 |
|
||||
 |
 |
 |
||
|
|
|
|
||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||
 |
|||||||||||||
|
|
|||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||
| What we published this week: | Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday | Earlier |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Food |
|
|
Abstracts and fair use are permitted. Check HERE for more details |
A.M. Costa Rica's Second news page |
|
|
|
San
José, Costa Rica, Thursday, March 12, 2015, Vol. 15, No. 50
|
||
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Food |
|
|
|
 |
|
 Ministerio de Seguridad Pública photo
This is the truck that bore
the electrical company's signThe electricians
were packing firearms
By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Investigators are trying to figure out exactly what three men were doing when they were working on an electrical meter in Villas de Ayarco, Cartago. A woman said that she called for an electrician, but three men arrived in a white truck that bore a sign of the Compañía Nacional de Fuerza y Luz. They began to work on the home's electrical meter in the garage, said police. When officers arrived they said they found that two of the men had criminal records and that a bag they carried contained firearms. One of the weapons had its serial number obliterated. Police speculated that the men were trying in some way to rig the meter to steal electricity, but exactly how is still unknown. March over shark fins sales is at noon By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Those who hope to protect sharks are marching today at noon from the environmental ministry with plans to arrive at the legislature at 2 p.m. Environmentalists and others are irked that the government fisheries agency has been allowing the export of shark fins. The march organizers said that many of the boats involved in the shark trade have been spotted within the boundaries of the Isla del Coco protected area. They gave a list in a news release. The area around the island is known for its many hammerhead sharks They said that since January 2013 to last September some 120 boats have been seen intruding into the protected area, according to data from the Área de Conservación de Isla del Coco. The Instituto Costarricense de Pesca y Acuicultura is in charge of permitting the sale of shark fins, a practice that was believed by many to have been halted. Government officials said that the fins were taken legally from sharks that were then destined for food. They insist that they did not allow the practice of simply finning the sharks and dumping the living carcass back into the water to die. Another scandal for U.S. Secret Service By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
Two high-ranking U.S. Secret Service agents are under investigation due to allegations they drove a government car into a security barricade at the White House after drinking at a late-night party. In a story first reported Wednesday by The Washington Post, local police and Secret Service officers were investigating the discovery of a suspicious package near the White House when the agents drove through an entrance that had been closed off. Officers on the scene wanted to arrest the agents and put them through sobriety tests, according to the Post, but they were ordered by a supervisor to release the pair. One of the agents has been identified as the second-ranking commander on President Barack Obama's personal security detail. The investigation is being conducted by the Homeland Security department, which oversees the Secret Service. "If misconduct is identified, appropriate action will be taken based on established rules and regulations," said Secret Service spokesman Brian Leary. "The fact that this event involved senior-level agents is not only embarrassing but exhibits a clear lack of judgment in a potentially dangerous situation," said a joint statement issued by Rep. Jason Chaffetz, the chairman of the Republican-led House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, and Rep. Elijah Cummings, the committee's top Democrat. This is the latest embarrassing incident for the Secret Service, which is tasked to protect the president and vice president and their families. The most recent incident occurred last September, when a man armed with a knife jumped the White House fence and ran all the way into the mansion before he was stopped. The incident led to the resignation of then-director Julia Pierson. An independent review conducted after the September incident described an agency that was too insular and starved for leadership. The report called for an outsider to lead the Secret Service, but Obama named Joseph Clancy, a veteran Secret Service agent, to the post. Clancy, who headed the president's detail early in his administration before retiring from the agency, was named interim director after Ms. Pierson's resignation. Technology called only part of the solution By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
Bomb attacks typically grab news headlines. But there are almost invisible activities occurring every day that could create a more widespread and devastating calamity — cyber intrusions into government and corporate information and control systems that could cripple vital services and bring normal commerce to a halt. When Hurricane Sandy struck the New York City area in 2012, thousands of people were stranded without vital services like electricity and transportation as repair crews struggled to get systems back up and running. Daily malicious hackers threaten a similar disaster as they probe the computers that control those systems. Concern over such threats as well as criminal intrusions brought representatives from government and the private sector together at the Chertoff Group’s cyber security conference, "What's Next: Protecting Our Critical Energy Infrastructure from Cyber Threats." A particular concern in Houston where the conference was held is the threat to energy systems. “We have found malicious code, malware, on energy systems. Whether that was there to steal information or was reconnaissance for attacks is more a matter of speculation," said former U.S. secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff, executive chairman of the sponsoring organization. "Saudia Aramco was attacked," he added. "That is an energy company. And while it did not succeed in knocking them offline, it certainly indicated that energy companies are a target for this.” Chertoff said there will likely be more threats to energy industry control systems by terrorists and some hostile foreign governments. Stuart McClure, CEO of Cylance, said his company’s software protects clients from most threats, although Cylance itself is often a target of sophisticated intrusions. “The only ones who can do that are very large nation states with big budgets, a lot of people, a lot of eyeballs that take a look at what we have done and try to bypass it,” he said. Experts say technology offers only part of the solution and that constant vigilance is needed to maintain cyber security.
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Food |
|
| What we published this week: | Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday | Earlier |
| The contents of
this Web site are copyrighted by Consultantes Ro Colorado S.A 2015
and may
not be reproduced anywhere without permission. Abstracts and fair use are permitted. Check HERE for details |
||||||
A.M. Costa Rica Third News Page |
|
| San José, Costa Rica, Thursday, March 12, 2015, Vol. 15, No. 50 | |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Food |
|
| Readers and others may have been swept up by U.S. monitoring |
|
|
By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Readers may or may not be involved in the National Security Agency’s mass interception of online communications between individuals in the United States and abroad. Wikimedia Foundation has filed suit against the National Security Agency and the Department of Justice of the agency's surveillance. The lawsuit challenges the National Security Agency’s mass surveillance program, and specifically its large-scale search and seizure of internet communications — frequently referred to as upstream surveillance, said Wikimedia Foundation. "Our aim in filing this suit is to end this mass surveillance program in order to protect the rights of our users around the world," it added. "We are joined by eight other organizations and represented by the American Civil Liberties Union. The National Security Agency conducts its broad surveillance based on a 2008 law. The Wikimedia Foundation said that disclosure in 2013 exposed the vast scope of the program, and it was alarmed. Upstream surveillance taps the internet’s backbone to capture communications with what are called non-U.S. persons, said Wikimedia. The law authorizes the collection of these communications if they fall into the broad category of foreign intelligence information that includes nearly any information that could be construed as relating to national security or foreign affairs, it said. Readers who write to A.M. Costa Rica are not writing to a foreign person. The emails are collected at the newspaper's server, which is in the United States. Reporters and editors download these messages from the server and not in real time from the sender. However, those who subscribe to the daily digest, receive the message from a special server in Belgium, a county not usually considered a hotbed of anti-U.S. sentiment. |
 A.M. Costa Rica graphic
National
Security Agency at work
Those who receive email
messages directly from the A.M. Costa Rica
staff certainly are in communication with a non-U.S. person.
Although some staffers here are U.S. citizens, the newspaper's corporation is clearly Costa Rican. News stories in the past have warned that the U.S. government could be capturing emails between readers, news sources and the newspaper staff. However, the extent of the spying was not known until 2013. |
| Abangares mayor, council president
detained in case involving contract |
|
|
By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Judicial agents detained the mayor of Abangares and the president of the canton's municipal council Wednesday on an allegation that the council president's husband benefited from a municipal contract. Judicial investigators made the arrests at the municipal hall. The contract, nearly 3 million colons, was to make 84 trips in |
2015 to bring
certain citizens and council members to municipal
meetings. The route was from Peñas Blancas. The judicial agency said that the council president's husband negotiated the job of driving the vehicle. The mayor, Jorge Eduardo Calvo Calvo, is accused of knowing about the deal and doing nothing, judicial agents said. The council president is Graciela Serrano Anchía. |
| You need to see Costa Rican tourism information HERE! |
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Food |
|
| What we published this week: | Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday | Earlier |
| The contents of
this Web site are copyrighted by Consultantes Río Colorado S.A.
2015 and may
not be reproduced anywhere without permission. Abstracts and fair use are permitted. Check HERE for details |
||||||
 |
 |
||||
| A.M. Costa Rica's Fourth News page | |||||
| San José, Costa Rica, Thursday, March 12, 2015, Vol. 15, No. 50 | |||||
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Food |
|
| Museum drawer yields specimens of a new species of mountain
bird |
|
|
By the Central Ornithology
Publication Office news staff
After being misidentified and sitting in a museum drawer for more than 70 years, a group of bird specimens collected in Colombia and Venezuela has been determined to represent a previously unknown species, now dubbed the Perijá tapaculo (Scytalopus perijanus). In a new paper in The Auk: Ornithological Advances, Jorge Avendaño of the Universidad de los Llanos and his colleagues describe how the Perijá tapaculo differs from the other birds in its genus in its genetics, appearance, ecology, and vocalizations. Tapaculos are a family of mostly small black or brown songbirds found in South and Central America, which forage for insects in grasslands and forest undergrowth. In 1941 and 1942, ornithologist Melbourne Carriker, Jr. explored the western slope of the Serranía de Perijá mountain range on the Colombian–Venezuelan border, where he collected 27 tapaculo specimens and sent them to the Smithsonian. At the time, they were mistakenly identified as Scytalopus atratus nigricans, a similar bird found at lower elevations, and in the following decades these upper montane tapaculos remained overlooked and unstudied. In 2008 and 2009, however, a new set of specimens and sound recordings were collected in the same region visited by Carriker, and Avendaño and his colleagues were able to conduct a genetic analysis as well as analyzing the birds’ appearance and calls. The newly-named Perijá tapaculo is a small bird with a buffy belly, gray back, and brown nape, and its song and calls are distinctly different from those of other tapaculos. Its high level of genetic divergence from its closest relatives suggests that its high mountain habitat has isolated it from its cousins for a significant amount of time. “While it was known that two species occurred in the Perijá mountains, it was a distinct surprise that the upper elevational form differs as much as 8 to 9 percent from its |
 Central Ornithology Publication Office/J.
Fjeldså
Perijá tapaculos
female (left), male (right) and fledgling.closest relatives,” says tapaculo expert Niels Krabbe. “This emphasizes the importance of the Perijá mountains as an evolutionary center and calls for further studies of its flora and fauna.” Unfortunately, due to habitat loss in the region, this new species is already in trouble. “The species is more seriously threatened on the Colombian slope than on the Venezuelan slope because its habitat is protected by a large National Park in Venezuela,” explained Avendaño. “So, we recommend establishing a new national park or a network of reserves in Colombia connected to the Sierra de Perijá National Park of Venezuela. This binational park is necessary in order to effectively preserve the high species diversity and endemism of birds and other biological groups of the region.” |
Here's reasonable medical care
Costa Rica's world class medical specialists are at your command. Get the top care for much less than U.S. prices. It is really a great way to spend a vacation. See our list of recommended professionals HERE!amcr-prom
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Food |
|
| What we published this week: | Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday | Earlier |
| The
contents of
this Web site are copyrighted by Consultantes Río Colorado S.A.
2015 and may
not be reproduced anywhere without permission. Abstracts and fair use are permitted. Check HERE for details |
||||||
|
A.M. Costa Rica's Fifth
news page
|
||
 |
 |
|
| San José, Costa Rica, Thursday, March 12, 2015, Vol. 15, No. 50 | |||||||
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Food |
|
 |
|
California schools conducted immigration scam, feds say Special to A.M. Costa Rica
Three Los Angeles-area residents responsible for operating a network of four schools were arrested Wednesday morning on federal charges for allegedly helping hundreds of foreign nationals remain in the United States as foreign students, even though they never attended classes. The three defendants allegedly ran a pay-to-stay scheme through three schools in Koreatown. The three defendants are named in a 21-count indictment returned by a federal grand jury. The indictment alleges a conspiracy to commit immigration fraud, a host of immigration offenses and money laundering. The indictment also contains an allegation that would require the defendants to forfeit property and proceeds derived from the fraud scheme, which investigators estimate took in as much as $6 million a year in tuition payments. “Immigration fraud schemes potentially compromise national security and cheat foreign nationals who play by the rules,” said Acting U. S. Attorney Stephanie Yonekura. “In this case, officials at several schools allegedly abused their responsibility to ensure that only legitimate foreign students were allowed to the stay in the country. This type of fraud against the United States will be thoroughly examined to bring those responsible to justice and to protect the integrity of our immigration system.” Those named in the indictment unsealed today are: * Hee Sun Shim (also known as Leonard Shim and Leo Shim), 51, of Beverly Hills, the owner and manager of the schools; * Hyung Chan Moon (also known as Steve Moon), 39, of Los Angeles, who assisted with the operation and management of the schools; and * Eun Young Choi (also known as Jamie Choi), 35, of Los Angeles, a former employee who assisted with the operation and management of the schools. The defendants, who were taken into custody by special agents with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations, are expected to be arraigned on the indictment today in U. S. District Court. “Given the implications for national security and public safety, we will move aggressively to target individuals who compromise the integrity of our nation’s immigration system out of greed and self-interest,” said Claude Arnold, special agent in charge for Homeland Security Investigations Los Angeles. “Simply put, those who exploit the benefits of the student visa program can expect to get a lesson in criminal justice.” The investigation in this case began in 2011 after a compliance team from Homeland Security Investigations’ Student and Exchange Visitor Program paid an unannounced visit to Prodee University’s main campus on Wilshire Boulevard. During the visit, the team observed only one English language class with three students in attendance, even though records for the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System showed more than 900 foreign students were enrolled at Prodee’s two campuses. That same day, the team made an unannounced visit to another school where they found only one religion class in session with a single student present. At the time, records indicated that the school had more than 300 foreign students in active status. During the ensuing investigation, special agents identified several dozen foreign nationals, primarily from South Korea and China, who originally entered the United States as non-immigrant students to attend other authorized schools, but subsequently transferred to schools in the suspect network. These students lived across the nation, indicating that they were not actually attending classes. The indictment alleges that the schools issued immigration forms to foreign nationals who were not bona fide students, had no intention of attending the schools and lived outside of California. As part of the conspiracy, Shim and Choi allegedly were involved in the creation of bogus student records, including transcripts, for some of the students for the purpose of deceiving immigration authorities. The indictment further alleges that Shim would transfer a purported student from one school to another to avoid arousing the suspicion of immigration authorities about students who had been in the United States for lengthy periods of time. In exchange for the student designation, a foreigner would make tuition payments of as much as $1,800 to enroll for six months in one of the schools, according to the indictment. The indictment charges Shim, Moon and Choi with conspiring to commit immigration fraud. Shim is charged with 13 counts of use or possession of an immigration document procured by fraud, and Moon and Choi are each charged with one count of the same offense. Shim is charged with three counts of encouraging illegal residence, as well as two counts of money laundering. The conspiracy count carries a statutory maximum sentence of five years in federal prison. The substantive immigration fraud charges each carry up to 10 years in prison. The money laundering charges carry a potential penalty of 20 years. Kerry urges senators to act on Obama's war powers bid By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry called on Congress Wednesday to approve President Barack Obama's war powers request for the authority to use military force against Islamic State militants. "We simply cannot allow this collection of murderers and thugs to achieve its ambitions," Kerry told members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, noting that Islamic State had captured large portions of land in Iraq and Syria, threatening "the death or submission of all who oppose it" and "the incitement of terrorist acts across the globe." Interrupted at one point by the shouts of anti-war protesters in the hearing room, Kerry went on to tell lawmakers that the United States has to present a united front against Islamic State. “They have to understand that they can’t divide us," he said. "Don’t let them.” In addition to Kerry, Defense Secretary Ashton Carter and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Martin Dempsey, addressed the Foreign Relations Committee. The meeting was part of a long process toward any authorization, which would need to clear both the full Senate and House of Representatives. Obama last month proposed an authorization of force that would last three years with limits on the use of ground troops, barring them from sustained, long-term, offensive combat. There has been pushback against the president's plan from Republicans who disagree with limiting the use of ground troops, as well as from Democrats who do not want to see the use of any forces on the ground. The panel's top Democrat, Sen. Bob Menendez of New Jersey, said Obama's proposal was vague and lacked a clear exit strategy. “What Democrats are not willing to do is to give this or any other president an open-ended authorization for war, a blank check,” he said. Committee Chairman Bob Corker, a Tennessee Republican, said the authorization, as written, probably does not go far enough. “The authorization for the use of military force that has been sent up is one that is limited in some ways, both in duration and relative to the activities that the commander in chief, through you, can carry out,” he said. Corker, who was recently in Baghdad and Irbil, said everything Washington has done to combat Islamic State is benefiting Iran. Carter, the secretary of Defense, argued that the proposed authorization would provide the authority and flexibility needed to go after Islamic State fighters and their affiliates beyond the Iraqi and Syrian borders. The Islamic State group "is likely to evolve strategically, morphing, rebranding and associating with other terrorist groups while continuing to threaten the United States and our allies,” he said. Wednesday’s hearing took place as U.S. air strikes continued to pound Islamic State militants in Syria and Iraq, and while Iraqi security forces and Shia militias were fighting to regain control of Tikrit. At the same time, Islamic State fighters launched a major offensive along the Syrian-Turkish border. The U.S. military has been carrying out air strikes since August in Iraq and since September in Syria as the lead in an international coalition against the militant group. So far, according to Pentagon data, the coalition has conducted more than 2,700 air strikes against targets such as artillery and fighting positions, vehicles and storage facilities used by the militants. The president has said those operations do not need any new authorization and are instead covered by a measure passed following the Sept. 11, 2011, terrorist attacks. Man and boy who murdered linked to radicals in France By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
French authorities are investigating whether a man and a boy featured in an Islamic State video that shows the shooting death of an Arab Israeli have connections to an extremist who attacked a Jewish school in southern France in 2012. A French official said Wednesday that the pair were French citizens. The video released online this week shows an interview with 19-year-old Muhammad Musallam, accused of being an Israeli spy. Wearing an orange jumpsuit, he is sitting in a room and talking about how he had been recruited and trained by the Israeli intelligence service Mossad. After the interview, Musallam is shown with the man and the boy. The man speaks in French, referring to the boy as a "young lion of the caliphate." The boy then leads Musallam to a field and shoots him in the head. Police are assessing whether the boy and French-speaking man are related to gunman Mohamed Merah, who killed three soldiers, a rabbi and three Jewish children in a 10-day, religiously motivated terror spree that began March 11, 2013, in the Toulouse region of southwestern France. A French police source said that the intelligence service believes the French-speaking fighter is Merah's half brother, Sabri Essid. The source said the service was also trying to determine whether the child was Essid's son. The Interior Ministry declined to comment on the video. Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said in May that Merah's sister, Souad, was likely to have traveled to Syria with her children. More than 400 French citizens have traveled to fight with militants in Syria and Iraq. More than 100 have returned home after fighting there, according to French officials. White Christian reported as minorities in 19 states By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
White Christian men have long been the primary movers and shakers in American politics and culture. All 43 U.S. presidents, with the exception of Barack Obama, who was born to a white mother and a black father, were white Christians. However, the American landscape is changing. White Christians, once the majority virtually everywhere in the United States, are now a minority in 19 states, according to the Public Religion Research Institute. States where white Christians are no longer
the majority (Percentages of white Christians in each state)
1. Hawaii – 20% 2. California – 25% 3. New Mexico – 33% 4. Nevada – 36% 5. New York – 37% 6. Alaska – 37% 7. Texas – 37% 8. Maryland – 38% 9. Arizona – 38% 10. Washington – 42% 11. Florida – 42% 12. Oregon – 43% 13. New Jersey – 43% 14. Colorado – 44% 15. Illinois – 46% 16. Georgia – 46% 17. Vermont – 47% 18. Delaware – 48% 19. Louisiana – 49% The survey defines “white Christian” as evangelical Protestants, mainline Protestants, Catholics and Orthodox Christians who describe themselves as “white, non-Hispanic.” The survey also found that the United States is no longer a majority Protestant nation. In 2014, only 47 percent of Americans identified as Protestant. “There’s more people who were raised Protestant now unaffiliated, and you combine that with the ethnic shifts, and that gives you this decline in Protestants across the country,” said Robert P. Jones, CEO of the Public Religion Research Institute. Those ethnic shifts include the rising number of non-white Catholics. American Catholicism is becoming increasingly Hispanic, and evangelicals are seeing more non-white churchgoers. While 76 percent of Americans continue to identify with the Christian faith, there is a growing population of non-Christian and non-Jewish religions. Five percent of the country is either Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, or some other religion. “Going toward the future, the kind of 1950s way of thinking about America as Protestant, Catholic and Jewish is really no longer going to be sufficient,” said Jones. “It really is a much more complex landscape.” Adding to that complexity is the rising number of Americans who describe themselves as religiously unaffiliated. There’s a so-called unchurch belt stretching from up in the Pacific Northwest and into Alaska, Oregon, and Washington State. There are so many people who don’t identify with a particular religion that religiously unaffiliated is the largest religious group in 13 states, including Vermont and New Hampshire. It is this rising number of religiously unaffiliated Americans that can be expected to flex its muscle in the coming years. While much of the political debate in the 1980s and 1990s involved the religious versus the non-religious, that might be about to change. “I think we’re going to see the fault lines shifting a little bit differently so that we have the religiously unaffiliated really weighing in,” said Jones. “This very large group of religiously unaffiliated Americans, I think, has the real potential to change the equation in terms of politics, in terms of culture, and I think we’re just beginning to see that impact.” According to the Public Religion Research Institute, it derived its information from 50,000 annual telephone interviews. Ferguson police chief quits in wake of U.S. investigation By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
The embattled police chief of the Midwestern city of Ferguson, Missouri, resigned Wednesday after a highly critical U.S. Justice Department report called the city's police biased against African-Americans. Chief Thomas Jackson became the focus of bitter complaints of racial discrimination aimed at his department after one of his white officers fatally shot an unarmed black teenager during a street confrontation in August. The criticism and anger touched off protests in cities across the country. Tuesday, City Manager John Shaw, responsible for municipal operations, resigned. A day earlier, the Missouri Supreme Court announced it was taking over all cases in Ferguson's city court. Afterward, Municipal Court Judge Ronald Brockmeyer resigned. The federal report said officials operated city courts as a moneymaking venture. Ferguson, a suburb of St. Louis, is still reeling from the shooting, which set off days of violence in the city. The officer was not charged with violating any federal civil rights laws. But the Justice Department investigated allegations that Ferguson's nearly all-white police force was biased against the city's black majority and targeted blacks for traffic stops and arrests. President Barack Obama announced last week that he fully stood behind the report, saying Ferguson's black residents had been harassed and abused. Fruit fly brains give clues to defeating human jet lag By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
A plane ride across time zones can throw off a traveler's biological clock, sometimes for days. Fruit flies can suffer from jet lag, too. A new study of their brains reveals why, and suggests ways humans can avoid it. In lab experiments, researchers at the University of California, Irvine, removed the brains of genetically-engineered fruit flies and kept the brains alive in petri dishes. They off-set their circadian rhythm by two hours using pulses of light. Light is the most powerful environmental cue for re-setting our biological clock. They used a highly sensitive camera to make movies of the activity of individual neural circuits of the jet lagged brains. “The study marks the first time we’ve seen this in real time,” according to Logan Roberts, a doctoral student at the University of California, Irvine, and lead author of the study in the journal Current Biology. "The activity is measured by the amount of light these single neurons emit,” he explained. “They have a firefly gene engineered into these flies, so that when these cells are active, they literally light up in the brain, and we can measure that activity." The study describes how specific neurons react to light cues that simulate rapid travel across time zones. “And we can see that some of these cells change their activity when light is shown directly on them. They actually become desynchronized among the groups and within the groups.” “That sense of de-synchronization, what you experience in jet lag,” Roberts said, “is your nervous system becoming de-synchronized within itself.” Roberts said in that state communication between certain neurons weakens. That is not necessarily a bad thing. He said using light therapy to temporarily reset the biological clock ahead of travel could help reduce symptoms when a traveler arrives at the destination. “We believe that if we can harness that and actually use that to actually induce this de-synchronization, this weakening of communications between these cells before jet lag, before you would travel rapidly across time zones, we believe that could actually accelerate recovery from jet lag,” he said. Roberts said the model used to study jet lag in fruit flies could be applied in human conditions. “When our body clock is disrupted,” he added, “We are put at greater risk for diabetes, cancer and neurological diseases like Parkinsons and Alzheimer’s.” U.S. interest rates, gas prices expected to move higher By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
Researchers who track business activities and survey economists say U.S. interest rates, stock market gyrations, and the price of oil are all likely to increase later this year. The uncertain future is causing many companies to take cautious measures with their business strategies. Home Depot, a major hardware retailer, is one of many companies that all together spent $104 billion buying back their own stock in February. The investment research firm Trimtabs says that is a record-high. Retailers Foot Locker and Gap were among the firms doing buybacks, along with information technology firms. Buybacks reduce the number of shares outstanding and tend to raise their value. While this pleases company shareholders, it is a more cautious move than expanding by putting money into new equipment and employees, according to Trimtabs head David Santschi, who spoke via Skype. "It is a moderate vote of confidence in the economy, but it would certainly be better to see companies doing other things with their money if they really were gung-ho bullish," said Santschi. Investing in new buildings and equipment is more likely to increase the number of jobs. Those jobs are on the way, as the U.S. economy recovers, says the head of the National Association for Business Economics, John Silvia. "The current economic environment is positive for more hiring going forward," said Silvia. Retail sales are among the activities affected by interest rates, which were cut nearly to zero to help the economy during the recession. Silvia says hundreds of economists surveyed by the national association say interest rates are about right for now, and should rise later this year, because the recovering economy no longer needs help from the record-low interest rates set by the U.S. Federal Reserve. "Overall thinking is by the end of this year it will go up a modest amount. So it won’t be 25 basis points every meeting," he said. Stock markets have been more stable in recent years because of the Fed's efforts to boost the economy, according to Bankrate.com's Mike Hamrick. He says as the Fed cuts back its emergency measures, stock markets could be more volatile. Hamrick also says Bankrate's survey of 25 economists found a consensus that oil prices are headed upward this year. "Roughly a 30 percent increase from the current level, so that may tell us that, for consumers in the United States at least, the best news on gasoline prices may be behind," said Hamrick. Oil prices and other issues will be considered by Federal Reserve officials next Tuesday and Wednesday when they debate interest rate policy and other economic issues. |
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Food |
|
| What we published this week: | Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday | Earlier |
| The
contents of
this Web site are copyrighted by Consultantes Río Colorado S.A.
2015 and may
not be reproduced anywhere without permission. Abstracts and fair use are permitted. Check HERE for details |
||||||
| A.M. Costa Rica's sixth news page |
|
||||||||
| SSan José, Costa Rica, Thursday, March 12, 2015, Vol. 15, No. 50 | |||||||||
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Food |
|
||
|
Special to A.M. Costa Rica
Just days after winding up its membership meeting in Panamá in which it denounced the murder of eight Latin American journalists in the last three months, the Inter American Press Association Wednesday condemned a new attack in Guatemala in which two reporters were killed and one other was seriously injured. Association President Gustavo Mohme expressed outrage at the seriousness of the attack and recalled that “we have been insisting that many journalists in the interior of their countries are carrying out their work under a mantle of lack of safety and protection, so we insist that the authorities investigate in-depth and immediately apply protective measures.” Journalists Danilo López, 38, correspondent of the newspaper Prensa Libre, and Federico Salazar, 32, correspondent of radio station Radio Nuevo Mundo, were murdered in the city of Mazatenango, Suchitepéquez province, in the south of the country. Marvín Israel Túnchez, 28, host of the Canal 30 television newscasts, was seriously injured in the same attack. The chairman of the association's Committee on Freedom of the Press and Information, Claudio Paolillo, editor of the Montevideo, Uruguay, weekly Búsqueda, said, “Frankly, the promises of those in charge of government to put an end to impunity seem to us to be increasingly useless and, at this stage, one could say that they sound even aggravating. It is as if they are laughing in our faces, while our press colleagues continue to die for exercising the human right to receive, gather and disseminate news and opinions.” He recalled that at the membership meeting that ended Monday the organization condemned the murder of eight journalists (two each in Colombia, Honduras and Mexico, one in Paraguay and one in Peru) but also denounced the high level of impunity noted in all the countries of the Americas. ”The lack of justice,” he declared, “prompts many journalists and media, particularly in inland areas, where they are less protected, to opt for self-censorship as a means of protection.” The crime was committed around 11 a.m. in the city’s central park opposite the building of the provincial government where a local governmental ceremony was being held. According to witnesses two people riding a motorcycle approached the journalists and shot at them. Some hours later a man identified as one of the alleged attackers was arrested. |
| Costa Rican News |
AMCostaRicaArchives.com |
Retire NOW
in Costa Rica |
CostaRicaReport.com |
| Fine Dining
in Costa Rica |
The CAFTA Report |
Fish
fabulous Costa Rica |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Food |
|
| What we published this week: | Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday | Earlier |
| The
contents of
this Web site are copyrighted by Consultantes Río Colorado S.A.
2015 and may
not be reproduced anywhere without permission. Abstracts and fair use are permitted. Check HERE for details |
||||||
| From
Page 7: Expotur this year will be two days in May By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Expotur 2015, the big tourism marketplace, is May 7 and 8 this year. The expo, organized by the Asociación Costarricense de Profesionales en Turismo, brings together tourism operators and wholesalers who purchase tourism packages. The expo will be at the Hotel Wyndham, San José-Herradura, and this is the 31st annual edition. Before and after the expo, foreign tourism buyers generally visit other parts of the country. The Asociación Costarricense de Profesionales en Turismo estimates that there will be 200 firms showing their wares at the event this year, according to an announcement. |
