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Irish Finance Minister says rejection of EU treaty would put IMF funds out of …

Admin — Sat, 19 May 2012 18:51:39 +0000

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DUBLIN (Reuters) – Irelands finance minister warned on Sunday that a rejection of Europes new fiscal treaty in an Irish referendum next month would not only block access to Europes new permanent bailout fund, but would also put fresh IMF funds out…
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Gun-toting stuffed animals, simulated Semtex among TSA finds

Admin — Sat, 19 May 2012 08:24:54 +0000

Gun parts

The three stuffed animals concealing parts for a handgun that a passenger tried to get past TSA checkpoints made the headlines last week, but agents also found a pocketful of firearms ammunition and a block of simulated Semtex explosive on other passengers the week of April 7.

Officers at Providence TF Green Airport in Rhode Island noticed what they thought looked like a disassembled firearm and ammunition in an X-ray of three stuffed animals in the baggage of a father and his small child. The gun parts were hidden in a stuffed teddy bear, bunny, and a stuffed Mickey Mouse doll.

Noting the gun-packing characters, TSA agents called law enforcement officers to the checkpoint, said the TSA’s Web blog. The officers searched the bag and the child’s stuffed animals, uncovering the frame of a .40 caliber firearm and a magazine loaded with two .40 caliber rounds was in one animal, and firing pin was inside another and the weapon’s slide was inside the third, said TSA. All of the necessary components to assemble a fully functional loaded firearm were artfully concealed in the three toys, it said.

News reports said the father was unaware of the gun parts in the toys and law enforcement attributed the concealed weapon as part of a domestic dispute.

TSA’s Blogger Bob Burns noted that the use of toys to carry weapons is another instance showing that “threats can appear anywhere” and why its officers look at everything. The agency has taken heat in recent weeks for the pat-down of a four-year-old child at the Wichita airport when the child had to be re-screened after hugging her grandmother in the midst of a security checks at the facility.

TSA officers using a body scanner at Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport found 13 rounds of ammunition in a passenger’s front pocket as he passed through the device.

Officers at Northwest Florida Regional Airport near Fort Walton Beach found a block of simulated Semtex-H at their checkpoint. The device was for training, but the agency said it had no way of knowing that until after it had gone through all of the security motions to investigate it.

For Cornelius, conservative spending stretches a tight budget

Admin — Sat, 19 May 2012 02:20:24 +0000

With a comparable budget to last year, the city of Cornelius is, essentially, about maintenance.

Working with $28.1 million in recommended funding to provide core services in 2013, including only a few cuts and consolidations, the city anticipates neither growing nor shrinking in the near future.

Its a tight budget, said City Manager Rob Drake. But I was conservative on estimates. Id much rather come to the end of a fiscal year having money than none.

Some variations in the coming year include changes to law enforcement: Drake has recommended funding for an additional full-time police officer, bringing the total to 14 sworn officers.

Additionally, the city will begin a trial period of merging the citys municipal court with Forest Groves court. While both cities already use the same part-time judge, court would be held in Forest Grove.

Forest Grove would also share its code enforcement officer with Cornelius for two days a week.

Due to stagnant development in the city, two positions were eliminated: director of Development amp; Operations and a support specialist.

With Cornelius lack of economic growth, in part due to the short supply of undeveloped land, neither position had as much use on the citys roster, Drake said.

An area that has grown, however, is the library, seeing nearly a 40 percent increase in checkouts during the last three years. As such, maintaining the same level of service for patrons was a big priority for budgeting.

In a partnership with Metro, the city will be looking to acquire land next year for what will become a new park.

Also budgeted are capital improvement projects, which comprise 31 percent of the citys budget. These projects include redesigning a portion of Baseline Street, planning an additional water reservoir, and purchasing a new rig for the fire department.

Overall, the city anticipates spending $20.5 million of its budget next year, with the majority of it spent on improvements and personnel services. That would leave the city with more than $7.5 million left over.

Its main priorities: achieving a more stable financial base, which could include seeking an additional property tax levy to support city services.

Another goal is to bring more commercial land into the city. With residents currently paying 74 percent of city taxes, more commercial industry would not only boost the citys economy but also residents would no longer bear such a disproportionate amount of the tax liability.

The city budget committee will review the recommended budget at its next meeting Wednesday. An official budget will be approved by the end of June.

– Deborah Bloom

Small commercial real estate loans prove tough to get

Admin — Fri, 18 May 2012 09:04:50 +0000

Big banks are rarely making loans for smaller commercial real estate deals, which often rely on investors having the cash to make the purchase, according to a new survey from the National Association of Realtors. For some smaller, local deals, though, community banks have provided financing. For instance, loans from C1 Bank financed the recent purchase of a 19,680-square-foot warehouse at 1509 Edgar Place in Sarasota for $1.11 million.

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Texas athletics overwhelms rivals in revenue and spending

Admin — Fri, 18 May 2012 02:10:06 +0000

Big is good in this state. Bigger is better still. A short walk away is a 20,000-square-foot weight room and an equally recruiting-friendly, state-of-the-art locker room complete with gaming stations and a nutrition bar. Brown, himself, is one of the highest-paid coaches in his sport — at better than $5 million a year, pulling down more than four NCAA Division I schools spend on their entire athletics program.

The thing you know at the University of Texas, he says, is that youre going to be able to have the best of the best and youre going to have it on a yearly basis. … I wouldnt swap with anybody.

Football merely fronts the largesse. In the past three years, USA TODAY Sports annual analysis of college athletics finances shows, no college athletics program has out-earned or outspent the colossus that is Texas.

INTERACTIVE: How D-I schools make, spend money
STORY: Finances could cause split in football
PHOTOS: The top 12 spending schools

The Longhorns took in a little more than $150 million in 2010-11, the most recent year for which public schools filings with the NCAA are available. That outdistanced second-place Ohio State by $18.5 million. The Horns outlay for football and 19 other varsity sports was $133.7 million, almost $11.5 million more than Ohio State put into its 36 teams.

Texas program is one of only 22 across Division I that operate in the black — it generated enough revenue to cover athletics expenses — an increasingly touchy issue in times of shrinking state allocations and economic stress in higher education. Moreover, the Longhorns kicked $6 million back to the schools academic side a year ago. For five years, half of the take from their new statewide, 24-hour cable television venture, the Longhorn Network, is earmarked for academics.

The schools unabashed athletics growth comes, however, as the NCAA continues to preach fiscal temperance, particularly to schools spending beyond their means in the chase for athletics success. Their bar — for coaches salaries, for cushy facilities — is ever higher.

And the Longhorns underscore a long and growing criticism of major-college athletics, that its more big business than ancillary educational activity. Ten programs, all anchored by football, made or spent better than $100 million a year ago, USA TODAY Sports findings show. Nearly two dozen topped $80 million on one side of the ledger or both.

Spending across 227 public schools in the NCAAs Division I from which USA TODAY Sports obtained information rose by $267 million from a year earlier.

Theres nothing to stop Texas or other very successful financial enterprises with these gigantic television contracts from continuing to grow, grow, grow because their revenues match their expenditures, says former Arizona President Peter Likins, who several years ago headed a high-level NCAA panel that examined the cost of college athletics. But the disconnect between whats happening in athletics and whats happening elsewhere in the same universities creates stress, and … the stresses will create a breakdown.

Europe’s Early Man Drew Female Sex Organs, Animals

Admin — Thu, 17 May 2012 21:34:23 +0000

THE GIST

The engravings and paintings on the limestone block were found in southern France.
The dominant motif of the images represents female sexual organs, but animals and figures are included.
Anthropologists believe that members of the Aurignacian culture created the artwork.

The Sun’s Unrelenting Rays

Admin — Thu, 17 May 2012 11:42:08 +0000

Q. Do animals suffer from sunburn? If so, is it just the hairless ones, or are domestic animals like dogs and cats also at risk?

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Victoria Roberts

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