Falcons poisoned in Motherwell with banned pesticide
Two birds were poisoned with strychnine, a substance that could have put members of the public as well as domestic pets and other wildlife at risk.
Willow Smith checks photos on her camera on Monday (March 28) in Calabasas, Calif.
The 10-year-old pop star, rocking a pair of yellow high tops, also grabbed lunch at a sushi restaurant.
On Friday, Willow landed at LAX after flying in from Europe, where she had been touring with Justin Bieber
Willow will be taking over the stage at Saturdays Kids Choice Awards.
Im so excited to be performing at the Kids Choice Awards. Really hoping I dont get slimed! she said.
The Black Eyed Peas and Big Time Rush will also be performing, while Willows older brother, Jaden, is set as a presenter.
TEMPE, Ariz. – Torii Hunter considers the question, the one about the two different guys who dress up like Los Angeles Angels manager Mike Scioscia, and he starts to laugh.
Well, Hunter says, there is The Manager, and then there is The Soche.
The manager is all business, and business has been mostly good in his 11 previous seasons with the Angels, a run that included a World Series win in 2002, and five division championships in the last seven years.
The manager is the same hard-nosed Springfield, Delaware County, catcher who lasted 13 seasons in the major leagues because he performed every defensive fundamental correctly, hit for a modest average but always for contact, and knew the game better than everyone else on the field. He won two World Series with the Dodgers and made the All-Star Game twice and if there ever was a player destined to manage, this was the guy.
And then there is The Soche, the favorite camp counselor who turns every morning meeting during spring training into what Hunter calls the 9:30 comedy show.
He takes the rookies and the young guys and makes them go shopping for toys and then bring them back and put them together, Hunter said. Hell make them go to a Phoenix Suns game and interview the cheerleaders and come back with pictures and a report. He might bring Muhammad Ali in. He might bring an ostrich in. Bobby Abreu has a basketball team back home. So he brought in some Globetrotters to see if they could try out for Bobbys team. Every day, its another show.
Scioscia has assigned players to look up the college transcripts of their teammates and, upon finding a flaw in, say, mathematics, will bring a math professor into the clubhouse to quiz the failed former student. Nothing is sacred, nothing is out of bounds, and everything is for fun. It doesnt take a psychologist to understand that Scioscia is fashioning a team-bonding process, or merely amusing himself before the team takes the field.
They trust in you. They believe in you and they want to play for you because youre a good guy. Thats how it starts. Then, theres the season, Hunter said.
The season is not for ostriches. The season is for baseball, and Scioscia really only has one rule: Play the game properly. By his standards, that isnt as easy as it sounds. The game must be played intelligently and fiercely aggressively. He was whelped in the professional game by the old-school Dodgers organization – his first three catching instructors were Roy Campanella, Del Crandall and John Roseboro – and that philosophy perfectly meshed with his own no-nonsense baseball personality.
Were not reinventing baseball here, Scioscia said. Baseball is making sure you get the secondary lead so you can take the extra base. Baseball is running through bases. Baseball isnt throwing to the cutoff man. Baseball is throwing the ball strong on one hop to the base, so it can be cut off if necessary, the way it was taught 100 years ago. Baseball is understanding defensive positioning and getting your bunts down; the hit-and-run, understanding what a pitcher is trying to do at all times. Thats baseball and I think theres just one way to play this game.
Not surprisingly, the Angels under Scioscia have always been viewed as a meticulously schooled fundamental team, and one that always takes the extra base, always puts pressure on the other team to make the first or the worst mistake.
I dont think theres any such thing as an aggressive mistake, Scioscia said.
Entering his 12th season with the Angels, Scioscia is the longest-tenured manager in the American League, and only Tony La Russa of the Cardinals has been with the same team longer in all of baseball. There is no secret to the formula, according to Scioscia, only the slow work of building a skyscraper using the brick of one perfect relay throw at a time.
Its still day-to-day. You come in the first day and starting putting in your philosophy and work toward that, Scioscia said. Im not into self-analysis or saying whether Im good or bad or whatever at the job. Im just into understanding how the game should be played and taught.
After a downturn in 2010, when the Angels fell to third place in the AL West behind Texas and Oakland, there hasnt been a lot of roster improvement. The Angels added two relief pitchers through free agency, but the offensive power core, built around a couple of aging players in Abreu and Hunter, remains the same. The rotation is good, particularly if Scott Kazmir can shake off a down year, but jumping past the Rangers and Athletics doesnt seem likely.
From Scioscias point of view, thats a prediction the Angels can change if they play well enough and work hard enough, and thats precisely how a manager must think.
Really, your job is all about bringing a positive emotion to your team, he said.
In spring training, that includes a daily visit from The Soche. Not so much in the regular season, though. Then there is usually only room for The Manager. It is actually the same guy, but when the baseball really matters, thats hard to remember.
Contact columnist Bob Ford at bford@phillynews.com, read his recent columns at http://www.philly.com/philly/columnists/bob_ford, and view his blog at http://www.philly.com/postpatterns
ALBANY State Senator John Bonacic (R-Mt. Hope) says hes tired of the state chasing its tail with regard to the federal government rejecting proposals to allow Native American casino gaming in Sullivan County.
Bonacic, Senate chairman of the Senate Racing, Wagering and Gaming Committee, said he is teaming up with Assemblyman Gary Pretlow (D-Mt. Vernon) to introduce legislation during this term of the state legislature for a constitutional amendment to allow full scale casinos in New York.
I expect it to pass, which means it gets kicked to 2013, must pass again and then in November of 2013, the people will ultimately decide whether they want a full scale gaming casino in the State of New York, Bonacic said.
Government officials and business executives have long said a casino and resort in Sullivan County would rejuvenate the economy of the Catskills and Hudson Valley.
kyle.veazey@clarionledger.com
OXFORD – Shortly after Ole Miss coach Houston Nutt blew the whistle here Monday after the final play of the Rebels first spring practice, his offensive players visited the football practice version of purgatory: the up-down drill, where players slam their bodies to the ground, then push themselves back up, times 10.
Thanks to Wesley Pendleton batting away a Zack Stoudt pass into the corner of the end zone on the decisive play, the defense earned the right to stand and watch.
Sure, the players werent wearing pads. It was the first day. Ole Miss is a mile away from correcting the wrongs from last years defense. There are too many holes at too many position groups to ignore.
But it was a nice feeling for a group thats carried quite a few bad ones around all winter.
I thought it was a lot of good things, but you know, the typical first day, defensive coordinator Tyrone Nix said. Going to be a lot of mistakes and a lot of things the guys are going to have to learn from. The biggest thing is they were very enthusiastic, they seemed to be having fun in playing the game of football.
Last year, it wasnt always that way. UM gave up 35.2 points per game, turning a defense that was once thought to be the teams building block into its stumbling block.
And when the Rebels stepped off the field after the Egg Bowl, that was it, football-wise, until Monday. Which made Monday all the more important to frame the defenses future.
Felt real good, said junior linebacker DT Shackelford. We went 4-8 last year, so the first thing we want to do is get back here and re-establish ourself, go through the drills hard. I think we had a real good first day.
Shackelford hopes for more togetherness and explosion plays from his defense as compared to last year. Its something that he thinks can start in practice.
Nix agrees, saying theres a renewed emphasis on the little things and fundamentals – not exactly hollow words, either. Last year, the Rebels struggles often started with a puzzling inability to tackle – as basic a defensive skill as exists.
Thats what we went back and re-emphasized, doing all the little things right, on and off the field, and when you can do those things, a lot of times you have good things happen to you, Nix said.
Nutt framed what he expects from his defense this spring in vague terms.
Hey, lets get lined up and lets play extremely fast, Nutt said. When you play fast, that means youve got to know what to do. So hey, we may be simple in some areas, but were going to play extremely fast, be tough.
That word tough is going to keep popping up, Nutt said.
Sure, there are plenty of position battles and weaknesses that the Rebels will entertain leading up to the April 16 spring game. It wasnt hard to overlook them on Monday, when most of the 50 or so fans who showed up inside the teams indoor practice facility spent much of the practice staring at the quarterbacks.
New secondary coach Keith Burns worked with a perilously thin group at cornerback, which led to this question from a fan who leaned into another conversation: We only have four corners?
Marcus Temple, a senior corner, will miss the spring after undergoing sports hernia surgery. But he stood with his teammates in the secondary for much of Monday.
At the end, Nutt called for four plays at the goal line to determine who would do up-downs. The first two resulted in scores. But the defense came up with plays on the next two, setting up the winner-take-all – and the final play that had the defense celebrating at the end.
Not bad for day one, Shackelford essentially said.
You never know until you get in pads, he said. Everybody can look like an All-American in shorts. But until you get in pads, then you really know.
This weeks column explores the latest in how we access information online and how the courts and governments are weighing in.
Google continues to be one of the primary ways we navigate the web
A recent Citi report using comScore data is yet the latest that illustrates how much we use Google to find information online.
The report found that Google is the top source of traffic for 74% of the 35 properties analyzed and that Google traffic has remained steady or increased for 69% of them.
However, it was a slightly different picture for media sites, as many saw less traffic from Google and more traffic from Facebook.
Also, a recent Pew study found that for the 24% of Americans who get most of their political news from the internet, Google comes in third at 13% (after CNN and Yahoo).
More generally, 67% of Americans get most political news from TV and 27% rely on newspapers (the latter is down from 33% in 2002). This trend is whats being seen generally for media, as noted in a recent comprehensive study by Pew Research Centers Internet American Life Project and Project for Excellence in Journalism, in partnership with the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.
Google and governments, courts, and other legal entanglements
Googles mission is to organize the worlds information and make it universally accessible and useful. Notice the use of the word world rather than Internet. Theyre organizing our email, our voice mail, and the earth.
While having everything at our fingertips at a moments notice is awesome, it also can make governments and courts nervous.
Case in point, the US Senate is planning to hold an anti-trust investigation into Googles dominance over Internet search and their increasing competition with ecommerce sites.
Senator Herb Kohl noted that the Internet continues to grow in importance to the national economy. He wants to look into allegations by websites that they are being treated unfairly in search ranking, and in their ability to purchase search advertising.
Texas also recently filed an anti-trust lawsuit against Google, looking for access to information about how both organic and paid results are ranked.
Of course, if Google reveals too much, then their systems can be gamed. Searchers wont get the best results. Site owners would lose out too as the most relevant and useful result wouldnt appear at the top of results.
Why should we trust Google to rank results fairly? Ultimately, if they build a searcher experience that doesnt benefit the searcher, they could lose users and market share, so its in their best interest to continue on their stated path.
Right to be forgotten
Another fairly recent case involves the Spanish courts. Google search simply indexes and ranks content that exists on the web. When something negative appears about a person or company, they will sometimes ask Google to remove it, but Googles stance is typically that the person or company has to work with the content owner to remove the content Google just indexes what is public. (Exceptions to this exist.)
In Spain (and other parts of Europe), someone has the right to be forgotten, but this doesnt apply to newspapers as they are protected by freedom of expression rules. Does it apply to Googles index of that newspaper content? Apparently, its been ruled both that freedom of expression rules dont apply to search engines and that Google is a publisher and laws that apply to newspapers apply equally to Google.
A Spanish plastic surgeon wants Google to remove a negative newspaper article from 1991 from their search results (although he cant legally ask the newspaper itself to remove the article). The Wall Street Journal sums up the case this way:
The Spanish regulator says that in situations where having material included in search results leads to a massive disclosure of personal data, the individual concerned has the right to ask the search engine to remove it on privacy grounds. Google calls that censorship.
Google does remove content based on government requests when legally obligated to do so and it makes a summary of those requests available.
Sidenote to anyone upset about a negative newspaper article appearing in search results: Its probably a bad idea to try to bribe the journalist into taking the content down.
Google cant become the Alexandria of out of-print books quite yet
Search isnt the only area being scrutinized. Google has also been scanning the worlds books and making them universally accessible. The courts justrejected a settlement between Google and the Authors Guild that created an opt-out model for authors. Neither Google nor the Authors Guild is happy. Authors Guild president Scott Turow said, this Alexandria of out-of-print books appears lost at the moment.
Block any site from your Google search results
Since we all use Google to navigate the web, it makes sense that we want to be able to have our own personal Google and block the sites we dont like. Last month in this column, we talked about Googles chrome extension that enabled searchers to create a personal blocklist. Now this ability is open to everyone. Once you click on a listing and then return to the search results, the listing you clicked includes a block all results link. Click that and youll never see results from that site again. You can manage this block list in your Google account.
Bye, AllTheWeb!
Google may seem unstoppable, but only a few years before Google launched, another search engine was dominant on the web. Alta Vista launched in late 1995 with innovative crawling technology that helped it gain vast popularity. Alta Vista later lost out to Google and was acquired by Yahoo. In late 2010, Yahoo announced they were closing down several properties, including Alta Vista.
That hasnt happened yet, but AllTheWeb, another of Yahoos search properties is closing April 4th, at which time youll be redirected to Yahoo. Alta Vista cant be far behind.
Related:
(03-28) 22:36 PDT San Diego, CA (AP) –
Officials in Californias second-largest city voted Monday to place restrictions on where its medical marijuana dispensaries can conduct business, barring pot sales within 600 feet of places of worship, parks, schools and other sensitive locations.
The San Diego City Council voted 5-2 after four hours of public comment, with marijuana-using patients calling the regulations too harsh and anti-substance abuse activists saying they were too lenient, the San Diego Union-Tribune reported.
The ordinance will apply to more than 150 existing medical marijuana clinics and any new pot shops.
Under the ordinance that was originally proposed, pot sales would have been barred from within 1,000 feet of certain places, but city councilman Todd Gloria amended it to a 600-foot restriction.
The mayor has been asked by the council to come up with a plan in 30 days to implement the ordinances.
Ben Cisneros, of the nonprofit Canvass for a Cause, said the proposed regulations would push clinics out to far-flung industrial zones patrolled by federal agents near the US-Mexico border and other remote areas that are difficult to reach.
More than 3,700 people wrote to city officials asking for a less restrictive ordinance to ensure AIDS patients, veterans and others have access to medical cannabis, he said.
Cisneros said regulations should allow dispensaries within 600 feet of schools and not require approval by the planning commission if they are in commercial zones and there are no complaints. He also said keeping dispensaries more than 1,000 feet apart from each other limits them because few landlords want to rent to the clinics.
Theyre trying to zone out medical cannabis dispensaries as if they were strip clubs and adult book stores, he said. Its not providing access if you have to travel for hours on public transit and hours back with medical cannabis on you.
Nearly a dozen cities across the state have imposed regulations in recent years that have forced many clinics to shutter their doors.
The dispensaries have proliferated under the Obama administration, which defers to state laws on medical marijuana, a departure from the crackdowns on pot clubs under President George W. Bush. Narcotics officers have raided dispensaries that investigators say are using medical marijuana as a pretense to sell drugs.
(03-28) 22:36 PDT San Diego, CA 92100, United States –
MONTGOMERY, Alabama — Gov. Robert Bentley within a few days will unveil plans that could raise tens of millions of dollars a year for state budgets by closing corporate tax loopholes, state Finance Director David Perry said.
Perry declined to give specifics on which loopholes could be closed, but said they involved multi-state companies.
The governor will definitely be recommending closing corporate tax loopholes that have the potential to generate tens of millions of dollars for state budgets, Perry said in an interview.
Bentley on the campaign trail last year defended closing some loopholes. He said some big national corporations were not paying their fair share of taxes to Alabama.
Perry said Bentley and his finance advisers have been studying the issue of corporate tax loopholes for months, often meeting with state revenue department officials.
The governor has been considering various options for closing corporate tax loopholes since before he took office, and has continued examining those possibilities since he took office, Perry said.
He said initial loophole-closing proposals mainly would involve income taxes paid by businesses. Under current law, any increase in state income tax collections would flow to the Education Trust Fund, the main source of state tax dollars for public schools and colleges.
State Sen. Trip Pittman, R-Montrose, said Perry met Thursday afternoon with him and other top-ranking legislators and discussed about 10 loophole-closing options.
Pittman said legislators identified a few they thought were the most reasonable, based in part on how other states handled them.
Obviously, theres a desire to try to look at it and then assess which ones are the most likely to be able to pass the Legislature, said Pittman, who chairs the Senates Finance and Taxation-Education Committee.
Sen. Del Marsh, R-Anniston, the top-ranking state senator, said he asked Susan Kennedy, a lawyer who works for the Alabama Education Association teachers lobby, to give him a list of what AEA believed to be tax loopholes. I gave a copy of her report to the governors office to ask them to look at it and see if they agreed or disagreed, Marsh said.
Perry said that, at Marshs request, he reviewed Kennedys suggestions for closing loopholes. Perry said he already was familiar with issues listed by Kennedy, who is AEAs funding and revenue manager. She used to be chief counsel for the state revenue department.
Kennedy said loopholes she listed included companies using gaps in state tax law to get deductions, or other ways to reduce taxes, that werent intended by lawmakers when they passed the tax.
For instance, she said some companies in Alabama pay management fees or rent to sister companies in Delaware, which has no corporate income tax.
Those fee or rent payments keep profits within the parent companies but reduce taxable income earned from Alabama operations, thereby reducing Alabama tax collections.
Kennedy said there were other examples of companies using deductions that were clearly not intended by state lawmakers. She said closing what she considers to be loopholes used by multi-state or multinational corporations could raise $200 million a year.
She said she was pleased Bentleys administration is looking into closing corporate tax loopholes. We are excited that they are looking at it and that they are considering it, Kennedy said.
Join the conversation by clicking to comment or email White at dwhite@bhamnews.com.
Our independent retailers are a vital part of our economy, contributing to our
town centres, offering consumers real choice and fantastic customer service.
They make up the majority of small businesses in Northern Ireland and employ
tens of thousands of staff.
While NIIRTA has members in every village, town and city in Northern Ireland,
Banbridge is the jewel in the crown of our independent retail sector.
Banbridge can boast a thriving combination of shops, cafés, bars and
restaurants which contribute to the towns bustling and friendly atmosphere.
Banbridge has a flourishing mix of the old and new where high street names
sit side by side with established independent retailers.
The emphasis is on quality and service.
Whether shopping for a special outfit in one of its clothing and footwear
stores, or carrying out the weekly shop in one of its specialist food
stores, Banbridge is a great day out for all the family.
As well as fabulous shopping, you can explore Solitude Park on the River Bann
with its distinctive landscaping, play area and dance zone, or stay a bit
longer and enjoy the evening in one of the many friendly pubs and
restaurants.
Solitude Park and the River Bann are both located in the heart of Banbridge
town centre.
In 2007 the council invested £2m in a major redesign of the town centre,
creating a beautiful space for all of the local community to use.
Work included new walks through the park, a riverside viewing deck, the
creation of an amphitheatre for outdoor events, an enhanced play park,
public art and new public amenities and wardens office.
I have spent a considerable part of my working week visiting towns around
Northern Ireland, but I am always impressed by the high level of customer
service and choice that the town has to offer.
Glyn Roberts is chief executive of the Northern Ireland Independent Retail
Trade Association.
VADODARA: In an incident that raised questions about police patrolling during night in Padra taluka, 18 shops and a house were burgled within matter of hours on Thursday night. Traders in this small town located about 20 kilometres from the city were a surprised lot on Friday when they found shutters of their shops open. The shops that were targeted were located in different areas of the town.
Locks of five shops including three provision stores and electronics shop located in Ranawas area were broken, while a mobile shop and shoe showroom were burgled in Gayatri Mandir area. Seven stores including a salon and medical store was targeted in VUDA corner area. A tenement in Harinam Society was burgled too. It is being believed that a single gang executed all the thefts in planned manner. Interestingly, theft worth only Rs 85,000 was recorded.