COMMENTARY | According to Time.com, President Barack Obama has a tough road ahead in convincing colleges and universities to lower tuition rates and increasing infrastructure costs for schools.
The article refers to Joni Finney, vice president of the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education who advocates several potential cost-cutting options for colleges. These options include cutting less-effective programs, streamlining curricula, increasing the number of hours faculty teach and offering three-year, fast-paced programs to better-prepared students.
Cutting less-effective programs
Colleges and universities offer a plethora of free stuff that is often not utilized by the student body. Do student recreation centers need to offer every sport or activity, requiring a huge number of well-paid staff? Unlimited intramural and club options, as well as student and academic organizations, might require scores of paid staff to organize and manage, driving up tuition costs.
Streamlining curricula
While I support a well-rounded education, perhaps some general and diversity-type credits could be foregone for the sake of economy. Though I enjoyed my non-Western Civilization courses, learning about the history of Russia 1855-1991 and the history of modern China did cost a pretty penny. Less time in general courses and nonrelevant courses would save students time and money.
Increasing the number of hours faculty teach
Professors do too much research in our publish-or-perish culture of academia. How much of this research, especially outside of the hard sciences, is advancing fields of knowledge? As a graduate student I read too many articles that cited reams of similar research, indicating little current research was groundbreaking. Professors who teach two or three classes per week should not be making full-time salaries to be churning out repetitive academic jargon the rest of the time. Also, more classes taught by each professor equals fewer students delayed in graduating because of overfilled classes.
Offering faster-paced programs of study
Some students are ready to hit the ground running and should be allowed increased opportunities to test out of general classes. Students should be allowed to substitute certain classes of equal or greater rigor for required classes if the required classes are full. Juniors and seniors, for example, could be allowed to take a master's course if all usual required classes are locked for enrollment.
After lagging the growth in spending, personal income rose solidly in December.
By John W. Schoen, Senior Producer
American consumers caught a break in their paychecks in December ? and the money went right into their saving accounts.
That could help ease the recent squeeze on household finances. But it?s not at all clear whether the trend will continue.
Personal income rose by?0.5 percent in December, after edging up just 0.1 percent in November, according to the Commerce Department. For months, wage gains have been meager, forcing consumers to lean more heavily on their credit cards to pay the bills. The income bump last month could help spur a bigger pickup in consumer spending, which would help keep the economic recovery on track.
?We need worker compensation to pick up if consumption is to rise,? said Joel Naroff, chief economist at Naroff Economic Advisors, ?and that may finally be happening.?
Household budgets got some additional relief on prices, which edged up just 0.1 percent in December after holding steady in the prior two months. A decline in gas prices helped offset price rises elsewhere as energy prices fell 1.3 percent. For all of 2011, the Commerce Department?s price gauge?rose 2.4 percent. (The government?s best-known inflation tracker, the Consumer Price Index, rose 3 percent in 2011, double the increase in 2010.)
But even as their spending power increased in December, consumers took the extra wages and stashed them in their savings accounts, leaving?consumer spending?flat for the month. The?savings rate rose to?4 percent, the highest reading since August.
The boost in income was a welcome relief. Sluggish wage gains last year forced households to draw down their savings to pay the bills. Over the past 18 months the savings rate had fallen from 5.8 percent to just 3.5 percent in November. That trend was unsustainable, according to Capital Economics? senior economist Paul Dales.
?Now households are devoting part of their additional income to boosting their savings,? he said. ?That?s still not high enough, suggesting that real consumption probably won?t grow by much more than 1.5 percent this year.?
Continued sluggish consumer spending doesn?t bode well for the U.S. economy, which most economists believe will slow to a growth pace of just 2 percent this year. If income growth remains weak, so will the growth in consumer spending - which accounts for roughly 70 percent of gross domestic product.
?We expect consumer spending adjusted for inflation to increase about 2.2 percent this year,? said Chris Christopher Jr., a senior economist with IHS Global Insight. ?This is nothing to write home about. However, compared to our counterparts in Europe ? the American consumer and economy are looking relatively good.??
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TEHRAN (Reuters) ? Iran sent conflicting signals in a dispute with the West over its nuclear ambitions on Sunday, vowing to stop oil exports soon to "some" countries but postponing a parliamentary debate on a proposed halt to such sales to the European Union.
The Islamic Republic declared itself optimistic about a visit by U.N. nuclear experts that began on Sunday but also warned the inspectors to be "professional" or see Tehran reducing cooperation with the world body on atomic matters.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspection delegation will seek to advance efforts to resolve a row about nuclear work which Iran says is for making electricity but the West suspects is aimed at seeking a nuclear weapon.
Tensions with the West rose this month when Washington and the European Union (EU) imposed the toughest sanctions yet in a drive to force Tehran to provide more information on its nuclear program. The measures take direct aim at the ability of OPEC's second biggest oil exporter to sell its crude.
In a remark suggesting Iran would fight sanctions with sanctions, Iran's oil minister said the Islamic state would soon stop exporting crude to "some" countries.
Rostam Qasemi did not identify the countries but was speaking less than a week after the EU's 27 member states agreed to stop importing crude from Iran from July 1.
"Soon we will cut exporting oil to some countries," the state news agency IRNA quoted Qasemi as saying.
Iranian lawmakers had been due to debate a bill on Sunday that could have cut off oil supplies to the EU in days, in a move calculated to hit ailing European economies before the EU-wide ban on took effect.
But Iranian MPs postponed discussing the measure.
"No such draft bill has yet been drawn up and nothing has been submitted to the parliament. What exists is a notion by the deputies which is being seriously pursued to bring it to a conclusive end," Emad Hosseini, spokesman for parliament's Energy Committee, told Mehr.
Iranian officials say sanctions have had no impact on the country.
"Iranian oil has its own market, even if we cut our exports to Europe," oil minister Qasemi said.
Another lawmaker, Mohammad Karim Abedi, said the bill would oblige the government to cut Iran's oil supplies to the European Union for five to 15 years, the semi-official Fars news agency reported.
REFINERS
By turning the sanctions back on the EU, lawmakers hope to deny the bloc a six-month window it had planned to give those of its members most dependent on Iranian oil - including some of the most economically fragile in southern Europe - to adapt.
The Mehr news agency quoted Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi as saying during a trip to Ethiopia: "We are very optimistic about the outcome of the IAEA delegation's visit to Iran ... Their questions will be answered during this visit."
"We have nothing to hide and Iran has no clandestine (nuclear) activities."
Striking a sterner tone, Iran's parliament speaker, Ali Larijani, warned the IAEA team to carry out a "logical, professional and technical" job or suffer the consequences.
"This visit is a test for the IAEA. The route for further cooperation will be open if the team carries out its duties professionally," said Larijani, state media reported.
"Otherwise, if the IAEA turns into a tool (for major powers to pressure Iran), then Iran will have no choice but to consider a new framework in its ties with the agency."
Iran's parliament in the past has approved bills to oblige the government to review its level of cooperation with the IAEA. However, Iran's top officials have always underlined the importance of preserving ties with the watchdog body.
Before departing from Vienna, IAEA Deputy Director General Herman Nackaerts said he hoped the Islamic state would tackle the watchdog's concerns "regarding the possible military dimensions of Iran's nuclear program."
PARLIAMENT DEBATE
The head of the state-run National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) said late on Saturday that the export embargo would hit European refiners, such as Italy's Eni, that are owed oil from Iran as part of long-standing buy-back contracts under which they take payment for past oilfield projects in crude.
"The European companies will have to abide by the provisions of the buyback contracts," Ahmad Qalebani told the ISNA news agency. "If they act otherwise, they will be the parties to incur the relevant losses and will subject the repatriation of their capital to problems."
Italy's Eni is owed $1.4-1.5 billion in oil for contracts it executed in Iran in 2000 and 2001 and has been assured by EU policymakers its buyback contracts will not be part of the European embargo, but the prospect of Iran acting first may put that into doubt.
Eni declined to comment on Sunday.
The EU accounted for 25 percent of Iranian crude oil sales in the third quarter of 2011. However, analysts say the global oil market will not be overly disrupted if parliament votes for the bill that would turn off the oil tap for Europe.
Potentially more disruptive to the world oil market and global security is the risk of Iran's standoff with the West escalating into military conflict.
Iran has repeatedly said it could close the vital Strait of Hormuz shipping lane if sanctions succeed in preventing it from exporting crude, a move Washington said it would not tolerate.
"CONSTRUCTIVE SPIRIT"
The IAEA's visit may be an opportunity to defuse some of the tension. Director General Yukiya Amano has called on Iran to show a "constructive spirit" and Tehran has said it is willing to discuss "any issues" of interest to the U.N. agency, including the military-linked concerns.
But Western diplomats, who have often accused Iran of using such offers of dialogue as a stalling tactic while it presses ahead with its nuclear program, say they doubt Tehran will show the kind of concrete cooperation the IAEA wants.
They say Iran may offer limited concessions and transparency to try to ease intensifying international pressure, but that this is unlikely to amount to the full cooperation required.
The outcome could determine whether Iran will face further isolation or whether there are prospects for resuming wider talks between Tehran and the major powers on the nuclear row.
Salehi said Iran "soon" would write a letter to the E.U.'s foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton to discuss "a date and venue" for fresh nuclear talks.
"Iran's top nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili in this letter, which may be sent in the coming days, also may mention other issues as well," Salehi said, without elaborating.
The last round of talks in January 2011 between Jalili and Ashton, who represents major powers, failed over Iran's refusal to halt its sensitive nuclear work.
"The talks will be successful as the other party seems interested in finding a way out of this deadlock," Salehi said.
(Additional reporting by Hashem Kalantari, Robin Pomeroy and Hossein Jaseb in Tehran, Svetlana Kovalyova in Milan and Fredrik Dahl in Vienna; Writing by Parisa Hafezi and Robin Pomeroy; Editing by William Maclean)
A team of biologists at the University of York has made an important advance in our understanding of the way cholera attacks the body. The discovery could help scientists target treatments for the globally significant intestinal disease which kills more than 100,000 people every year.
The disease is caused by the bacterium Vibrio cholerae, which is able to colonise the intestine usually after consumption of contaminated water or food. Once infection is established, the bacterium secretes a toxin that causes watery diarrhoea and ultimately death if not treated rapidly. Colonisation of the intestine is difficult for incoming bacteria as they have to be highly competitive to gain a foothold among the trillions of other bacteria already in situ.
Scientists at York, led by Dr. Gavin Thomas in the University's Department of Biology, have investigated one of the important routes that V. cholerae uses to gain this foothold. To be able to grow in the intestine the bacterium harvests and then eats a sugar, called sialic acid, that is present on the surface of our gut cells.
Collaborators of the York group at the University of Delaware, USA, led by Professor Fidelma Boyd, had shown previously that eating sialic acid was important for the survival of V. cholerae in animal models, but the mechanism by which the bacteria recognise and take up the sialic was unknown.
The York research, funded by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC), demonstrates that the pathogen uses a particular kind of transporter called a TRAP transporter to recognise sialic acid and take it up into the cell. The transporter has particular properties that are suited to scavenging the small amount of available sialic acid. The research also provided some important basic information about how TRAP transporters work in general.
The leader of the research in York, Dr. Gavin Thomas, said: "This work continues our discoveries of how bacteria that grow in our body exploit sialic acid for their survival and help us to take forward our efforts to design chemicals to inhibit these processes in different bacterial pathogens."
The research is published in the latest issue of the Journal of Biological Chemistry and was primarily the work of Dr Christopher Mulligan, a postdoctoral fellow in the Dr Thomas's laboratory.
###
University of York: http://www.york.ac.uk
Thanks to University of York for this article.
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DAVOS, Switzerland ? The head of the International Monetary Fund appeared to be making headway Saturday in her drive to boost the institution's financial firepower so that it can help Europe prevent its crippling debt crisis from further damaging the global economy.
Christine Lagarde, who replaced Dominique Strauss-Kahn as managing director of the fund six months ago, is trying to ramp up the IMF's resources by $500 billion so it can help if more lending is needed in Europe or elsewhere. The IMF is the world's traditional lender-of-last-resort and has been involved in the bailouts of Greece, Ireland and Portugal.
Insisting that the IMF is a "safe bet" and that no country had ever lost money by lending to the IMF, Lagarde argued that increasing the size of the IMF's resources would help improve confidence in the global financial system. If enough money is in the fund the markets will be reassured and it won't be used, she said, using arguments similar to those that France has made about increasing Europe's own rescue fund.
"It's for that reason that I am here, with my little bag, to actually collect a bit of money," she said at the World Economic Forum in the Swiss Alps town of Davos.
Her plea appeared to find a measure of support from ministers of Britain and Japan, sizable IMF shareholders that would be expected to contribute to any money-raising exercise.
George Osborne, Britain's finance minister, said there is "a case for increasing IMF resources and ... demonstrating that the world wants to help together to solve the world's problems," provided the 17 countries that use the euro show the "color of their money."
European countries have said they're prepared to give the IMF $150 billion, meaning that the rest of the world will have to contribute $350 billion. However, many countries, such as Britain and the U.S., want Europe to do more, notably by boosting its own rescue fund.
Osborne said he would be willing to argue in Parliament for a new British contribution, though he may encounter opposition from some members from his own Conservative Party.
Japan's economy minister, Motohisa Furukawa, said his country would help the eurozone via the IMF, too, even though Japan's own debt burden is massive. Unlike Europe's debt-ridden economies, Japan doesn't face sky-high borrowing rates, partly because there's a very liquid domestic market that continues to support the country's bonds.
Europe once again dominated discussions on the final full day of the forum in Davos. Despite some optimism about Europe's latest attempts to stem the crisis, fears remain that turmoil could return.
Whether the markets remain stable could rest for now on if Greece, the epicenter of the crisis, manages to conclude crucial debt-reduction discussions with its private creditors. It's also seeking to placate demands from its European partners and the IMF for deeper reforms.
A failure on either front could force the country, which is now in its fifth year of recession, to default on its debt and leave the euro, potentially triggering another wave of mayhem in financial markets that could hit the global economy hard.
One German official even said Saturday that Greece should temporarily cede sovereignty over tax and spending decisions to a powerful eurozone budget commissioner to secure further bailouts. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because talks on the idea are confidential.
"The fact that we're still, at the start of 2012, talking about Greece again is a sign that this problem has not been dealt with," Britain's Osborne said.
For Donald Tsang, the chief executive of Hong Kong, efforts to deal with the 2-year-old debt crisis have fallen short of what is required. The failure to properly deal with the Greek situation quickly has meant the ultimate cost to Europe has been higher, he said.
"I have never been as scared as now about the world," he said.
Most economic forecasters predict that the global economy will continue to grow this year, but at a fairly slow rate. The IMF recently reduced its forecasts for global growth in 2012 to 3.3 percent, from the 4 percent pace that the IMF projected in September.
Lagarde sought to encourage some countries that use the euro to boost growth to help shore up the ailing eurozone economy, which is widely expected to sink back into recession, adding that it would be counterproductive if all euro countries cut their budgets aggressively at the same time.
"Some countries have to go full-speed ahead to do this fiscal consolidation ... but other countries have space and room," Lagarde said.
Though conceding that there aren't many such countries, Lagarde said it is important that those that have the headroom explore how they can boost growth. She carefully avoided naming any countries, but likely had in mind Germany, Europe's largest economy and a major world exporter. She didn't specify how to boost growth or how one eurozone country could help others grow.
Lagarde said members of the eurozone should continue the drive to tie their economies closer together. On Monday, European leaders gather in Brussels in the hopes of agreeing on a treaty that will force member countries to put deficit limits into their national laws.
Britain's Osborne said eurozone leaders should be praised for the "courage" they have shown over the past few months in enacting austerity and setting in place closer fiscal ties, but said more will have to be done if the single currency is to get on a surer footing.
Fiscal transfers from rich economies to poorer ones will become a "permanent feature" of the eurozone, Osborne predicted.
While politicians and business people were discussing the state of the global economy within the confines of the conference center, protesters questioned the purpose of the event as income inequalities grow worldwide.
Protesters from the Occupy movement that started on Wall Street have camped out in igloos at Davos and were demonstrating in front of City Hall to call attention to the needs of the poor and unemployed.
In a separate protest, three Ukrainian women were arrested when they stripped off their tops ? despite temperatures around freezing ? and tried to climb a fence surrounding the invitation-only gathering of international CEOs and political leaders.
"Crisis! Made in Davos," read one message painted across a protester's torso.
Davos police spokesman Thomas Hobi said the three women were taken to the police station and told they weren't allowed to demonstrate. He said they would be released later in the day.
___
Frank Jordans and Edith M. Lederer in Davos, and Juergen Baetz in Berlin contributed to this report.
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ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates ? Rory McIlroy opened his season by outplaying Tiger Woods in the first round of the Abu Dhabi Golf Championship, shooting a 5-under 67 Thursday for a share of the lead.
Woods shot a 70 in a threesome with McIlroy and top-ranked Luke Donald, who finished with a 71. Robert Karlsson tied for the lead while Gareth Maybin, Richard Finch and Jean-Baptiste Gonnet were one stroke back.
Woods played bogey-free golf that produced few momentous shots and two birdies. He missed several birdie chances, including a 6-footer on his ninth, the 18th hole.
"It was a good ball-striking round," Woods said. "I had a hard time reading the greens out there. The greens were pretty grainy and I just had a hard time getting a feel for it. Toward the end I hit some pretty good putts, but overall I got fooled a lot on my reads."
McIlroy, the U.S. Open champion who has had three top-five finishes in Abu Dhabi, made three birdies on his first four holes but erratic driving led to two bogeys on the next four. He steadied himself with three birdies on his back nine, including a chip-in on No. 8 from just off the green.
"It's a nice way to start the competitive season, I suppose," McIlroy said. "I didn't feel like I played that good. I definitely didn't strike the ball as good as I have been the last couple of weeks. I think it's just because your first competitive round of the season, card in your hand, you can get a little bit tentative or a little apprehensive."
Woods also struggled with his approaches shots at the National Course at the Abu Dhabi Golf Club, which was playing much tougher than in the past with narrower fairways and thicker rough. That resulted in many 25- and 30-footers he couldn't sink.
Sergio Garcia (71) and Jose Manuel Lara (70) each had hole-in-one on the par-3 12th hole. KJ Choi, Colin Montgomerie and Padraig Harrington joined the group at 71. Second-ranked Lee Westwood (72) and defending champion Martin Kaymer (77) got off to poor starts and never challenged.
McIlroy calls Woods a friend and was chatting with his playing partner for much of the day. He said he didn't take much satisfaction from beating him in the first round.
"If it was the last day of the tournament and you're both going in there with a chance to win, I would take a lot of pride from that, obviously," said the 22-year-old Northern Irishman.
"But the first day of a tournament is a little different," he said. "You're just going out there and playing and seeing what you can do. But, hopefully, I can get myself into position where I do play with him on a Sunday and see how I get on."
After a seven-week layoff, Woods said he's fitter than he has been in years. He's coming off a victory at the Chevron World Challenge last month that ended a two-year title drought.
With the win, Woods moved to 25th in the world after briefly falling outside the top 50 last year. Before the victory, Woods finished third at the Australian Open and delivered the clinching point for the American team in the Presidents Cup.
"It felt the same as it had from Oz to the World Challenge to here," Woods said of his game. "I controlled my ball all day and just had a hard time getting a feel for these greens. They are grainy enough where I just didn't quite read them right, and I hit them good, and then the grain would take it, not take it. It was just difficult."
___
Follow Michael Casey on Twitter at https://twitter.com/mcasey1
26 January 2012Last updated at 23:17 ETBy Mark KinverEnvironment reporter, BBC News
Organisers of a project to create a series of new woods to commemorate the Queen's Diamond Jubilee hope to plant one million trees during February.
The Woodland Trust said next month marked the 60th anniversary of the Queen's accession to the throne.
Free tree-planting packs would be available for groups wanting to take part in the project, it added.
The centrepiece of the Trust's plans will be a Diamond Park - a 460-acre site containing 500,000 trees.
Continue reading the main story
?Start Quote
The more trees I see, the happier I am?
End QuoteDame Judi Dench
Dame Judi Dench, the Oscar-winning actress, has lent her support to the Jubilee Woods project.
"Whenever a friend or relative dies, I make a point of planting a tree in my garden," she explained.
"As soon as I heard about the Jubilee Woods project, I felt I wanted to be a part of it," Dame Judi added.
"I support the Woodland Trust because I think too many forests are being destroyed and we should do all we can to conserve what we have and to plant more.
"The more trees I see, the happier I am."
Digging deep
Georgina McLeod, head of the Trust's Jubilee Woods project, said there were a number of ways that people could take part and become "one in a million".
Georgina McLeod talks about the Woodland Trust's plan to create the flagship Diamond Wood
"From helping to create 60 new Diamond Woods, planting new woodland with communities, donating funds to help plant trees, to planting trees in school grounds or a single tree in your garden or pot, it's easy to plant trees for the jubilee and help us reach a million trees in a month," she said.
She added that more details were available on a website that had created for people interested in participating.
As well as creating the flagship 460-acre (186ha) Diamond Wood, located in the National Forest in Leicestershire, the project also aims to create a further 59 diamond woods around the UK - each covering more than 60 acres (24ha).
The Trust is also providing thousands of free tree-planting pack in an effort to encourage people to help it achieve its goal of planting six million trees during the jubilee year.
Community groups can apply for packs contain 105 or 420 native species, with each pack containing a "royal oak" sapling, grown from acorns collected on Royal estates.
School packs contain 60 hedge/copse species as well as a royal oak sapling. The kits will be made available in time for planting during the autumn.
Oscar nominee Melissa McCarthy has been enjoying this awards' season, but she wasn't quite ready for one aspect of the red-carpet circuit: getting star struck. The Bridesmaids star told The Ellen DeGeneres Show on Thursday that she got a bit overwhelmed meeting fellow nominees like Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie.
Gardasil, the human papillomavirus vaccine that is now recommended for male and female adolescents and young adults, does not trigger autoimmune conditions such as lupus, rheumatoid arthritis, type 1 diabetes or multiple sclerosis after vaccination in young women, according to a new study in the Journal of Internal Medicine.
Kaiser Permanente researchers used electronic health records to conduct an observational safety study of 189,629 females aged 9 to 26 years old in California who were followed for six months after receiving each dose of the quadrivalent HPV vaccine in 2006-2008. Researchers found no increase in 16 pre-specified autoimmune conditions in the vaccinated population compared to a matched group of unvaccinated girls and women.
The quadrivalent HPV vaccine was licensed by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in 2006 and recommended for young women and girls to protect against genital warts, which infects 6.2 million people annually, is the most common sexually transmitted infection in the United States, and can lead to cervical cancer in women. But autoimmune reactions have been a longstanding concern surrounding vaccination and many parents withhold the vaccine from their children because of perceived safety concerns. However, most speculated associations have stemmed from case reports that have not been confirmed by large, controlled epidemiologic studies. This study presents findings from a well-designed, post-licensure safety study of the vaccine on a large, ethnically diverse population, researchers said.
"This kind of safety information may help parents with vaccination decisions," said study lead author Chun Chao, PhD, a research scientist at the Kaiser Permanente Department of Research & Evaluation in Pasadena, Calif. "These findings offer some assurance that among a large and generalizable female population, no safety signal for autoimmune conditions was found following HPV4 vaccination in routine clinical use."
The study looked for autoimmune conditions such as immune thrombocytopenia, autoimmune hemolytic anemia, systemic lupus erythematosus, rheumatoid arthritis, juvenile rheumatoid arthritis, type 1 diabetes, Hashimoto's disease, Graves' disease, multiple sclerosis, acute disseminated encephalomyelitis, other demyelinating diseases of the central nervous system, vaccine-associated demyelination, Guillain-Barr? syndrome, neuromyelitis optica, optic neuritis and uveitis.
Previous safety data on the HPV vaccine has been collected in clinical trials, as well as through the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System. Both have important limitations in assessing the safety profile of the vaccine. Clinical trials often include a highly selected population, with sample sizes too small, and follow-up too short, to observe rare safety events such as autoimmune conditions. The VAERS reports are often hard to interpret due to the lack of a proper comparison group and limited ability to determine whether the onset of the condition really preceded vaccination.
On the other hand, the present study, conducted at Kaiser Permanente in California, employed methods that involved in-depth medical-chart review to ensure the accuracy of diagnosis and that onset of disease was after vaccination. In addition, disease incidence in the vaccinated group was compared with a comparable unvaccinated group. As a result, this study offers important complementary safety information for the HPV vaccine.
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Kaiser Permanente: http://www.dor.kaiser.org
Thanks to Kaiser Permanente for this article.
This press release was posted to serve as a topic for discussion. Please comment below. We try our best to only post press releases that are associated with peer reviewed scientific literature. Critical discussions of the research are appreciated. If you need help finding a link to the original article, please contact us on twitter or via e-mail.
The Megaupload saga continues. Kim Dotcom, Megaupload's mega founder, was just denied bail by a New Zealand court citing he's a flight risk. He will remain in New Zealand's custody until February 22, when the courts will hear the US Justice Department's application for Schmitz. Dotcom insists he's innocent of the various charges involving racketeering and piracy. His lawyers insist that Dotcom's company was simply offering an online storage locker and diligent responded to complaints about pirated material.-- a dubious statement for anyone familiar with the company. It's all in the hands in the court now.
Rocketboost, that "breakthrough wireless audio technology" from Best Buy, just got a feature boost in the form of a new Control App. Owners of the company's Rocketfish and Insignia speakers and soundbars should be jumping for joy -- assuming they still have energy after completing all the steps necessary to start beaming wireless tunes. First up on the shopping list is the "Rocketboost Wireless Receiver / Transmitter," which you can pick up from your neighborhood Best Buy for a measly 65 bucks. Once you've got your hands on that hideous black box, you'll have to plug it in via USB to your Windows machine (yup, no Macs) and install another Rocketboost must-have, dubbed "Control Computer Software." Finally, one of the last steps towards your Airplay-like quest is to hit up the iOS App Store (no Android for now) and snatch the Control App, which should be running in sync with the one on your PC. Still here? You can catch the app in action after the break, and check out the source link for the play-by-play to get started.
BAGHDAD (Reuters) ? Four car bombs exploded in mainly Shi'ite Muslim areas of Baghdad on Tuesday, killing at least 13 people and wounding 75, underlining a political crisis that threatens to revive sectarian strife in Iraq.
The first blast hit a group of day laborers gathering for jobs in the poor northeastern Sadr City area of the capital, leaving a chaotic scene of scattered shoes and food, and pools of blood. The bomb killed at least eight people and wounded 24, police and hospital sources said.
"We were all standing waiting to earn our living and all of a sudden it was like a black storm and I felt myself thrown on the ground," said Ahmed Ali, a 40-year-old laborer whose face and hair were burned by the explosion.
"I fainted for a while then I woke up and hurried to one of the cars to take me to the hospital," said Ali, lying on a bed in the emergency room at Imam Ali hospital in Sadr City.
The second blast near a traffic roundabout in Sadr City killed two people and wounded 26 others, the sources said.
Two other car bombs exploded in mainly Shi'ite northwestern areas of Baghdad, killing three people and wounding 25, sources said. One car blew up near two schools in the Shula district, the other on a busy commercial street in Hurriya.
Violence in Iraq has dropped sharply from the height of sectarian killing in 2006-07, but insurgents and militias still carry out daily attacks and assassinations in an attempt to undermine the government.
Iraq has been hit by a series of bombings targeting Shi'ites during the worst political crisis in a year, which threatens to break up a fragile coalition government and has raised fears of renewed sectarian violence after U.S. troops left on December 18.
The government of Shi'ite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki moved last month to arrest Sunni Muslim Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi on charges he ran a death squad and then sought to sideline a Sunni deputy prime minister after he branded Maliki a dictator.
Hashemi denied the charges and sought refuge in Iraq's semi-autonomous Kurdish region, where he is unlikely to be arrested.
The Sunni-backed Iraqiya political bloc then announced a boycott of parliament and several Iraqiya ministers have stayed away from cabinet meetings in protest. Others have attended, underscoring splits in the alliance.
The turmoil has fuelled fears that Maliki is trying to shore up Shi'ite power and sideline Iraqiya. The political blocs began talks last week to try to organize a national conference to resolve their differences.
A series of bombings in Shi'ite areas of the capital on December 22 killed at least 72 people and wounded 200 others. Scores more were killed in attacks targeting Shi'ite pilgrims this month.
(Writing by Aseel Kami; Editing by Jim Loney and Mark Heinrich)
American College of Physicians, CECity launch new quality improvement technology platformPublic release date: 23-Jan-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: David Kinsman dkinsman@ACPonline.org 202-261-4554 American College of Physicians
American College of Physicians and CECity to test cloud-based platform integrating secure social networks, communications, professional portfolios and quality reporting tools with an app store to address national patient safety and quality priorities
Orlando -- A new partnership is set to provide expanded access to MedConcert, a new and innovative multi-tenant cloud-based platform for healthcare, designed to cost-effectively scale and spread continuous quality improvement and address key patient safety issues. The announcement of the alliance of The American College of Physicians (ACP) and CECity.com, Inc. (CECity) came at this week's 37th Annual Meeting of the Alliance for CME.
The strategic alliance is beginning with a diabetes pilot test in ACP state chapters. Working closely with internists and their practice teams, the pilot will test the full power of MedConcert to improve diabetic patient care processes and outcomes. Applications (Apps) will include ACP's innovative Medical Home Builder along with an automatically populated PQRS-based diabetes registry, patient survey tools, and a Facebook-like communication networking capability. In addition, pilot participants will have access to pay-for-performance and recertification opportunities.
Dr. Louis Diamond, MD, FACP, president of Quality Healthcare Consultants and adviser to the project, noted that, "As we continue the journey from a focus on performance measurement to improvement, we need a platform to link interventions to the specific identified gaps in care. Such a platform must be user friendly to individual healthcare professionals and teams, facilitate communications, and importantly, learning. Such a platform is MedConcert, powered by CECity, and the focus of this pilot".
Dr. Michael Barr, MD, MBA, FACP, senior vice president of the Division of Medical Professionalism, Practice & Quality at ACP adds, "ACP is very excited about this collaboration with CECity. MedConcert represents a truly innovative approach to engaging physicians and other health care professionals in meaningful quality improvement activities. This unique platform combines quality improvement tools with educational content, innovative graphics to highlight improvement opportunities and progress, and the ability to create networks of like-minded colleagues through its social networking features."
MedConcert provides healthcare providers and organizations access to a cost-effective, reusable platform in which Apps can be plugged in to address a wide variety of critical quality, safety and financial needs. Apps include patient surveys, clinical registries, quality reporting, population health management and coordination of care applications, to address issues such as reducing hospital readmissions through enhanced care coordination.
Using Web 2.0 social networking tools available within MedConcert, healthcare professionals and healthcare organizations are able to build secure communities of practice, which have been demonstrated to drive the quality improvement process. The platform provides professionals within these communities with access to communication and collaboration tools to support the sharing of best practices through learning and action networks, private messaging services that enable patient-centered care coordination across disparate systems, professional portfolios in support of Maintenance of Certification (MOC) and Continuing Medical Education (CME), and registry-based performance improvement solutions to help physicians better manage their practice and the health of their patient population.
"CECity is proud to partner with the ACP to launch MedConcert. Our goal is to connect health care professionals 'across walls' in a meaningful way to create communities of practice that enable care coordination, drive continuous performance improvement and encourage lifelong learning," said Simone Karp, RPh, Co-Founder and Chief Business Officer of CECity. "In this new era of patient-centered health care we need affordable, scalable innovations that allow all stakeholders to collaborate to achieve the "Triple Aim" for patients and that support the physician practice under new financial models, such as ACOs. We appreciate the opportunity to realize this vision in collaboration with the ACP through MedConcert."
###
About ACP
The American College of Physicians is the largest medical specialty organization and the second-largest physician group in the United States. The ACP is a national organization of internists physicians who specialize in the prevention, detection and treatment of illnesses in adults. ACP members include 132,000 internal medicine physicians (internists), related subspecialists in cardiology, endocrinology, pulmonology, psychiatry and more, as well as medical students. For more information about ACP, visit http://www.acponline.org. Follow ACP on Twitter and Facebook.
About CECity
Founded in 1996, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania-based CECity (http://www.cecity.com) is the healthcare industry's leading software as a service provider of cloud-based applications and distribution networks for Performance Improvement, Quality Reporting, Maintenance of Certification, and Lifelong Learning. Healthcare professionals and organizations, including quality improvement organizations, physician practices, hospitals and health systems, health plans, medical publishers, associations and specialty societies, pharmacy chains, certifying boards, and educational providers, count on CECity to power their high stakes solutions for continuous quality and performance improvement, care coordination, patient registries, professional education and development, board certification, REMS, patient safety and medication adherence, population health informatics, and quality reporting in support of health care and payment reform.
For more information about CECity, visit http://www.cecity.com or call 412-586-3311.
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American College of Physicians, CECity launch new quality improvement technology platformPublic release date: 23-Jan-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: David Kinsman dkinsman@ACPonline.org 202-261-4554 American College of Physicians
American College of Physicians and CECity to test cloud-based platform integrating secure social networks, communications, professional portfolios and quality reporting tools with an app store to address national patient safety and quality priorities
Orlando -- A new partnership is set to provide expanded access to MedConcert, a new and innovative multi-tenant cloud-based platform for healthcare, designed to cost-effectively scale and spread continuous quality improvement and address key patient safety issues. The announcement of the alliance of The American College of Physicians (ACP) and CECity.com, Inc. (CECity) came at this week's 37th Annual Meeting of the Alliance for CME.
The strategic alliance is beginning with a diabetes pilot test in ACP state chapters. Working closely with internists and their practice teams, the pilot will test the full power of MedConcert to improve diabetic patient care processes and outcomes. Applications (Apps) will include ACP's innovative Medical Home Builder along with an automatically populated PQRS-based diabetes registry, patient survey tools, and a Facebook-like communication networking capability. In addition, pilot participants will have access to pay-for-performance and recertification opportunities.
Dr. Louis Diamond, MD, FACP, president of Quality Healthcare Consultants and adviser to the project, noted that, "As we continue the journey from a focus on performance measurement to improvement, we need a platform to link interventions to the specific identified gaps in care. Such a platform must be user friendly to individual healthcare professionals and teams, facilitate communications, and importantly, learning. Such a platform is MedConcert, powered by CECity, and the focus of this pilot".
Dr. Michael Barr, MD, MBA, FACP, senior vice president of the Division of Medical Professionalism, Practice & Quality at ACP adds, "ACP is very excited about this collaboration with CECity. MedConcert represents a truly innovative approach to engaging physicians and other health care professionals in meaningful quality improvement activities. This unique platform combines quality improvement tools with educational content, innovative graphics to highlight improvement opportunities and progress, and the ability to create networks of like-minded colleagues through its social networking features."
MedConcert provides healthcare providers and organizations access to a cost-effective, reusable platform in which Apps can be plugged in to address a wide variety of critical quality, safety and financial needs. Apps include patient surveys, clinical registries, quality reporting, population health management and coordination of care applications, to address issues such as reducing hospital readmissions through enhanced care coordination.
Using Web 2.0 social networking tools available within MedConcert, healthcare professionals and healthcare organizations are able to build secure communities of practice, which have been demonstrated to drive the quality improvement process. The platform provides professionals within these communities with access to communication and collaboration tools to support the sharing of best practices through learning and action networks, private messaging services that enable patient-centered care coordination across disparate systems, professional portfolios in support of Maintenance of Certification (MOC) and Continuing Medical Education (CME), and registry-based performance improvement solutions to help physicians better manage their practice and the health of their patient population.
"CECity is proud to partner with the ACP to launch MedConcert. Our goal is to connect health care professionals 'across walls' in a meaningful way to create communities of practice that enable care coordination, drive continuous performance improvement and encourage lifelong learning," said Simone Karp, RPh, Co-Founder and Chief Business Officer of CECity. "In this new era of patient-centered health care we need affordable, scalable innovations that allow all stakeholders to collaborate to achieve the "Triple Aim" for patients and that support the physician practice under new financial models, such as ACOs. We appreciate the opportunity to realize this vision in collaboration with the ACP through MedConcert."
###
About ACP
The American College of Physicians is the largest medical specialty organization and the second-largest physician group in the United States. The ACP is a national organization of internists physicians who specialize in the prevention, detection and treatment of illnesses in adults. ACP members include 132,000 internal medicine physicians (internists), related subspecialists in cardiology, endocrinology, pulmonology, psychiatry and more, as well as medical students. For more information about ACP, visit http://www.acponline.org. Follow ACP on Twitter and Facebook.
About CECity
Founded in 1996, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania-based CECity (http://www.cecity.com) is the healthcare industry's leading software as a service provider of cloud-based applications and distribution networks for Performance Improvement, Quality Reporting, Maintenance of Certification, and Lifelong Learning. Healthcare professionals and organizations, including quality improvement organizations, physician practices, hospitals and health systems, health plans, medical publishers, associations and specialty societies, pharmacy chains, certifying boards, and educational providers, count on CECity to power their high stakes solutions for continuous quality and performance improvement, care coordination, patient registries, professional education and development, board certification, REMS, patient safety and medication adherence, population health informatics, and quality reporting in support of health care and payment reform.
For more information about CECity, visit http://www.cecity.com or call 412-586-3311.
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
MELBOURNE, Australia ? Kim Clijsters is moving on to the Australian Open semifinals, and Caroline Wozniacki is moving out of the top spot.
Two days after saving four match points and spraining her left ankle in a fourth-round win over French Open champion Li Na, Clijsters showed no signs of weakness as she continued her title defense at Melbourne Park with a 6-3, 7-6 (4) quarterfinal win over Wozniacki.
The four-time major winner next plays third-seeded Victoria Azarenka, who beat No. 8 Agnieszka Radwanska 6-7 (0), 6-0, 6-2 earlier Tuesday to move into the semis of a Grand Slam for the second time.
Wozniacki needed to reach the semifinals to retain the top ranking she has held at the end of the last two seasons. Her place in the rankings has attracted some criticism because the 21-year-old Dane has never won a major.
But even after another major setback, Wozniacki remained confident she'll not only reclaim the top ranking but will get her Grand Slam breakthrough.
"You know, I will get it back eventually, so I'm not worried," she said. Critics "talk to me like I'm finishing my career and I only have one year left and time is running out.
"The fact is I still have quite a few good years in front of me."
Clijsters slipped to No. 14 after beating Li Na in the last Australian final, losing in the second round at the French Open and then missing the next two majors due to injuries. But after losing her first four finals in the majors, she's learned how to win them.
She set an example for Wozniacki of how to go about it.
Both players started nervously on Tuesday, with three service breaks until Clijsters held in the fourth game. The 28-year-old Belgian dictated play from her first hold until she was serving for the match while a break up in the second.
She had the rally on her racket at 30-30, but let her guard down and allowed Wozniacki back into the match. Wozniacki took a chances and got back level, going into the tiebreaker with momentum.
Clijsters had never lost any of her eight previous tiebreakers at Melbourne Park, and she hit a backhand down the line to take a 5-4 lead. She set up double match point with a cross-court forehand winner and sealed it with a volley.
"It definitely didn't feel like being up a set and 5-2," Clijsters said. "I had to work really hard for it. Caroline is a great fighter.
"I was happy to get through, and not in a three-setter because it's so hot," she said.
The crowd at Rod Laver Arena was solidly behind Clijsters from the start, shouting "C'mon Kimmie" in between nearly every point and cheering when Wozniacki missed a shot.
Four-time Australian Open champion Roger Federer is another crowd favorite. He had the next scheduled match on Rod Laver against U.S. Open champion Juan Martin del Potro. No. 2-ranked Rafael Nadal played Tomas Berdych in a night match.
Azarenka opened the action on Rod Laver in a match that contained 15 breaks of serve, including eight in the first set.
After being comprehensively outplayed in the opening tiebreaker, Azarenka won seven straight games to move closer to the victory that kept her among the three players who can overhaul Wozniacki at No. 1.
The 22-year-old Belarusian, who makes a distinctive hooting sounds as she hits the ball, extended her winning streak this season to 10 matches, including a title at Sydney, where she beat Radwanska in the semifinals. She served six double-faults and had 38 unforced errors, but showed maturing mental resolve but holding her nerve on the big points.
"I'm really happy with my win. I think it was very important to see how I could adjust after not playing really well in the first set," she said. "I completely turned it around.
"Today I really tried to forget about the first set and start from zero and really fight hard. So I think that was a different mental approach a little bit."
Five-time champion Serena Williams is already out of the tournament. Her 17-match winning streak at the Australian Open ended in a 6-2, 6-3 loss to No. 56-ranked Ekaterina Makarova.
The margin equaled the biggest Grand Slam defeat of Williams' 17-year career.
Makarova will face three-time major winner Maria Sharapova in an all-Russian quarterfinal.
Sharapova rallied past Sabine Lisicki 3-6, 6-2, 6-3 before defending men's champion Novak Djokovic fended off a resurgent Lleyton Hewitt in a dramatic last match of the day, winning 6-1, 6-3, 4-6, 6-3.
With Hewitt's loss, Australia's chances of celebrating a home singles winner were over. American hopes had already evaporated with the defeat of Williams ? her first in Melbourne since 2008 and earliest since 2006.
"I can't even describe how I served, to be honest," said Williams, who finished with seven double-faults, including four in one game in the second set. "My lefty serve is actually better than that. Maybe I should have started serving lefty."
Williams tried not to blame her left ankle injury from a tuneup tournament in Brisbane two weeks ago. But she didn't move well and seemed to have particular difficulty running to her left. She said if it hadn't been a Grand Slam, she wouldn't have played at all.
"Usually I play myself into the tournament," Williams said. "But I don't have a huge problem with an injury. So this is a completely different situation. Usually it's easier for me to play myself in because I'm usually physically OK."
Wimbledon champion Petra Kvitova had a 6-2, 7-6 (2) win over former top-ranked Ana Ivanovic on Monday and will next play Sara Errani of Italy, who beat 2010 semifinalist Zheng Jie 6-2, 6-1.
Djokovic had won 23 straight sets at Melbourne Park before he suddenly wobbled against Hewitt, a two-time Grand Slam champion who has slipped to No. 181 in the rankings after a series of injuries.
Hewitt, a wild-card entry in his 16th straight Australian Open, rallied from 3-0 down in the third set in front of a raucous home crowd to force a fourth set, but Djokovic gathered his composure.
Next up for Djokovic is fifth-seeded David Ferrer of Spain, who had a surprisingly easy 6-4, 6-4, 6-1 win over Richard Gasquet.
Two-time finalist Andy Murray advanced when Mikhail Kukushkin of Kazakhstan retired after 49 minutes with a left hip injury while trailing 6-1, 6-1, 1-0. After knocking out the first player from Kazakhstan to reach the fourth round of a Grand Slam, Murray's next opponent will be another history-maker.
Kei Nishikori beat sixth-seeded Jo-Wilfried Tsonga 2-6, 6-2, 6-1, 3-6, 6-3 to become the first Japanese man to reach the quarterfinals of the Australian Open since the Open era began in 1968.
'Dateline NBC,' the signature broadcast for NBC News in primetime, premiered in 1992. Since then, it has been pioneering a new approach to primetime news programming. The multi-night franchise, supplemented by frequent specials, allows NBC to consistently and comprehensively present the highest-quality reporting, investigative features, breaking news coverage and newsmaker profiles.
ABSOLUTELY. Those that have nothing to hide, hide nothing.
51%
173872
NO. We're still individuals entitled to privacy and we trust each other.
49%
VoteTotal Votes: 989
By Athima Chansanchai
Just how much do you trust your spouse or partner? Enough to share passwords? For some, passwords are the final frontier of privacy not only in financial matters, but in social media and email correspondence. But for others, there are no secrets when you're in a relationship?? even risking the potential payback should a break-up sever the happy union.
The New York Times tells us about an "intimate custom" writer Matt Ritchel says is happening between teens in love: "sharing their passwords to email,?Facebook?and other accounts." The desire to be one even extends, the article claims, to couples creating identical passwords and letting each other read private emails and texts.?
For some, it takes a court order to share so much.
But for others, it's imperative to know each other's passwords as part of an open, healthy and fully functioning relationship. Sometimes this comes after a loss of trust, as when one partner has cheated on the other. On the Surviving Infidelity website, where more than 34,000 members have exchanged stories of betrayal and support one another in the forums, there is a saying that becomes a mantra for many of them: "Those who have nothing to hide, hide nothing." To that end, nothing is private anymore in order to facilitate healing for the offended party.?
In this philosophy, those who have been unfaithful should share (or make open and available) not only passwords to their email accounts and Facebook, but also the contents of their text messages, phone logs, work and travel itineraries "without qualms."
Many in those forums mention how finding secret Facebook and email correspondences led to the big reveal of infidelity in their marriages and relationships, and we've seen surveys that attribute at least some fault in Facebook, though an informal poll we took at the end of year showed that nearly half of the 876 votes attributed the demise of their marriages with other factors. But 34 percent did blame Facebook.
Some of the teens in the New York Times article who opened themselves up were dealt a nasty lesson in human nature when their not-so-better halves decided to use the passwords in retaliation for perceived wrongs. The Times listed some examples:
The stories of fallout include a spurned boyfriend in junior high who tries to humiliate his ex-girlfriend by spreading her e-mail secrets; tensions between significant others over scouring each other?s private messages for clues of disloyalty or infidelity; or grabbing a cellphone from a former best friend, unlocking it with a password and sending threatening texts to someone else.
Take our poll and let us know if couples should share passwords.
More stories:
Check out Technolog on?Facebook, and on Twitter, follow?Athima Chansanchai, who is also trying to keep her head above water in the?Google+?stream.
JAIPUR, India ? Oprah Winfrey says she is confident that President Barack Obama will win another four-year term in this year's U.S. election.
The talk show host was addressing a literary festival Sunday in the northwestern Indian town of Jaipur.
Winfrey praised Obama's handling of the presidency. She said his next four years would be even more successful, with people able to get back to work.
Winfrey backed Obama during the 2008 presidential campaign in her first-ever political endorsement.
She was among the biggest crowd pullers at the annual Jaipur Literary Festival, which brings together top writers, poets and critics and around 50,000 literary fans from around the world.
Winfrey has been in India for a week filming programs for her new TV network.
RENO, Nev. ? Wind gusts of up to 82 mph pushed a fast-moving brush fire south of Reno out of control Thursday as it burned several homes, threatened dozens more and forced about 10,000 people to evacuate their neighborhoods.
Reno Fire Chief Michael Hernandez said more than 230 firefighters were battling the blaze, which had grown to nearly 5 square miles within hours.
Hernandez confirmed "several" homes had been destroyed. He said he didn't know the exact number but told reporters "the news is not good."
There were no immediate reports of any deaths or injuries.
A Reno television station reported at least 10 homes had burned since the fire broke out about 12:45 p.m. along U.S. Highway 395.
Washoe County officials declared a state of emergency a few hours later, and Gov. Brian Sandoval followed with a statewide declaration.
A five-mile stretch of U.S. 395 was closed as the strong winds pushed the flames north toward Reno along the base of the hillsides, Washoe County sheriff's Deputy Armando Avina said. Heavy smoke reduced visibility to zero.
By nightfall, the fire had burned to the city's southern outskirts. Flames were visible 10 miles away in the downtown casino district.
"It's moving at a very fast rate," Avina said. "The winds are extremely powerful in this area."
The winds died down after nightfall and rain started falling, much to the delight of fire crews.
Deputies went door to door asking people to leave their homes in Pleasant Valley, Old Washoe Valley and Saint James Village, Avina said. They evacuated about 300 students from Pleasant Valley Elementary School.
Erika Minnberry, 28, said she didn't become concerned at first because smoke from the fire appeared far enough away.
"Probably 30 minutes later, it was up to our house because of the high winds," she said. "I felt pure survival adrenaline. When we drove away, the smoke was so thick, we could barely see ahead of us. Now I feel anxiety. I couldn't find my two cats at the time and I hope they're OK."
KRNV-TV reported that 10 homes had burned, including a half dozen in the Washoe Valley Estates neighborhood. The Reno Gazette-Journal reported explosions could be heard in the area.
Firefighters had zero containment of the blaze and were concentrating on using crews and trucks to protect homes in the path of the flames, Hernandez said.
He estimated firefighters had saved about 1,000 structures and said another 80 to 120 firefighters were expected to arrive on scene before midnight.
"To say we are in the thick of battle is an understatement," he told reporters.
Martinez said the fire was "almost a carbon copy" of a huge wild fire on the edge of the Sierra foothills that destroyed 30 homes in southwest Reno in November.
"It is a wind-driven event and a combination urban-wildland fire," he said.
Like in that fire, Martinez said, strong winds and dry conditions helped fuel the latest blaze. The Reno area had gone a winter-record 56 days without any precipitation until light snow fell earlier this week.
More wet weather was forecast Friday, and snow was forecast Friday night. But high winds were expected to continue, with gusts up to 40 mph.
The strong winds that blew over the Sierra ahead of the winter storm caused delays earlier Thursday in Vice President Joe Biden's visit to Reno, where he was two hours late to give a speech at Galena High School on the south end of town.
The air smelled of smoke at the school, which sits on the Mount Rose Highway leading to Lake Tahoe. Biden told the audience about 25 minutes into his speech that he was cutting his remarks short because of the fire.
Martinez conducted his 5:15 p.m. briefing at the high school, which was evacuated along with surrounding neighborhoods shortly afterward.
The flames, up to 40 feet high, raced through sage brush, grass and pines in an area where small neighborhoods are dispersed among an otherwise rural landscape. Washoe County animal services officials were helping round up horses and other livestock for evacuation.
The American Red Cross opened an evacuation center at Damonte High School, where the children from the elementary school were taken.
Trooper Dan Lopez said U.S. 395 was closed from the south end of Reno at Mount Rose Highway, or state Route 431, to the north end of Washoe Valley near the Bowers Mansion. Northbound traffic was being rerouted back to Carson City about 15 miles to the south.
Winds gusts of up to 82 mph were reported within a few miles of the fire, and a gust of 122 mph was recorded atop Slide Mountain, which is between the fire and Reno at the Mount Rose ski resort.
___
Associated Press writers Martin Griffith in Reno and Sandra Chereb in Carson City contributed to this report.
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