The Illinois House on Wednesday night, with no votes to spare, voted to approve the plan to have the state borrow $3.7 billion needed to make the necessary payment to the state’s employe retirement systems.
The vote was 71-44 to borrow, meaning the rejection of proposals that the state either make the payment from current revenues or take a one-year “pension holiday.”
The City of New York was chosen today by the owners of the teams Americao National Football League (NFL) game to host the 2014 Super Bowl.
The Super Bowl XLVIII will be held at the Meadowlands Stadium, the new home of Giants and Jets in New York, located in the community of East Rutherford, New Jersey, a suburb of New York, whose cost was one thousand six hundred million dollars.
The announcement of the venue was made on Tuesday by NFL commissioner Roger Goodell during the spring meeting of the 32 owners of teams in the league.
A slight majority of team owners bowed to New York, after considering other locations like Tampa, Florida.
This is the first time the NFL gives the seat of the “big game” to a stadium without a roof in a cold climate region, which could be an exception to the rule that should be played at not less than 10 degrees Celsius.
The organizers expect the 2014 Super Bowl to generate about 550 million dollars in revenue to the economy of the host city.
The sites identified for the next four “Super Sunday” are now: the Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, Texas, for the year 2010, the Lucas Oil Stadium, Indianapolis, Indiana, in 2011, the Louisiana Superdome in New Orleans, Louisiana in 2013, and the Meadowlands Stadium in New York in 2014.
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Apa Sherpa, nicknamed the “super Sherpa” for the apparent ease with which he makes the climb, helping him to break his own record by making a 20th ascent of the world’s highest peak, dedicated his latest climb to raising awareness of the impact of climate change in the Himalayas.
“The snow along the slopes had melted, exposing the bare rocks underneath, which made it very difficult for us to walk up the slope as there was no snow to dig our crampons into,” he told AFP on Tuesday. “This has made the trail very dangerous for all climbers.” (more…)
We still think it’s kind of cheating to want to run an HTC phone without the Sense user interface, but we’re also champions of choice. And so, we bring you instructions on how to turn off the Sense UI on the Sprint Evo 4G. And we ran a couple more benchmarking tests to see if there was any noticeable speed difference once Sense was gone. Our results, after the break.
This is a post by Android Central. It is sponsored by the Android Central Accessories Store
2010 Ford Ranger
Ford has issued a recall on certain 2010 Ranger pickups built form June 8, 2009 through February, 2, 2010 equipped with a manual transmission. The recall concerns an issue with the parking brake cable that can become disconnected from the right rear actuator during cold weather.
“This may occur when the parking brake is released if wet parking brake shoes have frozen in the applied position,” NHTSA said in a statement. “If the right rear parking brake cable becomes disconnected, the pedal will have extended travel and may not fully apply the brake.”
To fix the issue, dealers will install a revised right rear parking brake actuator to prevent cable disconnection. Owners can contact Ford at 1-866-436-7332 for more info.
– By: Kap Shah
Joe Jonas’ once warring exes are burying the hatchet.
After learning that the seemingly commitment-phobic JoBro dumped his Camp Rock co-star Demi Lovato last week, Taylor Swift sent her former pal a touching text message lending support and a kind ear as Demi wades through the public shame of being ditched, celebrity snoops spill to ZackTaylor.ca.
After all, Taylor knows all too well the trauma of being jilted by a Jonas. She, too, was kicked to the curb by the lanky heartthrob — in a 37 second voicemail, might we add — just two years ago. The Grammy-winning darling immortialized the heartbreak in a song and has never forgotten how painful it was to be left go by Joe. Taylor wants Demi to know that she has a friend in her, says a pal.
“Taylor sent Demi a quick text message saying that everything happens for a reason, and it will only make her stronger. She told Demi if she ever needed anything, to just ask.”
Filed under: Government/Legal, Recalls, Safety, Toyota
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is now estimating that 89 deaths may be attributable to unintended acceleration in Toyota vehicles here in the United States between the year 2000 and May of 2009. Previously, it was reported that 52 deaths were possibly related to the throttle defect.
This figure has been extrapolated from NHTSA’s database of the roughly 6,200 complaints it has received over that same time period. In addition to the 89 deaths, 57 injuries have also been tallied. Toyota reminds us that these figures are estimates, saying in a statement:
Many complaints in the NHTSA database, for any manufacturer, lack sufficient detail that could help identify the cause of an accident. We will continue to work in close partnership with law enforcement agencies and federal regulators with jurisdiction over accident scenes whenever requested.
According to Toyota, some 1.67 million sticky accelerator pedals and 1.62 million floor mats have so far been fixed under recall, with roughly 120,000 being performed per week on average.
[Source: The Washington Post | Image: Justin Sullivan/Getty]
NHTSA claims Toyota unintended acceleration may have claimed 89 lives originally appeared on Autoblog on Tue, 25 May 2010 19:27:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
by Ashley Braun
ghmss via Flickr Creative Commons
Bus drivers put up with a lot of crap: cranky commuters in the early morning, drunk partiers late at night, and would-be passengers breathlessly demanding that they open-the-doors-right-this-minute-I-didn’t-chase-this-bus-three-blocks-for-nothing. Maybe even witnessing the occasional fight.
But, to my surprise, one of the spit falls of working in mass transit appears to be getting in spats yourself. The kind that requires wiping the saliva off your face afterward.
For example, in 2009 there were 51 New York City bus drivers assaulted with spittle (yes, it counts as assault) who took paid leave after such an “incident.” And it took them, on average, about three months away from the job (with pay) to get over it. Based on these spittin’ images below, it doesn’t seem to be an uncommon weapon of mass disfunction. Has anyone witnessed such an orally corrupt event?
fintbo via Flickr Creative Commons
Spitting is now a crime punishable by CSI-style investigation.
Pete Ashton via Flickr Creative Commons
Your saliva is no good here.
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In case you haven’t heard, there’s a great opportunity for avid BlackBerry users, it’s the BlackBerry Beta Zone. You have the opportunity to test services and applications in Beta, as well as keeping it private. It used to be that only members from the Canada, the U.K., and the U.S., but they have now added more countries to that list.
The additional countries that the BlackBerry Beta Zone has included are:
There are programs for you to participate in, benefits for you, and of course the excitement of being part of the process. It’s free, and all you need to do is fill out a registration form and become a member today. Some locations you will have instant access to some programs, some you must wait for the keycode, but it’s definitely worthwhile. The BlackBerry Nation is, after all, a nation unto itself.
You can read more about the BlackBerry Beta Zone here
You can register to sign up as a member of the BlackBerry Beta Zone here
You’re reading a story which originated at BlackBerrySync.com, Where you find BlackBerry News You Can Sync With…
This story is sponsored by the new BlackBerry Sync Mobile App Store. Grab your free copy today at www.GetAppStore.com from your BlackBerry.
The BlackBerry Beta Zone Opens The Zone To Welcome More Countries
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How do you make the best factory-built desert-pummeling pickup even better? A bit of retuning and another 101 hp.
In this day and age, even the average sedan is packing some serious heat under the hood, and there was a time when even “sports cars” were listed under 150 horsepower. See how far we’ve come with our latest infographic.
After a three-year hiatus, Formula One is coming back to the States, and Austin, Texas has been chosen to host the party.
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Daily U-Turn: What you missed on 5.25.10 originally appeared on Autoblog on Tue, 25 May 2010 19:20:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Micro HDMI cables are virtually impossible to find for purchase right now, but Best Buy will be selling a special dock for the Sprint EVO 4G coming soon. The new HDMI 1.4 standard (which established the micro connector Type D) was recently introduced and the EVO is one of the first smartphones to include it.
Devices based on the HDMI 1.4 standard are supposed to be fully backwards-compatible with existing HDMI devices, but users could run into some issues. Early testing done by PCMag revealed mix results and they were “quite disappointed with the HDMI experience on the Sprint EVO 4G.” Select TVs would only recognize the signal as 480p (instead of 1080p) and certain apps like Sprint TV refused to play.
At this point it is unclear if the issues were being caused by software problems, the HDMI cable, or the TV set. Older HDMI (v.1.0 – 1.3) devices cannot be firmware-upgraded to take advantage of the new features introduced in HDMI 1.4 because most require a new HDMI chip to enable them. We do not believe the Sprint EVO includes any new HDMI features (other than the micro connector) so it should work with most existing TVs.
For now we will just have to wait and see. I expect Best Buy will eventually sell the cables, but it could be awhile before we get to try out one of the coolest features of the EVO.
The HTC EVO dock is coming soon to Best Buy.
What do you get when you mix a scantily-clad flash mob, an uptempo beat, and lots of camp and glitter? The latest vid from gay icon Kylie Minogue!
Check out this sneak peek at the Aussie songbird’s new music video for “All The Lovers” — debuting soon.
Superbowl 2014 has now its home. NFL owners voted last Tuesday to have the 2014 Super Bowl in Meadowlands Stadium. This is the first time that the league chose a cold weather site that doesn’t have a dome. Meadowlands Stadium has a worth of $1.6 billion. Superbowl 2014 will have its season to become home to the New York Jets and Giants.
Superbowl 2014 made exclusion for the New York area, and New York only. It can be recalled that the league experimented with an outdoor game on New Year’s Day. Its success has led the teams to compete in hosting the league. This has also become an annual event.
“We believe the owners have the faith in us that 3 1/2 years from now we’ll put on a remarkable event,” Giants co-owner Jonathan Tisch stated on the NFL Network. “The greatest game in the world will be played on the greatest stage in the world.”
Are you ready for the Superbowl 2014! See you in Meadowlands Stadium!
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It looks like the lack of green power at Harbor College is a result of a lack of brainpower. 
Thanks to the Daily Breeze’s Melissa Pamer for the kind of story this old dog likes to chew onm we learned the Los Angeles Community College District has installed $25 million worth of solar panels five months ago at Harbor College – but can’t turn them on.
“That’s because the Los Angeles Community College District is still sorting out how to pay the eye-popping price tag for the solar panels – and how to get the local utility to approve their use,” Pamer says.
The district’s intention had been that Chevron Energy Solutions, which installed the panels, would own the solar equipment and sell the resulting power to the college district, using federal and state alternative energy incentives to bring down the cost. After six years, LACCD would have bought the equipment.
But district officials failed to get that arrangement approved by the Department of Water and Power, which unlike most other utilities in the state doesn’t like third parties owning rooftop solar because it would break up the monopoly it holds in safe-keeping for my pit bull pal Brian D’Arcy.
So DWP declared that a third party could not sell electricity to the college, causing Chevron to demand LACCD pay its construction bills.
Pamer said the “conundrum” (she was being polite) represents a small portion of an ambitious, nearly $6 billion bond-funded construction campaign that college district officials have heavily promoted as the nation’s largest “green” building effort.
Branded as BuildLACCD, the campaign grew in 2006 to include a proposal for one of the biggest solar installations in the country.
Behind the grand plans, the nine-college district has encountered the proverbial devil among the details. Right now, the question is: Where will the money come from for projects – at Harbor College and Pierce College in Woodland Hills – that are already built?
“That’s the big screw-up,” said Mona Field, president of the district’s board of trustees who never before saw a deal she didn’t like if it benefited the unions, special interests and political machine.
“I didn’t know we were approving projects without having the money. … It has turned into a bit of a mess, I must admit.”
A bit of a mess? Reporters can work a lifetime without encountering a public official that can dish out dumber quotes than Mona Field.
For the past few weeks, the nine-campus community college district — the nation’s largest — has been negotiating a complex deal to get a division of Citigroup to pay off Chevron. The bank, which has already provided a short-term loan to pay most of what is owed Chevron, would lease the solar equipment back to the college district, which would eventually buy it.
Larry Eisenberg, the man some call the “visionary” behind BuildLACCD’s green tinge, said he expects DWP to approve the lease and grant a state rebate to the project this week. (A spokeswoman for DWP said department officials had received the district’s application but would not comment on a customer account.)
Eisenberg, executive director of facilities planning and development, acknowledged the district had experienced some difficulty, but he said it was encountered while helping to pioneer a new kind of financing arrangement for solar installations.
“We’re sort of learning as we’re going. It would be nice if there had been a road map, but somebody had to go first,” Eisenberg said. “In the process of going first, you wind up exploring a fair number of dead ends.”
Pamer must be ecstatic covering the LACCD. Eisenberg’s quotes are almost as dumb as Field’s and he botched another deal Pamer came across right after the Harbor College fiasco
It was called the “Green Hive” and was the brainchild of business partners Kim Robinson and Kris Kimble who had this idea to create “a unique resource center for homeowners,
city planners and commercial builders to get hands-on learning about
eco-friendly design.”
They spent two years and $1 million in LACCD money developing their idea with Eisenberg’s help before the district suddenly pulled the plug because Eisenberg hadn’t checked to see it was illegal to use even a penny of LACCD’s billions in taxpayers money for the project.
“I was inspired by the possibilities and inspired by
Larry. He was portrayed as a visionary. … I was excited to be a part of that,” Robinson said.
Field offered this verdict: “It’s a big old mess.”
Next time the district puts a bond measure on the ballot, Pamer should interview him and Field — at length.
Woof!
[Harley K. DuBois is a founding member of the Burning Man Board, with over 15 years of project management, art and city planning experience. As the City Manager of Black Rock City, Harley oversees both the Playa Safety Council and Community Services departments. She originated theme camp placement, the Greeters, Playa Info, and Burning Man Information […]
Uh oh. Apparently the Justice Department is taking a closer look at Apple’s digital music tactics and practices. It’s just an inquiry at this point, but there’s talk that Apple’s been abusing its “dominant market position” and playing the bully. More »
Apple – Justice Department – United States – IPhone – IPad
It’s been nine years since Douglas Adams, author of “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy,” passed away … and May 25 is set aside as a day to honor the humorist.
Ok guys, it’s time once again for your weekly dose of PlayStation Store goodness. This week’s lineup is headlined by the Green Day: Rock Band and PixelJunk Shooter demo, a Monster Hunter exclusive skin for Lost Planet
Mark your calendars, Gamer Chicks: The Bachelor is coming to Nintendo Wii and DS next month! Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment has used ABC’s hit dating reality soap as the springboard for a sought-after new game, adeptly-titled The Bachelor: The Videogame. Devoted Bachelor fans will get a glimpse of some of the Bachelor/Bachelorette franchise’s most famous players — including Jason Mesnick, Trista Sutter, Jillian Harris, Andy Baldwin, and host Chris Harrison — voicing their own digitally-mastered alter egos in the hotly-anticipated game.
Here’s a sneak peek!
A press release from Nintendo, released earlier this month, reads: “In single player mode, the game is structured like the TV show. It is comprised of multiple ‘episodes’ where the player competes against the game characters for time alone with the Bachelor or Bachelorette. The Wii version offers multiplayer mode for a fun party game enabling players to compete against their ‘frenemies.’ Opponents can sabotage others’ dates and prevent them from receiving a rose! During each ‘season’ or game, contestants go on a variety of Group Dates and a One-On-One Date to earn hearts. These dates include fun challenges, puzzles and mini-games, which test skills such as memory, speed, observation and precision. At the conclusion of each ‘season,’ players will participate in the rose ceremony, where the Bachelor or Bachelorette must take into account the number of hearts that each competitor gained throughout the dates. Who will receive the Final Rose and who will be eliminated? Stay tuned to find out!”
Retailing for $30, The Bachelor: The Videogame hits store shelves June 8.
Visit Amazon.com To Place Your Pre-Orders!
