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San
José, Costa Rica, Thursday, Oct. 31, 2013, Vol. 13, No. 216
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Acción Ciudadana urges By
the A.M. Costa Rica staff
The Partido Acción Ciudadana has announced an earthshaking idea. Why doesn't the national soccer federal use the money it received for World Cup participation to bring the various soccer teams up to date with the Caja Costarricense de Seguro Social. The soccer clubs traditionally are delinquent, and the Caja has closed some stadiums temporarily in the past over the debt. Liga Deportiva Alajuelense alone owes 385 million colons, about $770,000, said Acción Ciudadana in a release. Nine first- and second-division teams are in the red with the Caja, it said. The Federación Costarricense de Fútbol received between $9 and $12 million for the national soccer team to play in the World Cup matches in Brazil next year, the political party said. The federation should divide the money among the teams that owe the Caja the social security payments for its players and employees, it said. The law requires all employers to collect 9 percent from their employees' salaries and add 20 percent or more depending on the size of the firm. Red Sox take game and Series to celebrate at home at last By
the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
The Boston Red Sox have won the Major League Baseball World Series, defeating the St. Louis Cardinals 6-1 in Wednesday night's game six to clinch the third championship in 10 years. Playing in front of a raucous home crowd, Boston jumped out to a 3-0 lead in the third inning when outfielder Shane Victorino hit a bases-loaded double. The Red Sox struck again in the fourth inning, scoring three more runs, including a solo home run by Stephen Drew, to take a commanding 6-0 lead. All six runs were charged to Cardinals rookie pitcher Michael Wacha, who had won his four earlier playoff starts this year while giving up a total of only three runs. The Cardinals had a chance to get back in the game in the seventh inning. They scored a run on a Carlos Beltran single, and had the bases loaded with two outs, but Boston reliever Junichi Tazawa got Allen Craig to ground out to end the inning. No St. Louis runner reached base after that. Red Sox starter John Lackey pitched a strong six-and-two-thirds innings, allowing nine hits and one Cardinals run. Boston's victory allowed its fans to celebrate a World Series win in their home city for the first time since 1918. The Red Sox won the title in 2004 and 2007, but clinched both of those championships in their opponent's ballpark. David Ortiz, an immensely popular player in Boston who was a member of all three World Series teams, was named the most valuable player. He had two home runs and a .688 batting average against the Cardinals -- more than double his average for the season -- and drove in six runs in the six games. Cardinals pitchers also walked him eight times, including three intentional walks in game six. China-Latin Am trade summit is scheduled for Costa Rica By
the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Costa Rica will be the location for the VII Cumbre Empresarial China-América Latina y el Caribe Nov. 26 and 27. The announcement came from Promotora de Comercio Exterior de Costa Rica, the trade promotion organization. The sessions will be at the Hotel Real Intercontinental in Escazú. Some 800 participants are expected, said the organization. The meetings will include conferences and negotiations for trade deals. Other sponsors include the Ministerio de Comercio Exterior, the Coalición Costarricense de Iniciativas para el Desarrollo, the Consejo para la Promoción del Comercio Internacional de China and the Banco Interamericano de Desarrollo. These annual sessions have been taking place since 2007 with the location alternating between China and one of the countries of the Americas. Jorge Sequeira, the Promotora general manager, said that the idea was to make the sessions a negotiations showcase that expands the possibility for finding new market niches. The trade summit has this Web site. Ministerio de Gobernación,
Policía
Officer on duty at arsenal
carries more than a 9-mm. pistoly Seguridad Pública photo Security at
national arsenal
gets a beefed-up makeover By
the A.M. Costa Rica staff
A big plum for crooks would be the national arsenal that contains thousands of firearms. Some are destined for destruction. Others are for the use of police forces. The location is in Dulce Nombre in Vázquez de Coronado. The security ministry just invested 250 million colons, about $500,000, to make the location more secure. The construction of sturdy walls caused residents to think that a new prison was being set up. In one recent crime, bandits invaded a store warehouse of the Ministerio de Obras Públicas y Transportes and took a number of new pistols destined for the traffic police. Officials do not want that to happen at the Arsenal Nacional, so the place is under continual guard with officers carrying combat weapons. The work there will continue with improvements in the electrical system and with painting. Mario Zamora Cordero noted in a visit Wednesday that some 9,000 firearms are slated for destruction and that a new lot of some 21,000 firearms will be destroyed in March. The arsenal also holds a large stock of ammunition, some of which also is destined for destruction. U.N. again condemns U.S. for Cuban trade blockade By
the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
For the 22nd year in a row, the United Nations General Assembly has voted overwhelmingly to condemn the United States' economic embargo against Cuba. Some 188 countries voted for the non-binding resolution Tuesday. Only the United States and Israel voted no. Three countries abstained. Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez said Cuba "poses no threat to the national security of the superpower." He says the embargo has cost the Cuban economy more than $1 trillion. American diplomat Ronald Godard defended the embargo as one tool in the overall efforts to encourage respect for human rights. He said Cuba is using the U.S. as a scapegoat for its problems. The United States imposed the embargo on Cuba in 1960, shortly after Fidel Castro took power and seized U.S.-owned assets on the island. State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said condemning the embargo hides the fact that the United States is committed to remaining a leading supplier of food and humanitarian aid to Cuba.
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San José, Costa Rica, Thursday, Oct. 31, 2013, Vol. 13, No. 216 |
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New detectors amplify monitoring of
lightning strikes |
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By
the A.M., Costa Rica staff
The power company, the Instituto Costarricense de Electricidad, is spending $650,000 to beef up its monitoring of lightning strikes. The company said that new detectors will enhance the range from 360 kilometers to 1,400 kilometers, about 890 miles. Detectors have been added at Liberia, San Carlos, Buenos Aires, Quepos and Limón. The additional devices will enhance the reporting from the system that has been in service since 2002. The company known as ICE has good reason to know the location, intensity and exact time of a lightning strike. One reason is that power line planners want to know where the hotspots are so they can make design adjustments. Those operating radio base stations also find the information useful in the protection of their equipment, ICE said. The upgraded system is supposed to detect 90 percent of the lightning strikes to earth and 30 percent of the lightning that goes from cloud to cloud or within the same cloud, the company said. The company says it can narrow down the location of a lightning strike to less than 150 meters, some 490 feet. All the information goes into a data base at a central location where the strikes are monitored in real time. Guanacaste, Alajuela, Heredia, Pococí, Esparza, Orotina, Quepos, Guácima, Buenos Aires de Puntarenas and Golfito are the areas with the highest incidence of lightning, said ICE. The system has allowed the company to say with precision that in 2012 there were 600,000 lightning strikes in Costa Rica. The firm added that the day with the most strikes was April 27, 2011, when the system counted 20,000. The most intense strike measured 250 kilo amperes, enough juice to light 250,000 100-watt bulbs, the company said. The manufacturer of the new devices that have been added is Vaisala of Finland, a recognized maker of environmental measurement equipment. |
Instituto Costarricense de Electricidad
photo
The display from the
central processor shows the impacts in real time. Instituto Costarricense de Electricidad
photo
Berny Fallas and Ileana Mora,
meteorologists working for Instituto Costarricense de
Electricidad, are among those monitoring the system. |
Experts from Tecnológico de Costa Rica are surveying this bridge over the Río Purires in this file photo taken last year. |
Instituto
Tecnológico de Costa Rica photo
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Bridge inventory will cost $700,000 a
year for four years |
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By
the A.M. Costa Rica staff
The Instituto Tecnológico de Costa Rica confirmed Wednesday that it will receive 350 million colons per year for four years because its academic experts will be evaluating some of the nation's bridges. That is about $700,000 a year. The university-level educational institution confirmed it had signed a contract with the Ministerio de Obras Públicas y Transportes. The study is being made because there is no inventory of the state of the nation's bridges, the institute said. However, there was a report in 2007 sponsored by the Japanese |
Agency for International Cooperation
that covered more than 1,300 bridges. Most were in bad shape the report
said. The survey will include visual inspection and a search for damage on 600 bridges and training of public employees, said the institute. The survey team at the Cartago university already has studied and done an analysis of fatigue at the General Cañas bridge over the Río Virilla, the so-called platina. The team, known as eBridge also did a study of a span over the Río Purires last year. |
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A.M. Costa Rica's Fourth News page | |||||
San José, Costa Rica, Thursday, Oct. 31, 2013, Vol. 13, No. 216 |
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Coral found more resistent to temperatures than scientists
thought, study says |
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By
the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration news staff
Coral reefs may be able to adapt to moderate climate warming, improving their chance of surviving through the end of this century, if there are large reductions in carbon dioxide emissions, according to a study funded by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and conducted by the agency’s scientists and its academic partners. Results further suggest corals have already adapted to part of the warming that has occurred. “Earlier modeling work suggested that coral reefs would be gone by the middle of this century. Our study shows that if corals can adapt to warming that has occurred over the past 40 to 60 years, some coral reefs may persist through the end of this century,” said study lead author Cheryl Logan, an assistant professor in California State University Monterey Bay’s Division of Science and Environmental Policy. The scientists from the university, and from the University of British Columbia, were partners with the the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in the study. Warm water can contribute to a potentially fatal process known as coral bleaching, in which reef-building corals eject algae living inside their tissues. Corals bleach when oceans warm only 1 to 2 degrees C (2 to 4 degrees F) above normal summertime temperatures. Because those algae supply the coral with most of its food, prolonged bleaching and associated disease often kills corals. The study, published online in the journal Global Change Biology, explores a range of possible coral adaptive responses to thermal stress previously identified by the scientific community. It suggests that coral reefs may be more resilient than previously thought due to past studies that did not consider effects of possible adaptation. The study projected that, through genetic adaptation, the reefs could reduce the currently projected rate of temperature-induced bleaching by 20 to 80 percent of levels expected by the year 2100, if there are large reductions in carbon dioxide emissions. “The hope this work brings is only achieved if there is significant reduction of human-related emissions of heat-trapping gases,” said Mark Eakin, who serves as director of the federal agency's Coral Reef Watch monitoring program, which tracks bleaching events worldwide. “Adaptation provides no |
significant
slowing in the loss of coral reefs if we continue to increase our rate
of fossil fuel use.” “Not all species will be able to adapt fast enough or to the same extent, so coral communities will look and function differently than they do today,” CalState’s Ms. Logan said. While this paper focuses on ocean warming, many other general threats to coral species have been documented to exist that affect their long-term survival, such as coral disease, acidification, and sedimentation. Other threats to corals are sea-level rise, pollution, storm damage, destructive fishing practices, and direct harvest for ornamental trade. According to the Status of Coral Reefs of the World: 2000 report, coral reefs have been lost around the world in recent decades with almost 20 percent of reefs lost globally to high temperatures during the 1998-1999 El Niño and La Niña and an 80 percent loss of coral cover in the Caribbean was documented in a 2003 Science paper. Both rates of decline have subsequently been documented in numerous other studies as a trend. Tropical coral reef ecosystems are among the most diverse ecosystems in the world, and provide economic and social stability to many nations in the form of food security, where reef fish provide both food and fishing jobs, and economic revenue from tourism. Mass coral bleaching and reef death has increased around the world over the past three decades, raising questions about the future of coral reef ecosystems. In the study, researchers used global sea surface temperature for the pre-industrial period through 2100 to project rates of coral bleaching. Because initial results showed that past temperature increases should have bleached reefs more often than has actually occurred, researchers looked into ways that corals may be able to adapt to warming and delay the bleaching process. The article calls for further research to test the rate and limit of different adaptive responses for coral species across latitudes and ocean basins to determine if, and how much, corals can actually respond to increasing thermal stress. |
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What we published this week: | Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday | Earlier |
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A.M. Costa Rica's Fifth news page |
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San José, Costa Rica, Thursday, Oct. 31, 2013, Vol. 13, No. 216 |
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Google and Yahoo called targets of overseas NSA spying efforts By
the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
The U.S. National Security Agency is facing new accusations that it secretly broke into communication networks used by Internet giants Google and Yahoo to move data around the world. In a report published Wednesday, The Washington Post said it learned of the classified NSA program from documents leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden and from interviews with knowledgeable officials. The report said the NSA and its British counterpart GCHQ run a project called MUSCULAR, which taps into fiber-optic cables carrying data between global facilities of Google and Yahoo. It said that allows the spying agencies to copy entire data flows, including the content of text, audio and video files. Google and Yahoo issued statements saying they have not authorized the alleged tapping of their communication links. The NSA already requests and obtains data from U.S. Internet companies such as Google and Yahoo by seeking court orders through a program called PRISM. The NSA chief, Gen. Keith Alexander, said Wednesday the spy agency does not enter Google and Yahoo servers. Speaking to reporters at a Washington conference, he said the NSA gains access to data by court order. Addressing a U.S. congressional panel Tuesday, Alexander said the NSA's massive worldwide collection of telephone and Internet data stopped 13 terrorist plots in the United States and 25 plots in Europe in recent years. The Washington Post said infiltrating the companies' networks without a court order within the United States would be illegal, and that the NSA has been tapping into parts of those networks located overseas, where the agency faces less oversight and fewer restrictions. The report said a top secret document dated Jan. 9 shows the NSA collected 181 million data files from Google and Yahoo in the preceding 30 days and sent them to the agency's headquarters near Washington. In a statement, the NSA rejected suggestions in the Washington Post report that it has found a way to skirt U.S. laws, saying "the assertion that we collect vast quantities of U.S. people' data from this type of collection is also not true." The new allegations of NSA activity follow a series of recent media revelations of U.S. surveillance activities targeting international leaders and institutions. Key German and U.S. national security officials were meeting in Washington Wednesday to discuss German concerns about alleged U.S. tapping of German Chancellor Angela Merkel's mobile phone. The Obama administration said last week it is not listening in on Merkel's calls and will not in the future, but brushed off questions about whether it monitored her calls in the past, possibly as far back as 2002, three years before she became the German leader. Chancellor Merkel voiced a personal protest about suspected U.S. surveillance of her mobile phone last week in a call to President Barack Obama, saying such snooping among friends cannot be condoned. Germany wants the United States and France to agree to a no spying deal among the allies by the end of 2013. Meanwhile, the European Parliament's civil liberties committee is continuing a visit to Washington, where the group is set to discuss the impact the spying scandal has had on European citizens. U.S. joins suit against company that cleared Edward Snowden By
the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
The U.S. Justice Department is joining a lawsuit against the company that handled the background check of National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden. While the lawsuit is not about the firm's review of Snowden, the Justice Department alleges the private United States Investigations Services failed to perform quality control reviews on background investigations for the White House Office of Personnel Management. The suit originally was filed by a former United States Investigations Services employee more than two years ago in Alabama. USIS dominates the background check industry, taking in $195 million in government payments last year. The firm also vetted Aaron Alexis, the technology contractor who killed 12 people at the Washington Navy Yard last month. The Department of Justice alleges that since 2008 the firm used software that automatically released investigations that were not yet complete in order to meet revenue targets. The firm concealed the practice, known as dumping and improperly billed the government for the work. A USIS spokeswoman said the firm is cooperating with the government's investigation and has replaced its leadership and improved its controls since it first heard of the allegations last year. Assistant Attorney General Stuart Delery said "We will not tolerate shortcuts taken by companies that we have entrusted with vetting individuals to be given access to our country's sensitive and secret information." Walking dead represent future humans see, professor says By
the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
You can learn a lot from a zombie. Just ask zombie expert David Castillo, literature professor at the University at Buffalo. “They reveal who fundamentally we fear we are, and they also warn us about the collective choices we’re making,” Castillo said. That's a lot of heavy subtext to lay on the mindless undead. But Castillo believes it can help explain the current obsession with the zombie apocalypse. Undead hordes have been sighted shambling through streets from Serbia to Singapore in organized zombie walks and runs. “World War Z” has grossed more than half a billion dollars in movie theaters globally. And the hit TV show “The Walking Dead” is in its fourth season. Something is going on here. Could it be that humans see a bit of the future in the zombie apocalypse? But first, a little zombie history. Zombie is originally a Congolese word, explained George Mason University anthropologist Jeffrey Mantz. He says it crossed the Atlantic with African slaves, and “it made its way into the religious practices of various Caribbean communities, most notably in Haiti.” Zombies came to Hollywood with the U.S. occupation of Haiti from 1915 to 1934. The first zombie movie, “White Zombie,” starring vampire legend Bela Lugosi, hit the silver screen in 1932. But Haitian zombies might not recognize their American heirs. For one thing, Haitian zombies don’t have to be dead. “Haitian zombies are about the relationship between master and slave,” Mantz said, reflecting the island’s sugar-plantation history. “Someone’s body can be detached from its soul, and that body can be turned into a servant for someone who’s not up to any good.” Mantz says the undead zombie superimposes a Western concept about honoring deceased relatives. “In northern European traditions, if you didn’t visit the gravesite, they could come back and get you. They’re called revenants.” Castillo says the modern cannibal zombie traces its roots to 1968's “Night of the Living Dead.” That movie was made during a turbulent time in American history, Mantz notes. “There’s all sorts of social transformations taking place. It’s the height of the nuclear age with tensions with the Soviet Union.” You can attach any number of metaphors to the zombies, he says. But what really stands out is not the zombie attack, but how the living respond. “The two main characters bicker constantly throughout the movie and can’t seem to cooperate on anything. And their lack of cooperation is their own undoing.” It’s a common thread in the zombie oeuvre, he adds: “This isn’t really about zombies, per se. This is about humans.” “The Walking Dead” is as much about relations among the living as it is about fighting the undead. And “28 Days Later” asks who you can trust when the world comes to an end. That 2002 movie broke the mold of the slow, shuffling undead. These were zombies for the digital age, fast as the Internet. Zombies resonate because they represent something people fear is stealing their humanity, and today, Mantz says, “a lot of the technological transformations that are taking place are turning us into zombies, quite literally.” It used to be television that turned us into zombies, he notes. “Now video games do it. Now we’re staring into our smartphones. Stand around long enough and you can watch two human beings walk into each other, both with their faces buried into their smartphones.” He’s only half-joking. There is something dehumanizing about ubiquitous technology, he says. And it’s sadly ironic, he adds, that the minerals making much of that technology possible come from the Congo -- the same place as the word “zombie," and a place where inhuman atrocities are far too common. But the question remains: why are humans obsessed with the zombie apocalypse now more than ever? Castillo says it reflects something deep in the psyche. “Really, there is a general perception of crisis. More and more we suspect we are living at the very edge. We’re living in the end of times.” Global warming, disease, terrorism, political dysfunction and economic calamities… Castillo says there’s a sense that maybe the world actually is coming to an end, in a way. “Our default belief now is that the apocalypse is near. And we don’t seem to be able to stop it. The zombies, in a way, exemplify that. They are that warning.” Obama accepts responsibility for clunky health Web site By
the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
U.S. President Barack Obama says he takes full responsibility for making sure the problems with the new health care Web site are fixed as soon as possible. Speaking in Boston Wednesday, the president said the Web site is too slow and that too many people looking to buy insurance are getting stuck. He said he is not happy about it and there is no excuse for it. But he said the so-called Obamacare Web site ultimately will be the easiest way for Americans to shop for a health care plan. Earlier, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius apologized to a congressional committee for the troubled Web site. She called the technical problems a debacle. Ms. Sebelius said she has brought in new management, however, to fix the Web site and that it already has improved. Obama defended his health care initiative at Boston's historic Faneuil Hall, the same place where former Republican governor Mitt Romney signed Massachusetts' state health care law in 2006. The U.S. president said he modeled the federal law on the Massachusetts law. He pointed out that the state also had trouble getting its plan launched. But he said dire predictions that it would be a disaster did not come true. Under Obamacare, uninsured Americans have until March 31 to buy a federally subsidized health care plan or face a financial penalty. Obama repeatedly assured his audience that people who like their current plans will be able to keep them. Republicans accuse him of breaking his word, saying that some people have had their plans canceled because they do not comply with the new federal law. Republicans also have argued that the troubled health care Web site's glitches are proof the government is not capable of managing the complex program. Bipartisan committee meets to try to solve budget crisis By
the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
A select group of U.S. lawmakers from both political parties and both houses of Congress began work Wednesday to end a budget stalemate that helped provoke a partial government shutdown earlier this month. The budget conference has until mid-December to reach a fiscal accord, weeks before federal spending authority expires once again. Over the next six weeks, the budget conference will strive to achieve something Congress has been unable to do for years: get Democrats and Republicans to agree on federal spending levels and, if possible, craft a blueprint to improve America’s fiscal health over the next decade. Although most work will be done behind closed doors, Wednesday’s initial meeting was open to the news media. The 29 conferees took turns speaking, and partisan fiscal divides quickly became apparent. Republicans, like House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, are opposed to raising taxes. “Taking more from hard-working families just is not the answer. I know that my Republican colleagues feel the same way. So I want to say this from the get-go: if this conference becomes an argument about taxes, we are not going to get anywhere. The way to raise revenue is to grow the economy.” Democrats say a cuts-only approach to solving the nation’s fiscal problems is a non-starter. Senate Budget Committee Chairwoman Patty Murray said she is open to reforming costly programs that provide income and health care to retirees, but only if Republicans show similar flexibility on revenues. “I am ready to make some tough concessions to get a deal. But compromise runs both ways. While we scour programs to find responsible savings, Republicans are also going to have to work with us to scour the bloated tax code and close some wasteful tax loopholes. Because it is unfair and unacceptable to ask seniors and families to bear this burden alone,” she said. The conference mirrors the so-called “Super Committee” that tried and failed to reach a long-term budget agreement last year, triggering automatic across-the-board spending cuts that will deepen next year absent a budget deal. Many Democrats want to avoid further cuts to domestic programs, while many Republicans worry about additional military spending reductions. The conference could replace those cuts with other savings, but only if Democrats and Republicans forge a budget deal. Such a deal also would eliminate the threat of another government shutdown in January, when federal funding runs out once again. U.S. support for death penalty reported lowest in 40 years By
the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
Support for the death penalty in the United States is the lowest it has been in 40 years. Still, 60 percent of Americans say they favor the capital punishment for convicted murderers. The results, published Tuesday in a Gallup poll, show support for the death penalty at its lowest level since 1972. Gallup has tracked Americans’ views on the death penalty since 1936. Support peaked in 1994, when 80 percent of Americans supported it, but has declined since then. Gallup said the waning support could be tied to death penalty moratoriums in several states, a trend that started around 2000 when several death-row inmates were proved innocent. Since 2006, six states have repealed the death penalty, including Maryland this year. Currently, 18 states do not allow the death penalty. According to the Death Penalty Information Center, a national non-profit organization “serving the media and the public with analysis and information on issues concerning capital punishment,” the number of executions in the U.S. peaked in the late 90s and has tapered since then. “This is very much in line with what we’ve been seeing around the country,” said center executive director Richard Dieter, referring to an increase in states that have abolished the death penalty and a drop in death sentencing as well as executions. Dieter said that while the United States is viewed around the world as a death penalty country, its use is not widespread. “We recently issued a report that showed 2 percent of our counties are responsible for the majority of executions since 1976,” he said. “When it comes to applying the death penalty, it’s really a small percentage that’s driving this.” Capital punishment was suspended in the U.S. from 1972 to 1976, when it was reinstated by the Supreme Court. As of April, there were just over 3,000 inmates on death row, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. Gallup further identified politics as a major dividing line in how the death penalty is viewed. According to the poll, 81 percent of Republicans currently favor it, compared with 47 percent of Democrats. Independents' 60 percent support matches the national average. |
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A.M. Costa
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San José, Costa Rica, Thursday, Oct. 31, 2013, Vol. 13, No. 216 | |||||||||
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Weather system
presages extreme U.S. heat waves By
the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
Days of unrelenting high temperatures are the most deadly weather phenomenon on Earth, but like other extreme weather events, they are difficult to predict. Across Europe in 2003, heat waves were blamed for 50,000 deaths. Six hundred lives were lost in California in 2006 because of the scorching temperatures. Now scientists have identified a weather pattern in the atmosphere that may help meteorologists predict heat waves and, as a result, save lives. While prior studies have focused on land or sea surface conditions to try to identify patterns that precede heat waves, climate scientist Haiyan Teng turned her attention to the atmosphere. She and colleagues at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, ran a 12,000-year computer simulation over the Northern Hemisphere. "Instead of just 20 or 30 from the last 50 years of observations, we’ve got 6,000 extreme heat wave events," she said. "This gives us enough samples to study the precursor circulation patterns for these heat waves.” Ms. Teng says the computer model identified a pattern that showed up before the temperature rose. It is characterized by a sequence of alternating high and low pressure systems - five of each - circling the northern latitudes. It’s high above the atmosphere in the upper troposphere and this pattern precedes the U.S. heat waves by two weeks, she said. While the pattern is well documented in the historic record, this is the first time it has been connected to extreme heat waves. When the scientists reviewed real heat waves in the United States dating back to 1948, a similar pattern often emerged. “We think, OK, this pattern is a pattern in nature, and it is useful for the heat wave probability forecast. It is an estimate of the probability, not exactly how warm the temperature is going to be," Ms. Teng said. |
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From Page 7: California firm picks distributor here Special
to A.M. Costa Rica
Incrediwear, a division of Star Nutrition, Inc., a California-based diversified health and wellness industry firm, has announced a new agreement with Laro Suplidora, a Costa Rica-based provider of health, wellness and sporting goods products. Laro Suplidora works with several key distributors throughout the region and is already negotiating with the popular Extremos Sporting Goods and Farmaplace stores. “This is just the latest example of our growth around the globe,” says Star Nutrition CEO Jackson Corley. “We’re excited to have a presence in the Central American and Carribbean markets. Laro Suplidora’s large network of distributors will make sure that our products are available throughout the region. In addition to their vast network, they are a very professional company who will represent the Incrediwear brand well.” Under the terms of the agreement, Laro Suplidora has exclusivity for Central America and the Caribbean as a distributor of Incrediwear products. In addition to Incrediwear, the company also distributes products of the renowned brand Switzerland Samkon chewy, a chocolate confection for diet and sleeping, and Avevitta Clothing, which molds the figure and helps people look thinner. Incrediwear products, such as the Incredisocks and Incredibrace lines, couple proven health benefits with extreme comfort. Incrediwear products increase blood circulation, improve range of motion, and reduce fatigue and inflammation. The comfortable fabric wicks away moisture and keeps the wearer thermo-regulated. |