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The squad moves cautiously down the dusty, almost claustrophobic alley. Every sound is magnified, yet nobody hears or sees anything out of the ordinary. It's simply another street with no name somewhere in the Middle East.
The point man issues a command to his team, but perhaps he isn't clear enough about what he wants. Most of the squad does the right thing, but one man is a bit confused and ends up looking the wrong way for an instant, leaving open a hole in their careful defenses. The ambush that falls on the squad is quick and deadly. In the blink of an eye two soldiers are killed. The Americans return fire, killing the assailants -- but also several civilians standing around in the nearby market.
Slowly the dirty street fades from view, replaced by the reality of a Virginia warehouse or a California parking lot. None of it was real. The enemy combatants, the civilians, the nameless street and even the avatars of the soldiers only existed inside a simulation called ExpeditionDI.
The instructor running the virtual reality simulation has brought the team back to the real, safe world. They will all watch the recent exercise, determine what went wrong and make adjustments. This intense form of gaming could save a life.
Designed to train dismounted infantry (hence the DI designation in the name), Quantum3D's ExpeditionDI, is used primarily right now by the Army. It was recently deployed at the Camp Atterbury Joint Maneuver Training Center for use by the 157th Infantry Brigade, First Army Division East.
"ExpeditionDI is designed to reinforce physical skills," said Pratish Shah, vice president of sales and marketing at Quantum3D. "Soldiers learn how to position and fire their weapons, when to take a knee and how to work effectively in a team."
Quantum3D has done a lot of work with flight simulations and wanted to bring that same level of total environmental immersion to soldiers who fight on the ground, Shah said.
The system comprises a head-mounted, goggles-like monitor that drops down in front of a soldier's eyes from his helmet, providing a 1280-by-1024 resolution display capable of showing highly detailed images. Because the goggles are so close to the eyes, it takes up almost the entire field of vision. A little room was left on the sides, Shah said, so that trainees wouldn't become completely disoriented and divorced from reality. They can see the real world in their peripheral vision.
There are also sensors positioned along the helmet and legs of the soldier, so that the avatar in the simulation will mirror his actions. If a soldier kneels down or turn his head, the virtual soldier that represents him will do the same. This lets the soldiers see each other and communicate inside the same scenario. Each soldier wears a backpack that contains a computer with Wi-Fi capabilities. In addition to driving the simulation for the soldier, it also sends out positional data to other participants and back to the operator running the exercise so that everyone is experiencing the same conditions.
Shah said there was no theoretical upper limit for how many soldiers could interact within the simulation at the same time. Each soldier would simply need a backpack with the program's hardware and all the related sensor gear. The highest number of people he's seen training together is 32.
Each soldier also carries a realistic-looking weapon. Models include an M4 carbine and an M249 light machine gun, weighted to feel like the real thing. In addition to having embedded sensors so the simulation knows how a soldier is handling a weapon, the rifle also has a small joystick with which the soldier controls the walking, and running of the soldier's avatar. That means the simulation can be setup anywhere, from a dedicated training center to a parking lot to an office. Each soldier requires only about 10 feet of space so that he can turn and properly maneuver his weapon without hitting something or another person.
Andrew Pedry can testify as to how realistic ExpeditionDI can get. He's a retired Marine Corps sergeant who served in the infantry as a sniper and saw combat in Iraq when he served from 2000 to 2004.
Pedry said that during combat in real life, a squad needs to effectively communicate orders and information very quickly. "That's very hard to learn without going out in the field," he added. "Once people start shooting, you have to do it concisely. You don't see everything. You have to rely on the point man to tell you to go to the next building. You don't want to get killed because you didn't know what system they were using to identify the next window to cover."
As far as the system itself, Pedry said putting on the equipment seemed quite natural. The backpack and all the sensors, plus the helmet and weapon, felt to him like a typical light combat load. And even though, at 32, he's a bit too old to have been raised playing video games, transitioning from the real world to the simulated one seemed natural.
"I was surprised how realistic the simulation can get," Pedry said after testing ExpeditionDI with a small fire team. "I sweated through my shirt every time, and it wasn't because of the heat. The intensity of the system really made my pulse pick up."
But Pedry, who also plays some first-person shooter video games, says that ExpeditionDI is a lot different from gaming at home. "First off, the weapon handling characteristics with the simulation are very realistic. The fundamentals of marksmanship are reinforced," he said. "That's important to me, being a sniper, but the real value of ExpeditionDI is learning teamwork and communication."
Although Pedry doesn't think ExpeditionDI can replace actual physical training, he believes it can be a great supplement. "There's lots of downtime in the unit," he said. "PFC Whoever might not see it, but there's a lot of coordination to actual physical training. Units have to rotate through, and time is limited. But if they can run through the simulation in their downtime instead of doing busy work, it will help to reinforce what they learn."
The other big advantage Pedry sees with ExpeditionDI is its ability to replicate the mission environment that a solder is going experience in the theater of operation. "The most dangerous time for soldiers is right when they first get in the theater," he said. "But ExpeditionDI can be programmed to look like where they're going." That way, the architecture, the native dress and the general atmosphere of a new place won't seem so alien, which will lead to better situational awareness and less chance of a soldier missing something important, Pedry said.
Shah said that all the civilians and enemy combatants inside the simulation are backed with an artificial intelligence to help them react like a real person would. For example, a civilian might mill around in a market but will certainly react if he hears gunfire or sees people shooting. The person running the simulation can create scenarios to teach different lessons, though teamwork is always stressed.
When Pedry tested the system, he did so with a squad of troops with mixed levels of experience. Some, like him, had seen real combat. One man had not yet deployed outside the United States. After a few runs through different missions, it didn't matter. They were operating like an experienced unit. They had made their mistakes and learned from them in the virtual world. The fact that some of them "died" didn't matter. Death in ExpeditionDI is nothing more than a learning experience.
Shah said he hopes soldiers are able to take that experience into the real world and keep themselves safe when the bullets are real and the stakes are much, much higher.
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Don't Lock 'em up, Listen to What They Have to Say!
If one wants to understand why four critics of the regime – Anwar Al Bunni, Kamal Labwani, Michel Kilo and Mahmoud Issa – are currently in prison, one only needs to look at the indictment issued by the Supreme Criminal Court in Damascus. While the document may not show what they actually did, it does show what those in power in Syria are afraid of.
The accusations go from "spreading false information," via "weakening national feeling" and "incitement to separatist unrest," to "calling on a foreign state to commit an aggressive act against Syria."
So are the human rights lawyer Al Bunni, the doctor and painter Labwani, the writer Kilo and the translator Issa all traitors? By no means. They are committed Syrians, they believe in their country and its people, and that is exactly why they want more freedom and more rights for their countrymen.
But critical voices such as theirs run counter to the nationalist frenzy in which Syria finds itself since the crisis in Lebanon two years ago. Threats, sanctions and attempts by the West to isolate Syria have brought the Syrians together – whoever does not join in the frenzy is regarded as a collaborator with the foreigners.
So what have the four done to be treated as if they were enemies of the state? Michel Kilo and Mahmoud Issa, who have both been sentenced to three years in prison, were among the several hundred signatories of the "Damascus-Beirut declaration", in which intellectuals from both countries are calling for a normalisation of relations between Syria and Lebanon.
There is nothing in the manifesto which Damascus has not already accepted. The problem is not in its content but in those who initiated it.
The Syrian regime believes that the same political forces are behind the declaration as were behind the events of the 14th March: Lebanese politicians whose demonstrations in spring 2005 led to the withdrawal of Syrian forces from Lebanon and who are now openly calling for the overthrow of those in power in Damascus.
The Syrian government in turn now feels as if it is surrounded by enemies: American troops in Iraq, an anti-Syrian government in Beirut and the militarily superior Israel still on the Golan Heights after forty years. Any move by the domestic opposition towards the country's foreign opponents rings the alarm bells.
It is a thoroughly understandable reaction, in the light of experience in Iraq and Afghanistan, where opponents of the regimes smoothed the way to Baghdad and Kabul for the American troops. But the Syrian equivalents of Ahmed Chalabi and Hamid Karzai are not to be found in Damascus. If at all, they are to be found in Washington or Paris.
President Assad's government has had luck with its domestic opposition, even if it does not recognise the fact and does not know how to use it. Secular left-wingers, social democrats, liberals, even Kurds and supporters of political Islam – they all call for peaceful, gradual change from within and they all reject any idea of foreign intervention.
What more could an authoritarian regime possibly want than such a moderate opposition? The opposition sees the need for two fundamental decisions if there is to be a step-by-step democratisation: there has to be a new law on political parties which would permit independent parties, revive debate in society after four decades of Baath Party socialism and create a new political consciousness among the people.
And the state of emergency, which, for the last 44 years, has mothballed Syria's constitutional protections and permitted the courts to do what they like, must be repealed or at least substantially restricted.
That was what the lawyer Al Bunni, who has been sentenced to five years in prison, was fighting for. He reported on torture in Syrian prisons and opened a training centre, financed by the European Union, without official permission. Al Bunni did not have a political agenda; for him it was all about justice. He would say things like, "If tomorrow the Baath party started to respect human rights and give the Syrian people its freedom, I'd have no problem with it."
For a long time, this approach protected him from imprisonment, but finally his tireless commitment and his contacts to Western diplomats and politicians were too much for the secret services. As they saw it, Al Bunni offered foreign opponents too much ammunition for attacks on the Syrian government.
Against this background, it is no surprise that Kamal Labwani, the fourth of those convicted, should have been given a life sentence for his information tour through Europe and the USA. Labwani met representatives of the US government in Washington and was arrested on his return to Damascus airport. The court has reduced his life sentence to twelve years.
Since the sentences, the mood in Syria's opposition has reached a new low point. For months families, friends and supporters of the defendants had met at the court and given each other mutual encouragement. Now they know for sure that Syria does not welcome diversity of opinions or constructive criticism.
The case throws up the question whether the Baath government is at all prepared to reform the political system it created. The government rejects any advice on democratisation from the West, pointing to human rights abuses in Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib.
It is clear that corruption, despotism, bureaucracy and a lack of a sense of responsibility have to be fought from within if they are not to serve as excuses for others to take action, and they may be less concerned with Syria's interests than their own. That is exactly what Kilo, Al Bunni and the others were arguing, and that is exactly why they should not locked up but listened to.
Kristin Helberg
© Qantara.de 2007
Translated from the German by Michael Lawton
Interview Ali al-Atassi
"There Is a Need for Pressure from Inside of Syria"
After the withdrawal of the Syrian troops from Lebanon many experts assume that the events will have a political impact on Syria. Bernhard Hillenkamp spoke with Mohammad Ali al-Atassi, Syrian civil society activist and journalist of the Lebanese daily "an-Nahar"
Syria's Youth Opposition
Informers at the University Coffee Shop
The younger generation of dissidents does not even have a political program – but in Bashar Assad's Syria, merely showing some self-initiative is enough to arouse suspicion. Jan Marron reports
Political Reforms in Syria
Reluctant Embrace
Syria is about to step into the stream of Arab political reform, but with as little fanfare as possible, writes Sami Moubayed from Damascus.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Zachary R. Mider
Tuesday, 17 December 2013 08:43 AM
Sheldon Adelson makes no secret of his disdain for the estate tax.
"How many times do you have to pay taxes on money?" the casino magnate asks, leaning on a blue cane on the cobblestones of Wall Street on a crisp October morning.
A gravel-voiced man whose accent recalls his blue-collar Boston roots, Adelson, 80, has just rung the bell at the New York Stock Exchange. Shares of his Las Vegas Sands Corp. are at a five-year high, making him one of the world's richest men, worth more than $30 billion.
Federal law requires billionaires such as Adelson who want to leave fortunes to their children to pay estate or gift taxes of 40 percent on those assets. Adelson has blunted that bite by exploiting a loophole that Congress unintentionally created and that the Internal Revenue Service unsuccessfully challenged.
By shuffling his company stock in and out of more than 30 trusts, he's given at least $7.9 billion to his heirs while legally avoiding about $2.8 billion in U.S. gift taxes since 2010, according to calculations based on data in Adelson's U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filings.
Hundreds of executives have used the technique, SEC filings show. These tax shelters may have cost the federal government more than $100 billion since 2000, says Richard Covey, the lawyer who pioneered the maneuver. That's equivalent to about one-third of all estate and gift taxes the U.S. has collected since then.
Easy Bypass
The popularity of the shelter, known as the Walton grantor retained annuity trust, or GRAT, shows how easy it is for the wealthy to bypass estate and gift taxes. Even Covey says the practice, which involves rapidly churning assets into and out of trusts, makes a mockery of the tax code.
"You can certainly say we can't let this keep going if we're going to have a sound system," he says with a shrug.
Covey's technique is one of a handful of common devices that together make the estate tax system essentially voluntary, rendering it ineffective as a brake on soaring economic inequality, says Edward McCaffery, a professor at the University of Southern California's Gould School of Law.
Since 2009, President Barack Obama and some Democratic lawmakers have made fruitless proposals to narrow the GRAT loophole. Any discussion of tax shelters has been drowned out by the debate over whether to have an estate tax at all, McCaffery says.
'Campaign Donors'
"From the Republican side of the aisle, you're committed to killing the thing," he says, adding that Democrats don't want to tackle an issue affecting a handful of people. "And that handful are all in the class of campaign donors."
Facebook Inc. Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg and Lloyd Blankfein, the CEO of Goldman Sachs Group Inc., are among the business leaders who have set up GRATs, SEC filings show.
JPMorgan Chase & Co. helps so many clients use the trusts that the bank has a special unit dedicated to processing GRAT paperwork, says Joanne E. Johnson, a JPMorgan private-wealth banker. "I have a client who's done 89 GRATs," she says.
Goldman Sachs disclosed in a 2004 filing that 84 of the firm's current and former partners used GRATs. Blankfein has transferred more than $50 million to family members with little or no gift tax due, according to calculations based on data in his SEC filings.
Charles Ergen, chairman of Dish Network Corp., and fashion designer Ralph Lauren passed more than $300 million each, calculations from SEC filings show.
Blankfein, Ergen, Lauren and Zuckerberg declined to comment.
Devising Strategies
Congress enacted the estate tax in 1916 to apply to large fortunes at death. Eight years later, it added the related gift tax to cover transfers made before death. Both rates are currently 40 percent, and the first $5.25 million of an individual's wealth is exempt; the amount is $10.50 million for couples.
For as long as such levies have been on the books, lawyers have been devising strategies to get around them.
Congress created the GRAT while trying to stop another tax- avoidance scheme that Covey developed. In 1984, Covey, a lawyer at Carter Ledyard & Milburn LLP in New York, publicized an estate-tax shelter he'd invented called a grantor retained income trust, or GRIT.
Covey figured out how to make a large gift appear to be small. He would have a father, for example, put investments into a trust for his children, with instructions that the trust should pay any income back to the father. The value of that potential income would be subtracted from the father's gift-tax bill.
Growth Stocks
Then, the trust could invest in growth stocks that paid low dividends so that most of the returns still ended up going to his kids. Six years after Covey started promoting this technique, Congress termed it abusive and passed a law to stop it.
The 1990 legislation replaced the GRIT with the GRAT, a government-blessed alternative that allowed people to keep stakes in gifts to their children while forbidding the abuse Covey had devised.
Covey studied the law and found an even bigger loophole. "The change that was made to stop what they thought was the abuse, made the matter worse," he says.
Fredric Grundeman, who helped draft the bill while he was an attorney at the U.S. Treasury Department and is now retired, says the framers didn't recognize the new law's potential for abuse.
Flawed Thinking
"How do I say it?" Grundeman says. "When Congress enacts a law, it isn't always well thought out."
Covey, 84, a Missouri native and former U.S. Marine Corps basketball player who earned a law degree from Columbia Law School in 1955, uses the words "romantic" and "beautiful" to describe the most elegant tax maneuvers.
Covey recognized that a client could use the 1990 legislation to avoid gift taxes if he did something that would otherwise make no sense: put money in a trust with instructions to return the entire amount to himself within two years. Because he doesn't have to pay tax on a gift to himself, the trust incurs no gift tax. Covey calls the trust "zeroed out."
Because the client isn't paying any tax upfront, the transaction amounts to a can't-lose bet with the IRS. If the trust's investments make large enough gains, the excess goes to heirs tax-free. If not, the only costs are lawyer's fees, typically $5,000 to $10,000, Covey says.
Three years after the new law took effect, Covey created a pair of $100 million zeroed-out GRATs for Audrey Walton, the former wife of the brother of Wal-Mart Stores Inc. founder Sam Walton. The IRS, which had banned such GRATs through regulation, demanded taxes and took her to court.
In 2000, the U.S. Tax Court found in Walton's favor, determining the 1990 law didn't prohibit a "zeroed-out" GRAT. Covey had won a rare prize: an official seal of approval for a tax shelter.
Two years after Covey's court victory, Adelson set up a GRAT called the "Sheldon G. Adelson 2002 Two Year LVSI Annuity Trust," Adelson's SEC filings show. By 2009, he was juggling chunks of his fortune in as many as 10 GRATs at a time, filings show.
Adelson once discussed his approach to inheritance taxes in a legal deposition.
"Listen, the law says you can avoid taxes but you can't escape taxes," Adelson testified as part of a 1997 lawsuit over an unrelated business dispute. "We just want to do what is right, but it is prudent and it's wise to prepare your estate to save taxes."
Political Donations
The son of a cabdriver from Lithuania, Adelson started his first business at the age of 12, selling newspapers with the help of a $200 loan. He got rich in the 1980s as the owner of a company that organized computer trade shows. Later, he bought the Sands Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas.
A globe-spanning casino and resort empire followed. He drew national attention in 2012 by donating more than $90 million to groups that supported Republican candidates, including Mitt Romney, the presidential nominee and an estate-tax opponent.
In November 2010, Adelson sat for an interview with a Bloomberg News reporter in Las Vegas Sands' corporate boardroom, tucked inside the palatial Venetian resort. He spoke of the perks of being gambling's richest man: His weekend home in Malibu, California; the homes in Israel and the south of France; the six jets that ferry his family between them.
'Extremely Gratifying'
Adelson had recently rescued Las Vegas Sands from the brink of bankruptcy. His company's stock, which lost more than 90 percent in 2008, had recovered almost half of its value. That was good news for his place on the list of the world's richest people, a ranking that he follows closely.
"I don't need to pat myself on the back to say, look at all the good things I did," he said. "But the success and the comeback that I've enjoyed, and the company's enjoyed, have been extremely gratifying."
The share gains were also good for Adelson's tax shelters. That's because after Sands stock plunged in 2008, Adelson plowed even more of his fortune into new GRATs, the SEC filings show. When the stock rebounded, those GRATs swelled in value.
A few days after the interview, he would pour $725 million from one of his GRATs into trusts for the benefit of his family. If he'd given the same amount to family members without using a GRAT, it would have resulted in a gift-tax bill of more than $250 million.
25 GRATs
In all, Adelson and his wife, Miriam, have created at least 25 GRATs. At least 14 of the 25 trusts were zeroed out, according to the calculations based on SEC filings. Those trusts transferred at least $7.9 billion to family members, an amount that would otherwise have incurred gift taxes of $2.8 billion.
Adelson has six living children, including two teenage sons. By early 2012, more than a third of Adelson's stake in the Sands — worth more than $10 billion today — had already passed through GRATs to trusts overseen by his wife for the benefit of his family.
The titles of some of those trusts start with the first letters of his children's names. Later, more GRATs added another $3 billion to the heirs' trusts.
Outside the stock exchange in October, Adelson declined to comment on GRATs. Later, he passed a message along through Ron Reese, his publicist.
"Mr. Adelson did tell me to tell you that he has no intention of ever dying," Reese says. 'So the estate-planning conversation is moot.''
Lawyers Tweak
Since Covey's triumph in the Walton case, lawyers have tweaked his technique to generate even more tax savings. One idea, used by former Aetna Inc. CEO John W. Rowe, puts corporate stock options into a GRAT.
Another, championed by Goldman Sachs banker Stacy Eastland in presentations at estate-planning conferences, envisions a husband funding a GRAT with the proceeds of an options bet with his wife.
"It's very common," Rowe says, referring to the use of GRATs. "It's become standard practice in estate planning."
Charles Dolan, whose family controls the New York Knicks basketball team and who is chairman of Cablevision Systems Corp., has repeatedly swapped Cablevision shares out of his GRATs and replaced them with IOUs, his SEC filings show.
The technique multiplies the potential tax savings, according to a 2008 report by analysts at AllianceBernstein Holding LP. Through a spokeswoman, Dolan declined to comment.
Not Pressing
The GRAT loophole is unlikely to be plugged anytime soon. President Obama has included a proposal to limit the GRAT technique in each of his annual budget plans but hasn't pressed Congress to act on it, says Kenneth Kies, a Republican tax lobbyist.
Committees in the House and Senate are working on what they call comprehensive tax overhaul bills. Neither plans to address estate or gift taxes.
Covey suggests one reason for the lack of action: Wealthy donors to politicians, both Democratic and Republican, want to keep the loophole in place.
"I've done a lot for Democratic contributors," he says with a smile.
No one knows for sure how much all of these GRATs cost the U.S. government. The IRS estimates the number of gift-tax returns filed in connection with new GRATs each year; there were about 1,946 in 2009, according to the most recent publicly available data.
Taxpayers don't have to report how much each GRAT ultimately passes to heirs.
It's as if Covey built an invisible highway bypass that carries some of the biggest fortunes past the tax man's tollbooth. He marvels at the billions that flow along this route.
"It boggles the mind," he says.
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WALTHAM, Mass. – The Brandeis baseball team rallied from a 5-2 deficit to force extra innings today, but visiting Wentworth took advantage of two Judge errors to plate six runs in the top of the 10th and emerge with an 11-6 non-conference victory on Stein Diamond.
Trailing by three runs after five-and-a-half innings, the Judges (5-12) scored in three of their last four at-bats in regulation to force the free baseball. WIT (8-8) scored three times in the top of sixth on an infield single by CF Paul Dassau (Franklin, Mass./Franklin), a Brandeis error and a sacrifice fly by LF Alex Wong (Lewiston, Maine/Lewiston). Brandeis started to cut into the lead with a sac fly of their own off the bat of rookie 3B Tommy McCarthy (Yonkers, N.Y./Fieldston School).
In the eighth, McCarthy hit a one-out single and scored three batters later on a hard-hit single to center by sophomore SS Dominic Schwartz (San Francisco, Calif./Lowell) to cut the Brandeis deficit to one. After sophomore Brian Ing (Sandwich, Mass./Sandwich) retired the Leopards in order in the top of the ninth, the Judges had a golden opportunity to win in the bottom of the frame, but did manage to force extras. Sophomore Pat Seaward (York, Maine/York) led off with a pinch single to right. Senior RF Zach Malis (Merrick, N.Y./Bellmore JFK) bounced one up the middle, advancing junior pinch runner Mike Swerdloff (Scarsdale, N.Y./Ardsley) to second. A deep fly ball to center by rookie DH Dan Gad (Mansfield, Mass./Mansfield) allowed the runners to advance to second and third. WIT elected to walk rookie catcher Josh King (Hudson, Mass./Hudson) to load the bases and set up the force by facing McCarthy. His soft grounder to short was enough to plate Swerdloff with the tying run, even with the infield in, but the Leopards got the second out at third base. Brandeis loaded the bases again when rookie 2B Brett Allen (Salem, N.H./Central Catholic) was hit by a 1-1 pitch, but junior RF Dylan Britton (Poughquag, N.Y./Arlington) grounded to second to end the inning.
Wentworth did not let up against three different Brandeis pitchers in the top of the 10th. Senior 1B Kevin McKenzie (Arlington, Mass./Arlington) led off with an eight-pitch walk. After rookie Scott Oullette (Lewiston, Maine/Lewiston) bunted him to second, Dassau singled on a ball the just fell in front of the Brandeis centerfielder to put runners on the corners. Dassau then stole second, putting both Leopards in scoring position. Wong followed with a grounder to second against a drawn-in infield, but the ball was booted, preventing the Judges from getting an out and limiting the damage. WIT kept up the pressure, as Wong stole second and moved to third, while Dassau scored, when the ball sailed into the outfield. Four of the next five Wentworth batters produced RBI hits that helped push the game out of reach, highlighted by a double from senior Justin Bolla (Groveland, Mass./Pentucket Regional).
Offensively, the game featured 29 hits and 11 multiple hitters. Allen for Brandeis (3-4, 2 RBI) and McKenzie for Wentworth (3-5, 2 RBI, 2 R) each had three-hit performances. Five separate players recorded multiple-RBI games: Bolla and Wong in addition to McKenzie for WIT and Allen and McCarthy for the Judges.
The two starting pitchers did fine jobs of keeping their teams in the game. Rookie Kyle Brenner (Brookfield, Mass./St. Peter-Marian) went eight innings, making four of his five starts of seven innings or more this season. He gave up 11 hits and walked three, but limited the damage to five runs (three earned) thanks to five strikeouts. WIT's Adam Farrar (Newport, Vt./North Country Union) scattered eight hits over seven innings. He gave up three runs (two earned), fanning four and walking one. Despite a blown save, rookie Justin Voytek (New Milford, Conn./New Milford) improved to 2-1 on the season for Wentworth with two innings of relief, allowing five hits and two earned runs. Ing suffered the loss, surrendering four runs – but only one earned – in 1.2 innings of action.
Brandeis plays its first true road game tomorrow at Salve Regina University at 3:30 p.m. WIT opens its Commonwealth Coast Conference slate Thursday against Eastern Nazarene with a 2:00 doubleheader.


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March 29 (Reuters) - U.S. health regulators have approved a new diabetes drug from Johnson & Johnson, making it the first in its class to be approved in the United States.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved the drug, Invokana, after data showed it was effective in lowering blood sugar in patients with Type 2 diabetes, the most common form of the disease.
The FDA has asked for five postmarketing studies for the drug including a cardiovascular outcomes trial, an enhanced pharmacovigilance program, a bone safety study and two pediatric studies, the agency said in a statement on its website. ()
Invokana is expected to generate sales in 2016 of around $468 million, according to analysts' estimates compiled by Thomson Reuters.
Known chemically as canagliflozin, Invokana is a member of a new class of diabetes treatments called sodium-glucose co-transporter-2 (SGLT2) inhibitors that lower blood sugar by blocking reabsorbtion of glucose and increasing its excretion in urine.
Earlier this year, an advisory committee to the FDA discussed the benefits and risks of canagliflozin with a focus on any potential increased risk of heart attack or stroke.
A clinical study of patients at especially high risk of cardiovascular disease showed that within the first 30 days, 13 patients taking canagliflozin suffered a major cardiovascular event compared with just one patient taking a placebo. After that, the imbalance was reversed. The drug also caused a slight increase in unhealthy LDL cholesterol.
In January, 2012, the FDA rejected a similar drug, dapagliflozin, made by Bristol-Myers Squibb Co and AstraZeneca Plc, citing concerns over a possible increased risk of cancer and liver injury. The drug was subsequently approved in Europe under the brand name Forxiga.
In January 2013, Britain's National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE), which decides whether drugs should be paid for on the state health service, declined to recommend that Forxiga be reimbursed and asked the companies for more information.
Diabetes affects the body's ability to metabolize glucose, which is needed for energy. Glucose circulates throughout the bloodstream, is filtered by the kidneys, and returned to body by glucose-specific transporters. By blocking the amount of glucose reabsorbed into the bloodstream, more is excreted in urine.
Left untreated, diabetes can cause nerve damage, kidney disease and blindness. It affects roughly 25.8 million people in the United States, according to the American Diabetes Association.
Despite FDA's rejection of dapagliflozin, and a broad association in the class with genital infections, several companies are still developing SGLT2 inhibitors, including Astellas Pharma Inc, which recently filed for Japanese approval of its ipragliflozin, and Boehringer Ingelheim and Eli Lilly & Company, which recently filed for U.S. approval of their drug, empagliflozin.


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SKF Operator Driven Reliability cuts mill equipment failures by 25%
The challenge
The SKF solutionAfter a detailed review to establish program goals, SKF and the mill opted for a staged approach to a site-wide ODR programme. SKF worked with company officials to review operator routes with the aim of helping mill operators measure the right conditions at the right intervals. The process for data management was established and roles and responsibilities were clearly defined.
The resultsFollowing a pilot programme in the powerhouse, ODR implementation moved into the chemical department and paper mill. Eventually the programme went site-wide to include the wood yard, pulp mill and secondary fibre plant.
The results have been positive - major equipment failures fell 25%, while overall equipment effectiveness and machine efficiency rose more than 2%. The mill also saw reductions in maintenance spending and unscheduled downtime. Its "site scorecard" continues to trend upward, with future improvements anticipated.


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MN Senate Approves Minimum Wage Hike
ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — The bill giving Minnesota one of the nation's highest minimum wages is one step from Gov. Mark Dayton.
Minnesota senators voted 35-31 Wednesday to push the minimum wage for most employers to $9.50 per hour by summer 2016. It's $6.15 now.
The raises come in three steps, starting with a bump to $8 this August.
Minnesota has one of the lowest wages now. When fully phased in, the new wage could be in the top five. Washington state currently leads at $9.32 per hour, but Connecticut and Maryland are on course to get to $10.10 within a few years.
Minnesota's rate would be linked to inflation, providing annual raises from 2018 forward. If economic conditions deteriorate, a gubernatorial administration could suspend the escalator.
A House vote is expected by Thursday.


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Rox get Matzek, Wheeler and Brothers with top 3 picks
I practically begged the Rockies to take a chance with a high upside kid, ignoring potential contract demands. Not that they would ever listen to me, but the Rockies did just that, taking Tyler Matzek with the 11th pick overall. It was the first tremor on a surprising day for the Rockies. Not only did they gamble with Matzek, they landed Sacramento State center fielder Tim Wheeler with the 32nd pick and Rex Brothers with the 34th selection. They had considered taking those two with the 11th pick.
In the end, the Rockies ended up with three of the projected top 20 players.
Matzek is a 6-foot-3-inch left-hander from Capistrano Valley High School. The 18-year-old, who has been clocked as high as 98 miles per hour, has signed a letter of intent with Oregon. He was praised by MLB.com analyst John Hart for his four-pitch mix and his smooth delivery.
This kid is considered to have a huge upside, but has sent signals that he will not sign for slot money. This could lead to a protracted negotiation. On some draft boards, he was rated as high as No. 2, but slipped because of his signability issues. The last time the Rockies took a high school pitcher was the forgettable 2001 episode with Matt Harrington. He turned down roughly $4 million.
Matzek went 9-1 with a 1.58 ERA during his high school regular season, and went undefeated in the high school playoffs.
"Now the business side starts," said Matzek regarding the contract talks.
With the 32nd pick in the first round, the Rockies selected Sacramento State center fielder Tim Wheeler. Wheeler has drawn comparisons to Steve Finley. He's known as an offensive player with good speed. This is a pleasant surprise for the Rockies, who had considered taking Wheeler as high as No. 11. He hit .385 with 18 home runs this season in college.
The Rockies took Brothers with the 34th pick as compensation for the loss of free agent pitcher Brian Fuentes. Brothers was on the radar for weeks. The Rockies were considering Lipscomb in the 11th spot. He throws hard and competes, but has some command issues.


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HerbalGram 110 includes articles on Cannabis Taxonomy, the 'Indica' vs. 'Sativa' Debate; Artemisinin, a Nobel Prize-Winning Antimalarial from Traditional Chinese Medicine; Saffron, The Salubrious Spice — Recent Clinical Trials Suggest Numerous Health Benefits; ABC Launches Herbal Media Watch; ABC's Annual Botanical Excellence Awards; New Series of Botanical Adulterants Bulletins; Interactive Map of Amazonian Travels of Noted Ethnobotanist Richard E. Schultes; grape seede extract adulteration; lavender aromatherapy and sleep quality; topical black cumin treats mastalgia; ashwagandha help men performing resistance training; tongkat ali for immune function; stinging nettle (Urtica dioica, U. urens) profile; and more.
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text: Our intrepid members are not only active here on the forum, but also scouring the Cyber World to find great stuff about the world of BMW motorcycles. This thread http://forums.bmwmoa.org/showthread.php?t=39067 about an Incredible Ride report from the UK to Mongolia, links to one example. Makes you want to sell it all and hit the road for a few months. And definitely a candidate for The Best of The Forum.


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Seed saving
As long-time gardeners know, the bank is not the only way to save for the future. They save seeds from their harvest and from favorite plants. By saving seeds, you can save money. Also, by saving the seeds of the tallest or most colorful of the plants, you can begin to manipulate the preferred genetic traits in your next year's plants.
It's important to understand which plants to harvest seeds from, according to Laura McKissack of Edible Austin magazine. She explains that pollinated plants (plants pollinated by nature-insects, wind, etc.) will produce the same plant and fruit as the parent plant from which they come. But hybrid plants are different. Many of the fruits and vegetables we buy commercially come from hybrids that are the result of a cross between two or more open-pollinated plants. When buying seeds or starter plants at the nursery, read labels carefully to be sure that the plants are naturally pollinated.
Seed saving is pretty straightforward. An easy way to begin is by saving seeds from plants that grow in pods like beans, peas or broccoli. Let the pods get brown and dry, then gently crush the plants in a burlap sack or old pillowcase to loosen the seeds. Pull out the seeds and blow away the chaff (material mixed with the seeds).
Save the seeds in a cool place but not a freezer. Keeping them dry is essential. Don't store them in plastic bags, as they hold in moisture. As seeds dry they can be kept in labeled manila envelopes and refrigerated.
Seed saving is not only fun but easy and important. As McKissack says, "In a world of mono-cropping and profit-minded genetic engineering and herbicide-ready vegetables, we need more farmers and gardeners working to preserve biological diversity and quality for future generations." More on seed saving next week.Joette is an avid gardener and prides herself on staying up-to-date on the latest gardening activities and tips. To share your gardening news with Joette, call (409) 832-1400 or fax her at (409) 832-6222. Her e-mail is joreger [at] msn [dot] com.


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Sweet Succulents
The days are getting longer, the air is getting warmer and Spring is in full swing here at Circle Creek Home. We wanted to share with you our obsession with sedum. Not only is sedum prolific it's super easy to grow and multiplies like crazy.
The sedum wreath above has been hanging on our wood shed for many years and continues to grow and change. The trick to keeping a sedum wreath looking great is laying it on the ground when it rains to keep it moist and hanging it back up when the sun comes out.
The best soil to grow sedum in is a mixture of one part sand to two parts planting soil. If you're planting in a wire basket, line the basket with a layer of moss, fill with your soil mixture and begin planting. We like to pack it full of a variety of sedum, they compete for space which makes them grow extra large.
Sedum does well planted in a tall planter, it drips down the sides.
The beauty of sedum is if you forget about it for a week or two, not to worry it doesn't need much water and is very easy to care for. They like lots of sun and a good draining pot.
Beautiful sitting on one of our Vintage Style Step Stools.
Loving this idea, a pot of sedum sitting under our wire table.
After a day of planting you need some of our Beeswax Skin Salve. Leave a comment telling us what you love to fill your pots with. We'll pick a random winner on May 5, 2014 and send you one of our Beeswax Skin Salves.
Enjoy the season, J and B