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Friday, October 25, 2013

After hiatus, Obama returns to campaign mode in NY

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama is opening a six-week burst of fundraising for Democrats, offering an early look at how he'll frame the messy health overhaul rollout and recent government shutdown for donors and voters ahead of next year's pivotal midterm elections.

After putting political events on hold for about a month, Obama will return to campaign mode Friday in New York, where he'll speak at a top-dollar fundraiser for House Democrats, flanked by film producer Harvey Weinstein and prominent CEOs. He'll then head to another, closed-door fundraiser benefiting the national Democratic Party before returning to Washington.

Earlier Friday, Obama will visit a Brooklyn high school to showcase a rare partnership between public schools, a public university system and IBM that lets students finish high school with an associate's degree in computers or engineering.

His fundraising schedule condensed, Obama will headline at least nine fundraisers before the end of November for Democratic campaign committees. Michelle Obama and Vice President Joe Biden are holding their own events. Obama's spree will take him away from Washington more than a half-dozen times, from Florida to Texas to California.

Traditionally, the president is a party's most potent fundraising tool, and the effort isn't without potential reward for Obama. A return of Congress to full Democratic control next year would open the door to sweeping policies Obama would love to enact, but Republicans refuse to consider.

In sporadic fundraisers earlier in the year, when Obama was actively seeking better relations with Republicans, he avoided overt partisanship in his pitch to donors. His message was: I'll work with fair-minded lawmakers from either party, but the more power Democrats have in Congress, the better my chances for success.

But any semblance of comity between Obama and Republicans evaporated during the standoff over government funding and the debt ceiling, when the White House was accusing the GOP of holding hostages and threatening to burn down the house. Republicans' insistence that the government shut down unless Obama agreed to debilitating changes to his health care law made the lack of common ground all too clear.

So the immediate crisis averted, Democrats and Republicans alike are looking to the president's words on Friday for signs of how Obama and his party will cast the bitter fights in Washington as they gear up for 2014 races across the country.

"I recognize that the Republican Party has made blocking the Affordable Care Act its signature policy idea," Obama said this week at the White House. "Sometimes it seems to be the one thing that unifies the party these days."

More Americans blame Republicans than Obama for the 16-day shutdown, giving Obama and Democrats a new bludgeon to hammer Republicans and argue they must be voted out. Just 32 percent of Americans view the Republican Party favorably, according to a Washington Post-ABC News poll conducted Oct. 17-20, compared to 46 percent who view Democrats favorably.

The political blow to the GOP from the crisis has made some Democrats more bullish about retaking the House next year — an incredibly tall order that, if successful, would bolster Obama's prospects for achieving his second-term goals.

But at the same time, Obama is weighed down by the calamitous debut of the website for new insurance exchanges, raising the prospect that Obama's health care law will be more of a liability than an asset in 2014 even for Democrats who supported the law.

"I would take our position over theirs any day of the week," said Mo Elleithee, the Democratic National Committee's communications director. "We have been working to give people more benefits and increase their access to affordable health care, while Republicans shut down the government."

After winning re-election last year, Obama vowed to go all-in for Democrats by holding at least 20 fundraisers ahead of the midterm elections. Although Obama had planned to spread events out over many months this fall, Democratic officials say he was forced to put politicking on hold — first by the crisis over Syria's chemical weapons, then by the shutdown-and-debt debacle.

By and large, Democrats have been more successful than Republicans in leveraging the fiscal showdown to raise money, according to fundraising reports released by campaign committees for House and Senate. But Republicans say that's where Obama's usefulness to his party ends. After all, the nation's new health insurance program remains a tough sell even with independent voters, and Obama is personally unpopular in many of the southern, conservative-leaning states holding critical Senate elections next year.

"There's still not one Democrat candidate in a toss-up race who wants him visiting their district, because they know he's not wanted anywhere other than New York, San Francisco or Chicago," said Daniel Scarpinato, a National Republican Congressional Committee official.

___

AP Director of Polling Jennifer Agiesta contributed to this report.

___

Follow Josh Lederman on Twitter: http://twitter.com/joshledermanAP

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/hiatus-obama-returns-campaign-mode-ny-165731221--politics.html
Category: ohio state football goog Bum Phillips Bosses Day 2013 Madden 25

N. Dakota oil spills go unpublicized

BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) — North Dakota, the nation's No. 2 oil producer behind Texas, recorded nearly 300 oil pipeline spills in less than two years, state documents show. None was reported to the public, officials said.

According to records obtained by The Associated Press, the pipeline spills, many of them small, are among some 750 "oil field incidents" that have occurred since January 2012 without public notification.

"That's news to us," said Don Morrison, director of the Dakota Resource Council, an environmental-minded landowner group with more than 700 members in North Dakota.

Dennis Fewless, director of water quality for the state Health Department, said regulators are reviewing the state's policies for when to publicly report such incidents after a massive spill was discovered last month in northwestern North Dakota by a wheat farmer. State and company officials kept it quiet for 11 days — and only said something after the AP asked about it.

North Dakota regulators, like in many other oil-producing states, are not obliged to tell the public about oil spills under state law. But in a state that's producing a million barrels a day and saw nearly 2,500 miles of new pipelines last year, many believe the risk of spills will increase, posing a bigger threat to farmland and water.

"We're certainly looking at that now and what would be a threshold for reporting to the public," Fewless said. Taking notice of the recent criticism, the state issued a statement Oct .17 on an estimated 7-barrel oil spill in Divide County, which borders Canada in far northwestern North Dakota.

The state also is mulling a better system to track spills in-house, Fewless said, from their origin to cleanup status.

"We really have to dig through our data base to get specifics," said Fewless, adding that a more user-friendly tracking system for regulators may be developed.

Such a system would be valuable for the public, too, said Louis Kuster, who raises wheat near Stanley in northwest North Dakota. Farmers and ranchers rely on land for their livelihood, so information on spills that could threaten land or water supplies "absolutely is important for us to know," he said.

Between coffee-shop talk and chatting with neighbors, nothing much happens around the fourth-generation farmer's land without him knowing about it — except when it comes to oil spills.

"What you don't know, nobody is going to tell you," Kuster said.

Earlier this month, Kuster and his neighbors noticed truckloads of oil-tainted dirt being hauled away from an adjacent farm. It was allegedly from a broken pipeline, but no one really knows for sure, he said.

"We have no idea how big the spill is and why it happened," he said. "I'd try to get more information from the state but I'm too busy getting my harvest in."

North Dakota officials have urged pipeline industry to officials to quickly — and safely — expand the network to keep pace with record production in the oil patch. The state has about 17,500 miles of pipelines, including the addition last year of 2,470 miles, roughly the distance from New York City to Los Angeles.

For almost two weeks, no one knew about a break in a Tesoro Corp. pipeline that was discovered Sept. 29 in a remote area near Tioga. Officials say no water was contaminated or wildlife hurt, but the spill was one of the largest in North Dakota's history, estimated at 20,600 barrels. Oil oozed over an area the size of seven football fields.

Records obtained by the AP show that so far this year, North Dakota has recorded 139 pipeline leaks that spilled a total of 735 barrels of oil. In 2012, there were 153 pipeline leaks that spilled 495 barrels of oil, data show. A little more than half of the spills companies reported to North Dakota occurred "on-site," where a well is connected to a pipeline, and most were fewer than 10 barrels. The remainder of the spills occurred along the state's labyrinth of pipelines.

"The public really should know about these," Morrison with the landowner group said. "If there is a spill, sometimes a landowner may not even know about it. And if they do, people think it's an isolated incident that's only happening to them."

North Dakota also had 291 "incidents" this year that leaked a total of about 2,209 barrels of oil. Data show that all but 490 barrels were contained and cleaned up at the well site. In 2012, there were 168 spills reported that leaked 1,089 barrels of oil; all but 376 barrels were contained on site, data show. Only one incident — a crash involving an oil truck last year — was reported publicly.

Department of Mineral Resources director Lynn Helms — the state's top oil regulator — said regulators worry about "over-reporting" spills. The goal, he said, is to find a balance to so that "the public is aware of what's happening but not overwhelmed by little incidents."

Kuster believes most people would like to immediately know about even the smallest spill, because even a barrel of spilled oil likely could ruin water sources and take untold acres of cropland out of production. He also said timely, accurate and accessible information would hold companies and regulators accountable.

"It would tell me if there is enough oversight and why these accidents happen and if they could have been avoided," he said. "Right now, you don't know if there is a spill unless you find it yourself."

___

Follow James MacPherson on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/macphersonja

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/ap-newsbreak-100s-nd-oil-spills-not-publicized-162205382--finance.html
Category: Geno Smith Under the Dome

Website contractors point fingers at Obama admin.

From left, Cheryl Campbell, senior vice president of CGI Federal; Andrew Slavitt, group executive vice president for Optum/QSSI; Lynn Spellecy, corporate counsel for Equifax Workforce Solutions; and John Lau, program director for Serco, listen to questioning on Capitol Hill in Washington, Thursday, Oct. 24, 2013, during a House Energy and Commerce Committee hearing with contractors that built the federal government's health care websites. The contractors responsible for building the troubled Healthcare.gov website say it was the government's responsibility _ not theirs _ to test it and make sure it worked. (AP Photo/ Evan Vucci)

Cheryl Campbell, senior vice president of CGI listens at left as Andy Slavitt, representing QSSI's parent company, testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington, Thursday, Oct. 24, 2013, before the House Energy and Commerce Committee hearing with contractors that built the federal government's health care websites. The contractors responsible for building the troubled Healthcare.gov website say it was the government's responsibility _ not theirs _ to test it and make sure it worked. (AP Photo/ Evan Vucci)

Lynn Spellecy, corporate counsel for Equifax Workforce Solutions testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington, Thursday, Oct. 24, 2013, before the House Energy and Commerce Committee hearing with contractors that built the federal government's health care websites. The contractors responsible for building the troubled Healthcare.gov website say it was the government's responsibility _ not theirs _ to test it and make sure it worked. (AP Photo/ Evan Vucci)

Andy Allison, director of the Division of Medical Services at the Department of Human Services, answers legislators' questions about expansion of the Medicaid program in Arkansas during a joint meeting of the House and Senate Committees on Public Health, Welfare and Labor at the Arkansas state Capitol in Little Rock, Ark., Thursday, Oct. 24, 2013. (AP Photo/Danny Johnston)

Rep. Kim Hammer, R-Benton, looks through Medicaid-related material during a joint meeting of the House and Senate Committees on Public Health, Welfare and Labor at the Arkansas state Capitol in Little Rock, Ark., Thursday, Oct. 24, 2013. (AP Photo/Danny Johnston)

WASHINGTON (AP) — Contractors who built the web portal for the Obama administration's health insurance marketplace said Thursday the site's crippling problems trace back to insufficient testing and changes that government officials made just prior to going live.

Who's to blame? The first congressional hearing into what went wrong dug into issues of website architecture and testing protocols — but also re-stoked the partisan battle over President Barack Obama's signature expansion of health coverage for millions of uninsured Americans. Republicans who've been trying to kill the program the past three years sounded outraged that it is being poorly carried out, while Democrats jeered them as political hypocrites.

What was clear after more than four hours of testimony was that the contractors had only partial answers, and only the Obama administration can eventually put the entire picture together to explain the botched rollout.

Better times are coming, said executives from CGI Federal, which built the HealthCare.gov website serving 36 states, and from QSSI, which created a component that helps verify applicants' incomes and other personal details. They said problems are being fixed daily and expressed optimism that anybody who wants coverage will able to get it by Jan. 1.

"The system is working, people are enrolling," said CGI vice president Cheryl Campbell. "But people will be able to enroll at a faster pace."

Asked for a timetable, she side-stepped, saying: "I don't like to raise expectations."

The online insurance markets were meant to be the portal to coverage for people who don't get health benefits on the job. Middle-class people are to pick from subsidized private insurance plans, while low-income people are steered to Medicaid in states that have agreed to expand that safety-net program. But the administration is now urging consumers to apply via call centers or on paper forms as the website problems are being addressed.

Lack of testing was the main thread emerging from Thursday's hearing before the House Energy and Commerce Committee.

But questions were also raised about a decision by the administration to not allow window shopping, as e-commerce sites generally do. Requiring consumers to open accounts and calculate subsidies before they could shop greatly increased the volume of traffic. That precipitated the crash of an accounts registration feature that became an early bottleneck. The site is now allowing limited window shopping.

"It's certainly not perfect but getting better by the day," Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said in Phoenix.

"We now have 700,000 applications that have been submitted for health insurance. We intend to make sure those folks get the coverage they need," she said.

At Thursday's House hearing, the contractors said they each tested their own components independently but that the Health and Human Services Department was responsible for testing the whole system from end to end. That kind of testing didn't happen until the last couple of weeks before the system's Oct. 1 launch.

Representing QSSI, Andrew Slavitt told the committee that ideally, end-to-end testing should have occurred well before that, with enough time to correct flaws.

How much time?

"Months would be nice," said Slavitt.

"We would have loved to have months," concurred CGI's Campbell.

The administration has acknowledged it did not test enough, and that that contributed to the problems.

The focus on the contractors is just a first step for re-energized GOP investigators. After the failure of their drive to defund "Obamacare" by shutting down the government, Republicans have been handed a new opportunity by the administration in the signup problems. Administration officials, including Sebelius, are to testify next week.

"This is not about blame," committee Chairman Fred Upton, R-Mich., said as he opened the hearing. But he and other Republicans wasted little time in castigating the administration for having repeatedly assured Congress before the launch that everything was on track.

"Are they simply incompetent, or were they lying to the American people?" said Rep. Joe Pitts, R-Pa.

Democrats shot back that Republicans have no objectivity when it comes to the law. "We have already documented a record of Republicans trying to sabotage the Affordable Care Act," said ranking Democrat Henry Waxman of California, citing not only the defunding effort in Congress but state-level campaigns to discourage enrollment.

Another Democrat, New Jersey's Frank Pallone, dismissed the hearing as a "monkey court."

What motivated the administration to delay the window shopping feature remained an unresolved question. QSSI's Slavitt testified it came as a "late decision."

Speaking for the administration, Julie Bataille, director of Medicare's office of communications, told reporters Thursday without elaboration that it was a "business decision." The Medicare agency is responsible for running the health care overhaul.

E-commerce sites, including Medicare.gov, routinely allow anonymous shopping, and customers set up accounts when they check out. Health and Human Services spokeswoman Joanne Peters said recently that window shopping wouldn't have let consumers first see if they were eligible for tax credits. The credits amount to a discount off the sticker price of premiums.

Without citing any evidence, some Republicans suggested the administration's motivation was political. "This browsable website was turned off to hide the costs," said Rep. Cory Gardner, R-Colo.

Rep. G.K. Butterfield, D-N.C., sought to debunk that.

"Are you aware of any political intervention by this White House relating to your work on HealthCare.gov?" he asked Campbell.

"I am not," she responded.

QSSI's Slavitt said the decision had technical implications. It increased the website's workload, contributing to the failure of an accounts registration function that his company was in charge of. Requiring the merely curious to create accounts "may have driven higher simultaneous usage of the registration system that wouldn't have occurred if consumers could window-shop anonymously," he said.

Slavitt added that accounts registration snags are being cleared up. And HHS has since incorporated a rudimentary window shopping feature to HealthCare.gov

Meanwhile, Slavitt and the administration both are saying that another, even more important component designed by QSSI is working well. It's the website's virtual back room, known as the federal data hub, which plays a crucial role in verifying applicants' identity, immigration status and income.

___

Associated Press writers Jack Gillum in Washington and Terry Tang in Phoenix contributed to this report.

Associated PressSource: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2013-10-24-US-Health-Overhaul-Problems/id-c4482e21c54645eaacc544a6223bead5
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Chip growth leads Samsung to another record profit

A South Korean man walks by an advertisement of Samsung Electronics' Galaxy Note 3 smartphone at a train station in Seoul, South Korea, Friday, Oct. 25, 2013. Samsung Electronics Co. had another record-high quarterly profit, thanks to revived semiconductor business and a record profit from handset sales. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man)

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — Samsung Electronics Co. reported another record quarterly profit as a revival in its semiconductor business and strong shipments of cheaper handsets offset flat sales of high-end smartphones.

The South Korean company, which is the world's largest maker of smartphones, memory chips and televisions, said Friday its July-September net profit rose 25 percent over a year earlier to 8 trillion won ($7.5 billion).

It was the seventh quarter in a row that Samsung posted record earnings. Growth was driven by semiconductors and sales of cheaper smartphones in contrast to previous quarters that relied on premium smartphones.

Third-quarter profit from its semiconductor business doubled over a year earlier to 2.06 trillion won as demand rose for memory chips used in mobile devices, servers and digital game consoles.

Samsung's mobile business posted a record profit, contributing nearly 70 percent of the company's total operating profit.

However, growth in sales of premium smartphones, the Galaxy S4 and the Galaxy Note 3, came to a halt during the third quarter, staying at the same level as the previous quarter.

In the premium market, Samsung is feeling the heat from the launch of Apple's latest phone. Counterpoint Technology Market Research said Samsung's smartphone market share in the U.S. fell to 29 percent in September from 37 percent in August, yielding the top spot to Apple whose share surged to 39 percent thanks to the iPhone 5S.

It was Samsung's cheap smartphones that drove mid-teens percentage growth in shipments.

"Samsung's result reflects the current situation in the global smartphone market. The premium smartphone market is not growing quickly," said Young Park, an analyst at Hyundai Securities. "There was a concern whether Samsung would compete well with second-tier handset makers in China in low- and mid-end smartphone markets but its growth in that area was impressive."

Samsung's home rival LG Electronics Inc. was a distant No. 3 in the smartphone market after Samsung and Apple. Its mobile business lost money in the third quarter even after selling 12 million smartphones, as it spent more to promote its product and raise its brand reputation.

Apple Inc., which is scheduled to announce its latest financial results on Monday, has responded to demand for cheap smartphones in emerging markets by cutting the prices of old iPhone models. Apple did not introduce low-priced iPhone models until this year. But the response to the slightly cheaper iPhone 5C is widely believed to be lukewarm.

Samsung forecast that growth in overall smartphone sales would remain low at less than 5 percent during the final three months of this year, as competition heats up during the peak season for consumer electronics.

Samsung, meanwhile, is trying to narrow Apple's lead in tablet computers. It forecast more than 20 percent growth in sales of tablets from the third quarter after its tablet business posted about a 25 percent increase in shipments during the three months ended in September.

The company's sales and operating profit were also at record levels. Sales rose 13 percent to 59 trillion won while operating profit of 10 trillion won was up 26 percent.

Analysts expect that Samsung will post another record profit for the final three months of this year as its chip business is likely to enjoy higher demand from handset makers releasing new mobile gadgets while supplies will remain tight.

___

Follow Youkyung Lee on Twitter: www.twitter.com/YKLeeAP

Associated PressSource: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/495d344a0d10421e9baa8ee77029cfbd/Article_2013-10-25-SKorea-Earns-Samsung%20Electronics/id-2549222b8c854d7a98c8c91ecbdd9ad0
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First Tizen tablet launches in Japan, caters exclusively to developers

Despite absorbing MeeGo, learning to run Android apps and pushing through a significant UI overhaul, devices running Tizen are notoriously hard to come by. Developers eyeing the platform in Japan, however, just got one more option: the Tizen build kit, from Systena. It's a package that includes developer tools, manuals and technical and consulting services from Systena, but the real star of the kit is the included 10.1-inch developer tablet. Packing a quad-core 1.4 GHz ARM Cortex-A9 processor, 2GB of RAM and 32GB of storage underneath a 1,920 x 1,200 display, this slab offers a Tizen 2.1 experience built specifically for app development and product demonstration. The company hasn't publicly posted a price for the kit, but interested developers can request more information through the company's website. The rest of us will have to settle for flashing our own devices.

[Image Credit: S-Max.jp]

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/10/25/first-tizen-tablet-launches-in-japan/?ncid=rss_truncated
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WTC concourse opens in area shut since 9/11

People view the newly opened commuter concourse, an underground walkway linking the World Trade Center PATH station with Brookfield Place, Thursday, Oct. 24, 2013 in New York. When fully completed, pedestrians will be able to continue to the transportation hub. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan)

One World Trade Center, left, and Brookfield Place, right, are now linked by an underground concourse, Thursday, Oct. 24, 2013 in New York. The passageway, which runs beneath West St., opened Thursday. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan)

Traffic moves along West Street next to Brookfield Place, left, and the World Trade Center, right, Thursday, Oct. 24, 2013 in New York. An underground concourse, which runs beneath West St., opened Thursday linking buildings on both sides. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan)

NEW YORK (AP) — The first piece of a nearly $4 billion redevelopment of the World Trade Center transportation hub debuted Thursday with the official opening of an underground concourse that passes through an area that has been closed since 9/11.

The gleaming, marble-paved expanse is expected to smooth the way for tens of thousands of commuters and visitors. It ultimately will feature retail outlets, but it offers something new right now: A passageway that links businesses and ferry service to the west of the trade center site to New Jersey-bound PATH trains and the rest of lower Manhattan to the east.

Prior to Sept. 11, pedestrians used a bridge over heavily traveled West Street. Since the attacks destroyed the bridge, they've used a temporary bridge or crossed the streets at street level. The temporary bridge is being dismantled and is not in use.

"The original World Trade Center site eliminated the street grid because that was the fashion of the times," Port Authority of New York and New Jersey executive director Patrick Foye said at Thursday's ribbon cutting. "This restores that street grid and adds an underground grid that literally spans the length of lower Manhattan."

Foye noted that designing the $3.9 billion transportation hub, scheduled to be completed in 2015, provided the opportunity for a "do-over" of sorts that focuses more on linking multiple modes of transportation than the original World Trade Center site did.

The hub will connect the PATH rail system, ferry service, New York City subway lines and the Fulton Street Transit Center. Gone will be the days, Foye said, of commuters having to cross busy streets and trudge up and down stairs to make transit connections, Foye said.

The approximately 600-foot-long underground concourse, which features 40,000 square feet of Italian marble, will house stores and restaurants on two levels, also by 2015. The Port Authority is partnering with Westfield Group to develop and lease the more than 350,000 square feet of retail space. Westfield had signed a long-term retail deal with the Port Authority not long before Sept. 11 and signed a new deal for the redeveloped site in early 2008.

Other components of the redeveloped World Trade Center site will be rolled out over the next several months.

The 72-story 4 World Trade Center is scheduled to open next month, and One World Trade Center, once known as the Freedom Tower, is expected to have its official opening in early 2014.

The first new PATH rail platform to replace the temporary platforms that have been used since Sept. 11 should open by the end of this year or early in 2014, Steven Plate, World Trade Center construction director, said.

Yards from where hurrying commuters passed through the temporary PATH station Thursday, workers continued the construction of the massive, 800,000-square-foot transportation hub, whose dominant feature will be an "oculus," two wing-like sections of arches separated by a huge skylight.

"To use a football analogy, we feel like we're on the 20-yard line and we're about to punch it in," Plate said.

Associated PressSource: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/386c25518f464186bf7a2ac026580ce7/Article_2013-10-24-World%20Trade%20Center-Concourse/id-068e7aada8ca433d88b5e20e75759427
Category: Bill De Blasio Harry Styles Gia Allemand Dead

Samsung sold over 40 million Galaxy S 4s in six months

T

Sure, Samsung's sold more than 38 million Galaxy Notes since late 2011, but its latest flagship puts that number to shame. According to a Korean publication, the company has sold 40 million Galaxy S 4 units worldwide, just six months after the device hit the market. It's a hearty milestone, ...

Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/jT7Evc9jaC8/
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