Saturday, June 22, 2013

Rivers receding in Calgary, 3 dead in floods

CALGARY, Alberta (AP) ? The two rivers that converge on the western Canadian city of Calgary are starting to recede after floods devastated much of southern Alberta province, causing at least three deaths and forcing thousands to evacuate.

The flooding forced authorities to evacuate Calgary's entire downtown and hit some of the city's iconic structures hard. The Saddledome, home to the National Hockey League's Calgary Flames, was flooded up to the 10th row, leaving the dressing rooms submerged.

Bruce Burrell, director of the city's emergency management agency, said Saturday they are seeing improvements in the rivers. Dan Limacher, director of water services for the city, said the Elbow river is expected to recede by about 60 percent over the next two days, while the larger Bow river will recede by about 25 percent.

The improving conditions Saturday morning prompted Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi to tweet: "It's morning in Calgary! Sunny, water levels are down, and our spirit remains strong. We're not out of this, but maybe have turned corner."

Overflowing rivers on Thursday and Friday washed out roads and bridges, soaked homes and turned streets into dirt-brown waterways around southern Alberta. Police have said two bodies have been recovered and third was in an area that made it too dangerous to recover.

Alberta Premier Alison Redford has warned that communities downstream of Calgary had not yet felt the full force of the floodwaters. Medicine Hat, downstream from Calgary, was under a mandatory evacuation order affecting 10,000 residents.

As the sun rose in Calgary on Saturday morning it wasn't raining. Burrell said some of the 75,000 flood evacuees from more than 24 neighborhoods will be allowed back into their homes. He said the goal is to allow people from portions of six communities back into their homes on Saturday. Residents in a portion of one of those neighborhoods ? the high ground portion of Discovery Ridge ?have already been allowed back.

Calgary's mayor said late Friday the downtown area was still without power and remained off limits.

"It is extremely unlikely that people will be able to return to those buildings before the middle of next week," Nenshi said.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper, a Calgary resident, said he never imagined there would be a flood of this magnitude in this part of Canada.

"This is incredible. I've seen a little bit of flooding in Calgary before. I don't think any of us have seen anything like this before. The magnitude is just extraordinary," he said.

"We're all very concerned that if gets much more than this it could have real impact on infrastructure and other services longer term, so we're hoping things will subside a bit."

Twenty-five neighborhoods in the city, with an estimated 75,000 residents, were evacuated due to floodwaters in Calgary, a city of more than a million people that hosted the 1988 Winter Olympics and is the center of Canada's oil industry. About 1,500 people have gone to emergency shelters while the rest have found shelter with family or friends, Nenshi said.

About 350,000 people work in downtown Calgary on a typical day. However, officials said very few people had to be moved out, since many heeded warnings and did not go to work Friday.

A spokesman for Canada's defense minister said 1,300 soldiers from a base in Edmonton were being deployed to the flood zone.

Police were asking residents who were forced to leave the nearby High River area to register at an evacuation shelter. The Town of High River remained under a mandatory evacuation order.

Schools and court trials were canceled. Transit service in the city's core was shut down.

Residents were left to wander and wade through streets waist-deep in water.

Newlyweds Scott and Marilyn Crowson were ordered out of their central Calgary condominium late Friday as rising waters filled their parking garage and ruptured a nearby gas line. "That's just one building but every building is like this," he said. "For the most part, people are taking it in stride."

Scott Crowson, a kayaker, estimated the Bow River, usually about four feet (1.2 meters) deep, is running at a depth of 15 feet (4.5 meters).

"It's moving very, very fast," he said of the normally placid stream spanned by now-closed bridges. "I've never seen it so big and so high."

It had been a rainy week throughout much of Alberta, but on Thursday the Bow River Basin was battered with up to four inches (10 centimeters) of rain. Environment Canada's forecast called for more rain in the area, but in much smaller amounts.

Calgary was not alone in its weather-related woes. Flashpoints of chaos spread from towns in the Rockies south to Lethbridge.

___

Associated Press writer Rob Gillies and Charmaine Noronha contributed from Toronto. AP writer Jeremy Hainsworth contributed from Vancouver, British Columbia.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/rivers-receding-calgary-3-dead-floods-152008579.html

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Middle School Memories: 10 Moments That Still Make You Cringe, According To Reddit

Being a teen is tough, but being a tween might be even tougher. From awkward encounters with classmates to weird obsessions (like dressing in a cape and pretending to be a pirate), it's a wonder how anyone survives middle school.

Yesterday, Reddit users didn't spare any details when they responded to the question, "What happened in middle school that still makes you cringe today?"

Click through 10 of the responses in the slideshow below and tell us: What are your worst middle school memories, or, what was your favorite part about middle school? Sound off in the comments or tweet @HuffPostTeen!

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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/21/middle-school-memories_n_3480615.html

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Government on offensive outside Syria's capital

BEIRUT (AP) ? Syrian government forces stepped up their attack against rebel strongholds north of the capital Damascus on Saturday, while opposition fighters declared their own offensive in the country's largest city Aleppo.

Both sides intensified operations as an 11-nation group that includes the U.S., dubbed the Friends of Syria, began meeting in Qatar to discuss how to coordinate military and other aid to the rebels seeking to oust Syrian President Bashar Assad.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which relies on an extensive network of activists in Syria, said the shelling of the district of Qaboun has killed three children, including two from the same family, since Friday.

Activists reported heavy shelling on many fronts on districts north of Damascus, apparently an attempt to cut links between rebel-held districts that have served as launching pads for operations against the capital.

The Lebanese TV station Al-Mayadeen, which had a reporter embedded with Syrian government forces in the offensive, quoted a military official as saying that the operation aims to cut rebel supply lines, separate one group from another, and secure the northern entrances to the capital. The regime's forces have struggled for months to regain control of these suburbs.

The Observatory said the neighborhood was being attacked from several different sides, while the shelling has caused structural damage and started fires. Activists from Qaboun posted on Facebook that government forces had brought up new tanks to reinforce its positions outside the neighborhood, and the bombardment had brought buildings down.

The Observatory said rebels targeted a police academy in the nearby Barzeh area Saturday, pushing back against a government attempt to storm the neighborhood. One rebel was killed in overnight fighting, it said.

A recent declaration by the U.S. that it had conclusive evidence that President Bashar Assad's regime used chemical weapons on a small scale against opposition forces prompted Washington to authorize the arming of rebels, a major shift in policy. The decision also followed advances by the government forces aided by fighters from Lebanon's Hezbollah.

Rebels say they have already received new weapons from allied countries? but not the U.S. ? that they claim will help them to shift the balance of power on the ground. Experts and activists said the new weapons include anti-tank missiles and small quantities of anti-aircraft missiles.

It was not clear if any of the new weapons have made it to the Damascus area. A spokesman for one of the main groups fighting outside of Damascus, the al-Islam brigade, said his group had none of the new weapons. The unnamed spokesman spoke to The Associated Press through Skype.

He said government forces were shelling Barzeh from Qasioun mountain overlooking Damascus. Syria's main Western-backed opposition group said Thursday that 40,000 civilians in the two northern districts of Damascus are suffering from shortages of food and medical supplies.

Rebels and government also clashed in and around the northern city of Aleppo, where government forces announced an offensive earlier this month. Activists said troops clashed in the southern neighborhoods of Rashideen and Hamdaniya and in the western suburbs.

The Observatory said rebels pounded a military academy in the area, causing a fire in the compound. There were no immediate reports of casualties. In Rashideen, rebel forces have pushed government forces out from parts of the neighborhood, according to the local Aleppo Media Center network and posts on Facebook.

A statement by a coalition of rebel groups, posted on the Center's page, declared that the fighters are launching a new operation to seize control of the western neighborhoods of Aleppo. Amateur showed what appeared to be intense government shelling of villages in the area.

On Saturday, a dozen shells from Syrian forces landed in a northern Lebanese border town, some landing near homes, causing a panic among residents, the Lebanese news agency reported.

Syria's official news agency said government troops were targeting a group of infiltrators across the border. It gave no further details.

Rockets from Syria fall regularly into towns and villages near the border. On Friday, a rocket slammed into a suburb of Beirut, bringing the war closer to Lebanon's bustling capital, the second in less than a month. No one claimed responsibility for that attack, but rebels in Syria have vowed to retaliate against Hezbollah's Beirut strongholds for its increasingly active role assisting Assad.

Syria's 2-year civil war has killed nearly 93,000 people. It increasingly pits Sunni against Shiite Muslims and threatening the stability of Syria's neighbors.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/government-offensive-outside-syrias-capital-113710792.html

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Longo goes yard twice as Rays roll Yankees

By HOWIE RUMBERG

AP Sports Writer

Associated Press Sports

updated 10:51 p.m. ET June 20, 2013

NEW YORK (AP) - Evan Longoria homered twice. Matt Moore pitched impressively into the seventh inning. From Desmond Jennings to Yunel Escobar, there were contributions throughout the Tampa Bay lineup.

That's how manager Joe Maddon imagined this pesky club would perform all year.

"That's the way it's supposed to look like," Maddon said after the Rays sent the New York Yankees to their seventh loss in nine game, 8-3 Thursday night.

Longoria reached 500 career RBIs with a sacrifice fly in the third inning. He connected against Andy Pettitte (5-5) leading off the sixth and again off Joba Chamberlain to open the eighth.

Escobar hit a two-run shot off Boone Logan later in the eighth as the Rays' won a second straight after losing six of seven.

"We've had some tough losses in the past week but the guys hung in there really well," Maddon said. "It's going to be the roller coaster AL East all summer."

Tampa Bay had 14 hits after amassing 15 in a 6-2 win over Boston on Wednesday night.

The 24-year-old Moore (9-3) snapped a three-start skid. The lefty opened the season 8-0 before yielding 20 runs over 12 1-3 innings in three starts this month. He blanked the Yankees until the sixth when two walks and a single loaded the bases with no outs.

A wild pitch scored one run, Robinson Cano had a sacrifice fly and Travis Hafner followed with an RBI grounder that pulled the Yankees to 4-3.

"Things were going well until the sixth inning," Moore said. "That was kind of the makey or breaky type of moment where it's either going to be a five-run inning with Robbie Cano up, bases loaded, no outs. Or you could keep the team in the game the way we were able to."

Moore then got an out in the seventh before being lifted following Lyle Overbay's ground-rule double to left field, only the fourth hit he allowed.

Jose Lobaton opened the scoring with a sacrifice fly in the second following a wild pitch by Pettitte. Ben Zobrist had an RBI single in the third in the Rays' first visit to the Bronx this year.

Jennings and Sean Rodriguez had consecutive two-out doubles in the seventh to chase Pettitte, making his first start as a 41-year-old - his birthday was Saturday.

"For me it's another frustrating night," Pettitte said. "We come back and score three runs and I go out there and give them right back. Joe (Girardi) trusts me to get out of the inning and I can't get Rodriguez out. I need to be able to shut these guys down."

Jennings put Pettitte in trouble on the first pitch of the game, hitting a double that landed on the left-field line for his first of his three hits.

The Rays started the third with three straight singles. Jennings led off with a single and went to second when the ball scooted under center fielder Brett Gardner's glove for an error. After Rodriguez singled, Zobrist, who came in 9 for 22 (.409) against Pettitte, drove in Jennings with a single.

Longoria's sacrifice fly made it 3-0 and gave the All-Star third baseman 500 RBIs in 710 games, eighth quickest to reach the mark in major league history.

"It's a pretty good amount of RBIs. It's something I'm pretty proud of," Longoria said. "Hopefully there'll be a ton more."

In 6 2-3 innings, Pettitte gave up five runs and nine hits. He has given up 14 runs in four starts since returning from the disabled list June 3.

Pitching coach "Larry (Rothschild) said for the first five innings he didn't make a lot of mistakes, but the ones he made they hit them," manager Joe Girardi said.

NOTES: Maddon said RHP Alex Colome will start Saturday. ... Tampa Bay played its 2,500th game in franchise history. The Rays, who started out as the Devil Rays in 1998, are 1,141-1,359 overall. Rothschild was Tampa Bay's first manager. Current Rays bench coach Dave Martinez singled for the team's first hit. ... Rays ace David Price (left triceps strain) is scheduled to make his first rehabilitation start Friday for Class A Charlotte. ... There was a moment of silence for actor and Yankees fan James Gandolfini, who died Wednesday. ... Yankees broadcaster and former catcher John Flaherty was in the Rays' first lineup. ... Yankees OF Vernon Wells went 0 for 3 and is 6 for 59 in June.

? 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.


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??HBT Daily: O's teammates Chris Davis and Manny Machado lead the early AL MVP race. Who does Craig Calcaterra favor for the award?

Source: http://nbcsports.msnbc.com/id/52270549/ns/sports-baseball/

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Editor's Letter: Microsoft backtracks. Is the Xbox One better for it?

In each issue of Distro, editor-in-chief Tim Stevens publishes a wrap-up of the week in news.

DNP Editor's Letter Microsoft backtracks Is the Xbox One better for it

It's not too often that we call a tech news story stunning, but that seems like an apt description for our reaction when Microsoft decided to pull an abrupt about-face and nix its controversial rights management for the Xbox One. We learned at the Seattle launch event that the system would have to call home once every 24 hours or every game installed from a disc would be disabled -- even if you had the disc in the drive -- and quickly the rumblings from the gamers started. They grew louder at E3 when Microsoft detailed the system's DRM, a stream of complaints that quickly reached deafening levels on online forums and the like.

Yet, through all that, Microsoft stayed true to the party line, that the advantages of this system (being able to digitally share games, being able to change games without having to swap discs, etc.) outweighed the overwhelmingly negative reaction brewing among online gamers. That corporate message seemed to get bitter at times, weary at others, but never showed a sign of changing. Until, suddenly, a complete about-face this week.

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Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/jf7Q_0z8Ob4/

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Solar splashdown provide new insights into how young stars grow by sucking up nearby gas

June 20, 2013 ? On June 7, 2011, our Sun erupted, blasting tons of hot plasma into space. Some of that plasma splashed back down onto the Sun's surface, sparking bright flashes of ultraviolet light. This dramatic event may provide new insights into how young stars grow by sucking up nearby gas.

The eruption and subsequent splashdown were observed in spectacular detail by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory. This spacecraft watches the Sun 24 hours a day, providing images with better-than-HD resolution. Its Atmospheric Imaging Assembly instrument was designed and developed by researchers at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA).

"We're getting beautiful observations of the Sun. And we get such high spatial resolution and high cadence that we can see things that weren't obvious before," says CfA astronomer Paola Testa.

Movies of the June 7th eruption show dark filaments of gas blasting outward from the Sun's lower right. Although the solar plasma appears dark against the Sun's bright surface, it actually glows at a temperature of about 18,000 degrees Fahrenheit. When the blobs of plasma hit the Sun's surface again, they heat up by a factor of 100 to a temperature of almost 2 million degrees F. As a result, those spots brighten in the ultraviolet by a factor of 2 -- 5 over just a few minutes.

The tremendous energy release occurs because the in falling blobs are traveling at high speeds, up to 900,000 miles per hour (400 km/sec). Those speeds are similar to the speeds reached by material falling onto young stars as they grow via accretion. Therefore, observations of this solar eruption provide an "up close" view of what happens on distant stars.

"We often study young stars to learn about our Sun when it was an 'infant.' Now we're doing the reverse and studying our Sun to better understand distant stars," notes Testa.

These new observations, combined with computer modeling, have helped resolve a decade-long argument over how to measure the accretion rates of growing stars. Astronomers calculate how fast a young star is gathering material by observing its brightness at various wavelengths of light, and how that brightness changes over time. However, they got higher estimates from optical and ultraviolet light than from X-rays.

The team discovered that the ultraviolet flashes they observed came from the in falling material itself, not the surrounding solar atmosphere. If the same is true for distant, young stars, then by analyzing the ultraviolet light they emit, we can learn about the material they are accreting.

"By seeing the dark spots on the Sun, we can learn about how young stars accrete material and grow." explains Testa.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/top_science/~3/0ZGlUd7zKoI/130620162838.htm

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Obama nominating Comey as FBI director

FILE - In this May 15, 2007 file photo, James Comey testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington. The White House says President Barack Obama plans to announce Friday his new choice to lead the FBI in Comey, former President George W. Bush's No. 2 at the Justice Department. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh, File)

FILE - In this May 15, 2007 file photo, James Comey testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington. The White House says President Barack Obama plans to announce Friday his new choice to lead the FBI in Comey, former President George W. Bush's No. 2 at the Justice Department. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh, File)

(AP) ? President Barack Obama has chosen a former George W. Bush administration official best known for a dramatic hospital bedside standoff against a warrantless wiretapping program to head the FBI for the next decade.

White House officials are hoping that James Comey's bipartisan background and two decades of law enforcement experience will help him win Senate approval to replace outgoing FBI Director Robert Mueller. Mueller took over the agency the week before the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, and will have served longer than any director besides J. Edgar Hoover when he steps down Sept. 4.

Mueller transformed the agency into one the country's chief weapons against terrorism, leading Obama to ask him in 2011 to stay on two years beyond his initial 10-year term. The new director would take over as the agency grapples with a privacy debates surrounding a host of recently exposed investigative tactics, and the White House said Obama would announce Comey as the man for the job Friday afternoon in the Rose Garden.

Comey was a federal prosecutor who served for several years as the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York before coming to Washington after 9/11 as deputy attorney general. In recent years he's been an executive at defense company Lockheed Martin, general counsel to hedge fund Bridgewater Associates, board member at HSBC Holdings and lecturer on national security law at Columbia Law School.

He has shown a willingness to take on battles over government surveillance in the age of terrorism ? an issue that remains prominent in current Washington debate. In a confrontation he has called the most difficult night of his career, he rushed to the hospital bedside of his boss, John Ashcroft, in 2004 to stop two senior Bush White House aides from getting the ailing attorney general's approval to reauthorize a post-9/11 program that allowed government wiretaps to be used without warrants.

Comey's defiance won him respect in Washington, and Republicans have said they see no major obstacles to his confirmation. But he is certain to face tough questions about his recent hedge fund work and his ties to Wall Street as well as how he would handle current, high-profile FBI investigations.

The FBI is responsible for both intelligence and law enforcement, with more than 36,000 employees. It has faced questions in recent weeks over media leak probes involving The Associated Press and Fox News; the Boston Marathon bombings; the attack at Benghazi, Libya, that killed four Americans; and two vast government surveillance programs into phone records and online communications.

The leaker of those National Security Agency programs, former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, also is the subject of a criminal investigation. And just this week, Mueller revealed the FBI uses drones for surveillance of stationary subjects and said the privacy implications of such operations are worthy of debate.

The American Civil Liberties Union, which doesn't take positions on nominees, is raising questions about Comey's record on national security. ACLU senior policy counsel Mike German said while Comey stood up to some surveillance, he eventually approved the NSA program, along with interrogation techniques that included waterboarding, as well as defended the indefinite detention of Jose Padilla, an American terrorism suspect.

"We want to make sure whoever sits in that chair has a determined interest in protecting the rule of law, particularly since they will be there 10 years, outlasting this president and potentially the next president," German said.

But the top Democrat and Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee that will oversee Comey's confirmation hearing expressed support for his nomination. Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., called for senators to give Comey "the swift and respectful confirmation he deserves."

Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, said Comey's experience on national security would benefit the FBI. Grassley also said he wanted to question Comey on his work in the hedge fund industry and on the Obama administration's efforts to prosecute Wall Street for its role in the economic downturn.

In dramatic testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee in 2007, Comey said he thought the no-warrant wiretapping program was so questionable that he refused to reauthorize it while serving as acting attorney general during Ashcroft's hospitalization. Comey said when he learned that the White House chief of staff and counsel were heading to Ashcroft's room despite his wife's instructions that there be no visitors, Comey beat them there and watched as Ashcroft turned them away.

"That night was probably the most difficult night of my professional life," Comey testified. He said he and Ashcroft had reservations about the program's legality, but he would not discuss details since the program was classified.

Comey was deputy attorney general in 2005 when he unsuccessfully tried to limit tough interrogation tactics against suspected terrorists. He told then-Attorney General Alberto Gonzales that some of the practices were wrong and would damage the department's reputation.

As U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, Comey headed one of the nation's most prominent prosecutorial offices and one at the front lines in the fight against terrorism, corporate malfeasance, organized crime and the war on drugs.

As an assistant U.S. attorney in Virginia, Comey handled the investigation of the 1996 bombing of the Khobar Towers housing complex near Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, which killed 19 U.S. military personnel.

___

Follow Nedra Pickler on Twitter at https://twitter.com/nedrapickler

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/89ae8247abe8493fae24405546e9a1aa/Article_2013-06-21-Obama-FBI/id-38ba919ae02b45128c4f8dcf9c7596e6

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