-scale trade war between China and the EU. Above, a solar power plant in Aksu, China.

Michael Geisler, a spokesman at the German Permanent Representation in Brussels, said German officials hadn't formally communicated the government's position to the commission until after the meeting with Mr. Li. Germany opposed the tariffs because it felt that moving ahead with them "would lead to a hardening of positions on the Chinese side," Mr. Geisler said.

China took several moves seen by many as a way to pressure European governments to oppose the tariffs. It started an antidumping probe into French wine exported to China. It placed tariffs on European exports of polysilicon, a raw material used to make solar panels; that step hit German industrial giant Wacker AG hardest.

And Chinese officials floated the threat that they would investigate dumping of luxury cars by European auto makers in China, a measure that could close off one of the most promising new markets for German auto giants Daimler AG, BMW AG and Volkswagen AG.

The events of the past few weeks bode ill for the commission's next big trade dispute with China: a potential investigation into unfair trade in the supply of telephone network equipment by Huawei Technologies Co. and ZTE Corp. Mr. De Gucht may find it difficult to rally member states for another fight with China, after their refusal to back him on solar panels.

Write to Matthew Dalton at Matthew.Dalton@dowjones.com

Source: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323681904578642041672361224.html?mod=rss_about_china

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Is Samsung CHEATING in Galaxy benchmark tests? Sure looks like it

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Samsung has reportedly been caught cheating in benchmark tests, boosting the scores of its latest and greatest system-on-chip, the Exynos 5 Octa, on those performance-ranking number generators so beloved by reviewers and product evaluators.

"Oh hell Samsung, shame on you!" wrote a Beyond3D forum member in a posting on one of that site's forums last month.

The poster, a Luxembourger who goes by the handle Nebuchadnezzar, had been testing a Samsung Exynos 5 Octa when he discovered that although he thought he was running the chip's GPU at 532MHz, it only hit that clock speed on two benchmarks he used for testing: AnTuTu and GLBenchmark. For all other apps, it ran at 480MHz ? a much better speed for battery-life testing.

The Exynos 5 Octa, by the way, is so named because it has four high-performance ARM Cortex-A15 cores and four low-power ARM Cortex-A7 cores, all baked into a single 28-nanometer die. It comes in two versions: the 5410, which contains an Imagination Technologies PowerVR SGX544MP3 GPU, and the 5420, which uses an ARM Mali-T628 MP6 GPU. Nebuchadnezzar was testing a 5410.

Anand Lal Shimpi and Brian Klug over at the ever-interesting deep-tech site AnandTech were tipped to Nebuchadnezzar's discovery, and since they are both proud owners of the international version of the Samsung Galaxy S 4 powered by an Exynos 5410, they decided to see if they could replicate his findings.

They could ? and with a few additions and clarifications. For example, the GLBenchmark v.2.5.1 did indeed run at 532MHz, but its latest v.2.7.0 incarnation ? GLBenchmark having been subsumed into GFXBench along with DXBenchmark ? was throttled to 480MHz.

Samsung hasn't published megahertzage for its GPU, but Shimpi and Klug said that their sources tell them it runs at 480MHz ? which?in fact is what they discovered its clock rate to be when running any games, "even the most demanding titles." But when running GLBenchmark 2.5.1, AnTuTu, or Quadrant ? benchmarks that reviewers and product testers might naturally use to rate a products ? they ran at 532MHz.

Although Nebuchadnezzar had only reported on GPU behavior, Shimpi and Klug checked out what the CPU was doing when running GLBenchmark v.2.5.1 and GFXBench v.2.7.0. To their surprise, they discovered that when running v.2.5.1, the four powerhouse Cortex-A15 cores were pinned at their top speed of 1.2GHz no matter what load the benchmark put upon them. When running v.2.7.0, however, the Exynos 5 Octa switched over to its less-powerful Cortex-A7 cores.

"A quick check across AnTuTu, Linpack, Benchmark Pi, and Quadrant reveals the same behavior," they write. The CPUs were gunned to their highest possible power capabilities when the benchmarks were running.

Digging into the Galaxy S 4's operating system support files, they came upon one with the name TwDVFSApp.apk, and since DVFS is short for dynamic voltage and frequency scaling (and, The Reg opines, "Tw" might be shorthand for "tweaking"), they opened it up in a hex editor and ? behold! ? in it were a list of what appeared for all the world to be a series of strings that allowed for top performance for some apps and not others, and a group-identification string with a rather incriminating name.

"The string 'BenchmarkBooster' is a particularly telling one," they write.

The gun may not be belching great clouds of damning smoke, but there's more than a mere wisp emanating from its barrel. As the AnandTech duo put it, "This seems to be purely an optimization to produce repeatable (and high) results in CPU tests, and deliver the highest possible GPU performance benchmarks."

If Nebuchadnezzar, Shimpi, and Klug are correct in their testing and analysis ? and we have no reason to believe that they're not ? there's only one possible conclusion: Samsung is cheating. And if they're cheating, there's a fair chance that others are, as well. But Samsung got caught.

Your Reg reporter has been around the technology-evaluation block enough times to remember ? as Shimpi and Klug discuss in the conclusion to their article ? when benchmark manipulation was rampant in the PC industry. As the director of a product-testing lab in the 90s, such cheating was the bane of my 9-to-5 existence.

Well, here it comes again ? both fairly blatantly, as in Samsung's CPU and GPU rigging, or in a more slippery fashion, as in the use of an Intel-specific compiler in a test that enabled Chipzilla's Clover Trail+ platform to outperform ARM processors.

Today is different from the 90s, however. In those far-away days, speeds and specs were important even to consumers, while in today's shiny-shiny world, the average fandroid or fanboi could care less about gigatexels or TMUs. "Experience" rules the checkbooks of the marketplace, not benchmark scores.

But deceit is still not right. Having experienced Samsung's chicanery directly, let's give our cheater-finders the last word on this sorry state of affairs.

Shimpi and Klug: "Just because we?ve seen things like this happen in the past however doesn't mean they should happen now."

Nebuchadnezzar: "Oh hell Samsung, shame on you!" ?

Bootnote

Here's a li'l fairness v. bias test we suggest you might find personally illuminating. Read the story above one more time, except each time you see the word "Samsung", substitute "Apple".

Then ask yourself: "Is my response any different?"

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Source: http://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.co.uk/2013/07/31/samsung_found_cheating_in_benchmark_tests/

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Why I Came Back to Private Adoption | An Adoption Facilitator's Story

[unable to retrieve full-text content]I was the sole advocate for adoptive and foster families working under a supervisor who did not know the foster care program or the adoption program in our county. Her performance was rated on the success of her parent mentors, ... THAT WOULD PLACE CHILDREN BACK IN A HOME WHEN THAT MIGHT NOT BE THE BEST OPTION BECAUSE THEY DID NOT WANT TO CONSIDER ADOPTION. Luckily my husband and now business partner supported me 100 ...

Source: http://adoptionfacilitator.wordpress.com/2013/07/31/why-i-came-back-to-private-adoption/

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