Looming, creeping landslide splits home in Wyoming

JACKSON, Wyo. (AP) — A slow-motion disaster is unfolding in the Wyoming resort town of Jackson as a creeping landslide that split a hillside home in half inches toward more houses and businesses below.
The ground beneath the 100-foot hillside has been giving way an inch at a time since the movement was discovered on April 4.Assistant Town Administrator Roxanne Robinson said by Friday, the rate of movement was doubling every day.Officials say the hillside is unlikely to suddenly collapse like the March 22 landslide in Oso, Wash., that killed 39 people. But the threat is real and authorities are enforcing an evacuation order in hopes of avoiding injuries.

The area has been graded for roads and businesses in recent years, possibly weakening the hillside and setting the stage for the landslide.

Styllish And Elegant Frocks Designs

Frocks have been integrated into eastern clothing to a great extent. No function or party is considered completed unless frocks are used as dresses. Asian frocks are very popular world wide for their diversity
and culture. Hundreds of frocks designs are available according to every occasion. Bridal frocks are heavy and full of work. Party frocks have usually light work. Zari, kora dabka, motifs,  stones and embroidery are used. These works make the look of frocks beautiful and attractive. Most commonly design used for frock is Anarkali style. Other styles are also popular including Air line, Umbrella etc. Dress designers keep bringing in new styles of frocks with time. Following are some beautiful and attractive frock designs. You can follow these designs to create a stylish dress for yourself.

Learn the secret codes to shopping success

NEW YORK, April 16 (Reuters) - As superstore pricing mysteries go, it's not the equivalent of "The Da Vinci Code," but there's still something deliciously elusive about the so-called "Costco Code" that has set the tongues of shopping mavens wagging for the past several months.
At least the plot line is direct enough: If you can interpret what the various sequences of digits and asterisks mean on Costco Wholesale Club price signs, you're on your way to scoring serious bargains.

Here's how it works, according to Costco shoppers spreading the word online: If a price at Costco ends in .99, you're paying full price. But if it ends in, say, a .97, it represents a deal with a special price decided by the manager. And if you happen to see an asterisk in the upper right corner of the sign, then the item is on its way out of the store-and probably at the lowest price you're going to see.

"That asterisk, that's the holy grail," says Kyle James, who runs the shopping blog Rather-Be-Shopping.com (http://www.rather-be-shopping.com/). He has shopped at Costco for 20 years now, and the Redding, California resident has studied the matter of the Costco Code well. By his count, he and his wife have saved at least $300 using the Costco Code over the last seven months.

For the record, he doesn't claim to have discovered it; he says there's been Internet chatter about Costco and its pricing system going back about five years before he took up the topic on his blog.

So is the Costco Code really so much of a pricing potboiler as it seems? No one would know as well as Costco's Richard Galanti, who's the company's executive vice president and chief financial officer.

Indeed he confirms that the codes do exist, though "It's more for efficiency, for the employees," Galanti says. "It's not any sort of secret agent stuff. But you see it on a blog and people think it's a secret. It's just a way of moving some merchandise, to help the fork lift operators and the stocking clerks."

Galanti says that "when a price ends in a '7,' usually it's a buyer designated markdown." And as for those asterisks, "That's what we call a pending delete. Sometimes an item's not selling well and we want to move it out, or it could be the end of the season. Let's say we've got three TV models and the latest and greatest comes out; we might want to bring the newest one in."

But Galanti cautions against reading too much into the price codes, as Costco's margins are low enough (in the 10-11 percent range) that a shopper might have more advantage buying a newer item at the ".99" full price. "The question is, do you want something at the end of its season or at the beginning of a new season?" he asks.

Retail experts say that such pricing codes and systems are common. At his website, James lists price tag codes that he's found for retailers under the juicy heading "Retailer's Big Secret: Crack the Price Tag Code."

Paula Rosenblum, managing partner of RSR Research, a retail technology research and advisory firm says Home Depot indicator is a green tag, while at Office Depot, anything with a price other than 00, 50 or 99 is a markdown.

As for why, chalk it up to something not quite as old as the human desire to crack secret codes, though it does predate computers and the digital age.

"It all goes back to the retail method of accounting, and it's a very old story," Rosenblum says. "Before the days of price scanners, and when there was no technology in the store at all, a seven at the end of a price let associates know where they were with the item. If they couldn't move it in three weeks, it was gone."

Still, she can't help throwing in an observation for consumers who choose to make note of the code, and where asterisks are most likely to appear: "Costco's non-food items don't always move fast enough, so those might be good items to add to the treasure hunt."

Much of James' information from comes from chatting up employees (many of whom have requested anonymity). At Target , for example, he says that the discounting system on clearance items, as told to him by a sales associate, goes like this: "They mark something down every 10 to 15 days. And the upper right hand corner of the clearance tag, which is red and white, has the numbers 15, 30, 50, 75 or 90 on it. And that number indicates the percentage off the original price."

Target would not confirm it uses such a mechanism. "It is not possible to determine the final markdown or timing of the price change from the item's current price," Target spokesman Evan Lapiska said.

But Lewis says his key advice for fellow shoppers on the hunt for price tag secrets is this: "Talk to the employees on the floor. I've found they're pretty open about it."

In a cloning first, scientists create stem cells from adults

 NEW YORK (Reuters) - Scientists have moved a step closer to the goal of creating stem cells perfectly matched to a patient's DNA in order to treat diseases, they announced on Thursday, creating patient-specific cell lines out of the skin cells of two adult men.

The advance, described online in the journal Cell Stem Cell, is the first time researchers have achieved "therapeutic cloning" of adults. Technically called somatic-cell nuclear transfer, therapeutic cloning means producing embryonic cells genetically identical to a donor, usually for the purpose of using those cells to treat disease.


But nuclear transfer is also the first step in reproductive cloning, or producing a genetic duplicate of someone - a technique that has sparked controversy since the 1997 announcement that it was used to create Dolly, the clone of a ewe. In 2005, the United Nations called on countries to ban it, and the United States prohibits the use of federal funds for either reproductive or therapeutic cloning.

The new study was funded by a foundation and the South Korean government.

If confirmed by other labs, it could prove significant because many illnesses that might one day be treated with stem cells, such as heart failure and vision loss, primarily affect adults. Patient-specific stem cells would have to be created from older cells, not infant or fetal ones. That now looks possible, though far from easy: Out of 39 tries, the scientists created stem cells only once for each donor.

Outside experts had different views of the study, which was led by Young Gie Chung of the Research Institute for Stem Cell Research at CHA Health Systems in Los Angeles.

Stem cell biologist George Daley of the Harvard Stem Cell Institute called it "an incremental advance" and "not earth-shattering."

Reproductive biologist Shoukhrat Mitalipov of Oregon Health and Science University, who developed the technique the CHA team adapted, was more positive. "The advance here is showing that (nuclear transfer) looks like it will work with people of all ages," he said in an interview.

A year ago, Mitalipov led the team that used nuclear transfer of fetal and infant DNA to produce stem cells, the first time that had been accomplished in humans of any age.

ELECTRIC JOLT

In therapeutic cloning, scientists use a zap of electricity to fuse a grown cell, usually a skin cell, with an ovum whose own DNA has been removed. The egg divides and multiplies, and within five or six days it develops into an embryo shaped like a hollow sphere.

The interior cells are "pluripotent" stem cells, which have the potential to develop into any kind of human cell.

If the embryo were implanted in a uterus, it could develop into a clone of the DNA donor, which is how Dolly was created. "Without regulations in place, such embryos could also be used for human reproductive cloning, although this would be unsafe and grossly unethical," said Dr Robert Lanza, chief scientist of Massachusetts-based biotech Advanced Cell Technology and a co-author of the new study.

The goal is to grow these embryonic stem cells in lab dishes and coax them to turn into specialized cells for therapeutic use against an illness the DNA donor has, such as Parkinson's disease, heart disease, multiple sclerosis or type-1 diabetes. Because the cells are genetically identical to the donor's, they would not be rejected by the immune system.

Despite more than 15 years of trying, scientists' single success at producing human stem cells through this cloning technique came a year ago. Mitalipov's team at Oregon had fused fetal and infant cells with donated eggs whose DNA had been removed and got them to develop into about 150-cell embryos.

One key to Mitalipov's success was letting the engineered eggs rest for 30 minutes before zapping them to start dividing.

Chung and his colleagues waited two hours before triggering the egg to start dividing, which Lanza believes was a key to their success: "It gives you time for the massive amount of genetic reprogramming required" to turn back the calendar on adult DNA so that it can direct the development of an embryo, he said in an interview.

It worked: They generated two healthy embryos, one from each adult donor, aged 35 and 75.

If each stem-cell line has to be created from scratch for each patient, the low success and expected high costs means that "only a few wealthy old men could do it," said Lanza. A big barrier to producing patient-specific stem-cell lines for tens of millions of people this way is that few women want to donate eggs, a sometimes painful process.

But it may not be necessary to make a unique cell line for each patient. Many people have genetically similar immune systems, Lanza said, so just "100 human embryonic stem cell lines would generate a complete match for over half the (U.S.) population," he said.

Captain not at helm of capsized Korean ferry

Jindo (South Korea) (AFP) - The captain was not at the helm of the South Korean ferry that capsized two days ago, investigators said Friday, as anger spread over stalled rescue efforts for hundreds of missing passengers trapped by the submerged vessel.
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More than 48 hours after the 6,825-tonne Sewol suddenly listed and then sank, a small of army of more than 500 exhausted divers -- battling powerful currents in almost zero visibility -- have yet to obtain any access to the ferry's interior.

The confirmed death toll rose overnight to 25, but the focus of concern remained the 271 people still unaccounted for -- hundreds of them children on a high school outing to the southern resort island of Jeju.

The newly recovered bodies were all floating in the water, coastguard officials said, as the dive teams worked in shifts to find a way inside the submerged vessel in the increasingly slim hope of finding survivors trapped in air pockets.

Unable to secure an entry point for now, they bored holes in the keel -- a small section of which was still visible above the water -- for oxygen lines.

"Two divers are currently injecting oxygen into the ship," a coastguard official told AFP.
View gallery
South Korea ferry accident
Graphic on the South Korean ferry accident, including details of the final course of the ship (AFP P …

The weather conditions were extremely challenging, with rain, fog and strong sea swells

Of the 452 people on board the Sewol when it capsized Wednesday morning, 179 were rescued, but no new survivors have been found since Wednesday.

Three giant, floating cranes had arrived at the disaster site, but coastguard officials said they could not begin lifting the multi-layered ferry until they were sure there were no survivors inside.

Among the relatives of the missing, especially parents of the 352 students who were on board , there was growing resentment over what they see as the inadequacy of the rescue response.

- 'The government lied' -
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South Korean divers prepare to go the location where …
South Korean divers prepare to go the location where a ferry capsized two days ago, at a harbor in J …

In an appeal broadcast live on television Friday morning, a self-appointed spokesman for the relatives accused the authorities of indifference and deception.

"The government lied yesterday," he said, speaking at a podium in a gymnasium on Jindo island where hundreds of blanket-wrapped relatives have been sleeping on the floor since the tragedy unfolded.

Disputing the official figures of hundreds of divers, vessels and aircraft being deployed, he said he and other relatives had visited the rescue site and seen only a dozen ships and helicopters.

"Everyone, is this the reality of South Korea? We plead once more, please save our children," he said.

The initial public backlash has centred on the captain, Lee Joon-Seok, and his 28 crew, most of whom survived the disaster.
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Students at Danwon High School hold a vigil for the …
Students at Danwon High School hold a vigil for the missing passengers of a South Korean capsized fe …

State prosecutors said preliminary investigations showed the third officer was at the helm of the ferry.

"The captain was not in command when the accident took place," prosecutor Park Jae-Eok told a press briefing.

The captain was "in the back" he added, without elaborating.

The captain apologised Thursday to the victims and their relatives, but offered no clear explanation for what caused the Sewol to capsize.

"I feel really sorry for the passengers, victims and families," Lee said. "I feel ashamed."
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Coast Guard and Navy divers search for the missing …
Coast Guard and Navy divers search for the missing passengers from a capsized ferry at sea some 20 k …

Tracking data from the Maritime Ministry showed that the ferry made a sharp turn just before sending its first distress signal.

Some experts believe such a tight turn could have dislodged the heavy cargo manifest -- including more than 150 vehicles -- and destabilised the vessel, causing it to list heavily and then capsize.

But others suggested the turn might have been caused by a collision with a rock or other submerged object.

"Whether or not they took a drastic turnaround ... is under investigation," prosecutor Park said, adding that they were also looking at the possibility of steering or other mechanical failure.

As well the cause of the disaster, investigators will be looking at why passengers were ordered to stay in their cabins and seats for up to 40 minutes after the ferry ran into trouble.

- 'I believe they are alive' -

Furious relatives believe many more people would have escaped if they had reached evacuation points before the ship listed sharply and water started flooding in.

Lee Yong-Gi, whose son Lee Ho-Jin was among the missing students, said he and other parents felt bitterly let down by the rescue operation.

"It's been two days but no one has been brought out alive," Lee told AFP.

"I firmly believe that the kids are alive. We need to rescue them as soon as possible. But officials are dragging their feet," he said.

Newspaper editorials were equally scathing with the Dong-A Ilbo daily calling the rescue response "ludicrous".

"We have the world's finest shipbuilding industry in the 21st century, but our mindset is in the 19th century," the newspaper said.

In a tense meeting with parents in the Jindo gymnasium on Thursday, President Park Geun-Hye was repeatedly interrupted by angry shouts from the crowd.

"What are you doing when people are dying? Time is running out!" one woman screamed.

911 calls capture chaos after truck-on-bus crash

ORLAND, Calif. (AP) — With shrieks in the background, a shocked passenger struggled to recount to an emergency dispatcher how a FedEx tractor-trailer smashed into a tour bus carrying high school students. In other 911 calls released Thursday, other witnesses described explosions after the fiery wreck that left 10 people dead.
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The California Highway Patrol released the recordings as investigators returned to the scene about 100 miles north of Sacramento to reconstruct aspects of the crash.

Dozens of injured students escaped through windows before the bus exploded into towering flames just before 6 p.m. April 10.

One student who escaped held back sobs in describing on a 911 call how the FedEx truck barreled across the median of Interstate 5 and smashed into the bus.

A dispatcher assured the student that medical help was coming and told the student to "go as far away as you can safely get" when he learned that the bus was still engulfed in flames.

Later, the dispatcher asked, "What did the bus hit?" and the student started to explain that the truck smashed into its left side. The dispatcher tried to refocus the student: "Just with one or two words, tell me what the bus hit."

"The bus hit a FedEx truck," the student replied. "The FedEx truck came into us."
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File - In this April 10, 2014, file photo, massive …
File - In this April 10, 2014, file photo, massive flames engulf a tractor-trailer and a tour bus ju …

"Was it head on?"

"Yes, head on."

It was not clear whether the student was a boy or girl. None of the 911 callers were identified.

Other calls came from witnesses and nearby residents.

"A bus just exploded," said one woman.

"It just exploded," said one man. "Whatever's on the freeway is on fire."
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In This Photo Provided By The University Of La Verne, …
In This Photo Provided By The University Of La Verne, Trish Arzola, the mother of Arthur "Tury& …

The bus was carrying 44 high school students from the Los Angeles area for a visit to Humboldt State University on California's far north coast. Many stood to be the first in their family to attend college.

Five students and three adult chaperones died, along with the truck and bus drivers.

As the CHP released the recordings, the agency's investigators were reconstructing how the bus driver might have reacted to the sight of the big rig, which burst out of vegetation on the freeway's median into oncoming traffic, sideswiping a car before hitting the bus.

The CHP briefly closed the stretch of Interstate 5 where the crash happened and drove the same model Serta 2014 bus northbound at about 70 mph. The driver braked so investigators could gauge how its speed would have dropped.

On the southbound side, a driver in the same model 2007 Volvo truck released the accelerator, in a similar effort to understand how its speed might have changed.

Video cameras on both vehicles recorded what each driver could have seen before the crash.

The reconstruction did not include any collision. Investigators will use what they learned to calculate how fast each vehicle was traveling before the wreck.

The truck's data recorder was destroyed in the explosion and fire, but investigators said they may be able to recover some data about its speed and maneuvering by other forensic analysis.

Investigators are working through a 3-inch-thick stack of records including the truck's maintenance history and its driver's recent shifts, CHP Capt. Todd Morrison said. The FedEx driver had no prior moving violations, according to the California Department of Motor Vehicles.

It is too early to say whether mechanical failure or driver error caused the truck to careen out of control, Morrison said. That determination by the CHP, and by a parallel investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board, will take months.

The driver of the car struck first by the truck told investigators the truck was in flames before the crash, but Morrison said the CHP has found no evidence to corroborate that account. NTSB investigators also found no physical evidence of a pre-impact fire or other witnesses relating the same story.

Glenn County Coroner Larry Jones said all but two victims have been identified. He said that initially, his office was looking for one student believed to be among the dead, but it turned out the student had never boarded the bus in the first place.

App Claims It Can Help Couples Conceive Girls

From artificial insemination to in vitro fertilization, there's no shortage of ways that technology is helping couples who want to have children. But a new iPhone and Android app called StorkDiet/Girl claims that it can people have a baby girl for a fee of just $9.99.

Alain Hanash, who created the app, used data from a study conducted by two British universities that tracked the eating habits of 740 women who were pregnant for the first time. The study found that 56 percent of the women who followed a low-sodium, low-calcium diet had baby girls. The app, following that approach, tailors a nine-week diet for women who are hoping to get pregnant with a girl.  “It is a natural and scientific based guide that includes a specific maternal diet and conception timing program," according to the app's description.

More on Yahoo Shine: 7 crazy myths for predicting your baby's gender But Dr. Gilbert Webb, a maternal fetal medicine specialist at the Mercy Hospital in St. Louis, is wary of putting too much stock in at-home methods of gender selection. “It may offer some slight edge but not a whole lot,” Webb tells Yahoo Shine.  He warns prospective parents not to think that this app – or anything else – is 100 percent guaranteed. Although the creators of StorkDiet claim that they have an 81 percent success rate, the evidence is inconclusive, according to some medical experts.

More on Yahoo: Couple keeps baby's gender under wraps A Maastricht University study had participants eat plenty of spinach, tofu, and nuts like almonds and cashews, while strictly avoiding high-sodium foods like olives, cured meats, and potatoes in order to produce female offspring. The study boasted a 77 percent success rate in producing girls, but once that number was broken down to account for women who didn’t follow the diet closely enough or who didn’t follow the strategic rules for when to have sex, the data began to fall apart.

Dr. Webb adds that there’s nothing wrong with hoping for a baby of a particular sex, but he cautions against being too attached to one or the other. “If someone is realistic about these techniques, and says 'we'd prefer a girl, but we'd be OK with a boy,' that’s fine. But if they have a strong feeling and latch on to these things with strong wording, they can become neurotic,” he says

Giant crab ‘miraculously’ survives five days in refrigerator, finds new home at UK aquarium

A giant crab hauled from its home waters off Dartmouth, England, has been named “Santa Claws” because its survival story is regarded as somewhat of a Christmas season miracle.

The colossal crustacean, with hand-sized claws and a 9-inch shell, was captured by a fisherman who decided to deliver the delectable critter to a sick friend, as a get-well present.

Edible crabs, also called brown crabs, are a fine gift for any seafood-loving family, but this crab was stored in a refrigerator for the next five days—and somehow survived.

The family, noticing movement, could not bring itself to cook the crab, so it telephoned Bristol Aquarium, which is now the crab’s home.

“Basically, they didn’t have the heart to kill him. Additionally, they decided they did not have a saucepan big enough to cook him in,” said the aquarium’s David Waines.

“When she told me it had been in there for five days I couldn’t believe it was still alive. I told them to wrap it in a wet towel and bring it along to the aquarium as quickly as possible.”

Bristol Aquarium posted a story on its Facebook page, explaining that the crab is “making a miraculous recovery.”

Waines explained: “Although the crab was very weak when it arrived the fact that it was kept refrigerated meant it was in a kind of suspended animation.”

The crab, estimated to be 15 to 20 years old, was placed in a special tank flowing with oxygen-rich water, and immediately began to show signs of recovery.

“Hopefully it will continue to get better and will be able to enjoy an unexpectedly long retirement here at the aquarium,” Waines said.

Bristol Aquarium named the edible crab—England’s largest species of crab—”Santa Claws,” and hopes it can be a popular draw over the holiday period.

Which is better than the fate of most edible crabs pulled from North Sea waters. These crabs, which are trapped in baited pots, are prized largely for the sweet, white meat contained in their enormous claws.

Those claws, the aquarium states, boast a crushing strength of more than 90 pounds per square inch, or nearly four times the crushing strength of a human hand.

As for the ‘Santa Claws’ story, it’s beginning to get some press in Europe, having been picked up by the BBC and the Bristol Post.

U.S. unemployment rate hits five-year low, eyes on the Fed

 Nonfarm payrolls increased by 203,000 new jobs last month, the Labor Department said on Friday.The unemployment rate dropped three tenths of a percentage point to its lowest level since November 2008 as
some federal employees who were counted as jobless in October returned to work after a 16-day partial shutdown of the government.Economists polled by Reuters had forecast payrolls rising only 180,000 last month and the unemployment rate falling to 7.2 percent from 7.3 percent.Job gains for September and October were revised to show 8,000 more jobs created than previously reported, lending more strength to the report. Other details were also upbeat, with employment gains across the board, average hourly earnings rising and the workweek lengthening.In addition, the jobless rate fell even as the participation rate - the share of working-age Americans who either have a job or are looking for one - bounced back from a 35-1/2-year low touched in October.The U.S. labor market is still far from healed, but it certainly is moving in the right direction," said Eric Stein, co-director of the Global Income Group at Eaton Vance Investment Managers in Boston.U.S. stocks rallied and the dollar rose against the yen on the data. U.S. benchmark Treasury yields hit a three-month high as traders increased bets the Fed could reduce its bond purchases as early as its next meeting on December 17-18, though they later eased back.The central bank has been buying $85 billion in Treasury and mortgage-backed bonds each month to hold long-term borrowing costs down in a bid to spur a stronger economic recovery.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. employers hired more workers than expected in November and the jobless rate fell to a five-year low of 7.0 percent, raising chances the Federal Reserve will start ratcheting back its bond-buying stimulus sooner rather than later.

Flights delayed as air pollution hits record in Shanghai

SHANGHAI (Reuters) - Hundreds of flights were delayed or cancelled on Friday in China's commercial hub of Shanghai as record levels of air pollution shrouded the city in smog, prompting authorities to issue the highest level of health warning.

The incident is especially embarrassing at a time when China seeks to build Shanghai into a global business hub on par with the likes of London, New York and Hong Kong by 2020.


On Friday afternoon, the Shanghai government issued its severest health warning as the city's pollution index ranged between 23 times and 31 times the levels recommended by international health officials.

In the first such advice since a new health warning system was launched in April, authorities urged residents to stay indoors and asked factories to either cut or halt production.

"I don't think it's fit for people to live in this kind of environment," said Shanghai resident Fan Jianjun, 34, who wore a face mask as he walked through the opaque air in the Lujiazui financial district.

"But I have no choice. I still need to work. I can only take preventive measures but I have no idea whether they work."

Air quality in cities is of increasing concern to China's stability-obsessed leaders, anxious to douse potential unrest as more affluent citizens turn against a growth-at-all-costs economic model that has polluted much of the country's air, water and soil.

The government has announced many plans to fight pollution over the years but has made little apparent progress.

Most of the flights leaving Shanghai's Pudong International Airport have been delayed, according to the airport's website. Pudong was the world's third busiest cargo airport in 2011, data from the Airports Council International shows.

Hazardous air pollution forced schools to shut or suspend outdoor activities in at least two cities in eastern China on Thursday. Some schools in Shanghai cancelled outdoor activities on Friday, as well.

The unusually noxious haze was caused by several factors, including industrial pollution and auto emissions trapped by cold, windless weather, said Xu Bin, an associate professor at Shanghai's Tongji University.

By 0700 GMT, the level of PM2.5 particulate matter, or tiny particles in the air that are the most hazardous to health, reached a "severely polluted" 466, according to the Shanghai government's monitoring website, http://www.semc.gov.cn/aqi/home/English.aspx.

A similar measure by the U.S. consulate in Shanghai showed a reading of 503, a level described as being beyond the index on its website http://www.stateair.net/web/post/1/4.html.

Levels above 300 are considered hazardous, while the World Health Organization recommends a daily level of no more than 20.

(Reporting by Shanghai newsroom; and Kazunori Takada; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)

Adrian Peterson says he has thought about finishing his career for the Dallas Cowboys

Adrian Peterson is an institution for the Minnesota Vikings, quickly becoming arguably the most recognizable figure in the history of the franchise.
Yet, in a moment of honesty, Peterson said he has thought about the possibility of finishing his career in his home state of Texas, with the Dallas Cowboys.Minnesota fans probably don't love hearing that one.

Now this probably means nothing. There's a lot of factors that would have to line up for Peterson, the reigning NFL MVP, to land with the Cowboys near the end of his career. And it's not binding that Peterson, who is from Palestine, Texas, said he has thought about playing for the team he grew up rooting for and honestly answered a question about it. And he understands the value of spending his entire career with the Vikings, judging by his quote.

For now it's just idle chatter. Peterson is just 28 and it'll be a while before him playing for another team is a real possibility. But who knows, maybe at some point the stars will align and Peterson will pull a reverse Emmitt Smith, and play a couple of years at the end of his Hall of Fame career in Dallas.

Companies Say Goodbye to the 'Burbs

When Motorola Mobility lined up a Silicon Valley candidate a few months ago for a VP-level role, the phone maker was hopeful he'd accept. After all, the company offered the chance to develop products at a subsidiary of Google Inc.

The engineer declined. His reason: the prospect of relocating to Libertyville, Ill., about 35 miles from downtown Chicago, said Scott Sullivan, Motorola's head of human resources.

Mr. Sullivan expects recruiting to get a lot easier next
February when the company moves into a new space in the storied Merchandise Mart building in downtown Chicago.

Motorola will join United Continental Holdings Inc., Hillshire Brands Co.—the successor to Sara Lee Corp.— and other corporate giants abandoning vast suburban campuses for urban offices nearer to the young, educated and hyper-connected workers who will lead their businesses into the digital age. Archer Daniels Midland Co. recently said it would move its headquarters from Decatur, Ill., and in the Bay Area, startups like Pinterest Inc. are departing Silicon Valley for San Francisco.

After decades of big businesses leaving the city for the suburbs, U.S. firms have begun a new era of corporate urbanism. Nearly 200 Fortune 500 companies are currently headquartered in the top 50 cities. Many others are staying put in the suburbs but opening high-profile satellite offices in nearby cities, sometimes aided by tax breaks and a recession that tempered downtown rents. And upstart companies are following suit, according to urban planners. The bottom line: companies are under pressure to establish an urban presence that projects an image of dynamism and innovation.

"The showcase headquarters of the past, the beautiful suburban campuses—that's a very obsolete model now," said Patrick Phillips, CEO of the Urban Land Institute, a land-use think tank.

Nationwide, commercial vacancy rates in central business districts have gone down faster than those in suburbs since the real-estate market began to recover in 2011, with 13.9% of urban space empty in the third quarter of 2013 versus 18.5% in the suburbs, according to research firm Reis Inc. At the end of 2010, the figures were 14.8% and 19.1%, respectively.

"There's increasing evidence that this represents a broad trend among large and middle-size companies," said Enrico Moretti, an economist at the University of California, Berkeley, and author of "The New Geography of Jobs."

Cheap real estate, tax incentives, and easy automobile access once lured companies to the suburbs, but companies now want urban amenities, proximity to public transit and sense of community—the same qualities young workers prize when deciding where to live and work, said Robert Lang, an urban planning expert and director of Brookings Mountain West.

And highly educated workers are clustering in a small number of cities. In 2010, more than 43% of Americans with bachelor's degrees chose to live in 20 metropolitan areas, primarily tech hubs such as Seattle, San Francisco and Raleigh, N.C., according to research from the Brookings Institution. And as younger graduates marry and start families later than previous generations—often with both spouses pursuing careers—they're delaying moves to the suburbs, sometimes indefinitely.

For longtime employees, however, corporate moves to the city mean longer commutes and disrupted schedules and family life. And the corporate quest for youth and innovation can leave some workers feeling slightly unwelcome.

"We joked about the older suburbanites being excluded from the new [business] model," said Jon Scherf, age 42, a marketing professional who left Hillshire shortly before its December 2012 move to downtown Chicago. "They would've been happy to have me but they're also happy to bring in new blood."Companies say some attrition is normal. Motorola is offering full relocation packages for employees who choose to sell their suburban homes and move closer to the new office. Still, management expects 2% of its staff to depart and about 75% to stay after the relocation. The remainder, said Mr. Sullivan, will likely be "on the fence."

The shift to urban headquarters favors cities such as Chicago, San Francisco and Boston, destinations of choice for recent college graduates, while aging cities like Cleveland and Detroit struggle with corporate flight and economic decline.

Even when headquarters stay put, more companies are opening or expanding urban satellite offices, especially for technology and research staff working on product development and innovation, according to Mr. Moretti.

Silicon Valley giant Yahoo Inc. signed a big lease this year to expand its San Francisco offices so it can recruit top engineers unwilling to make the long commute on Highway 101. And Coca-Cola Co. in June said it would open a 2,000-person information-technology office near its headquarters in downtown Atlanta, relocating some tech staff that had been based in the suburbs.

Overall demand for commercial real estate in the suburbs is strong in metro areas like Sacramento and Dallas, and in regions rebounding from the worst of the housing collapse, said Walter Page, director of research at real-estate data firm CoStar. However, almost no large firms have left cities for the suburbs recently, CoStar has found.

As United Airlines planned its 2010 merger with Continental Airlines, the company chose a neutral space for the two cultures to meld. That meant leaving the "bubble" of its immense campus in Elk Grove Village, a suburb about 20 miles from Chicago, said Kate Gebo, vice president of corporate real estate.

The carrier shifted a small group of employees to Chicago in 2007 and in 2009 announced that it would move all corporate operations downtown. It was an opportune moment; the real-estate market was sagging and landlords were slashing rents, and the city offered the company incentives worth up to $35 million over 10 years. About 4,600 United employees now work in 16 floors of the Willis Tower, formerly known as the Sears Tower.

The new downtown offices—decorated with murals and lights that mimic the shape of an airplanewing—have proved a magnet for M.B.A.s from top-tier schools as well as new staffers in digital advertising and social media. In the last two years, more than a third of all hires have been under the age of 30, said a spokeswoman. Before that, the figure was closer to 25%.

United has also revived its college internship program, which had been largely dormant for years because the commute from area colleges to Elk Grove Village was too arduous for those without a car.

The airline declined to detail the cost of its relocation or its current real-estate expenses, but Ms. Gebo said the alternative was an extensive upgrade of its old facility.

For Hillshire, which changed its name from Sara Lee after spinning off its European coffee and tea business in 2012, the move downtown was part of a total reorganization that included emulating the culture of a startup, and hiring a workforce to match.

The maker of Jimmy Dean sausage and Ball Park franks now calls itself an "innovative meat-centric company" and a "$4 billion startup." The slimmed-down Hillshire—which now employs around 550 people at headquarters, down from 1,100 before the split—vacated its suburban campus in December 2012 for Chicago's West Loop.

In the city, Hillshire is finding "the type of employees we wanted—externally focused and agile" with a " 'refuse to lose' attitude," said Mary Oleksiuk, Hillshire's head of HR.

One of them, Ryan Rouse, age 33, directs the company's innovation group. He owns a home in the West Loop and joined Hillshire in June from a marketing role at Newell Rubbermaid in Oak Brook, Ill. Now, instead of a car commute that could stretch to almost two hours, he's got a 15-minute walk or a five-minute bike ride to the office. Dining options near the office have been a plus, he said, adding that "access to really wonderful food experiences" helps him think more creatively about possible Hillshire products.

For longtime employees, it has been a more complicated switch. Melissa Napier, treasurer and senior VP of investor relations at Hillshire, bought a house in Downers Grove in 2007 and lives there with her husband and two sons. While she now attends more social and networking events downtown, her commute, once a 10-minute drive, now gets her home at 7:30, an hour later than before.

The kids' dinner-and-homework routine now falls to her husband, a consultant.

Mr. Scherf, who was a manager of shopper insights at Hillshire and now works at Pfizer Inc.'s Itasca, Ill. office, said the company's move was "the tipping point" in his decision to leave, largely because he didn't want to be beholden to train schedules. He also felt unnerved by layoffs and an accelerating "cycle of change."

As young workers start families, they may care more about soccer fields and good schools than sushi restaurants and bike paths, priorities that may send them out of the urban core.

But the employers that sought them out in the city are unlikely to follow them back to the suburbs, said Mr. Phillips of the Urban Land Institute.

"Given energy prices and traffic conditions, it'll be a long time before we see another wave of suburbanization."

Touch ID on Apple’s iPhone 5s is losing accuracy over time for some users

The shine is already wearing off of Apple’s new Touch ID technology for some iPhone 5s owners. Apple unveiled its latest flagship iPhone this past September and along with it, a new embedded fingerprint scanner brought about by the company’s 2012 acquisition of mobile security firm AuthenTec for $356 million. Dubbed Touch ID, the new technology places a sapphire glass-covered fingerprint scanner in the home button of Apple’s iPhone 5s and allows users to unlock the device or authenticate App Store purchases with just the touch of a finger. The new tech is among a few main selling points for the iPhone 5s, but a new report suggests some users are already having trouble with it after less than three months on the market.

“Dr. Drang,” who is described by 5by5 as “a consulting engineer well known amongst nerds on the Internet,” recently wrote on his blog And now it’s all this that he’s having some issues with Touch ID on his iPhone.

“I’ve been using Touch ID since I got an iPhone 5s in mid-October,” Drang wrote. “Generally speaking, I like it, and I find it faster than the old swipe-and-passcode method, but I’ve felt compelled to reteach it my fingerprints twice already. I know this sounds impossible, but its recognition of my prints seems to decay with time.”

The good doctor continued, “I rescanned my fingers this weekend, and Touch ID has been amazingly fast and accurate since then. Just as it was when I first got the 5s, and just as it was a few weeks later when I rescanned my fingers for the first time. Just before each rescan, though, I was so frustrated with Touch ID I felt like throwing the phone across the room.”

Curious indeed, but one isolated issue doesn’t necessarily mean there’s a problem. According to John Gruber of Daring Fireball, however, the issue isn’t exactly isolated.

“Drang is not alone — I’ve had a handful of readers ask me about this recently,” Gruber noted. “Makes me think there’s something to it. Me, personally, though, I haven’t noticed any drop-off in accuracy.”

Like Gruber, we haven’t experienced any issues with the print reader on our devices. We also haven’t seen any reports of this issue outside of the ones noted above. The iPhone 5s is still less than three months old, however, so this may be something to watch for as time progresses.

Komodo Dragon

Komodo dragons have thrived in the harsh climate of Indonesia's Lesser Sunda Islands for millions of years, although amazingly, their existence was unknown to humans until about 100 years ago.
Reaching 10 feet (3 meters) in length and more than 300 pounds (136 kilograms), Komodo dragons are the heaviest lizards on Earth. They have long, flat heads with rounded snouts, scaly skin, bowed legs, and huge, muscular tails.
As the dominant predators on the handful of islands they inhabit, they will eat almost anything, including carrion, deer, pigs, smaller dragons, and even large water buffalo and humans. When hunting, Komodo dragons rely on camouflage and patience, lying in wait for passing prey. When a victim ambles by, the dragon springs, using its powerful legs, sharp claws and serrated, shark-like teeth to eviscerate its prey.
Animals that escape the jaws of a Komodo will only feel lucky briefly. Dragon saliva teems with over 50 strains of bacteria, and within 24 hours, the stricken creature usually dies of blood poisoning. Dragons calmly follow an escapee for miles as the bacteria takes effect, using their keen sense of smell to hone in on the corpse. A dragon can eat a whopping 80 percent of its body weight in a single feeding.
There is a stable population of about 3,000 to 5,000 Komodo dragons on the islands of Komodo, Gila Motang, Rinca, and Flores. However, a dearth of egg-laying females, poaching, human encroachment, and natural disasters has driven the species to endangered status.

2014 McLaren P1, driven to the limit and beyond: Motoramic Drives

McLaren has only just begun shipping the first of its 375 P1 hyper cars, each a 903-hp plug-in hybrid costing $1.15 million, billed as a successor to the McLaren F1, one of the greatest supercars of all time. Getting a
chance to drive one is a big deal; McLaren has let only a few select people in the world behind the wheel. So when Chris, my sales person from Park Place McLaren, asked about my interest in driving the McLaren P1  on Top Gear’s famed Dunsfold test track, no less I had to laugh; I thought he was kidding.

A few weeks later, there I was, preparing to ignite the twin-turbo V-8, jet-lagged and yet feeling more awake than I’ve ever been.The P1 exists as a rolling testament to McLaren’s work on the track. Formula 1 leads technical innovation in motorsport, and its teams pay fastidious attention to detail, materials, aerodynamic efficiency and now even hybrid technology. Until the LaFerrari hits the streets, the McLaren P1 is the only road car in the world that shares not just technology, but a factory and engineers with a successful F1 team. The P1’s drag reduction system works just like the one on the McLaren's race cars; hydraulic suspension dampers allow for an active selection of handling modes- from "sport" to "track" to "race" which, along with lowering the car, also stiffens the suspension to make it less likely to morph into a flying missile. Hybrid IPAS, a device like an F1 KERS systems, allows for a 176-hp "go even faster" boost button whenever you need it…because you know, at 727 hp you generally need help passing people, right?

It’s the car of my dreams. And after some familiarization with the cockpit, some photographs, and many liability waivers, I belted into a two-seat carbon-fiber fighter jet.It was raining. And Dunsfold, the proving ground of the Stig and sundry celebrities, was treacherous. To your average supercar buyer, this may be seen as somewhat sacrilegious. But not for me. I drive my McLaren 12C, Porsche Carrera GT and my (now gone) Bentley GT and Ferrari 599 as much as possible, in any conditions – the more grueling the better. One of the other future P1 owners on hand scoffed at my enthusiasm, saying that, "at least it isn't my car, (when I get mine) I'll never drive this thing fast or in the rain."

We gave him the nickname Parking Lot Pimp.

Preserving one of these things as works of art is fine, and from a business perspective, quite wise. (A 1997 McLaren F1 sold for $8.5 million in August, and it had less than 14,000 miles.) But for real enthusiasts, life is too short to look and not touch. This machine was built to be driven. And driven fast.

As I entered the track, I mashed the gas pedal and heard the glorious sound of the turbo waste gate. The twin turbos felt like they were right on my shoulder — every lift produces a WHOOSH POP KKCHCHCHCHC. It’s like a monster, sputtering, spitting, growling in its mid-chassis carbon cage — a glorious, powerful, lag-free beast. Turbo lag has gotten less prevalent in the last 10 years, primarily due to software tuning. But the P1 has that hybrid system that kicks in to fill any remaining torque lag from the turbo. And it kicks your ass into warp speed the instant you punch the pedal.

On the drenched racetrack, I could discover the car’s limitations much faster and therefore understand its balance that much sooner. While emotionally committing to drifting a car of this nature is not easy, I can assure you, it can be done. And in Race mode, it will happen effortlessly on power exiting corners. But it's not scary. It's exhilarating, and since the chassis is so well balanced, the P1 is more fun than hard to handle. Chris Goodwin, McLaren’s chief test driver, explained it plainly: "We have to make it easy enough to drive or it won't get driven.”

It handles being provoked better than my 12C. It boasts the balance and grip of an open-wheel race car, while offering the ease of use Parking Lot Pimp would enjoy. Obnoxious hooligans like me, however, will enjoy letting the hellhound off the leash with power oversteer most.

Once you're hitting the apexes around 80 mph, the active aerodynamics ensure the P1 remains glued to the road, and demolishing your intestines in the process. It’s capable of generating cornering force of 2Gs; a track-ready Porsche 911 GT3 or an SRT Viper tops out at around 1.25G. If you’ve never been in a race car, 2Gs can suck your stomach deep into your pockets, and morph your face into an evil grin. Nothing can hang with this car on the street. Only my experience driving a high-downforce Formula 3 race car prepared me for this kind of a beating.

"OK, now I want you just to test the acceleration for yourself," says my young and enthusiastic co-pilot. So, as we ventured onto the wet runway and nailed the gas, I saw 60, 80, 100 mph, gone, gone, gone. Then I hit the DRS button and activated the KERS power boost; I was doing 130 mph at the time in 4th gear. Despite this, I got massive wheel spin – even going in a straight line. Of course, I burst out in maniacal laughter, and on my cue so does my official McLaren co-hooligan. Onto the brakes I went, activating the aero wings and carbon Akebono brakes, bringing me to a gut-wrenching stop. Internally, I was lamenting about an inevitable night spent in jail for testing this fun trick in the middle of nowhere. If only law enforcement offered as many waivers as McLaren.

This is the car of a lifetime, and I am grateful for staying out of trouble long enough to be able to afford one. If you see me driving mine next year, wave and come say hey. My car will be distinct, thanks to my visit to McLaren’s Special Operations center and its custom fit and finish division. It will look like a spaceship, or Cerberus in a tuxedo. And it’ll go like stink. Unlike Parking Lot Pimp’s ride, this beast will be driven.

'Pit of Bones' Yields Oldest Known Human DNA

Researchers have uncovered a new clue about human origins after discovering the oldest known human DNA in a legendary Spanish archeological site called Sima de los Huesos or the Pit of Bones.Researchers were able to extract DNA from a leg bone that was estimated to be 400,000 years old.After extracting the DNA from a femur bone, Matthias Meyer, who published his findings in a study in the
journal Nature was able to replicate the entire genome for the ancient human relative.
News on the Human Genome Project
The genetic sequence surprised researchers who thought it was likely that the sequence would reveal that remains were related to the Neanderthals. Instead the genetic sequence revealed that this early human species is related to another genetic cousin of modern humans,the mysterious Denisovans.
Little is known about the Denisovans who are thought to have been common throughout the regions now known as Asia and Eastern Europe.This early human species was discovered after genetic sequencing was used to map DNA through the ancient pinkie bone of a girl in 2010.
Anthropologists and genetic experts said the findings from the Pit of Bones could help shed light on how early human species evolved and spread across different continents.
This places what we have to assume from the genetic sequence is an earlier branch of our family that goes back even further in time said Kenneth Kidd, professor of genetics at the Yale University School of Medicine.Kidd said since the DNA was from 400,000 years ago this mysterious human relative likely predated most Neanderthals.Kidd explained that one reason there is little known about the Denisovans is that the Neanderthals may have annihilated the Denisovans similar to how the Neanderthals died off as modern humans became more populous.If you're wondering if you're related to the ancient DNA, Kidd said there is no evidence that the Denisovans provided any genetic material for the modern human race.
Theodore Schurr, professor of anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania, said the findings were significant since it showed clearly how DNA mapping was changing the field of anthropology. Schurr said solely from the skeletal remains researchers thought the human species appeared to be related to Neanderthals.This is also significant because it's the DNA coming from the oldest remains said Schurr. "It's interesting to compare the skeletons to the genetics because the stories may not match up.

2 Hot 2 Handle (week of 12/2/13)

Jessica Simpson, Angie Harmon, and David Beckham dress to impress! By Matt Whitfield

Paul Walker Autopsy Results: Actor Died From 'Traumatic and Thermal Injuries'

Paul Walker died of combined effects of traumatic and thermal injuries.That's the official word from the Los Angeles County Coroner's Department which conducted autopsies on the Fast & Furious star and his friend Roger Rodas on Tuesday and released the results Wednesday morning.The report formally identified Walker 40 as the passenger, and Rodas 38, as the driver, in what was ruled for the first time as an accident.According to the report Rodas died of "multiple traumatic injuries and Walker of combined effects of traumatic and thermal injuries.The injury occurred via auto versus Fixed Object.A toxicology report is still pending for both men and should be completed in six to eight weeks.
7 Latest Updates in Paul Walker Death Investigation]
Walker and Rodas were killed when Rodas apparently lost control of their 2005
Porsche Carrera GT and slammed into a tree and light pole on Saturday afternoon in Valencia California, bursting into flames.Walker had just participated in a nearby charity event.He was on a Thanksgiving weekend hiatus from filming Fast & Furious 7.The Los Angeles Country Sheriff's Department is still investigating the cause of the crash. Investigators hope to have their initial findings in the next week. Although speed was determined to be a contributing factor detectives are also looking at the possibility of a mechanical failure or blown tire.In the meantime the scene of the accident has become a makeshift memorial, attracting family friends co-stars, and fans who are leaving flowers, photos, and other mementos.
Also Wednesday morning, Universal Pictures announced it was shutting down production on the latest sequel.
'Wheel of Fortune' Slammed for Ill-Timed Paul Walker Reference]
Right now all of us at Universal are dedicated to providing support to Paul's immediate family and our extended Fast & Furious' family of cast, crew, and filmmakers the studio said in a statement.At this time we feel it is our responsibility to shut down production on 'Fast & Furious 7' for a period of time so we can assess all options available to move forward with the franchise. We are committed to keeping 'Fast & Furious' fans informed, and we will provide further information to them when we have it. Until then, we know they join us in mourning the passing of our dear friend Paul Walker.Sources tell Yahoo that about two-thirds of the film would have to be rewritten to accommodate the loss of Walker and the screenwriters will be huddling with studio execs director James Wan, and franchise co-star Vin Diesel to come up with a respectful way to proceed. Among the options: scrap the footage that has been shot and start over from scratch.

Our bodies are quite adept at dealing with high-anxiety

Our bodies are quite adept at dealing with high-anxiety situations. Once the stress hormone cortisol kicks in, a chemical cascade of events follows, helping us to tackle whatever challenge is being thrown our way, from a tight deadline to a ferocious dog.

How Stress/Anxiety Affect Your Health

But while this process can be helpful physiologically and mentally (we tend to be quicker on our feet because of it), it can also wreak havoc on our hair, skin, and nails. Breathe easy: Here are simple ways to overcome the aesthetic effects of stress.Why it
happens: Let’s face it—great hair is an asset but not essential to good health. Your body knows this intrinsically, so when you’re so stressed that you’re eating poorly or losing weight, it directs all its energy to making sure that your vital organs are functioning properly; it doesn’t waste precious resources on your hair. As a result, says Amy McMichael, the chair of the department of dermatology at Wake Forest Baptist Medical, in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, “follicles in the growing stage go immediately into the resting and shedding phase,” a condition known as telogen effluvium.

How to treat it: If, instead of shedding the normal 100 strands a day, you’re shedding more like 300—meaning handfuls fall into the sink when you’re brushing—see your doctor. If your hair loss is caused by a poor diet due to stress, your doctor may start by testing your levels of B12, zinc, iron, and the protein ferritin—nutrients that are crucial to hair growth—and suggest that you take supplements if you have any deficiencies. She may also discuss stress-management techniques if diet alone is not to blame. Once the stress is addressed (ohmmm), the condition should fully reverse in 6 to 10 months. In the meantime, you can make the effects less noticeable: Lather up with a thickening shampoo that coats the hair with amino acids, such as L’Oréal Paris EverStrong Thickening Shampoo ($7 at drugstores), and consider styling with a dry-shampoo spray, such as Bosley Bos-Renew Volumizing Dry Shampoo ($19, ulta.com). It will keep scalp oils from weighing down thin hair while still offering hold.
Graying

Why it happens: As we’ve witnessed time and again, anyone who holds the most stressful job in the country—president of the United States—goes gray fairly quickly. And until now researchers have never completely understood why. But this past summer researchers at New York University School of Medicine found that physical stress, such as burning your hand, causes melanocytes, the stem cells responsible for hair color and other regenerative processes, to migrate from the hair follicles to other parts of the body to promote healing. This leaves hair without pigment and therefore gray. The researchers theorize that emotional stress may  be associated with depletion of melanocytes, setting off graying.

5 Foods to Help You Survive Short Days and Holiday Stress

How to treat it: There is currently no known way to reverse graying, but some of the latest home and salon hair colorants are formulated with an oil-based delivery method that can help mask silvery strands by increasing the dye penetration into the shafts and coating wiry grays so that they lie flat and smooth. (Try Garnier Olia Oil Powered Permanent color, $10 at drugstores; or Redken Chromatics Beyond Covers, prices vary, redken.com for salons.)
NEXT: Fing

Union official says NYC train engineer 'nodded'

 YONKERS, N.Y. (AP) — An engineer whose speeding commuter train ran off the rails along a curve, killing four people, nodded at the controls just before the wreck, and by the time he caught himself it was too late, a union official said Tuesday.
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    Speed Cited in Fatal New York Train Crash The Wall Street JournalWilliam Rockefeller "basically nodded," said Anthony Bottalico, leader of the rail employees union, relating what he said the engineer told him.
He had the equivalent of what we all have when we drive a car," Bottalico said. "That is, you sometimes have a momentary nod or whatever that might be. How long that lasts, I can't answer that."
Rockefeller's lawyer did not return calls. During a late-afternoon news conference, federal investigators said they were still talking to Rockefeller, and they wouldn't comment on his level of alertness around the time of the Sunday morning wreck in the Bronx.

Separately, however, two law enforcement officials said the engineer told police at the scene that his mind was wandering before he realized the train was in trouble and by then it was too late to do anything about it. One of the officials said Rockefeller described himself as being "in a daze" before the wreck.

The officials, who were briefed on the engineer's comments, weren't authorized to discuss the investigation publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Questions about Rockefeller's role mounted rapidly after investigators disclosed on Monday that the Metro-North Railroad train jumped the tracks after going into a curve at 82 mph, or nearly three times the 30 mph speed limit. Dozens of people were hurt.He caught himself, but he caught himself too late. ... He powered down, he put the train in emergency, but that was six seconds prior to derailment," Bottalico said.

Rockefeller, who was operating the train from the front car, was treated at a hospital for minor injuries and was released.

National Transportation Safety Board member Earl Weener repeated that it was too soon to say whether the accident was caused by human error. But he said investigators have found no problems with the brakes or signals.

Alcohol tests on the train's crew members were negative, and investigators were awaiting the results of drug tests, the NTSB official said.

On the day of the crash, Rockefeller was on the second day of a five-day work week, reporting at 5:04 a.m. after a typical nine-hour shift the day before, Weener said.

"There's every indication that he would have had time to get full restorative sleep," Weener said.Weener didn't address specifically what the engineer was doing in the hours before his shift started but said part of the investigation will be creating a 72-hour timeline of his activities.

Bottalico said Rockefeller "never said anything about not getting enough sleep." But he said the engineer had switched just weeks earlier from the night shift to the day shift, "so he did have a change in his hours and his circadian rhythms with regard to sleep."

The New York Police Department is conducting its own investigation, with help from the Bronx district attorney's office, in the event the derailment becomes a criminal case.Rockefeller, meanwhile, stayed out of sight. But his union and former co-workers spoke up in his defense.
This is a man who is totally distraught by the loss of life, and he's having a tough time dealing with that," Bottalico said.He added: "Once the NTSB is done with their investigation and Billy is finished with his interview, it will be quite evident that there was no criminal intent with the operation of his train."Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Tuesday the engineer could be faulted for the train's speed if nothing else.

"Certainly, we want to make sure that that operator is disciplined in an appropriate way. There's such a gross deviation from the norm," he said.

Steven Harrod, a University of Dayton professor who studies transportation, said that trains typically don't have a speed or cruise control but a power control, and once it's set a train can pick up speed on its own because of the terrain.

"Thus, if the engineer loses attention, the train can gain speed without intervention," Harrod said. "The power control could have been set" as the train left a station, "and then forgotten by the engineer."

In case of an engineer becoming incapacitated, the train's front car was equipped with a "dead man's pedal" that must be depressed or else the train will automatically slow down.

Trains also can have alarms, sometimes called alerters, which sound if the operators' controls haven't been moved within a certain timeframe. If an engineer doesn't respond, often by pressing a button, brakes automatically operate. But the Metro-North train that derailed didn't have such a system, according to Marjorie Anders, a spokeswoman for Metro-North's parent, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.Regardless, "neither of those two methodologies is truly a fail-safe approach," said Grady Cothen, a former Federal Railroad Administration safety official. Congress has ordered commuter and freight railroads to install technology called positive train control — which uses electronics to monitor trains' positions and speed and stop derailments and other problems — by the end of 2015.Rockefeller, 46 and married with no children, has worked for the railroad for 15 years and has been an engineer for 10, according to Weener. Rockefeller lives in a well-kept house on a modest rural road in Germantown, N.Y., about 40 miles south of Albany.He started as a custodian at Grand Central Terminal, then monitored the building's fire alarms and other systems, and ultimately became an engineer.He was a stellar employee. Unbelievable," said his former supervisor, Michael McLendon, who retired from the railroad about a year agoMcLendon said he was stunned when he heard about the crash, shortly after opening his mail to find a Christmas card from Rockefeller and his wife.I said, 'Well, I can't imagine Billy making a mistake,'" McLendon said. "Not intentionally, by any stretch of the imagination.Rockefeller's work routine had recently changed. He had begun running that route on Nov. 17, two weeks before the wreck, Anders said.Bottalico said Rockefeller was familiar with the route and qualified to run it.Bruno Lizzul, an MTA machinist who met Rockefeller when they both worked at Grand Central around 2000, described the engineer as honest, hard-working and helpful — so much so that he took it upon himself to show up and help Lizzul renovate his home ahead of a baby's arrival.
He went the extra yard. He just decided to extend himself to me," Lizzul said.Lizzul said Rockefeller was very serious about his work: "He would not do anything to upset anybody or in any way cause harm.Meanwhile, crews were rebuilding the damaged track. Officials expect 98 percent of service to be restored to the affected line Wednesday, Cuomo said.
Associated Press writers Frank Eltman in Mineola, N.Y., Jim Fitzgerald in Yonkers, N.Y., Michael Gormley in Albany, N.Y., Michael Hill in Wappingers Falls, N.Y., and Meghan Barr and Jennifer Peltz in New York City, and researcher Rhonda Shafner contributed to this report.Regardless, "neither of those two methodologies is truly a fail-safe approach," said Grady Cothen, a former Federal Railroad Administration safety official. Congress has ordered commuter and freight railroads to install technology called positive train control  which uses electronics to monitor trains' positions and speed and stop derailments and other problems  by the end of 2015.Rockefeller, 46 and married with no children, has worked for the railroad for 15 years and has been an engineer for 10, according to Weener. Rockefeller lives in a well-kept house on a modest rural road in Germantown, N.Y., about 40 miles south of AlbanyHe started as a custodian at Grand Central Terminal, then monitored the building's fire alarms and other systems, and ultimately became an engineer.He was a stellar employee. Unbelievable," said his former supervisor, Michael McLendon, who retired from the railroad about a year ago.McLendon said he was stunned when he heard about the crash, shortly after opening his mail to find a Christmas card from Rockefeller and his wife.I said, 'Well, I can't imagine Billy making a mistake,'" McLendon said. "Not intentionally, by any stretch of the imagination.Rockefeller's work routine had recently changed. He had begun running that route on Nov. 17, two weeks before the wreck, Anders said.Bottalico said Rockefeller was familiar with the route and qualified to run it.Bruno Lizzul, an MTA machinist who met Rockefeller when they both worked at Grand Central around 2000, described the engineer as honest, hard-working and helpful — so much so that he took it upon himself to show up and help Lizzul renovate his home ahead of a baby's arrival.
He went the extra yard. He just decided to extend himself to me," Lizzul said.Lizzul said Rockefeller was very serious about his work: "He would not do anything to upset anybody or in any way cause harm.Meanwhile, crews were rebuilding the damaged track. Officials expect 98 percent of service to be restored to the affected line Wednesday, Cuomo said.
Associated Press writers Frank Eltman in Mineola, N.Y., Jim Fitzgerald in Yonkers, N.Y., Michael Gormley in Albany, N.Y., Michael Hill in Wappingers Falls, N.Y., and Meghan Barr and Jennifer Peltz in New York City, and researcher Rhonda Shafner contributed to this report.