kmart urban meyer ohio state traffic report traffic report opensky dia frampton dia frampton
Friday, August 3, 2012
Portable Pivoting Power Adapter Maximizes Your Hotel's Outlets [Power]
Winning student delves into labor-management ... - MTSU News
MTSU graduate student Jaye Murray, left, accepts a scholarship check from Allen Parton, president of the Stones River chapter of the Society for Human Resource Management, in this file photo from 2011. Murray recently was named one of four national SHRM honorees. (photo submitted)
Jaye Murray, one of four U.S. students newly honored by the Society for Human Resource Management, will be the guest on ?MTSU on the Record? with host Gina Logue at 5:30 p.m. Monday, Aug. 5, and 8 a.m. Sunday, Aug. 11, on WMOT-FM (89.5 and www.wmot.org).
Murray, who hails from Orlando, Fla., is a recipient of the 2012 Outstanding Graduate Student of the Year award from the Society for Human Resource Management.
He contended for the honor with doctoral and master?s-degree students from across the country and in all human resources-related fields. He is on track to receive his master?s degree from MTSU this month.
MTSU?s industrial/organizational psychology program has produced two student winners of the national Outstanding Graduate Student of the Year Award in the past four years. In 2010, SHRM named its MTSU chapter as one of the top 10 university chapters in the country.
To listen to previous ?MTSU On the Record? programs, go to the ?Audio Clips? archives here.
For more information about ?MTSU On the Record,? contact Logue at 615-898-5081 or WMOT-FM at 615-898-2800.
Source: http://mtsunews.com/murray-on-the-record/
julia gillard pecan pie the hobbit trailer red velvet cake recipe josh krajcik porphyria cinnamon rolls
Thursday, August 2, 2012
Immigrants prove big business for prison companies
MIAMI (AP) ? The U.S. is locking up more illegal immigrants than ever, generating lucrative profits for the nation's largest prison companies, and an Associated Press review shows the businesses have spent tens of millions of dollars lobbying lawmakers and contributing to campaigns.
The cost to American taxpayers is on track to top $2 billion for this year, and the companies are expecting their biggest cut of that yet in the next few years thanks to government plans for new facilities to house the 400,000 immigrants detained annually.
After a decade of expansion, the sprawling, private system runs detention centers everywhere from a Denver suburb to an industrial area flanking Newark's airport, and is largely controlled by just three companies.
The growth is far from over, despite the sheer drop in illegal immigration in recent years.
[Related: Shakespeare for inmates]
In 2011, nearly half the beds in the nation's civil detention system were in private facilities with little federal oversight, up from just 10 percent a decade ago.
The financial boom, which has helped save some of these companies from the brink of bankruptcy, has occurred even though federal officials acknowledge privatization isn't necessarily cheaper.
This seismic shift toward a privatized system happened quietly. While Congress' unsuccessful efforts to overhaul immigration laws drew headlines and sparked massive demonstrations, lawmakers' negotiations to boost detention dollars received far less attention.
The industry's giants ? Corrections Corporation of America, The GEO Group, and Management and Training Corp. ? have spent at least $45 million combined on campaign donations and lobbyists at the state and federal level in the last decade, the AP found.
CCA and GEO, who manage most private detention centers, insist they aren't trying to influence immigration policy to make more money, and their lobbying and campaign donations have been legal.
"As a matter of long-standing corporate policy, CCA does not lobby on issues that would determine the basis for an individual's detention or incarceration," CCA spokesman Steve Owen said in an email to the AP. The company has a website dedicated to debunking such allegations.
[Also read: Punk band's courtroom drama grips Russia]
GEO, which was part of The Wackenhut Corp. security firm until 2003, and Management and Training Corp. declined repeated interview requests.
Advocates for immigrants are skeptical the lobbying is not meant to influence policy.
"That's a lot of money to listen quietly," said Peter Cervantes-Gautschi, who has helped lead a campaign to encourage large banks and mutual funds to divest from the prison companies.
The detention centers are located in cities and remote areas alike, often in low-slung buildings surrounded by chain-link fences and razor wire. U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement agents detain men, women and children suspected of violating civil immigration laws at these facilities. Most of those held at the 250 sites nationwide are illegal immigrants awaiting deportation, but some green card holders, asylum seekers and others are also there.
The total average nightly cost to taxpayers to detain an illegal immigrant, including health care and guards' salaries, is about $166, ICE confirmed only after the AP calculated that figure and presented it to the agency.
That's up from $80 in 2004. ICE said the $80 didn't include all of the same costs but declined to provide details.
Pedro Guzman is among those who have passed through the private detention centers. He was brought to the U.S. by his Guatemalan mother at age 8. He was working and living here legally under temporary protected status but was detained after missing an appearance for an asylum application. Officials ordered him deported.
Although he was married to a U.S. citizen, ICE considered him a flight risk and locked him up in 2009: first at a private detention facility run by CCA in Gainesville, Ga., and eventually at CCA's Stewart Detention Center, south of Atlanta. Guzman spent 19 months in Stewart until he was finally granted legal permanent residency.
"It's a millionaire's business, and they are living off profits from each one of the people who go through there every single night," said Guzman, now a cable installer in Durham, N.C. "It's our money that we earn as taxpayers every day that goes to finance this."
The federal government stepped up detentions of illegal immigrants in the 1990s, as the number of people crossing the border soared. In 1996, Congress passed a law requiring many more illegal immigrants be locked up. But it wasn't until 2005 ? as the corrections companies' lobbying efforts reached their zenith ? that ICE got a major boost. Between 2005 and 2007, the agency's budget jumped from $3.5 billion to $4.7 billion, adding more than $5 million for custody operations.
Dora Schriro, who in 2009 reviewed the nation's detention system at the request of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, said nearly every aspect had been outsourced.
"ICE was always relying on others for responsibilities that are fundamentally those of the government," said Schriro, now the New York City Correction Commissioner. "If you don't have the competency to know what is a fair price to ask and negotiate the most favorable rates for the best service, then the likelihood that you are going to overspend is greater."
Private companies argue they can save Americans money by running the centers more cheaply.
Pablo Paez, a spokesman for Boca Raton, Fla.-based GEO, said in an email his company supports public-private partnerships which "have been demonstrated to achieve significant cost savings for the taxpayers." He declined to answer specific questions.
But ICE Executive Associate Director for Enforcement and Removal Operations Gary Mead said the government has never studied whether privatizing immigrant detention saves money.
"They are not our most expensive, they are not our cheapest" facilities, he said. "At some point cost cannot be the only factor."
One fundamental difference between private detention facilities and their publicly-run counterparts is transparency. The private ones don't have to follow the same public records and access requirements.
President Barack Obama has asked for less detention money this year and encouraged the agency to look at alternatives to locking people up. He also ordered DHS to stop deporting young immigrants brought to the U.S. illegally, which could reduce the number behind bars. Congress, however, can approve more detention spending than DHS requests.
Beyond civil detention centers, private companies are also making more money locking up non-citizens who commit federal crimes.
To deter illegal border crossers, federal prosecutors are increasingly charging immigrants with felonies for repeatedly entering the country without papers. That has led thousands of people convicted of illegal re-entry, as well as more serious federal offenses, to serve time in private prisons built just for them.
A decade ago, more than 3,300 criminal immigrants were sent to private prisons under two 10-year contracts the Federal Bureau of Prisons signed with CCA worth $760 million. Now, the agency is paying the private companies $5.1 billion to hold more than 23,000 criminal immigrants through 13 contracts of varying lengths.
CCA was on the verge of bankruptcy in 2000 due to lawsuits, management problems and dwindling contracts. Last year, the company reaped $162 million in net income. Federal contracts made up 43 percent of its total revenues, in part thanks to rising immigrant detention.
GEO, which cites the immigration agency as its largest client, saw its net income jump from $16.9 million to $78.6 million since 2000.
"Another factor driving growth ... for the private sector is in the area of immigration and illegal immigration specifically," Chief Financial Officer Brian Evans told investors in GEO's 2011 3rd quarter earnings call.
CCA warned in its 2011 annual earnings report that federal policy changes in "illegal immigration could affect the number of persons arrested, convicted, and sentenced, thereby potentially reducing demand for correctional facilities to house them."
Utah-based Management and Training is not publicly held, so it does not post earnings.
At just the federal level, these companies, their political action committees and their employees have spent more than $32 million on lobbying and on campaign contributions since 2000 ? with the national political parties getting the largest campaign contributions.
An AP review of Federal Election Commission data found the prison companies and their employees gave to key congressional leaders who control how much money goes to run the nation's detention centers and who influence how many contracts go to the private sector.
James Thurber, head of American University's Center for Congressional & Presidential Studies, said amid the heated national debate over immigration, the companies have been savvy not to donate heavily to those sponsoring legislation, which could spark backlash.
There are more discrete and more powerful ways to influence policy, Thurber said.
"Follow the money," he said. "If the money is being increased significantly for illegal immigration, then that is a shift in policy ... a significant shift."
The top beneficiaries of the campaign contributions include:
? The Republican Party. Its national and congressional committees received around $450,000. Democrats received less than half that.
? Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain. He received $71,000, mostly during his failed presidential bid against Obama, well after he dropped support for a bill that would have given illegal immigrants a path to citizenship and reduced detentions.
? House Speaker John Boehner received $63,000.
?Kentucky U.S. Rep. Hal Rogers received about $59,000. Rogers chaired the first subcommittee on Homeland Security and heads the powerful House Appropriations Committee. He often criticizes ICE for not filling more detention beds.
? Former U.S. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist. He received $58,500. The lawmaker from Tennessee, where CCA is headquartered, led the Senate at the height of the nation's immigrant detention build up from 2003 to 2007.
More than campaign contributions, though, the private prison companies spent most of their money each year on lobbying in Washington, peaking in 2005 when they spent $5 million.
In just 2011, CCA paid the Washington firm Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld $280,000 in part to "monitor immigration reform," federal reports show.
They also lobbied heavily against a bill that would force them to comply with the same open records requirements governing public facilities.
Owen, the CCA spokesman, said the company ramped up lobbying to acquaint new lawmakers with the industry.
"In recent years, federal elections have been very volatile, resulting in a lot of new faces in Washington," he said. "The result of that volatility means a lot of people at the federal level who may not be familiar with the work we do."
The prison companies' influence at the state level mirrors that in Washington, although the money is even harder to track since many states, such as Arizona and Illinois, where the companies have won lucrative detention contracts, don't require corporations to disclose what they pay lobbyists.
The AP reviewed campaign contribution data from the three companies' political action committees and their employees over the last decade, compiled by the National Institute on Money in State Politics. From 2003 to the first half of 2012, state candidates and political parties in the 50 states received more than $5.32 million.
In the 10 states where the companies' committees and employees contributed the most, the AP found they also spent at least $8 million more lobbying local officials in the last five years alone. It is impossible to know how much of this lobbying money was aimed only at immigrant-related contracts. But that money generally went to states along the border, such as Florida and Texas, which have high numbers of immigrants, as well as states such as Georgia and Louisiana, where large numbers of immigrants also are detained.
ICE has begun providing more oversight as part of the Obama administration's pledge to overhaul the nation's system for jailing immigration offenders. It recently scrapped plans for CCA to build a 1,500-bed immigrant detention center in a high-end Miami suburb following months of local protests, and is also looking for a new home for a detention facility once slated for the suburbs of Chicago, after local officials voted in June to block the project from going forward.
But it remains committed to adding more private beds. Plans are on track to build or expand private immigration jails in Newark, N.J., and along a lonely stretch of California's Mojave Desert.
___
Burke reported from San Francisco.
___
Follow on Twitter Laura Wides-Munoz: (at)lwmunoz and Garance Burke (at)garanceburke.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/immigrants-prove-big-business-prison-companies-084353195.html
rand paul detained nbc news asexual jim carrey san francisco chronicle kourtney kardashian pregnant kourtney kardashian pregnant
Car Leasing | Blogmemes
Brindles Limited can provide Contract Hire, Hire Purchase, Lease Purchase and Cash Sales and also provide any type of finance on any vehicle. Feel free to browse through brindleslimited.co.uk to view some of our latest deals.Brindles Limited can provide Contract Hire, Hire Purchase, Lease Purchase and Cash Sales and also provide any type of finance on any vehicle. Feel free to browse through brindleslimited.co.uk to view some of our latest deals.
?
?
Source: http://www.blogmemes.net/car-leasing/
bethany hamilton after christmas sales macys stratfor bears vs packers after christmas sales 2011 best ipad apps
Facebook shares first time below $20
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Shares of Facebook Inc dipped below $20 for the first time on Thursday, pummeled by ongoing doubts about its growth prospects, a string of recent executive departures, and the August 16 expiration of a lockup period on insiders' share sales.
The stock hit a low of $19.82 in heavy trading on Thursday afternoon. It has now lost almost half its value since debuting at $38 in May in the largest IPO ever to emerge from Silicon Valley.
"The sentiment on this thing is so negative," said Topeka Capital Markets analyst Victor Anthony. "I think this thing may continue to tick down until you see some sort of meaningful catalyst which unfortunately may not show until third-quarter earnings."
On Wednesday, Facebook's director of platform partnerships, Ethan Beard, and the director of strategic partnership marketing, Katie Mitic, each separately announced plans to leave the company. They represent the latest of several departures - including that of Facebook's chief technology officer in June - since the IPO.
Facebook's first tier of lock-up restrictions go away on August 16, when about 271 million shares will be available for trading, with another 243 million shares set to become available for trading between mid-October and mid-November.
But the day most investors are bracing for is November 14, when more than 1.2 billion shares will suddenly be available for trading.
The imminent lock-up expiration also means that Wall Street analysts who participated in the Facebook IPO will once again go quiet, for a 30-day period, potentially creating more uncertainty in a stock that has experienced one of the rockiest market debuts in memory.
Of the 36 Wall Street analysts covering Facebook, 20 belong to firms that were involved in the IPO.
The first American company to debut with a market valuation of more than $100 billion, Facebook has fallen out of favor on Wall Street as investors fret about its slowing revenue growth.
In the second quarter, Facebook reported revenue growth of 32 percent, compared with the more than 100 percent growth it delivered at the same time last year.
Facebook shares were down 4.6 percent at $19.91 on Thursday afternoon, off the earlier low at $19.82.
(This story changes Karen Mitic's title following correction by company)
(Reporting by Alexei Oreskovic; Editing by Maureen Bavdek, Tim Dobbyn and Matthew Lewis)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/facebook-shares-dip-below-20-first-time-171824614--sector.html
adele Tom Cruise NBA draft 2012 alicia sacramone Don Grady ann curry nhl
Wednesday, August 1, 2012
In fly DNA, the footprint of a fly virus
ScienceDaily (Aug. 1, 2012) ? In a curious evolutionary twist, several species of a commonly studied fruit fly appear to have incorporated genetic material from a virus into their genomes, according to new research by University at Buffalo biologists.
The study found that several types of fruit fly -- scientific name Drosophila -- harbored genes similar to those that code for the sigma virus, a fly virus in the same family as rabies. The authors believe the genetic information was acquired during past viral infections and passed on from fruit fly parent to offspring through many generations.
The discovery could open the door for research on why flies and other organisms selectively retain viral genes -- dubbed "fossil" genes -- through evolution, said lead author Matthew Ballinger, a PhD candidate in UB's Department of Biological Sciences.
One hypothesis is that viral genes provide an anti-viral defense, but scientists have had trouble testing this theory because viral genes found in animals are often millions of years old -- ancient enough that the genes' genetic sequence differs significantly from that of modern-day viruses.
The new study, in contrast, uncovered a viral gene that appears to be relatively young, with genetic material closely mirroring that of a modern sigma virus.
"We don't know that these genes have an anti-viral function, but it's something we'd like to test," Ballinger said. "It's tempting to think that these genes are retained and express RNA because there's some kind of advantage to the host."
He and his co-authors -- Professor Jeremy Bruenn and Associate Professor Derek Taylor in UB's Department of Biological Sciences -- reported their results online on June 26 in the journal Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution. The research, supported in part by UB's Center for Advanced Molecular Biology and Immunology, will also appear in a forthcoming print edition of the journal.
"Our findings establish that sigma virus-like (genes) are present in Drosophila species and that these infection scars represent a rich evolutionary history between virus and host," the researchers wrote in their paper.
Another important contribution the study makes is advancing our understanding of how flies and other organisms acquire copies of virus-like genes in the first place.
The sigma virus belongs to a class of RNA viruses that lack an important enzyme, reverse transcriptase, that enables other viruses to convert their genetic material into DNA for integration into host genomes.
Given this limitation, how did sigma virus genes get into fly genomes?
The new study supplies one possible answer, suggesting that viruses may use reverse transcriptase present in host cells to facilitate incorporation of viral genes into host DNA.
In the genome of one fly, the researchers found a sigma fossil gene right in the middle of a retrotransposon, a genetic sequence that produces reverse transcriptase for the purpose of making new copies of itself to paste into the genome.
The position and context of the viral gene suggests that the retrotransposon made a copying error and copied and pasted virus genes into the fly genome. This is the clearest evidence yet that non-retroviral RNA virus genes naturally enter host genomes by the action of enzymes already present in the cell, Ballinger said.
The study builds on prior research by Taylor and Bruenn, who previously co-authored a paper showing that bats, rodents and wallabies harbor fossil copies of genes that code for filoviruses, which cause deadly Ebola and Marburg hemorrhagic fevers in humans.
The next step in the research is to continue exploring how and why flies and other organisms acquire copies of virus genes. To find out whether sigma virus-like genes have an anti-viral function in fruit flies, scientists could splice the genes into flies that can contract modern sigma viruses, or introduce modern sigma viruses into flies that already harbor the genes.
Share this story on Facebook, Twitter, and Google:
Other social bookmarking and sharing tools:
Story Source:
The above story is reprinted from materials provided by University at Buffalo.
Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.
Journal Reference:
- Matthew J. Ballinger, Jeremy A. Bruenn, Derek J. Taylor. Phylogeny, integration and expression of sigma virus-like genes in Drosophila. Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution, 2012; DOI: 10.1016/j.ympev.2012.06.008
Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.
Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.
Source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/08/120801132725.htm
stanford vs oklahoma state occupy rose parade vesta williams stanford stanford oklahoma state university badgers
Take The Effort Out Of Coffee Making With A Krups Coffee Maker ...
[unable to retrieve full-text content]Keurig B60 Special Edition Gourmet Single Cup Home Brewing System- Just by its name you can tell already that this is an exceptional machine that can deliver an exceptional quality for drinks. This machine boasts a 1500 ...
pecan pie recipe prince philip sugar cookie recipe sugar cookie recipe how the grinch stole christmas macaroni and cheese festivus
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)