By JUDY BATTISTA
Published: July 26, 2011
The madness really began Monday night, when the NFL. e-mailed a memo to all 32 teams at 6:20 p.m. telling them they were allowed to start negotiating contracts with rookies in 40 minutes. That was a change from the timeline the league had set out earlier in the day the lockout was put to rest, and it was so unexpected that at least one team told an agent it did not see the note for several hours after it was sent.
But for most people, it was welcome news. On Tuesday, the four-day off-season took off with head-spinning ferocity, with a large number of veterans told they would be cut to make salary-cap space, undrafted free agents signed to fill out rosters that will expand to 90 players, and veteran free agents negotiating new deals.
“Like New Year’s Eve and the new millennium all rolled into one,” said Joe Linta, an agent who has undrafted free agents, drafted rookies and veteran free agents to make deals for. “It was like a huge dam bursting. A million phone calls.”
It will become more intense Friday, when free-agent signings become official. But the relentlessness of the transactions was made apparent by just one team: the St. Louis Rams announced they had signed 24 undrafted rookies, which in a normal year would have been done in isolation in the hours after the draft ended in April, not in the middle of a maelstrom of other negotiations.
“Usually, the three hours after the draft is pretty crazy,” Linta said. “What happened in the last 24 hours made that look like a night spent in the library.”
The biggest news, as always, was generated by quarterbacks. (Not Brett Favre, though. He’s still retired.) The Cincinnati Bengals owner Mike Brown, engaged in a staredown with his disgruntled franchise quarterback Carson Palmer, announced that Palmer was retiring with four years remaining on his contract. The reason? Brown would not acquiesce to the 31-year-old Palmer’s request to be traded from the perennially underachieving team, even though Palmer would probably bring the Bengals a few good draft picks in return. Perhaps Brown was cutting off his franchise’s nose to spite its face, but for Brown, there was a principle at stake.
“Carson signed a contract,” Brown said. “He made a commitment. He gave his word. We relied on his word. We relied on his commitment. We expected him to perform here. He’s going to walk away from his commitment. We aren’t going to reward him for doing it.”
In Seattle, the situation was much different. The Seattle Times reported that the Seahawks would not bring back quarterback Matt Hasselbeck, who had been with the team for 10 years, and that they were negotiating a deal with the former Minnesota Vikings quarterback Tarvaris Jackson. That created a domino effect among quarterbacks. The Seahawks were also thought to be potential trade suitors for Philadelphia’s Kevin Kolb. Kolb, who is now Michael Vick’s backup, was widely expected to be traded as soon as the rules allowed on Tuesday, but the Eagles sat tight, perhaps hoping that more of a market would develop than the Arizona Cardinals, who have long been seen as Kolb’s probable landing spot.
That would leave the Broncos’ Kyle Orton, who The Denver Post reported Monday was also on the trading block, with Tim Tebow possibly replacing him, and Donovan McNabb, who is likely to be traded after his one disastrous season in Washington, available.
At least there is some demand for all those quarterbacks. For the raft of veterans who will be cut later this week, finding a new job could be much more difficult than usual. Cap cuts are usually made in mid-March, giving those let go four months to find a new team before training camps open. But this year, the job market has been condensed into a few days, with teams hoping to have their rosters mostly set by the time camps open. Among the expected cap casualties later this week: Dallas receiver Roy Williams and running back Marion Barber, and Baltimore receiver Derrick Mason and tight end Todd Heap.
Next up are likely to be drafted rookie contracts, although two agents said they might go more slowly than expected because agents and general managers were still trying to absorb the new rookie wage system.
An indication of how confusing the first day of post-lockout life was: one agent said Tuesday he thought there would be very little negotiating involved in rookie contracts, with players’ play slotted according to where they were picked, while another agent said he thought there would be even more negotiating room than before.
Tuesday, July 26, 2011
Friday, July 22, 2011
At least 80 dead in Norway youth camp attack
Multiple deaths in Oslo explosion; police say suspect under arrest, linked to both attacks
OSLO, Norway — At least 80 people were killed in a shooting attack on a youth camp in Norway, police said early Saturday, a devastating elevation of the death toll in twin attacks that included a bomb attack in Oslo.
National police Chief Oystein Maeland said the attack had reached "catastrophic dimensions."
Police arrested a 32-year-old Norwegian man at the youth camp on the island and linked him to both assaults but said they did not know the motive.
Norwegian media identified him as Anders Behring Breivik and said authorities searched his home.
At least seven people were killed Friday when the bomb exploded in the Norwegian capital in mid-afternoon, blowing out the windows of the prime minister's building and damaging the finance and oil ministry building. Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg was not in the building at the time. The blast scattered glass, shattered masonry and twisted steel across the streets.
A couple of hours later, a gunman opened fire at the youth camp on Utoya island, about 25 miles northwest of Oslo. After early reports of nine deaths, Norwegian police reported early Saturday that many more bodies had been found.
"The updated knowledge we are sitting on now is at least 80," Maeland told a news conference. "We can't guarantee that won't increase somewhat," he said, adding some victims were badly injured.
It was the biggest attack in Western Europe since the 2004 Madrid train bombings killed 191.
"You will not destroy us," Stoltenberg, who had been scheduled to appear at an event on the island, said at an emotional press conference. "You will not destroy our democracy or our ideals for a better world."
Island terror
The camp on the small, wooded island in Tyrifjord lake was full of youngsters 14 to 18 years old, attending an event run by the Labor Party.
Astrid Randen, a reporter for Norwegian broadcaster NRK, quoted witnesses as saying the man — described as "tall, blond and Nordic-looking" and speaking Norwegian — wore a police uniform and summoned youth at the political gathering to gather around him before he "just executed them."
Jorgen Benone recounted a terrifying ordeal to Sky News. He said he was about to sit down with others to eat when they heard a loud commotion by the water.
"People were wondering, what's happening?... Then people began understanding that people had been shot," he said. "People started jumping out of windows, running everywhere, all directions — they were terrified for their life.
"Most people ran toward the water, hiding behind stones... The guy was dressed like a policeman. It was total chaos, people were jumping into the water trying to swim to the other side."
He told the British media outlet he saw the shooter about 60 feet away and didn't dare make a move. "I thought, I'm terrified for my life," he said. "I thought about all the people I love and I just wanted to go home."
Another survivor, Emilie Bersaas, told Sky News she heard gunshots, fled to nearby building and hid under a bed.
"The shooting came from all different directions," she said. "It was very terrifying. At one point the shooting was very, very close to the building — I think it actually hit the building one time."
The Norwegian news agency NTB quoted witnesses describing a scene of "complete panic."
A witness said in a text message that "we are very afraid," the agency reported. "We do not know what to do. Many people are injured. We are afraid. We are waiting for help. Some are seriously injured. We cannot do anything."
The island is in Tyrifjord lake, about one-third of a mile from the mainland at its closest point, with no bridge. Anita Lien, who lives on the lake near the island, described a terrifying scene.
"I just saw people jumping into the water, about 50 people swimming toward the shore. People were crying, shaking, they were terrified," Lien said,
Under arrest
The suspect was arrested on the island, but the circumstances were not clear. Police said a man of similar description had been seen earlier in Oslo before the explosion there.
A camp guard, Simen Braenden Mortensen, said that the gunman had tricked his way onto the island by posing as a policeman driving a silver grey car.
"He gets out of the car and shows ID, says he's sent there to check security, that that is purely routine in connection with the terror attack (in Oslo)," Mortensen told the daily Verdens Gang.
"It all looks fine, and a boat is called and it carries him over to Utoya. A few minutes passed, then we heard shots," he said.
Bjorn Jarle Rodberg Larsen, a member of the Hedmark County Council of Labor, told Nettavisen that colleagues on the scene said the man walked in Friday afternoon shortly after the bombing.
"He was in a police uniform and said he was part of the increased security," Larsen said, quoting the eyewitnesses. "A little after he arrived, he took out a gun and began shooting."
Several prominent politicians made appearances at the island event this week. Former Prime Minister Gro Harlem Brundtland gave a speech earlier Friday, and Stoltenberg had been scheduled to speak Saturday.
At a news conference Friday night, police said the gunman was not connected to the police and "has no relation to us."
People in at least 20 pleasure boats converged on the island to help with the rescue operation. One of them, André Skeie, told NRK that he saw at least a dozen "lifeless bodies" floating in the water.
Skeie said he helped remove more than 15 injured people from the island. Many of them were shot in the stomach, he said.
"It's absolutely awful. It looks like a war zone," Skeie said by phone.
Early Saturday, Police and dogs were still searching the island and lake from boats and helicopters, with ambulances on standby. Searchlights slowly swept the water in the dark.
Bombing in Oslo
In Oslo, police confirmed at least seven dead in the bomb blast. At least 10 injured people were admitted to Oslo University Hospital, a hospital spokesman told Reuters.
Why would terrorists want to attack Norway?
The blast blew out most windows on the 17-story building housing Stoltenberg's office, as well as nearby ministries including the oil ministry, which caught fire.
"People ran in panic," bystander Kjersti Vedun said. "I counted at least 10 injured people."
Heavy debris littered the streets and a tall plume of brown smoke rose over the city center. The tangled wreckage of a vehicle could be seen near the blast site.
The Reuters correspondent said the streets had been fairly quiet in mid-afternoon on a Friday in high summer, when many Oslo residents take vacation or leave for weekend breaks.
A Twitter user, Christian Aglen, @chaglen, posted what he said was a short video of the aftermath of the blast.
Sulfur in the air
Olaf Furniss, a freelance journalist in Oslo, told the BBC that he was in a cafe when the blast went off, but he had not realized how big it was until he went outside. Residents reported the smell of sulfur in the air.
One witness in Oslo, who spoke to the BBC and was identified only as Ella, said, "We are the good guys; stuff like this doesn't happen to us."
However, political violence is virtually unknown in the country.
"There certainly aren't any domestic Norwegian terrorist groups although there have been some al-Qaida-linked arrests from time to time," David Lea, Western Europe analyst at Control Risks, said. "They are in Afghanistan and were involved in Libya, but it's far too soon to draw any conclusions."
An injured man is treated at the scene after an explosion near the government buildings in Norway's capital Oslo Friday.
Lise Sand described the blast in a series of messages on her Twitter account.
"Our windows shook, and we could actually feel the shake," she added. "The whole area is evacuated. Sirens everywhere."
Craig Barnes, a British man who was in the center of Oslo when the blast happened, told the Sky News that he had "put my foot down" on the accelerator of the car and got to a friend's house.
"It's absolute chaos, there are many people injured," he told Sky.
"There's debris over at least half a kilometer (546 yards) ... total chaos," Barnes added. "It's absolutely mad."
This article includes reporting from Reuters, msnbc.com staff and NBC News.
OSLO, Norway — At least 80 people were killed in a shooting attack on a youth camp in Norway, police said early Saturday, a devastating elevation of the death toll in twin attacks that included a bomb attack in Oslo.
National police Chief Oystein Maeland said the attack had reached "catastrophic dimensions."
Police arrested a 32-year-old Norwegian man at the youth camp on the island and linked him to both assaults but said they did not know the motive.
Norwegian media identified him as Anders Behring Breivik and said authorities searched his home.
At least seven people were killed Friday when the bomb exploded in the Norwegian capital in mid-afternoon, blowing out the windows of the prime minister's building and damaging the finance and oil ministry building. Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg was not in the building at the time. The blast scattered glass, shattered masonry and twisted steel across the streets.
A couple of hours later, a gunman opened fire at the youth camp on Utoya island, about 25 miles northwest of Oslo. After early reports of nine deaths, Norwegian police reported early Saturday that many more bodies had been found.
"The updated knowledge we are sitting on now is at least 80," Maeland told a news conference. "We can't guarantee that won't increase somewhat," he said, adding some victims were badly injured.
It was the biggest attack in Western Europe since the 2004 Madrid train bombings killed 191.
"You will not destroy us," Stoltenberg, who had been scheduled to appear at an event on the island, said at an emotional press conference. "You will not destroy our democracy or our ideals for a better world."
Island terror
The camp on the small, wooded island in Tyrifjord lake was full of youngsters 14 to 18 years old, attending an event run by the Labor Party.
Astrid Randen, a reporter for Norwegian broadcaster NRK, quoted witnesses as saying the man — described as "tall, blond and Nordic-looking" and speaking Norwegian — wore a police uniform and summoned youth at the political gathering to gather around him before he "just executed them."
Jorgen Benone recounted a terrifying ordeal to Sky News. He said he was about to sit down with others to eat when they heard a loud commotion by the water.
"People were wondering, what's happening?... Then people began understanding that people had been shot," he said. "People started jumping out of windows, running everywhere, all directions — they were terrified for their life.
"Most people ran toward the water, hiding behind stones... The guy was dressed like a policeman. It was total chaos, people were jumping into the water trying to swim to the other side."
He told the British media outlet he saw the shooter about 60 feet away and didn't dare make a move. "I thought, I'm terrified for my life," he said. "I thought about all the people I love and I just wanted to go home."
Another survivor, Emilie Bersaas, told Sky News she heard gunshots, fled to nearby building and hid under a bed.
"The shooting came from all different directions," she said. "It was very terrifying. At one point the shooting was very, very close to the building — I think it actually hit the building one time."
The Norwegian news agency NTB quoted witnesses describing a scene of "complete panic."
A witness said in a text message that "we are very afraid," the agency reported. "We do not know what to do. Many people are injured. We are afraid. We are waiting for help. Some are seriously injured. We cannot do anything."
The island is in Tyrifjord lake, about one-third of a mile from the mainland at its closest point, with no bridge. Anita Lien, who lives on the lake near the island, described a terrifying scene.
"I just saw people jumping into the water, about 50 people swimming toward the shore. People were crying, shaking, they were terrified," Lien said,
Under arrest
The suspect was arrested on the island, but the circumstances were not clear. Police said a man of similar description had been seen earlier in Oslo before the explosion there.
A camp guard, Simen Braenden Mortensen, said that the gunman had tricked his way onto the island by posing as a policeman driving a silver grey car.
"He gets out of the car and shows ID, says he's sent there to check security, that that is purely routine in connection with the terror attack (in Oslo)," Mortensen told the daily Verdens Gang.
"It all looks fine, and a boat is called and it carries him over to Utoya. A few minutes passed, then we heard shots," he said.
Bjorn Jarle Rodberg Larsen, a member of the Hedmark County Council of Labor, told Nettavisen that colleagues on the scene said the man walked in Friday afternoon shortly after the bombing.
"He was in a police uniform and said he was part of the increased security," Larsen said, quoting the eyewitnesses. "A little after he arrived, he took out a gun and began shooting."
Several prominent politicians made appearances at the island event this week. Former Prime Minister Gro Harlem Brundtland gave a speech earlier Friday, and Stoltenberg had been scheduled to speak Saturday.
At a news conference Friday night, police said the gunman was not connected to the police and "has no relation to us."
People in at least 20 pleasure boats converged on the island to help with the rescue operation. One of them, André Skeie, told NRK that he saw at least a dozen "lifeless bodies" floating in the water.
Skeie said he helped remove more than 15 injured people from the island. Many of them were shot in the stomach, he said.
"It's absolutely awful. It looks like a war zone," Skeie said by phone.
Early Saturday, Police and dogs were still searching the island and lake from boats and helicopters, with ambulances on standby. Searchlights slowly swept the water in the dark.
Bombing in Oslo
In Oslo, police confirmed at least seven dead in the bomb blast. At least 10 injured people were admitted to Oslo University Hospital, a hospital spokesman told Reuters.
Why would terrorists want to attack Norway?
The blast blew out most windows on the 17-story building housing Stoltenberg's office, as well as nearby ministries including the oil ministry, which caught fire.
"People ran in panic," bystander Kjersti Vedun said. "I counted at least 10 injured people."
Heavy debris littered the streets and a tall plume of brown smoke rose over the city center. The tangled wreckage of a vehicle could be seen near the blast site.
The Reuters correspondent said the streets had been fairly quiet in mid-afternoon on a Friday in high summer, when many Oslo residents take vacation or leave for weekend breaks.
A Twitter user, Christian Aglen, @chaglen, posted what he said was a short video of the aftermath of the blast.
Sulfur in the air
Olaf Furniss, a freelance journalist in Oslo, told the BBC that he was in a cafe when the blast went off, but he had not realized how big it was until he went outside. Residents reported the smell of sulfur in the air.
One witness in Oslo, who spoke to the BBC and was identified only as Ella, said, "We are the good guys; stuff like this doesn't happen to us."
However, political violence is virtually unknown in the country.
"There certainly aren't any domestic Norwegian terrorist groups although there have been some al-Qaida-linked arrests from time to time," David Lea, Western Europe analyst at Control Risks, said. "They are in Afghanistan and were involved in Libya, but it's far too soon to draw any conclusions."
An injured man is treated at the scene after an explosion near the government buildings in Norway's capital Oslo Friday.
Lise Sand described the blast in a series of messages on her Twitter account.
"Our windows shook, and we could actually feel the shake," she added. "The whole area is evacuated. Sirens everywhere."
Craig Barnes, a British man who was in the center of Oslo when the blast happened, told the Sky News that he had "put my foot down" on the accelerator of the car and got to a friend's house.
"It's absolute chaos, there are many people injured," he told Sky.
"There's debris over at least half a kilometer (546 yards) ... total chaos," Barnes added. "It's absolutely mad."
This article includes reporting from Reuters, msnbc.com staff and NBC News.
Avoid the Hospital in July
Why? New doctors and nurses report to work for the first time, eager to "practice" medicine on you
July is here so you might want to avoid the hospital if at all possible.
Conventional wisdom has long held that the quality of care in hospitals plummets during the month of July. But now a new study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine on July 11 confirms that suspicion. Why is July so problematic?
Because on or around July 1, fresh, inexperienced interns, residents, nurses and other new health care workers first report to work at many of the nation’s hospitals, eager to start practicing medicine — on you.
In medical circles it’s known as the “July effect.”
The new study reviewed data from 39 previous studies that tracked health results in teaching hospitals — including death rates and complications from medical procedures. The best designed and largest studies, the authors found, showed mortality rates increase 4 to 12 percent in July and revealed that many patients remain in the hospital longer, spend more time in surgery and have higher hospital charges in July than in other months.
John Young, M.D., psychiatrist with the University of California San Francisco and co-author of the study, said the “July effect” occurs when new trainees replace experienced physicians. The new doctors have little experience caring for patients, often aren’t well supervised and don’t yet know the hospital system.
Even before this latest research, experts have been wary of July.
“You may get more personal attention, but the skill level isn’t there,” explains veteran physician David Sherer, M.D., past director of risk management for a large insurance provider and coauthor of Dr. David Sherer’s Hospital Survival Guide. “You have newcomers arriving at hospitals — often placed in a sink-or-swim situation — and they don’t know where anything is or how anything is done. July is not the time to have elective surgery or another procedure that could be postponed.”
As a group, these physicians-in-training are “universally supervised,” says Christopher Landrigan, M.D., who teaches at Harvard Medical School and oversees residents at Children’s Hospital Boston. But individually, “from day one, residents are writing medication orders and doing certain procedures and diagnostic tests with relatively little direct supervision, so there’s always an opportunity for something to slip through the safety net.”
That’s not to say that midsummer is the only time for potential problems. After all, some 100,000 Americans die from hospital medical errors each year — thousands every month. “But there is good evidence that errors are somewhat more common when residents first begin to work,” notes Landrigan.
Most studies exploring the July effect focused on seasonal error rates at specific hospitals. But some research in the past few years indicated that, indeed, more medical errors of various types occur in July and early August than other months — especially at teaching hospitals, which train medical interns and residents and are connected with medical schools. July also is a popular month for others, fresh from college, to begin their health care careers at all types of facilities–including nurses, pharmacists and health technicians and therapists.
Last year a large study examined the July effect on a national level — with an alarming finding.
After analyzing more than 62 million death certificates issued across the country from 1979 to 2006, researchers found that fatal medication errors consistently spiked in July by about 10 percent — but only in U.S. counties with many teaching hospitals — and then subsided in August to levels on par with other months. Yet there was no measurable increase in counties with facilities that don’t employ residents, such as community hospitals.
“We were looking for all causes of death occurring in hospitals,” explains study leader David P. Phillips of the University of California, San Diego, whose research was recently published online in the Journal of General Internal Medicine, “and found no increase in death from surgical errors, hospital-acquired infection or other causes in any type of facility — only in fatal medication errors at teaching hospitals.”
His theory: “With surgery, you have a whole team of people working together, so there’s a lot of redundant checking. But residents prescribe or hand out medication alone.”
Still, others say there are other concerns in July beyond the possibility of getting the wrong medication or the wrong dose.
“Whether it’s assisting in surgery or giving an intravenous line, there’s a necessary learning curve that occurs over time,” says Sherer, a practicing anesthesiologist near Washington, D.C. “I’ve seen it myself: The success rate for first-time IVs is not there among new residents and nurses.” Central-line infection rates, which occur from improperly placed IVs, account for nearly 30,000 hospital deaths a year.
How to Protect Yourself From the "July Effect"
Actually, these tips are useful anytime you're admitted to a hospital.
1.Bring your own health records (including a “Personal Medication Record”).
2.Ask a friend, relative or other health advocate to stay with you.
3.To lessen the chance of mix-ups, state your name to anyone providing you with care.
4.Know the name of the doctor who is ultimately in charge of your care.
Sid Kirchheimer writes about health and consumer issues.
July is here so you might want to avoid the hospital if at all possible.
Conventional wisdom has long held that the quality of care in hospitals plummets during the month of July. But now a new study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine on July 11 confirms that suspicion. Why is July so problematic?
Because on or around July 1, fresh, inexperienced interns, residents, nurses and other new health care workers first report to work at many of the nation’s hospitals, eager to start practicing medicine — on you.
In medical circles it’s known as the “July effect.”
The new study reviewed data from 39 previous studies that tracked health results in teaching hospitals — including death rates and complications from medical procedures. The best designed and largest studies, the authors found, showed mortality rates increase 4 to 12 percent in July and revealed that many patients remain in the hospital longer, spend more time in surgery and have higher hospital charges in July than in other months.
John Young, M.D., psychiatrist with the University of California San Francisco and co-author of the study, said the “July effect” occurs when new trainees replace experienced physicians. The new doctors have little experience caring for patients, often aren’t well supervised and don’t yet know the hospital system.
Even before this latest research, experts have been wary of July.
“You may get more personal attention, but the skill level isn’t there,” explains veteran physician David Sherer, M.D., past director of risk management for a large insurance provider and coauthor of Dr. David Sherer’s Hospital Survival Guide. “You have newcomers arriving at hospitals — often placed in a sink-or-swim situation — and they don’t know where anything is or how anything is done. July is not the time to have elective surgery or another procedure that could be postponed.”
As a group, these physicians-in-training are “universally supervised,” says Christopher Landrigan, M.D., who teaches at Harvard Medical School and oversees residents at Children’s Hospital Boston. But individually, “from day one, residents are writing medication orders and doing certain procedures and diagnostic tests with relatively little direct supervision, so there’s always an opportunity for something to slip through the safety net.”
That’s not to say that midsummer is the only time for potential problems. After all, some 100,000 Americans die from hospital medical errors each year — thousands every month. “But there is good evidence that errors are somewhat more common when residents first begin to work,” notes Landrigan.
Most studies exploring the July effect focused on seasonal error rates at specific hospitals. But some research in the past few years indicated that, indeed, more medical errors of various types occur in July and early August than other months — especially at teaching hospitals, which train medical interns and residents and are connected with medical schools. July also is a popular month for others, fresh from college, to begin their health care careers at all types of facilities–including nurses, pharmacists and health technicians and therapists.
Last year a large study examined the July effect on a national level — with an alarming finding.
After analyzing more than 62 million death certificates issued across the country from 1979 to 2006, researchers found that fatal medication errors consistently spiked in July by about 10 percent — but only in U.S. counties with many teaching hospitals — and then subsided in August to levels on par with other months. Yet there was no measurable increase in counties with facilities that don’t employ residents, such as community hospitals.
“We were looking for all causes of death occurring in hospitals,” explains study leader David P. Phillips of the University of California, San Diego, whose research was recently published online in the Journal of General Internal Medicine, “and found no increase in death from surgical errors, hospital-acquired infection or other causes in any type of facility — only in fatal medication errors at teaching hospitals.”
His theory: “With surgery, you have a whole team of people working together, so there’s a lot of redundant checking. But residents prescribe or hand out medication alone.”
Still, others say there are other concerns in July beyond the possibility of getting the wrong medication or the wrong dose.
“Whether it’s assisting in surgery or giving an intravenous line, there’s a necessary learning curve that occurs over time,” says Sherer, a practicing anesthesiologist near Washington, D.C. “I’ve seen it myself: The success rate for first-time IVs is not there among new residents and nurses.” Central-line infection rates, which occur from improperly placed IVs, account for nearly 30,000 hospital deaths a year.
How to Protect Yourself From the "July Effect"
Actually, these tips are useful anytime you're admitted to a hospital.
1.Bring your own health records (including a “Personal Medication Record”).
2.Ask a friend, relative or other health advocate to stay with you.
3.To lessen the chance of mix-ups, state your name to anyone providing you with care.
4.Know the name of the doctor who is ultimately in charge of your care.
Sid Kirchheimer writes about health and consumer issues.
Obama: Debt Ceiling Talks Fell Apart, Boehner Walked Out
WASHINGTON -- Social Security and Medicare may have been saved by the Tea Party's refusal to accept President Barack Obama's "grand bargain."
On Friday evening, Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) walked away from the latest offer on the table by Obama, who is now summoning congressional leaders back to the White House on Saturday to figure out an eleventh-hour plan. The most viable option left for addressing the debt crisis, crafted by a bipartisan pair of Senate leaders, calls for much smaller cuts than the ones the president was willing to make.
"No one wants to punt until default is the only other option," a Democratic aide said Friday morning, before the Senate voted down a House offer that coupled a debt ceiling raise with a radical constitutional amendment.
With the "Cut, Cap and Balance" bill out of the way, the lone obstacle to the debate's conclusion was the talks between Boehner and Obama. The collapse in those grand bargain negotiations paradoxically move the broader debt ceiling negotiations closer to an end. And not a moment too soon: The White House has repeatedly said that July 22nd was the day by which Congress must have identified a path forward and begun work toward its passage.
During a hastily called press briefing on Friday night, Obama said Boehner called him half an hour earlier and "indicated he was going to be walking away" from the compromise the two of them had been privately working on. A Democratic source told The Huffington Post that the president had called Boehner on Thursday evening to discuss the deal, but never heard back. The president tried again Friday afternoon. He finally got a return call at 5:30 p.m. The speaker, the source added, briefed the press about his decision to pull out of the deal before telling Obama.
Speaking to a half-filled room of reporters, the president laid out just how dramatic the cuts to the social safety would have been in the deal he was trying to give Republicans. He said that he couldn't believe Boehner walked away from the proposal he was offering: $3.5 trillion in spending cuts over 10 years, smaller tax increases than those laid out in a bipartisan Senate plan and cuts to entitlement programs, something Democrats have pushed hard against. It also didn't include revenues that Obama has insisted be in a final package, namely via closing tax loopholes and ending subsidies for the oil and gas industry.
"In other words, this was an extraordinarily fair deal," Obama told reporters. "If it was unbalanced, it was unbalanced in the direction of not enough revenue."
Obama: Boehner Withdraws From Debt Talks
Story continues below
The president appeared genuinely flummoxed at the talks falling apart, saying there "doesn't seem to be a capacity for [Republicans] to say yes." He said he couldn't believe Congress would "end up being that irresponsible" as to impose a "self-inflicted wound on the economy at a time when things are so difficult."
The New York Times also played a major part in the breakdown of talks between Boehner and the White House, reporting Thursday that the pair had moved very close to a deal. Both sides spent the rest of the day knocking down the report, while Senate Democrats fumed that the White House was caving. Privately, Senate Republicans charged Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) with orchestrating the debacle in an attempt to blow up the negotiations.
The latest breakdown comes with about a week left until the Aug. 2 deadline, at which point the government is expected to run out of money to pay its bills. Even if a default is averted, the protracted debate over raising the debt limit has left the U.S. government dangerously close to having its credit rating downgraded. In that event, Americans could expect a spike in interest rates on their credit cards, student loans and mortgages, with ramifications felt through the U.S. and global economy.
"We have now run out of time," the president said. He said he told congressional leaders to come back to the White House at 11 a.m. on Saturday "to explain to me how we are going to avoid default."
In a press conference later Friday night, Boehner accused the White House of having “moved the goal post” in negotiations.
“The president demanded $400 billion more” in revenues when the two of them met Thursday, Boehner said, which is “nothing more than a tax increase on the American people.”
He said he and House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) were “very disappointed” by that demand. Boehner also sent a letter to House Republicans on Friday night explaining why he pulled out.
"It has become evident that the White House is not serious about ending the spending binge that is destroying jobs and endangering our children's future," the GOP leader wrote. "A deal was never reached, and was never really close."
Boehner: No One Wants a Government Default
At a briefing with reporters shortly after the president spoke, three senior White House officials laid out in detail their version of where the discussions fell apart.
On the discretionary spending front, both sides had "identical offers," said one of the officials. There would be $1.2 trillion in cuts over the course of ten years; $1 trillion in savings that would come from the draw-down of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq; and $250 billion in savings in Medicare over the course of 10 years. Both sides had also agreed to attach a second piece of legislation, to be decided via the reconciliation budget process, that would have changed the retirement age for Medicare and changed the premium structure for Medicare Part B and D, while eliminating certain kinds of supplemental insurance. That bill would also contain changes to the way Social Security benefits were paid starting in 2015, with buffers put in to protect the lowest-income beneficiaries.
There was, in addition, an informal agreement to try and extend Social Security's solvency by an additional 75 years. How they would get there, however, remained a point of contention, with the president wanting a package of benefit and premium changes and Republicans focusing just on the benefit side. Unable to overcome that impasse, the two sides settled on vague language requiring them to meet that 75-year goal with future reforms.
Where the two sides remained apart were on Medicaid cuts, with Republicans demanding tens of billions of dollars more in cuts than the president was comfortable making. White House officials described that difference as possible to overcome, however.
The revenue component, in the end, remained unbridgeable. According to senior White House officials, each side had agreed to pass tax reform down the road that would result in $800 billion in revenue generated -- the equivalent amount of savings that would be achieved if the top-end Bush tax cuts were simply allowed to expire. The administration wanted $400 billion in revenues on top of that. Republicans wanted zero, and in statements on Friday night GOP leadership aides insisted that the White House had changed the contours of the negotiations by making that demand in recent days.
Obama offered to move off that $400 billion mark should GOP leadership lessen the type of cuts to entitlement programs they were demanding, White House aides said.
In addition, the two sides could not figure out what to do if that aspirational tax reform package wasn't achieved. The White House, at various points, proposed that the fallback option be the actual expiration of the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy. Republicans demanded that they have something as bluntly frightening to Democrats. On Thursday, GOP leadership proposed that the penalty for inaction on tax reform be the repeal of the health care law's individual mandate as well as the newly created Independent Advisory Board, which has been set up to find cost savings in Medicare. The White House balked at the offer.
"Our view was we are not going to put the individual mandate in a deficit reduction package," said a senior White House official. "But we were open to other ideas and there are any number of formulations for us."
All of which does not mean that the big deal is now dead. In fact, White House officials made it abundantly clear that they would welcome GOP leadership back into those discussions.
"The speaker withdrew from the talks. This offer is still available,” said one of those officials.
Boehner, at his briefing, said he didn’t think his relationship with Obama, or debt talks, are beyond repair. He said he planned to go to the White House on Saturday with other leaders.
At this stage, the most viable proposal left on the table appears to be a far less ambitious debt plan put together by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.). Their proposal, dubbed a "fallback option," calls for $1.5 trillion in cuts, generates no new revenues and would put the onus fully on Obama to raise the debt limit, without Congress. It would also require the president to raise the debt ceiling in three increments over the next year and a half -- a politically driven requirement by McConnell aimed at making Obama take responsibility for all debt ceiling hikes ahead of the 2012 elections.
The other potential remedy -- for the president to exercise the so-called constitutional option and invoke 14th Amendment powers to raise the debt ceiling himself -- was ruled out, once again, during the White House briefing.
"There are no options other than a legislative solution,” said a senior White House official.
A Democratic staffer familiar with Hill negotiations concurred that the Reid-McConnell plan appears the most likely resolution. The fight now heads to the trenches: The leaderships of both parties will cobble together coalitions in the House and Senate that can move the package through. In both parties, the wings will generally oppose leadership and the center will hold, if history is any guide. The same coalition passed the Wall Street bailout and the Obama-GOP tax cuts.
"We are prepared to compromise consistent with our values," House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said in response to the news. "Speaker Boehner's ‘adult moment’ is long overdue. Our economy, our children's education, our seniors' security and our nation's fiscal soundness require that we act without further delay."
Of course, there's also the bipartisan Senate Gang of Six proposal, which would slash $3.7 trillion in deficits over 10 years and raise up to $1 trillion in new revenues through tax code reform. But that proposal has critics in both parties, and some say there isn't enough time to turn it into a bill, send it to various committees for debate and pass it by Aug. 2.
Frustrations are clearly high on both sides of the aisle. As Twitter blew up at the news of the Obama-Boehner talks crumbling, Cantor spokesman Brad Dayspring chimed in with a tweet knocking Obama for making it seem as if Republicans thwarted the process.
“As if there's really a question whether President Obama threw a tantrum at the White House last week - same guy just appeared,” Dayspring tweeted.
Rep. Peter Welch (D-Vt.) said Congress had to move fast now that things have gotten hairy. He warned that the situation is nothing like the government shutdown narrowly averted earlier this year.
"If you've got the speaker walking away from the White House -- astonishing in and of itself -- the next step is meltdown in the markets," Welch said. "This is tempting the markets to turn, and when they do, it will be sudden and savage, then things will be out of control and the damage will be huge and irreversible."
On Friday evening, Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) walked away from the latest offer on the table by Obama, who is now summoning congressional leaders back to the White House on Saturday to figure out an eleventh-hour plan. The most viable option left for addressing the debt crisis, crafted by a bipartisan pair of Senate leaders, calls for much smaller cuts than the ones the president was willing to make.
"No one wants to punt until default is the only other option," a Democratic aide said Friday morning, before the Senate voted down a House offer that coupled a debt ceiling raise with a radical constitutional amendment.
With the "Cut, Cap and Balance" bill out of the way, the lone obstacle to the debate's conclusion was the talks between Boehner and Obama. The collapse in those grand bargain negotiations paradoxically move the broader debt ceiling negotiations closer to an end. And not a moment too soon: The White House has repeatedly said that July 22nd was the day by which Congress must have identified a path forward and begun work toward its passage.
During a hastily called press briefing on Friday night, Obama said Boehner called him half an hour earlier and "indicated he was going to be walking away" from the compromise the two of them had been privately working on. A Democratic source told The Huffington Post that the president had called Boehner on Thursday evening to discuss the deal, but never heard back. The president tried again Friday afternoon. He finally got a return call at 5:30 p.m. The speaker, the source added, briefed the press about his decision to pull out of the deal before telling Obama.
Speaking to a half-filled room of reporters, the president laid out just how dramatic the cuts to the social safety would have been in the deal he was trying to give Republicans. He said that he couldn't believe Boehner walked away from the proposal he was offering: $3.5 trillion in spending cuts over 10 years, smaller tax increases than those laid out in a bipartisan Senate plan and cuts to entitlement programs, something Democrats have pushed hard against. It also didn't include revenues that Obama has insisted be in a final package, namely via closing tax loopholes and ending subsidies for the oil and gas industry.
"In other words, this was an extraordinarily fair deal," Obama told reporters. "If it was unbalanced, it was unbalanced in the direction of not enough revenue."
Obama: Boehner Withdraws From Debt Talks
Story continues below
The president appeared genuinely flummoxed at the talks falling apart, saying there "doesn't seem to be a capacity for [Republicans] to say yes." He said he couldn't believe Congress would "end up being that irresponsible" as to impose a "self-inflicted wound on the economy at a time when things are so difficult."
The New York Times also played a major part in the breakdown of talks between Boehner and the White House, reporting Thursday that the pair had moved very close to a deal. Both sides spent the rest of the day knocking down the report, while Senate Democrats fumed that the White House was caving. Privately, Senate Republicans charged Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) with orchestrating the debacle in an attempt to blow up the negotiations.
The latest breakdown comes with about a week left until the Aug. 2 deadline, at which point the government is expected to run out of money to pay its bills. Even if a default is averted, the protracted debate over raising the debt limit has left the U.S. government dangerously close to having its credit rating downgraded. In that event, Americans could expect a spike in interest rates on their credit cards, student loans and mortgages, with ramifications felt through the U.S. and global economy.
"We have now run out of time," the president said. He said he told congressional leaders to come back to the White House at 11 a.m. on Saturday "to explain to me how we are going to avoid default."
In a press conference later Friday night, Boehner accused the White House of having “moved the goal post” in negotiations.
“The president demanded $400 billion more” in revenues when the two of them met Thursday, Boehner said, which is “nothing more than a tax increase on the American people.”
He said he and House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) were “very disappointed” by that demand. Boehner also sent a letter to House Republicans on Friday night explaining why he pulled out.
"It has become evident that the White House is not serious about ending the spending binge that is destroying jobs and endangering our children's future," the GOP leader wrote. "A deal was never reached, and was never really close."
Boehner: No One Wants a Government Default
At a briefing with reporters shortly after the president spoke, three senior White House officials laid out in detail their version of where the discussions fell apart.
On the discretionary spending front, both sides had "identical offers," said one of the officials. There would be $1.2 trillion in cuts over the course of ten years; $1 trillion in savings that would come from the draw-down of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq; and $250 billion in savings in Medicare over the course of 10 years. Both sides had also agreed to attach a second piece of legislation, to be decided via the reconciliation budget process, that would have changed the retirement age for Medicare and changed the premium structure for Medicare Part B and D, while eliminating certain kinds of supplemental insurance. That bill would also contain changes to the way Social Security benefits were paid starting in 2015, with buffers put in to protect the lowest-income beneficiaries.
There was, in addition, an informal agreement to try and extend Social Security's solvency by an additional 75 years. How they would get there, however, remained a point of contention, with the president wanting a package of benefit and premium changes and Republicans focusing just on the benefit side. Unable to overcome that impasse, the two sides settled on vague language requiring them to meet that 75-year goal with future reforms.
Where the two sides remained apart were on Medicaid cuts, with Republicans demanding tens of billions of dollars more in cuts than the president was comfortable making. White House officials described that difference as possible to overcome, however.
The revenue component, in the end, remained unbridgeable. According to senior White House officials, each side had agreed to pass tax reform down the road that would result in $800 billion in revenue generated -- the equivalent amount of savings that would be achieved if the top-end Bush tax cuts were simply allowed to expire. The administration wanted $400 billion in revenues on top of that. Republicans wanted zero, and in statements on Friday night GOP leadership aides insisted that the White House had changed the contours of the negotiations by making that demand in recent days.
Obama offered to move off that $400 billion mark should GOP leadership lessen the type of cuts to entitlement programs they were demanding, White House aides said.
In addition, the two sides could not figure out what to do if that aspirational tax reform package wasn't achieved. The White House, at various points, proposed that the fallback option be the actual expiration of the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy. Republicans demanded that they have something as bluntly frightening to Democrats. On Thursday, GOP leadership proposed that the penalty for inaction on tax reform be the repeal of the health care law's individual mandate as well as the newly created Independent Advisory Board, which has been set up to find cost savings in Medicare. The White House balked at the offer.
"Our view was we are not going to put the individual mandate in a deficit reduction package," said a senior White House official. "But we were open to other ideas and there are any number of formulations for us."
All of which does not mean that the big deal is now dead. In fact, White House officials made it abundantly clear that they would welcome GOP leadership back into those discussions.
"The speaker withdrew from the talks. This offer is still available,” said one of those officials.
Boehner, at his briefing, said he didn’t think his relationship with Obama, or debt talks, are beyond repair. He said he planned to go to the White House on Saturday with other leaders.
At this stage, the most viable proposal left on the table appears to be a far less ambitious debt plan put together by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.). Their proposal, dubbed a "fallback option," calls for $1.5 trillion in cuts, generates no new revenues and would put the onus fully on Obama to raise the debt limit, without Congress. It would also require the president to raise the debt ceiling in three increments over the next year and a half -- a politically driven requirement by McConnell aimed at making Obama take responsibility for all debt ceiling hikes ahead of the 2012 elections.
The other potential remedy -- for the president to exercise the so-called constitutional option and invoke 14th Amendment powers to raise the debt ceiling himself -- was ruled out, once again, during the White House briefing.
"There are no options other than a legislative solution,” said a senior White House official.
A Democratic staffer familiar with Hill negotiations concurred that the Reid-McConnell plan appears the most likely resolution. The fight now heads to the trenches: The leaderships of both parties will cobble together coalitions in the House and Senate that can move the package through. In both parties, the wings will generally oppose leadership and the center will hold, if history is any guide. The same coalition passed the Wall Street bailout and the Obama-GOP tax cuts.
"We are prepared to compromise consistent with our values," House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said in response to the news. "Speaker Boehner's ‘adult moment’ is long overdue. Our economy, our children's education, our seniors' security and our nation's fiscal soundness require that we act without further delay."
Of course, there's also the bipartisan Senate Gang of Six proposal, which would slash $3.7 trillion in deficits over 10 years and raise up to $1 trillion in new revenues through tax code reform. But that proposal has critics in both parties, and some say there isn't enough time to turn it into a bill, send it to various committees for debate and pass it by Aug. 2.
Frustrations are clearly high on both sides of the aisle. As Twitter blew up at the news of the Obama-Boehner talks crumbling, Cantor spokesman Brad Dayspring chimed in with a tweet knocking Obama for making it seem as if Republicans thwarted the process.
“As if there's really a question whether President Obama threw a tantrum at the White House last week - same guy just appeared,” Dayspring tweeted.
Rep. Peter Welch (D-Vt.) said Congress had to move fast now that things have gotten hairy. He warned that the situation is nothing like the government shutdown narrowly averted earlier this year.
"If you've got the speaker walking away from the White House -- astonishing in and of itself -- the next step is meltdown in the markets," Welch said. "This is tempting the markets to turn, and when they do, it will be sudden and savage, then things will be out of control and the damage will be huge and irreversible."
America's Got Talent's 11 year old Protege - Jackie Evancho
Jackie Evancho amazes the crowd with her powerful opera singing during the America's Got Talent.
Thursday, July 21, 2011
NFL Owners Approve Proposed CBA
NFL owners approved a proposed 10-year labor agreement with the NFL Players Association on Thursday, leaving the potential end to the league's lockout in the hands of the players' vote Friday.
Owners voted 31-0 to accept the proposed collective bargaining agreement, with the Oakland Raiders abstaining, after a full day of meetings at an Atlanta-area hotel.
Highlights Of Proposed CBA
Details of the proposed collective bargaining agreement approved by the owners and needing ratification by NFL players:
• Ten-year deal, through the 2020 season
• New league year would begin on Wednesday
• Players receive 48 percent of revenue in first portion of deal
• $120 million salary cap; team minimum 89 percent ($106.8M) as long as league spends 99 percent ($3.8 billion)
• Veterans earn free agency after fourth season
• Four-year rookie contracts, with team option for fifth year
• Lower rookie salaries, with cap on team spending for rookies
• Later training camps, no more full-contact, two-a-day practices
• Offseason team activities (OTAs) reduced from 14 to nine
Revised July Dates In Proposed CBA
Saturday
• Voluntary training, conditioning and classroom instruction permitted until first day of clubs' preseason camps.
• Pre-2011 league year period commences. 2011 free agency list to be issued and will become effective on the first day of the 2011 league year (July 27).
• Clubs/players may begin to renegotiate contracts. Clubs may begin to sign drafted rookies and their own UFAs, RFAs, exclusive rights players and franchise players.
• Waivers begin for the 2011 league year.
• Starting at 2 p.m. ET, clubs may negotiate with, but not sign, undrafted rookie free agents, free agents, and other clubs' UFAs, RFAs, and franchise players.
Sunday
• Starting at 2 p.m ET, clubs may begin to sign undrafted rookie free agents.
Wednesday
• 2011 league year commences at 2 p.m. ET, provided NFLPA has ratified CBA.
• Free agency signing period begins. Clubs may sign free agents and other clubs' UFAs.
• Clubs may sign offer sheets.
• Trading period begins.
• All clubs must be under the salary cap.
• Top 51 rule applies.
• Rosters expanded to 90-man limit.
• Training camps open for all clubs, provided NFLPA has ratified CBA. Day 1 activities limited to physicals, meetings, and conditioning. No pads permitted on Day 2 or Day 3.
The NFLPA executive committee and NFLPA executive director DeMaurice Smith saw the details approved by the NFL owners late Thursday night, and told ESPN senior NFL analyst Chris Mortensen they expect to have a player vote Friday.
A conference call Thursday between Smith, the executive committee and team representatives wrapped up without a vote on the owners' proposal being taken, a source told ESPN.com's John Clayton.
"This has been a long and tenuous process," Carolina Panthers kicker John Kasay said in an email obtained by ESPN. "... We all have to be patient and make sure that we get the right deal for us."
In their proposal, the owners told players that they must re-establish their union quickly for the proposed CBA to stand. The NFL also said it wanted evidence by Tuesday that a majority of players have signed union authorization cards.
"Hopefully, we can all work quickly, expeditiously, to get this agreement done," commissioner Roger Goodell said. "It is time to get back to football. That's what everybody here wants to do."
However, Smith wrote in an email to the 32 player representatives shortly after the owners' decision: "Issues that need to be collectively bargained remain open; other issues, such as workers' compensation, economic issues and end of deal terms, remain unresolved. There is no agreement between the NFL and the players at this time."
Under the conditions of the owners' proposal, the players would have Wednesday, Thursday and Friday of next week to try to bargain any changes to the old CBA. Any changes would have to be agreed to by owners in order to be incorporated into the agreement, which would then become final July 30. If the NFL does not agree to the players' proposed changes, the old CBA terms on issues such as benefits, discipline and safety will remain unchanged for another 10 years.
Multiple owners, however, insisted both sides had reached an agreement.
"That's baffling to me," Panthers owner Jerry Richardson told ESPN's Sal Paolantonio. "We believe we have handshake agreement with the players."
"We believe we have an agreement," added New York Giants owner John Mara. "Now it's up to the players."
Shortly after results of the owners' vote was announced, Smith told ESPN that team representatives would examine the agreement. A major issue is how to start the voting process for the 1,900 players who have to decide if they want to vote in a recertified union.
A high-ranking NFLPA executive committee member told Mortensen that the owners' approval "puts the onus on players to make a decision to agree -- paints us into a corner with fans. We'll discuss tonight but the idea of reconstituting as a union has never been a slam dunk as the owners have already assumed."
Said another high-ranking NFLPA official: "We are not happy here. We had to honor to not vote on an agreement that was not final (Wednesday). This is not over. This actually takes away incentives from players to vote yes tonight."
Goodell said team training facilities would open Saturday and the new league year would begin Wednesday, contingent on the NFLPA's recertification. The likely start of training camps is estimated to be Aug. 1, sources said.
The proposed CBA has no opt-out clauses for either side, meaning there would be labor peace until 2021 if the NFLPA ratifies the deal.
Goodell also announced cancellation of the Aug. 7 Hall of Fame preseason game between the St. Louis Rams and Chicago Bears.
"The time was just too tight," Goodell said. "Unfortunately, we're not going to be able to play the game this year."
Smith and Goodell on Thursday were working to impose certain conditions to immediately lift the lockout if the two sides approve a deal tonight, according to sources.
NFL Labor Negotiations and Lockout
The NFL lockout began March 11, but an end appears near. ESPN.com Topics keeps you up to date on all the latest on the labor situation. More »
NFLPA sources say league lawyers Bob Batterman and Gregg Levy were pushing for the condition that the lockout remain in effect until the players recertify as a union. However, there was more dialogue between Goodell and Smith throughout the day to build a trust that in the event the players approve the agreement later Thursday, the lockout could be immediately lifted if the players also agree to recertify as a union.
Smith said the decision to recertify as a union wouldn't be taken lightly, just as the choice to decertify in March was taken seriously "because we were a real union" -- taking a shot at owners' claims that the NFLPA's decertification was a "sham."
"The decision to decertify as a union was a significant one," Smith said. "Every individual person has to make a decision on whether they want to become part of a union. The individual decisions are something that our players take extremely serious."
The players were unable to negotiate a one-time only application of the franchise tag, which is something that was of particular interest to the plaintiffs in the Brady vs. NFL antitrust case.
An NFLPA official said: "Are we happy with that result? No. Is it worth hanging up a deal with 1,900 players? No. The tag has had very few multiple uses and does carry some financial rewards for players. Not allowing more transition tags, via right of first refusal, was a big victory. That would have impact more free agents than franchise tags."
On abstaining from the owners' vote, Raiders CEO Amy Trask told NFL.com: "We had profound philosophical differences of a football and an economic nature," adding, "we voted the way we thought was appropriate."
Owners voted 31-0 to accept the proposed collective bargaining agreement, with the Oakland Raiders abstaining, after a full day of meetings at an Atlanta-area hotel.
Highlights Of Proposed CBA
Details of the proposed collective bargaining agreement approved by the owners and needing ratification by NFL players:
• Ten-year deal, through the 2020 season
• New league year would begin on Wednesday
• Players receive 48 percent of revenue in first portion of deal
• $120 million salary cap; team minimum 89 percent ($106.8M) as long as league spends 99 percent ($3.8 billion)
• Veterans earn free agency after fourth season
• Four-year rookie contracts, with team option for fifth year
• Lower rookie salaries, with cap on team spending for rookies
• Later training camps, no more full-contact, two-a-day practices
• Offseason team activities (OTAs) reduced from 14 to nine
Revised July Dates In Proposed CBA
Saturday
• Voluntary training, conditioning and classroom instruction permitted until first day of clubs' preseason camps.
• Pre-2011 league year period commences. 2011 free agency list to be issued and will become effective on the first day of the 2011 league year (July 27).
• Clubs/players may begin to renegotiate contracts. Clubs may begin to sign drafted rookies and their own UFAs, RFAs, exclusive rights players and franchise players.
• Waivers begin for the 2011 league year.
• Starting at 2 p.m. ET, clubs may negotiate with, but not sign, undrafted rookie free agents, free agents, and other clubs' UFAs, RFAs, and franchise players.
Sunday
• Starting at 2 p.m ET, clubs may begin to sign undrafted rookie free agents.
Wednesday
• 2011 league year commences at 2 p.m. ET, provided NFLPA has ratified CBA.
• Free agency signing period begins. Clubs may sign free agents and other clubs' UFAs.
• Clubs may sign offer sheets.
• Trading period begins.
• All clubs must be under the salary cap.
• Top 51 rule applies.
• Rosters expanded to 90-man limit.
• Training camps open for all clubs, provided NFLPA has ratified CBA. Day 1 activities limited to physicals, meetings, and conditioning. No pads permitted on Day 2 or Day 3.
The NFLPA executive committee and NFLPA executive director DeMaurice Smith saw the details approved by the NFL owners late Thursday night, and told ESPN senior NFL analyst Chris Mortensen they expect to have a player vote Friday.
A conference call Thursday between Smith, the executive committee and team representatives wrapped up without a vote on the owners' proposal being taken, a source told ESPN.com's John Clayton.
"This has been a long and tenuous process," Carolina Panthers kicker John Kasay said in an email obtained by ESPN. "... We all have to be patient and make sure that we get the right deal for us."
In their proposal, the owners told players that they must re-establish their union quickly for the proposed CBA to stand. The NFL also said it wanted evidence by Tuesday that a majority of players have signed union authorization cards.
"Hopefully, we can all work quickly, expeditiously, to get this agreement done," commissioner Roger Goodell said. "It is time to get back to football. That's what everybody here wants to do."
However, Smith wrote in an email to the 32 player representatives shortly after the owners' decision: "Issues that need to be collectively bargained remain open; other issues, such as workers' compensation, economic issues and end of deal terms, remain unresolved. There is no agreement between the NFL and the players at this time."
Under the conditions of the owners' proposal, the players would have Wednesday, Thursday and Friday of next week to try to bargain any changes to the old CBA. Any changes would have to be agreed to by owners in order to be incorporated into the agreement, which would then become final July 30. If the NFL does not agree to the players' proposed changes, the old CBA terms on issues such as benefits, discipline and safety will remain unchanged for another 10 years.
Multiple owners, however, insisted both sides had reached an agreement.
"That's baffling to me," Panthers owner Jerry Richardson told ESPN's Sal Paolantonio. "We believe we have handshake agreement with the players."
"We believe we have an agreement," added New York Giants owner John Mara. "Now it's up to the players."
Shortly after results of the owners' vote was announced, Smith told ESPN that team representatives would examine the agreement. A major issue is how to start the voting process for the 1,900 players who have to decide if they want to vote in a recertified union.
A high-ranking NFLPA executive committee member told Mortensen that the owners' approval "puts the onus on players to make a decision to agree -- paints us into a corner with fans. We'll discuss tonight but the idea of reconstituting as a union has never been a slam dunk as the owners have already assumed."
Said another high-ranking NFLPA official: "We are not happy here. We had to honor to not vote on an agreement that was not final (Wednesday). This is not over. This actually takes away incentives from players to vote yes tonight."
Goodell said team training facilities would open Saturday and the new league year would begin Wednesday, contingent on the NFLPA's recertification. The likely start of training camps is estimated to be Aug. 1, sources said.
The proposed CBA has no opt-out clauses for either side, meaning there would be labor peace until 2021 if the NFLPA ratifies the deal.
Goodell also announced cancellation of the Aug. 7 Hall of Fame preseason game between the St. Louis Rams and Chicago Bears.
"The time was just too tight," Goodell said. "Unfortunately, we're not going to be able to play the game this year."
Smith and Goodell on Thursday were working to impose certain conditions to immediately lift the lockout if the two sides approve a deal tonight, according to sources.
NFL Labor Negotiations and Lockout
The NFL lockout began March 11, but an end appears near. ESPN.com Topics keeps you up to date on all the latest on the labor situation. More »
NFLPA sources say league lawyers Bob Batterman and Gregg Levy were pushing for the condition that the lockout remain in effect until the players recertify as a union. However, there was more dialogue between Goodell and Smith throughout the day to build a trust that in the event the players approve the agreement later Thursday, the lockout could be immediately lifted if the players also agree to recertify as a union.
Smith said the decision to recertify as a union wouldn't be taken lightly, just as the choice to decertify in March was taken seriously "because we were a real union" -- taking a shot at owners' claims that the NFLPA's decertification was a "sham."
"The decision to decertify as a union was a significant one," Smith said. "Every individual person has to make a decision on whether they want to become part of a union. The individual decisions are something that our players take extremely serious."
The players were unable to negotiate a one-time only application of the franchise tag, which is something that was of particular interest to the plaintiffs in the Brady vs. NFL antitrust case.
An NFLPA official said: "Are we happy with that result? No. Is it worth hanging up a deal with 1,900 players? No. The tag has had very few multiple uses and does carry some financial rewards for players. Not allowing more transition tags, via right of first refusal, was a big victory. That would have impact more free agents than franchise tags."
On abstaining from the owners' vote, Raiders CEO Amy Trask told NFL.com: "We had profound philosophical differences of a football and an economic nature," adding, "we voted the way we thought was appropriate."
Film/TV Actor, 51, Marries 16 Year-Old Singer
Until recently, film and TV actor Doug Hutchison was known for his roles in "The Green Mile" and "Lost." But that is likely to change after his marriage to 16 year-old Courtney Stodden. Stodden, a beauty pageant winner from Washington state, wed the 51 year-old character actor in a May ceremony in Las Vegas. Nevada law stipulates minors can marry adults with written permission from a parent or legal guardian, which was no problem for Stodden.
"We are totally supportive of this marriage," Courtney's mother Krista Stodden told Radar Online. The newlyweds are keen that their holy union is raising eyebrows. In a statement to E! Online, the couple announced: "We're aware that our vast age difference is extremely controversial, but we're very much in love and want to get the message out there that true love can be ageless."
Stodden aims to pursue a career in music and modeling while being repped by Hutchison's production company, Dark Water.
NFL lockout: Owners, players working on different timetables
NFL owners could vote Thursday to ratify a new labor agreement, but that doesn’t mean the lockout will be lifted.
Why? Because the players are operating on a different timetable and say they won’t be rushed into a decision.
Although the sides are in agreement on the major economic components of a deal, the players say they need time –- perhaps as much as two weeks –- to complete the process as re-forming as a union. They want the owners to lift the lockout as soon as a player vote is taken to resolve the antitrust case.
But owners want a signed labor agreement before they reopen the league for business.
That procedural snag could result in the owners provisionally approving an agreement but the doors staying locked tight.
So why are the players making such a big deal out of the recertification process and taking pains to be extra careful at this stage?
One theory is that if they instantly re-unionize, as the owners would have them do, it would only buttress the argument that their decertification was a sham. It would help prove the league’s argument that the players conveniently said they weren’t a union merely to gain leverage in the courtroom -– break apart in a snap, re-form in a snap.
That would make it far more difficult to use the decertification strategy when the next labor deal comes up in 10 years.
This could be the first battle in a war that won’t truly be fought for a decade.
Why? Because the players are operating on a different timetable and say they won’t be rushed into a decision.
Although the sides are in agreement on the major economic components of a deal, the players say they need time –- perhaps as much as two weeks –- to complete the process as re-forming as a union. They want the owners to lift the lockout as soon as a player vote is taken to resolve the antitrust case.
But owners want a signed labor agreement before they reopen the league for business.
That procedural snag could result in the owners provisionally approving an agreement but the doors staying locked tight.
So why are the players making such a big deal out of the recertification process and taking pains to be extra careful at this stage?
One theory is that if they instantly re-unionize, as the owners would have them do, it would only buttress the argument that their decertification was a sham. It would help prove the league’s argument that the players conveniently said they weren’t a union merely to gain leverage in the courtroom -– break apart in a snap, re-form in a snap.
That would make it far more difficult to use the decertification strategy when the next labor deal comes up in 10 years.
This could be the first battle in a war that won’t truly be fought for a decade.
Tiger Woods Drops Caddie Steve Williams
Tiger Woods has decided to get rid of Steve Williams as his caddie. Woods announced on his website Wednesday that he and Williams, who have been together since March 1999, will no longer be working together
Wednesday, July 20, 2011
High Blood Pressure Linked To Nicotine
Rat study traces high blood pressure to nicotine use by pregnant mothers
Published: Wednesday, July 20, 2011, 5:44 PM
A study of pregnant rats helps explain how human fetuses are affected by their mothers' nicotine use, according to a study released today by the British Journal of Pharmacology.
The study attempted to advance previous studies finding that exposure to nicotine while a fetus leads to increased risk of cardiovascular disease as an adult. Its conclusion: that a mother's nicotine use fosters the growth of chemicals in blood vessel walls that in turn alters the vessels' functioning in the fetus.
Though conducted in rats, the study concludes that a similar mechanism occurs in humans, and that altered blood vessel functioning in the fetus can lead to high blood pressure as an adult.
The study was conducted by DaLiao Xiao, PhD, an Assistant Research Professor at the Center for Perinatal Biology of California's Loma Linda University School of Medicine.
-Nick Budnick
Published: Wednesday, July 20, 2011, 5:44 PM
A study of pregnant rats helps explain how human fetuses are affected by their mothers' nicotine use, according to a study released today by the British Journal of Pharmacology.
The study attempted to advance previous studies finding that exposure to nicotine while a fetus leads to increased risk of cardiovascular disease as an adult. Its conclusion: that a mother's nicotine use fosters the growth of chemicals in blood vessel walls that in turn alters the vessels' functioning in the fetus.
Though conducted in rats, the study concludes that a similar mechanism occurs in humans, and that altered blood vessel functioning in the fetus can lead to high blood pressure as an adult.
The study was conducted by DaLiao Xiao, PhD, an Assistant Research Professor at the Center for Perinatal Biology of California's Loma Linda University School of Medicine.
-Nick Budnick
House Democrats Rip GOP Rep. West
Published July 20, 2011 | FoxNews.com
House Democrats lined up to excoriate GOP Rep. Allen West on Wednesday after he sent an incendiary email to the Democratic party chairwoman calling her "vile" and "not a lady."
The head of the Congressional Black Caucus told Fox News on Wednesday that members are "furious" about the incident, saying he's going to speak with the Florida Republican about the matter. Shortly afterward, several female lawmakers held a news conference, at which they called on West to apologize.
"His words were nothing more than personal attacks," Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., said, adding that she hopes House Speaker John Boehner "disavows" West's remarks. She said it is "very ladylike to speak up for the values that you believe in."
Rep. Donna Edwards, D-Md., also released a statement saying she was "shocked" by the "disgraceful" email. "Instead of engaging constructively in that debate, Representative West chose to resort to unprofessional, vitriolic and offensive personal attacks -- shame on him," she said.
The lawmakers are urging House leaders to rebuke West, though West told Fox News that GOP leaders are "fine" with his actions.
West fired off the email Tuesday to Florida Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, the chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee, calling her "the most vile, unprofessional and despicable" member of the House for calling into question his stance on Medicare on the House floor.
"It's unfortunate," Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, D-Mo., chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus, told Fox News. He could not say whether the CBC would seek to discipline its only Republican member, but claimed lawmakers were upset the incident has brought "undue attention" to the caucus.
The CBC was planning to discuss the email at its weekly meeting Wednesday, but votes got in the way and the caucus now plans to discuss the issue at a later date. In the meantime, Cleaver said, "I'm going to talk to him."
Elsewhere, House Democrats' campaign arm quickly seized on the exchange, blasting out a fundraising pitch Wednesday asking donors to help them raise $100,000 toward defeating West next fall. Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chairman Rep. Steve Israel called West's email "disgraceful" and "hate-filled," urging supporters to make sure Republicans "don't forget this moment."
West, though, stood by the email.
"I think it's important to stake my ground," West told Fox News on Tuesday. "It was about enough is enough, and it's my right to say that. She is the one elevating this."
In her remarks on the House floor, Wasserman Schultz had said: "The gentleman from Florida, who represents thousands of Medicare beneficiaries, as do I, is supportive of this plan that would increase costs for Medicare beneficiaries. Unbelievable from a member from south Florida."
She was alluding to a GOP-backed bill to reduce the debt and amend the Constitution to require a balanced federal budget. The House later approved the bill 234-190, but it is unlikely to pass the Democratic Senate.
West sent his email to numerous lawmakers, as well as Wasserman Schultz and other congressional leaders. The subject line of the email: "Unprofessional and Inappropriate Sophomoric Behavior from Wasserman Schultz."
The e-mail said: "Look, Debbie, I understand that after I departed the House floor you directed your floor speech comments directly towards me. Let me make myself perfectly clear, you want a personal fight, I am happy to oblige. You are the most vile, unprofessional and despicable member of the US House of Representatives. If you have something to say to me, stop being a coward and say it to my face, otherwise, shut the heck up."
West also wrote that Wasserman Schultz has proven "that you are not a Lady" and "shall not be afforded due respect from me!" He said he was alerting House leaders to her "heinous characterless behavior."
A spokesman for Wasserman Schultz, Jonathan Beeton, said in an email of his own: "I don't think that Congressman West is upset at the congresswoman, but rather with the fact that she highlighted that he and other Republicans are once again trying to balance the budget on the backs of seniors, children and the middle class. ... The truth hurts."
West told Fox News that Wasserman Schultz's comments were part of a "pattern" of "hate," and he felt that she "disrespected" him in her House floor speech.
"You don't need to call me out on your time to speak on the floor," West said. "Focus on what is your plan for the debt ceiling."
House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., whom West copied on his email, defended the tea party-backed freshman.
"Tensions are building here sure," McCarthy told Fox News on Tuesday. "Allen is going to defend himself. There's always a way to display that differently."
Fox News' Chad Pergram and the Associated Press contributed to this report.
House Democrats lined up to excoriate GOP Rep. Allen West on Wednesday after he sent an incendiary email to the Democratic party chairwoman calling her "vile" and "not a lady."
The head of the Congressional Black Caucus told Fox News on Wednesday that members are "furious" about the incident, saying he's going to speak with the Florida Republican about the matter. Shortly afterward, several female lawmakers held a news conference, at which they called on West to apologize.
"His words were nothing more than personal attacks," Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., said, adding that she hopes House Speaker John Boehner "disavows" West's remarks. She said it is "very ladylike to speak up for the values that you believe in."
Rep. Donna Edwards, D-Md., also released a statement saying she was "shocked" by the "disgraceful" email. "Instead of engaging constructively in that debate, Representative West chose to resort to unprofessional, vitriolic and offensive personal attacks -- shame on him," she said.
The lawmakers are urging House leaders to rebuke West, though West told Fox News that GOP leaders are "fine" with his actions.
West fired off the email Tuesday to Florida Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, the chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee, calling her "the most vile, unprofessional and despicable" member of the House for calling into question his stance on Medicare on the House floor.
"It's unfortunate," Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, D-Mo., chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus, told Fox News. He could not say whether the CBC would seek to discipline its only Republican member, but claimed lawmakers were upset the incident has brought "undue attention" to the caucus.
The CBC was planning to discuss the email at its weekly meeting Wednesday, but votes got in the way and the caucus now plans to discuss the issue at a later date. In the meantime, Cleaver said, "I'm going to talk to him."
Elsewhere, House Democrats' campaign arm quickly seized on the exchange, blasting out a fundraising pitch Wednesday asking donors to help them raise $100,000 toward defeating West next fall. Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chairman Rep. Steve Israel called West's email "disgraceful" and "hate-filled," urging supporters to make sure Republicans "don't forget this moment."
West, though, stood by the email.
"I think it's important to stake my ground," West told Fox News on Tuesday. "It was about enough is enough, and it's my right to say that. She is the one elevating this."
In her remarks on the House floor, Wasserman Schultz had said: "The gentleman from Florida, who represents thousands of Medicare beneficiaries, as do I, is supportive of this plan that would increase costs for Medicare beneficiaries. Unbelievable from a member from south Florida."
She was alluding to a GOP-backed bill to reduce the debt and amend the Constitution to require a balanced federal budget. The House later approved the bill 234-190, but it is unlikely to pass the Democratic Senate.
West sent his email to numerous lawmakers, as well as Wasserman Schultz and other congressional leaders. The subject line of the email: "Unprofessional and Inappropriate Sophomoric Behavior from Wasserman Schultz."
The e-mail said: "Look, Debbie, I understand that after I departed the House floor you directed your floor speech comments directly towards me. Let me make myself perfectly clear, you want a personal fight, I am happy to oblige. You are the most vile, unprofessional and despicable member of the US House of Representatives. If you have something to say to me, stop being a coward and say it to my face, otherwise, shut the heck up."
West also wrote that Wasserman Schultz has proven "that you are not a Lady" and "shall not be afforded due respect from me!" He said he was alerting House leaders to her "heinous characterless behavior."
A spokesman for Wasserman Schultz, Jonathan Beeton, said in an email of his own: "I don't think that Congressman West is upset at the congresswoman, but rather with the fact that she highlighted that he and other Republicans are once again trying to balance the budget on the backs of seniors, children and the middle class. ... The truth hurts."
West told Fox News that Wasserman Schultz's comments were part of a "pattern" of "hate," and he felt that she "disrespected" him in her House floor speech.
"You don't need to call me out on your time to speak on the floor," West said. "Focus on what is your plan for the debt ceiling."
House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., whom West copied on his email, defended the tea party-backed freshman.
"Tensions are building here sure," McCarthy told Fox News on Tuesday. "Allen is going to defend himself. There's always a way to display that differently."
Fox News' Chad Pergram and the Associated Press contributed to this report.
Tuesday, July 19, 2011
Rupert Murdoch Pie Attack
Rupert Murdoch was attacked by a protestor wielding a shaving foam pie as he gave evidence at the Culture Media and Sport committee on phone-hacking.
His wife Wendi Deng was quick to defend her husband.
Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) Reports Record Earnings Thanks to iPhone and iPad
Apple® (NASDAQ:AAPL) today announced financial results for its fiscal 2011 third quarter ended June 25, 2011. The Company posted record quarterly earnings of $28.57 billion and record quarterly net profit of $7.31 billion, or $7.79 per diluted share. These results compare to revenue of $15.70 billion and net quarterly profit of $3.25 billion, or $3.51 per diluted share, in the year-ago quarter. Gross margin was 41.7 percent compared to 39.1 percent in the year-ago quarter. International sales accounted for 62 percent of the quarter’s revenue.
The Company sold 20.34 million iPhones in the quarter, representing 142 percent unit growth over the year-ago quarter. Apple sold 9.25 million iPads during the quarter, a 183 percent unit increase over the year-ago quarter. The Company sold 3.95 million Macs during the quarter, a 14 percent unit increase over the year-ago quarter. Apple sold 7.54 million iPods, a 20 percent unit decline from the year-ago quarter.
“We’re thrilled to deliver our best quarter ever, with revenue up 82 percent and profits up 125 percent,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “Right now, we’re very focused and excited about bringing iOS 5 and iCloud to our users this fall.”
“We are extremely pleased with our performance which drove quarterly cash flow from operations of $11.1 billion, an increase of 131 percent year-over-year,” said Peter Oppenheimer, Apple’s CFO. “Looking ahead to the fourth fiscal quarter of 2011, we expect revenue of about $25 billion and we expect diluted earnings per share of about $5.50.”
Apple will provide live streaming of its Q3 2011 financial results conference call beginning at 2:00 p.m. PDT on July 19, 2011 at www.apple.com/quicktime/qtv/earningsq311. This webcast will also be available for replay for approximately two weeks thereafter.
The Company sold 20.34 million iPhones in the quarter, representing 142 percent unit growth over the year-ago quarter. Apple sold 9.25 million iPads during the quarter, a 183 percent unit increase over the year-ago quarter. The Company sold 3.95 million Macs during the quarter, a 14 percent unit increase over the year-ago quarter. Apple sold 7.54 million iPods, a 20 percent unit decline from the year-ago quarter.
“We’re thrilled to deliver our best quarter ever, with revenue up 82 percent and profits up 125 percent,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “Right now, we’re very focused and excited about bringing iOS 5 and iCloud to our users this fall.”
“We are extremely pleased with our performance which drove quarterly cash flow from operations of $11.1 billion, an increase of 131 percent year-over-year,” said Peter Oppenheimer, Apple’s CFO. “Looking ahead to the fourth fiscal quarter of 2011, we expect revenue of about $25 billion and we expect diluted earnings per share of about $5.50.”
Apple will provide live streaming of its Q3 2011 financial results conference call beginning at 2:00 p.m. PDT on July 19, 2011 at www.apple.com/quicktime/qtv/earningsq311. This webcast will also be available for replay for approximately two weeks thereafter.
Andy Grammer
Andy will be appearing on Regis and Kelly on Wednesday, July 20, and sing his new single, Keep Your Head Up.
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