Airbus to build 1st US assembly plant in Alabama

MOBILE, Ala. (AP) ? In the battle to dominate the global aviation industry, European aerospace giant Airbus announced its first assembly plant in the United States on Monday, a symbolic and significant step in the competition with archrival Boeing.

The French-based company said the Alabama plant is expected to cost $600 million to build and will employ 1,000 people when it reaches full production, likely to be four planes a month by 2017.

"We are going to create great jobs and generate growth right here," Airbus CEO Fabrice Bregier said at the convention center in Mobile, where many of the 2,000 people in attendance waved American flags as music played in the background.

"We know in aerospace, when we create one job, there are about four related jobs so we could bring as many as 5,000," Bregier said at a later news conference. "The management to the blue collars will be 100 percent American."

Boeing already has a big presence in Alabama, employing 2,700 people in defense and rocket operations.

Airbus planned to build refueling tankers for the U.S. Air Force in Alabama, but its parent company, the European Aeronautic Defense and Space Co., lost the contract to Boeing in 2011.

While Airbus had parts plants in the U.S. before, a full-fledged plane-making factory is a more significant presence and could help it boost its share of U.S. commercial and defense contracts.

The Airbus plant advances the company's strategy of expanding production outside its home base. The company, jointly run by French and German management and with plants in several European countries, wants to expand in China and India as well as the United States.

The Alabama is also a way for Airbus to save face after losing the Pentagon tanker contract.

The companies have had a long-running international trade dispute. Each also has been critical of subsidies received by the other.

EADS shares have being climbing on European markets since news of the Alabama deal surfaced last week.

Airbus plans to manufacture the A320, a widely used plane flown by Delta Air Lines, US Airways and others. The 150-seat plane is generally used on short- and medium-haul flights, and Airbus makes more of them than any of its other planes. They retail for $88 million, although discounts are common for big customers.

The Mobile operation will join Airbus assembly plants in in Toulouse, France; Hamburg, Germany; and Tianjin, China.

The southern region of the United States is traditionally unfriendly to unions, which will likely mean lower labor costs compared with the company's other factories in France and Germany.

"Clearly we selected a competitive environment and we are businessmen so we don't go to the worst place," Bregier said.

Airbus unions have expressed concern about European jobs lost to the U.S., a particularly thorny issue in France as new President Francois Hollande tries to re-invigorate manufacturing at home.

Other big manufacturers have found homes in the South. Boeing has a plant in North Charleston, S.C., and Alabama is home to plants owned by Mercedes-Benz, Honda, Hyundai and Toyota.

"It is truly a great day in the history of Alabama," Gov. Robert Bently said. "It is the result of a lot of hard work and cooperation. This day will shape the future of the region for years to come."

The dean of the business school at the University of South Alabama, Carl Moore, said attracting a company like Airbus could have a transforming effect on Alabama like Mercedes-Benz had when it picked Alabama for its first American assembly plant in 1993.

"It's a prestige name that's internationally known," Dean Carl C. Moore of the University of South Alabama said.

Mercedes' plant was so successful that it was soon followed by Honda and Hyundai assembly plants and a Toyota engine plant that reshaped the manufacturing economy in a state still reeling from the loss of textile and apparel jobs.

Mobile is already home to several aerospace companies, including ST Aerospace Mobile, Goodrich Aerospace and Star Aviation, and much of the business is based at the 1,650-acre Brookley Aeroplex, where the new plant will be based. The aeroplex was an Air Force base until its closure in 1969.

While Airbus looks to boost production of its A320, Boeing is ramping up production of its 737, which competes directly with the A320. Both companies are putting new, more fuel-efficient engines on the planes, hoping to extend their appeal as airlines try to cut fuel costs. Airbus made its new-engine decision earlier than Boeing and got a big jump on orders.

The U.S. is a growing market for Airbus. American Airlines ordered 260 A320s last year, and US Airways is buying them as well. However, Delta went with Boeing 737s in a 100-jet order in August.

Airbus already has a facility in Mobile that employs about 230 people designing and installing interior items such as seats and cabin equipment for its big planes.

The Airbus announcement comes as Alabama struggles to recover from the recession. Unemployment has dropped from 10.0 percent in July 2011 to 7.4 percent in May, but part of that drop came from people leaving the work force rather than finding jobs.

___

Associated Press writers Phillip Rawls in Montgomery and Angela Charlton in Paris contributed to this report.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/f70471f764144b2fab526d39972d37b3/Article_2012-07-02-Airbus-Alabama%20Plant/id-6dbc96eee16a45858d6c4cef856a81fd

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FACT CHECK: On keeping your current health plan

WASHINGTON (AP) ? In promoting the health care law, President Barack Obama is repeating his persistent and unsubstantiated assurance that Americans who like their health insurance can simply keep it. Republican rival Mitt Romney says quite the opposite, but his doomsday scenario is a stretch.

After the Supreme Court upheld the law last week, Obama stepped forward to tell Americans what good will come from it. Romney was quick to lay out the harm. But some of the evidence they gave to the court of public opinion was suspect.

A look at their claims and how they compare with the facts:

___

OBAMA: "If you're one of the more than 250 million Americans who already have health insurance, you will keep your health insurance. This law will only make it more secure and more affordable."

ROMNEY: "Obamacare also means that for up to 20 million Americans, they will lose the insurance they currently have, the insurance that they like and they want to keep."

THE FACTS: Nothing in the law ensures that people happy with their policies now can keep them. Employers will continue to have the right to modify coverage or even drop it, and some are expected to do so as more insurance alternatives become available to the population under the law. Nor is there any guarantee that coverage will become cheaper, despite the subsidies that many people will get.

Americans may well end up feeling more secure about their ability to obtain and keep coverage once insurance companies can no longer deny, terminate or charge more for coverage for those in poor health. But particular health insurance plans will have no guarantee of ironclad security. Much can change, including the cost.

The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office has estimated that the number of workers getting employer-based coverage could drop by several million, as some workers choose new plans in the marketplace or as employers drop coverage altogether. Companies with more than 50 workers would have to pay a fine for terminating insurance, but in some cases that would be cost-effective for them.

Obama's soothing words for those who are content with their current coverage have been heard before, rendered with different degrees of accuracy. He's said nothing in the law requires people to change their plans, true enough. But the law does not guarantee the status quo for anyone, either.

So where does Romney come up with 20 million at risk of losing their current plans?

He does so by going with the worst-case scenario in the budget office's analysis. Researchers thought it most likely that employer coverage would decline by 3 to 5 million, but the range of possibilities was broad: It could go up by as much as 3 million or down by as much as 20 million.

___

ROMNEY: After saying the new law cuts Medicare by $500 billion and raises taxes by a like amount, adds: "And even with those cuts and tax increases, Obamacare adds trillions to our deficits and to our national debt, and pushes those obligations onto coming generations."

THE FACTS: In its most recent complete estimate, in March 2011, the Congressional Budget Office said the new health care law would actually reduce the federal budget deficit by $210 billion over the next 10 years. In the following decade, the law would continue to reduce deficits by about one-half of one percent of the nation's gross domestic product, the office said.

The congressional budget scorekeepers acknowledged their projections are "quite uncertain" because of the complexity of the issue and the assumptions involved, which include the assumption that all aspects of the law are implemented as written. But the CBO assessment offers no backup for Romney's claim that the law "adds trillions to our deficits."

___

OBAMA: "And by this August, nearly 13 million of you will receive a rebate from your insurance company because it spent too much on things like administrative costs and CEO bonuses and not enough on your health care."

THE FACTS: Rebates are coming, but not nearly that many Americans are likely to get those checks and for many of those who do, the amount will be decidedly modest.

The government acknowledges it does not know how many households will see rebates in August from a provision of the law that makes insurance companies give back excess money spent on overhead instead of health care delivery. Altogether, the rebates that go out will benefit nearly 13 million people. But most of the benefit will be indirect, going to employers because they cover most of the cost of insurance provided in the workplace.

Employers can plow all the rebate money, including the workers' share, back into the company's health plan, or pass along part of it.

The government says some 4 million people who are due rebates live in households that purchased coverage directly from an insurance company, not through an employer, and experts say those households are the most likely to get a rebate check directly.

The government says the rebates have an average value of $151 per household. But employers, who typically pay 70 to 80 percent of premiums, are likely to get most of that.

___

ROMNEY: "Obamacare raises taxes on the American people by approximately $500 billion."

THE FACTS: The tax increases fall heavily on upper-income people, health insurance companies, drug makers and medical device manufacturers.

People who fail to obtain health insurance as required by the law will face a tax penalty, although that's expected to hit relatively few because the vast majority of Americans have insurance and many who don't will end up getting it. Also, a 10 percent tax has been imposed on tanning bed use as part of the health care law. There are no other across-the-board tax increases in the law, although some tax benefits such as flexible savings accounts are scaled back. Of course, higher taxes on businesses can be passed on to the consumer in the form of higher prices.

Individuals making over $200,000 and couples making over $250,000 will pay 0.9 percent more in Medicare payroll tax and a 3.8 percent tax on investments. As well, a tax starts in 2018 on high-value insurance plans.

___

OBAMA: "Because of the Affordable Care Act, young adults under the age of 26 are able to stay on their parents' health care plans, a provision that's already helped 6 million young Americans."

THE FACTS: Obama is overstating this benefit of his health law, and his own administration knows better. The Department of Health and Human Services, in a June 19 news release, said 3.1 million young adults would be uninsured were it not for the new law. Obama's number comes from a June 8 survey by the Commonwealth Fund, a health policy foundation. It said 6.6 million young adults joined or stayed on their parents' health plans who wouldn't have been able to absent the law. But that number includes some who switched to their parents' plans from other coverage, Commonwealth Fund officials told the Los Angeles Times.

___

ROMNEY: "Obamacare is a job-killer."

THE FACTS: The CBO estimated in 2010 that the law would reduce the amount of labor used in the economy by roughly half a percent.

But that's mostly because the law will give many people the opportunity to retire, stay at home with family or switch to part-time work, since they will be able to get health insurance more easily outside of their jobs. That voluntary retreat from the workforce, made possible by the law's benefits, is not the same as employers slashing jobs because of the law's costs, as Romney implies.

The law's penalties on employers who don't provide health insurance might cause some companies to hire fewer low-wage workers or to hire more part-timers instead of full-time employees, the budget office said. But the main consequence would still be from more people choosing not to work.

Apart from the budget office and other disinterested parties that study the law, each side in the debate uses research sponsored by interest groups, often slanted, to buttress its case. Romney cites a Chamber of Commerce online survey in which nearly three-quarters of respondents said the law would dampen their hiring.

The chamber is a strong opponent of the law, having run ads against it. Its poll was conducted unscientifically and is therefore not a valid measure of business opinion.

___

Associated Press writers Andrew Taylor and Jim Drinkard contributed to this report.

EDITOR'S NOTE _ An occasional look at statements by political candidates and how well they adhere to the facts.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/fact-check-keeping-current-health-plan-071940391.html

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Researchers block pathway to cancer cell replication

ScienceDaily (July 2, 2012) ? Research suggests that patients with leukemia sometimes relapse because standard chemotherapy fails to kill the self-renewing leukemia initiating cells, often referred to as cancer stem cells. In such cancers, the cells lie dormant for a time, only to later begin cloning, resulting in a return and metastasis of the disease.

One such type of cancer is called pediatric T cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia, or T-ALL, often found in children, who have few treatment options beyond chemotherapy.

A team of researchers -- led by Catriona H. M. Jamieson, MD, PhD, associate professor of medicine at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine and Director of Stem Cell Research at UC San Diego Moores Cancer Center -- studied these cells in mouse models that had been transplanted with human leukemia cells. They discovered that the leukemia initiating cells which clone, or replicate, themselves most robustly activate the NOTCH1 pathway, usually in the context of a mutation.

Earlier studies showed that as many as half of patients with T-ALL have mutations in the NOTCH1 pathway -- an evolutionarily conserved developmental pathway used during differentiation of many cell and tissue types. The new study shows that when NOTCH1 activation was inhibited in animal models using a monoclonal antibody, the leukemia initiating cells did not survive. In addition, the antibody treatment significantly reduced a subset of these cancer stem cells (identified by the presence of specific markers, CD2 and CD7, on the cell surface.)

"We were able to substantially reduce the potential of these cancer stem cells to self-renew," said Jamieson. "So we're not just getting rid of cancerous cells: we're getting to the root of their resistance to treatment -- leukemic stem cells that lie dormant."

The study results suggest that such therapy would also be effective in other types of cancer stem cells, such as those that cause breast cancer, that also rely on NOTCH1 for self-renewal.

"Therapies based on monoclonal antibodies that inhibit NOTCH 1 are much more selective than using gamma-secretase inhibitors, which also block other essential cellular functions in addition to the NOTCH1 signaling pathway," said contributor A. Thomas Look, MD of Dana-Farber/Children Hospital Cancer Center in Boston. "We are excited about the promise of NOTCH1-specific antibodies to counter resistance to therapy in T-ALL and possibly additional types of cancer."

In investigating the role of NOTCH1 activation in cancer cell cloning, the researchers showed that leukemia initiating cells possess enhanced survival and self-renewal potential in specific blood-cell, or hematopoietic, niches: the microenvironment of the body in which the cells live and self-renew.

The scientists studied the molecular characterization of CD34+ cells -- a protein that shows expression in early hematopoietic cells and that facilitates cell migration -- from a dozen T-ALL patient samples.

They found that mutations in NOTCH1 and other genes capable of promoting the survival of cancer stem cells co-existed in the CD34+ niche. Mice transplanted with CD34-enriched NOTCH1 mutated T-ALL cells demonstrated significantly greater leukemic cloning potential than did mice without the NOTCH1 mutation. The mutated cells were uniquely susceptible to targeted inhibition with a human monoclonal antibody, according to the scientists.

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by University of California - San Diego, via Newswise.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

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Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/07/120702162325.htm

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YouTube Plus Videos ? Marketing Variety on The Internet | Web ...

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YouTube Plus Videos ? Marketing Variety on The Internet

Article by Oyster Sierra

YouTube Plus Videos ? Marketing Variety on The Internet ? Business

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YouTube And Videos ? Marketing Variety online

Are you considering jumping in to the Youtube video marketing arena?

It may be one of the better moves you can make because if you do it properly Youtube video marketing will help you get increased traffic to your internet site, increase brand recognizability and seriously improve lead conversion and sales. Video sells. Plain and simple.

Here are a few insider tips, tricks and methodology you?ll need to remember as you move on with your new marketing campaign.

Why Youtube Video Marketing

Did you know Youtube.com is ranked three in the world according to the three-month Alexa traffic rankings. Google tops the charts as being the 1 most visited website and Facebook comes in 2nd. Next in line is Youtube which should answer query : Why Youtube video marketing in definite terms.

People like to watch video and as more and more people now use high speed internet connections and G4 mobile connections, it is surmised that video will increase from 30% of Internet traffic in 2010 to 90% by 2013.

Big brand online outlets are using video, and service companies, producing, and many others including affiliate marketers, network marketers and local small businesses are also hopping on board. So when the ?big boys? take action, maybe it?s time for you to take an action too.

Your Youtube Video Marketing Channel

The very first thing you need to keep in mind when starting your Youtube video marketing journey is to create a new channel for each niche market market you want to approach. People like consistency and it is a fairly far stretch to trust an ?expert? in health and well-ness who is also a supposed expert in fine art of winning a date. So keep in each on subject for each niche you serve.

YouTube is more than a video hosting service, it?s also a social media site where people can interact and you need to encourage that interaction. Encourage people to comment on your videos, share your videos on Facebook and Twitter and subscribe to your channel. In fact , the major search engines are now measuring the amount of social interaction a webpage, blog post or video has and ranking those with more interaction higher in the search engine results.

Youtube Video Marketing S.E.O

Getting a Youtube video to rank in the Youtube search results is a matter of giving your video a great keyword title and outline. You also need to add a number of keyphrase heavy tags to help people find your video. But to take your Youtube video marketing to a higher level you will need your mpgs to show up on the front page of the major search engines when people are buying your product, service or business opportunity.

The key?s to simply push your video page just like you would any other page or blog post. Share the link on social media sites like Facebook and Twitter. Add a link to your mpegs in your forum profiles and add a link to your signature tag. You can use automated or semi-automated backlinking tools like Unique Article Wizard or Article Marketing Robot to disburse your video content to hundreds, even thousands of site around the world.

You can get plenty of new search engine traffic and increase your lead conversion and customer conversion by more than 30% or more by embracing a well-planned Youtube video marketing strategy. Smile, you?re on camera!

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Video Hosting question by dd: What was the video game show in the 1990?s that had a hot chick and some robots hosting it?
They reviewed games and had cheats and stuff

Video Hosting best answer:

Answer by derrick t
Not many details to go with.

Recommended Reading

Source: http://icanahost.com/youtube-plus-videos-marketing-variety-on-the-internet/

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Red Sox OFs finish rehab game in Florida

Sorry, Readability was unable to parse this page for content.

Source: http://redsoxsource.com/?p=59209

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Phelps gets Lochte again, winning 200 IM at trials

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Erica Lee: How to Keep a First Grader Off Death Row ? Off the Kuff

The following is from a series of guest posts that I will be presenting over the next few weeks.

Erica Lee

It is the beginning of the school year and excitement is in the air. Children are looking for their classmates in the hall. Parents are tucking in shoelaces and zipping backpacks. Teachers are taking one last look at the classrooms and organizing their supplies. Finally, students enter a wonderful first grade teacher?s classroom with pep in their step. The smiles are bright and everyone is filled with anticipation for another school year, an opportunity for excellence, a chance to help a child reach his or her full potential. As the first grade teacher begins to call the roll, and each child nods, raises a hand or answers, one question should be on the mind of school board members, community advocates, voters and even parents: How do we keep these first graders off Death Row?

Typically, when educational achievement is discussed, it becomes a dialogue about numbers, passing tests (See recent STAAR results), graduation rates (Black/Latino achievement gap) and college preparedness (College readiness data). Our leaders often speak of the positive academic goals we are trying to achieve in our education system; however, it seems like these statements fall on deaf ears or at least dispassionate ones. I believe adults/voters would put more energy into fixing education if they thought about the negative outcomes and costs to society that they personally wanted to avoid. It is a human nature to be more concerned about yourself than about a child you have never met. So, why don?t we speak about providing quality education as something that can prevent bad things from happening to good people ? the good person being you, of course. It?s kind of like how brushing your teeth regularly can prevent tooth decay, or at least smelly breath for people in close proximity. For our children, the negative consequences for a failed education system include illiteracy, juvenile delinquency, under-employment, unemployment, drugs, felonies, and in the worst case scenario ending up on Death Row. These affect you whether or not you have children because Texas spends more money to lock someone up than it does to properly educate a child ? $8,562 per pupil for education versus $18,031 per prisoner ? and that?s in addition to police enforcement, SNAP, Medicaid, the war on drugs, lost taxes and lost lives.

You see the thing is there is a profile for the life history of many of the people who end up on Death Row or life without parole and much of that history starts in early childhood. The answer may be easier than we think. Attorney David Dow, who has defended over 100 Death Row in Texas over the past 20 years, describes the common background of his clients:

?Over 80% of the people on death row came from the same sort of families, had the same background, exposure to the juvenile justice system and were under-educated?the best possible version for their story would be a story where no murder ever occurs (paraphrase).?

Dr. Dow asks the question, ?How can we intervene in the life of a murderer before he or she becomes a murder?? I ask you the same question rephrased as ?how do we keep a first grader off Death Row??

It is my belief that just like any challenge if we know the root causes then we are foolish to not attack it with all of our effort. For most major illnesses, researchers typically want to find the root cause and prevent the disease from ever developing. The prevention strategy is known to be more effective for long-term survival and often even more equitable. While we know many of the root causes that lead to poor academic achievement, slow language development, diet, poverty, family education attainment, access to books and experiences, for some reason we choose not to attack those with our best vaccine. We choose not to invest all we can in a child?s early years even when we know it will pay multiple dividends for decades to come. For some reason, it is easy to ignore those bright-eyed hopeful young children be they toddlers or first graders. While adults will readily form neighborhood watches, pay for alarm systems and attend community meetings on how to reduce crime, we rarely invest the same time and attention to the prospect of investing in our children.

So, how do we keep a first grader off of Death Row? We must invest early and often in their social, emotional and academic development In a state where only 14% of our 3 year-olds are enrolled in pre-k or Head Start (Children?s Defense Fund) and over 25.7% are in poverty, we must find ways to support early childhood education that help our children build a strong foundation. During my time as a first grade teacher, I noticed a distinct difference in the cognitive development between those children who received early childhood education and those who had not. The children who had attended such programs often had a wider vocabulary and grasped concepts at a faster pace. And, once the gap of development and knowledge begins then it becomes ever harder for a child to catch up. And, if they never catch-up with their peers (now global) then in the worst case scenario, someone is murdered and that child ends up on Death Row.

Maybe, if we thought about quality education and investment in our children as a matter of life and death we would not have stood more than $5 Billion in education cuts during the 82nd Texas Legislative Session. Maybe, if we truly believed in education, we would occupy our school buildings and board meetings to ensure that all children were given the opportunity to learn. Education is a matter of life and death?better health, economic and family outcomes increase almost lockstep with the level of education attained. It is not just about keeping an innocent child from eventually ending up on Death Row; but, it is about the community that we envision where the American Dream still lives.

Mathematically, scientifically, and fundamentally, it makes sense to work on prevention rather than the treatment after the disease of poor academic achievement has taken hold. But psychologically, our society seems to spurn prevention for bigger, more costly solutions. I am encouraging you to fight to prevent poor academic outcomes; we must turn the tide against stop gap solutions in our education system. Support candidates and organizations that will work to invest early and often in to the education of our children. Lend your voice, vote and effort to this cause; because, in a country that imprisons more than 2.3 million people and holds 25% of the world?s prisoners (leading all nations), our investment in our children, will determine whether we produce children of infinite destiny or more prospects for Death Row.

Erica S. Lee, MPP, is a candidate for the Harris County Board of Education, Pos. 6, Pct. 1. Connect with Erica at http://LeeforEducation.com or www.twitter.com/PublicPoLeecy.

Related Posts:

Source: http://offthekuff.com/wp/?p=46148

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