Death toll from 2-day clashes in Egypt rises to 11

Supporters of Egypt's ousted President Mohammed Morsi sit on sand barriers set up by protesters near Cairo University in Giza, Egypt, Tuesday, July 23, 2013. Overnight clashes between supporters and opponents of the country?s ousted president near the main campus of Cairo University left many dead, according to a senior medical official. (AP Photo/Khalil Hamra)

Supporters of Egypt's ousted President Mohammed Morsi sit on sand barriers set up by protesters near Cairo University in Giza, Egypt, Tuesday, July 23, 2013. Overnight clashes between supporters and opponents of the country?s ousted president near the main campus of Cairo University left many dead, according to a senior medical official. (AP Photo/Khalil Hamra)

A poster of Egypt's ousted President Mohammed Morsi reflects on a mirror, center, where protesters have set up a camp near Cairo University in Giza, Egypt, Tuesday, July 23, 2013. Overnight clashes between supporters and opponents of the country?s ousted president near the main campus of Cairo University left many dead, according to a senior medical official. (AP Photo/Khalil Hamra)

Supporters of Egypt's ousted President Mohammed Morsi sit next to a damaged car during clashes with Police, where protesters have set up a camp near Cairo University in Giza, Egypt, Tuesday, July 23, 2013. Overnight clashes between supporters and opponents of the country?s ousted president near the main campus of Cairo University left many dead, according to a senior medical official. (AP Photo/Khalil Hamra)

Supporters of Egypt's ousted President Mohammed Morsi sleep on the street where protesters have set up a camp near Cairo University in Giza, Egypt, Tuesday, July 23, 2013. Overnight clashes between supporters and opponents of the country?s ousted president near the main campus of Cairo University left many dead, according to a senior medical official. (AP Photo/Khalil Hamra)

A supporter of Egypt's ousted President Mohammed Morsi reads Quran, where protesters have set up a camp near Cairo University in Giza, Egypt, Tuesday, July 23, 2013. Overnight clashes between supporters and opponents of the country?s ousted president near the main campus of Cairo University left many dead, according to a senior medical official. (AP Photo/Khalil Hamra)

CAIRO (AP) ? The death toll from two days of clashes between supporters and opponents of Egypt's ousted president rose to 11 on Tuesday, most killed in pre-dawn street battles near a pro-Mohammed Morsi protest camp as the country remained mired in deadly turmoil three weeks after the military overthrew the Islamist leader.

The bloodshed is widening the divisions between Morsi's supporters and the military-backed administration that took over after he was toppled and diminishing the chances of reconciliation. Fueling the anger is the continued detention of Morsi, the country's first freely elected leader, who has been held incommunicado and without charge.

Violence has frequently broken out amid persistent rival demonstrations between the two sides, but the running street battles that began before dawn on Tuesday were among the most intense since the crisis began on July 3.

Clashes broke out after Morsi supporters began marching from their sit-in outside the main campus of Cairo university to a nearby mosque. The protesters blocked roads, causing massive traffic jams and angering residents.

Security officials said the fighting turned deadly after masked gunmen appeared at the scene and started shooting at the Morsi supporters with live ammunition and birdshot. The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to release the information, had no word on the identity of the gunmen.

The Muslim Brotherhood, however, blamed the killings on "thugs" sponsored by the Interior Ministry, a charge the Islamist group from which Morsi hails often uses to dismiss the notion that it was at odds with other segments of the population.

Khaled el-Khateeb, who heads the Health Ministry's emergency and intensive care department, said six people were killed near the pro-Morsi sit-in. The security officials put the casualty toll at seven killed and 11 injured.

The ouster of Morsi followed massive street protests by millions of Egyptians demanding that the Islamist president step down. His supporters are calling for his reinstatement and insist they will not join the military-backed political process until then.

Clashes also broke out Monday, leaving three people dead in the town of Qalioub, north of Cairo. Backers of the two sides also fought near the site of another pro-Morsi protest camp in an eastern Cairo district and in the central Tahrir Square, birthplace of the 2011 uprising that toppled Morsi's authoritarian predecessor, Hosni Mubarak.

At least one person was killed near Tahrir, officials said.

The Interior Ministry, which is in charge of the police, said Tuesday that 66 people have been arrested in connection with the violence of the previous day. El-Khateeb said more than 80 people were injured in Monday's clashes.

The latest violence underlines the depth of the polarization in Egypt since shortly after the popular uprising that toppled Mubarak, whose rule was unchecked for nearly 30 years. Two weeks ago, at least 54 people were killed in violence between security forces and Morsi supporters, the deadliest single toll since the coup.

Morsi's fate also has become a focus of the political battle between Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood and the new military-backed government.

The deposed president's family denounced the military in a Monday news conference, accusing it of "kidnapping" him, and European diplomats urged that he be released.

In a separate development, two rights groups ? Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International ? urged Egyptian authorities to investigate a spate of attacks against Christians following Morsi's ouster and bring their perpetrators to account.

At least six Christians have been killed and scores injured in at least six provinces since July 3. The worst was in a village near the ancient city of Luxor where four Christians were killed and three injured at the hands of a mob of Islamists. Other attacks included the shooting death of a priest in the Sinai town of el-Arish and the destruction and looting of Christian homes and stores in Minya province south of Cairo. A church was also targeted in Minya.

"A thorough, impartial and independent investigation must be conducted into the events in Luxor and the grossly inadequate response of the security forces to the attack," according to Amnesty.

"Authorities should hold accountable the people responsible for the sectarian killings and attacks on houses of worship and property, and investigate whether security forces took inadequate measures to prevent or stop the attacks," Human Rights Watch said.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2013-07-23-Egypt/id-777033262ab1492d84412032217bf33d

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5 Irreplaceable Players For the Buffalo Bills During the 2013 NFL Season

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Kevin Hoffman-USA TODAY Sports

In the last 13 years, the Buffalo Bills have missed the playoffs, however, not every year was it due to lack of talent. In fact, some years the injury bug bit the team hard and it seemed like the Bills were close to picking out fans in the stands to fill in at certain positions. For example, in 2007, 17 players were put on season-ending injured reserve including 10 players who were regular participants throughout the season.

This year, it seems like no exception with this Bills team as there is an extreme amount of talent on the team, however, there are at least five guys this year that are irreplaceable to say the least. If these guys play great, the team will go far, if not or a few of them get hurt, 14 years without a playoff appearance will be an almost certainty and Bills fans will become yet even more jaded.

These five guys are all familiar faces to Bills fans, and the good news is that there are no rookies on this list. That being said, all the players on this list are less than 30 years old, then again, they are an extremely young team.

It should be noted that Jairus Byrd isn?t on this since he officially, as of this writing, is not part of the Buffalo Bills since he hasn?t signed his franchise tender. All in all, it should be an interesting 2013 if the injury bug doesn?t bite this Bills team and these five guys play exceptionally well this year, which is expected.

Source: http://www.rantsports.com/nfl/2013/07/20/5-irreplaceable-players-for-the-buffalo-bills-during-the-2013-nfl-season/

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Efficient Cars Cut Demand and Oil Prices may Fall to $50 a Barrel

A possible 50% drop in oil prices doesn't mean $2 gas, but a cut of some sort is expected.

Improved fuel efficiency of vehicles and rising oil production in North America are two factors that could cause oil prices to drop 50% by the end of the year, according to one oil company executive.

Oftentimes a dramatic drop in oil prices ? in this case down to $50 a barrel ? portends a severe economic crisis; however, Gulf Oil CEO Joe Petrowski suggested the issue is matter of ample supply and lower demand.

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?Demand is weak internationally,? he said. ?But domestically demand is even slightly weaker. Traveling (by car) is picking up, but we?re using much less oil. It is simply more fuel efficient cars and switching to alternate fuels.?

Petrowski also noted that North America is ?producing record amounts of oil and natural gas,? adding that OPEC suppliers are up as well. Additionally, demand from countries like China has ebbed, while the utilities sector has also cut its use of oil.

While the demand is going down and the price for oil could drop significantly, there are still plenty of other factors that contribute to the price of gasoline. Petrowski estimates that a shortage of pipelines and the need to transport fuel via rail and truck adds about 40 cents a gallon to gas prices.

?Remember: $50 oil does not translate into $2 gasoline,? he said.

It should be noted that gasoline prices began dropping around the July 4th holiday and were predicted to continue dropping; however, that prediction was false as prices began rising.

The national average for regular unleaded gasoline Wednesday was $3.65 a gallon, up from $3.50 last Wednesday and four cents above levels a month ago, according to AAA Fuel Gauge Report.

The AAA daily tracking of gas prices rose another penny Thursday to $3.66 for a gallon of self-serve regular, the 11th straight day of rising prices. Gas is up nearly 20 cents a gallon, or about 6%, during that period.

(Fuel prices slide in time for Independence Day. Click Here for more.)

There?s at least a 50% chance gas could top the $3.78 a gallon high for the year reached in February, according to Tom Kloza, chief oil analyst for GasBuddy.com.

(Click Here to read about Americans blaming oil company for high gas prices.)

A drop in the crude oil price has several implications, not the least of which is the potential for the destabilization of the governments who rely on oil income for social programs, such as Saudi Arabia. Any perceived lack of stability tends to inflate gasoline prices, Petrowski noted.

Tags: AAA gas price index, Gulf Oil, Joseph Petrowski, TheDetroitBureau.com., crude oil prices, gas prices, michael strong, oil prices, thedetroitbureau

This entry was posted on Friday, July 19th, 2013 at and is filed under Automobiles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Source: http://www.thedetroitbureau.com/2013/07/efficient-cars-cut-demand-and-oil-prices-may-fall-to-50-a-barrel/

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Apple software update to fix new MacBook Air's Wi-Fi and Photoshop bugs

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Rosa Golijan NBC News

8 hours ago

Apple

Is your shiny new MacBook Air occasionally losing Wi-Fi connectivity for no apparent reason? Is its screen flickering when you use Adobe's Photoshop software? Then you'll be particularly happy about a software update issued by Apple.

The update is aimed at MacBook Air models from mid 2013 ? the newest ones. Apple describes it as fixing "an issue that in rare instances may cause an intermittent loss in wireless connectivity, an issue with Adobe Photoshop which may cause occasional screen flickering, and an issue which may cause audio volume to fluctuate during video playback."

9to5 Mac's Mark Gurman reports that the Wi-Fi issue addressed in this update has been plaguing "a notable amount of users" since the new MacBook Air's release and that Apple had even replaced several customers' laptops with new units while the issue was originally investigated.

Want more tech news or interesting links? You'll get plenty of both if you keep up with Rosa Golijan, the writer of this post, by following her on Twitter, subscribing to her Facebook posts, or circling her on Google+.

Source: http://feeds.nbcnews.com/c/35002/f/663301/s/2ee59367/l/0L0Snbcnews0N0Ctechnology0Capple0Esoftware0Eupdate0Efix0Enew0Emacbook0Eairs0Ewi0Efi0Ephotoshop0E6C10A687331/story01.htm

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Apple, Google, Facebook join forces to demand more NSA transparency

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Silicon Valley companies teamed up this week to request that the government allow greater transparency when it comes to data requests.

Apple, Google and Facebook are banding with other Valley technology companies and civil liberties groups in a show of solidarity as they call for greater transparency surrounding the NSA's surveillance programs, AllThingsD reports.

On Thursday, 63 companies, investors, nonprofits and trade organizations will appeal to President Barack Obama and congressional leaders in a letter demanding they allow Internet, phone and Web-based service providers to release details about government requests for information.

They're asking for clearance to report:

• The number of requests for information about users
• The number of users, accounts or devices about which information was requested
• The number of requests seeking communications content, subscriber information and other pertinent information.

The letter also requests that the government issue its own transparency report that would cover the same information.

"Basic information about how the government uses its various law enforcement-related investigative authorities has been published for years without any apparent disruption to criminal investigations," a copy of the letter obtained by AllThingsD reads. "We seek permission for the same information to be made available regarding the government's national security-related authorities. ...Just as the United States has long been an innovator when it comes to the Internet and products and services that rely upon the Internet, so too should it be an innovator when it comes to creating mechanisms to ensure that government is transparent, accountable, and respectful of civil liberties and human rights."

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/vertical_44/~3/kA1IBuxKVws/apple-google-facebook-and-others.html

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Rapid Sales Solutions | Relying on SEO Marketing Agency

With the continuous advancement in the digital world, business demands more and smarter strategies to thrive in this highly competitive digital playing field. Major and minor business strategies need to be fine-tuned to market and increased traffic to their web sites. Cognizant of this growing competition in the digital arena, it is but natural that business interests are focused on brighter prospects or opportunities as well as the best online marketing tools, namely: Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Search Engine Marketing (SEM) and B2B lead services.

For a better understanding, SEO is geared towards rankings on a business website. This means that these rankings are a result of unpaid or free advertisements which are placed in the middle of search homepages. The actual objective and desired result of SEO is to optimize a website and if possibly, keep the website?s ranking first in the search engine like First Page on Google. SEO specialists are concerned with page rank, keywords, link building and one way links.
SEM?s biggest distinct feature from SEO is the assignment of sites which secure ranking through search marketing tactics. Actually, its functionality becomes effective on paid advertisements. These paid lists are not included in the centre of an engine homepage in contrast to SEO results. SEO marketing agency treats online marketing in a more sophisticated, error-free manner.

Still within the framework of SEO, there is an added tool now being sought out, namely, the B2B lead services. In SEO lingo, B2B stands for business to business. It refers to other businesses which provide products or services to other businesses in contrast to providing products or services directly to consumers. More new businesses joining your business, more it is expected to increase your business? revenues.

Trends today require a close collaboration and use of all these marketing tools by a hired SEO marketing agency. Primarily, a reliable SEO marketing agency (SMA) will have to:

1) Update the client every step of the way: This means that the client must always be in close communication with the SMA to insure that the direction is moving in the right direction as the client?s corporate objectives.

2) Perform an effective job in providing client with complete website analysis for a better understanding on how the client?s website has to be structured.

3) Analyse the keyword density, keyword dominance as well as word count. In other words, it must go for content analysis and SEO copywriting. Largely, it should monitor and check details to optimize page text elements, source codes including URL, filenames, page titles, description and Meta tags, among others.

4) Examine the coding in the HTML and the appropriate page layout structure. It is important that ?spiders? in search engines be able to read the codes. Otherwise, this will not get indexed properly.

5) Update the client with recommendations. A draft of a baseline report should be presented that will reflect an overall review of each SEO page. Based on this report, recommendations are required to keep the ranking momentum of the website going. What is expected is to give their clients a good, acceptable ROI.

Finally, a professional SEO marketing agency should understand the techniques of promoting a website on the internet that would position their client higher than its competitors.

For more on SEO visit our SEO page?http://rapid-sales-solutions.co.uk/seo-sales

Source: http://rapid-sales-solutions.co.uk/relying-on-seo-marketing-agency/

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What's really going on with flood rates? FEMA provides some clarity ...

In recent months, a group of lawmakers from Gulf Coast ? led by Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La. ? in concert with some of their colleagues from Sandy-hit New York and New Jersey have been their darnedest to scare their constituents with tales of massive (5,000 percent!) hikes in federal flood insurance rates that would be coming, unless Congress acts to stall or repeal the reforms called for in last year?s Biggert-Waters Act.

These claims are almost entirely bunk, but they have been allowed to persist, in part, because of unclear and misleading guidance from the Federal Emergency Management Agency. In online materials, FEMA, which runs the National Flood Insurance Program, has stoked policyholders? worst fears by pointing to rare cases where properties in very high-risk flood zones that are constructed far (five to ten feet) below the base flood elevation, where the appropriate premium might be as high as $30,000 a year.

Of course, the ?appropriate? premium for such a policy should be zero dollars, because no responsible agency should insure a property that is almost certain to be a total loss. But that?s an argument for another day.

In their barnstorming tour to fend off flood reform, Landrieu and her ilk have had have one reasonable complaint, although it is something that was the inadvertant result of her and her colleagues? own legislative grandstanding. As originally conceived, Biggert-Waters proposed including those who live behind flood levees in the National Flood Insurance Program?s mandatory coverage requirements, but charging them rates that reflected the reduced ?residual? risk they faced. Gulf Coast senators fought back against the proposal and eventually had it stripped from the final law.

Unfortunately, stripping the provision also inadvertantly stripped language that called on FEMA to certify the protection afforded by levees built with state or local funds. The result is that a number of communities, particularly those in Landrieu?s Louisiana, would receive no credit for their local levees, and would be asked to pay huge flood insurance premiums as a result. More recently, FEMA announced it is addressing the oversight with a pilot program that will certify local levees in, in this case, Louisiana?s Plaquemines, Lafourche, Terrebone and St. Tammany parishes.

Alas, Landrieu has continued to push ahead with efforts to stall or repeal reforms to a troubled program that owed the U.S. Treasury $24 billion as of May and that hasn?t repaid any principal on its loans since 2010. Having tried and failed to get a five-year delay of Biggert-Waters implementation attached to water resources and agriculture bills earlier this year, Landrieu succeeded this week in getting a one-year delay attached to the committee version of a Homeland Security appropriations bill. Rep. Bill Cassidy, R-La. ? Landrieu?s likely opponent in the 2014 Senate race ? earlier succeeded in getting a similar delay attached to the House version of the legislation.

In making the case for delay, Landrieu and company have been throwing around those inflated claims of $30,000 flood insurance premiums to anyone who will listen. But FEMA, thankfully, is now providing clearer guidance on what updated rates will look like, and the reality doesn?t exactly match the alarmist rhetoric. For elevated risk ?AE? zones ? that is, properties within a 100-year floodplain that face the risk of flooding up to a given base flood elevation, or BFE ? FEMA is now offering sample annual rates of $533 a year for properties that are four feet above the BFE, $1,815 for properties that are at the BFE and $10,723 for properties that are four feet below the BFE.

FEMA will be publishing more extensive rates for insurance agents in the coming weeks, and rates for the highest-risk ?VE? zones ? coastal zones that also face the risk of wave action from storm surge ? are expected later this summer.

Now, it?s true that $10,723 is not exactly a ?cheap? policy. But it is a reflection that opting to live four feet below the flood line is a significant risk, and it is simply not good policy ? either insurance policy or public policy ? to subsidize property owners that choose to take that risk. For the overwhelming majority of properties, the rates are reasonable, and for those who opt to elevate their properties, the savings are significant.

As the Asbury Park Press reported:

The brochure on building smarter that contained that $31,500 figure has been pulled from a Federal Emergency Management Agency website. No official from the National Flood Insurance Program or FEMA would provide the basis for that figure.

?There was a lot of confusion,? said Leo Cunningham, a hazard mitigation specialist for FEMA, explaining why the brochure was removed. ?People were looking at the worst-case scenario and thought that would be their rates.?

On a FEMA document titled ?The NFIP?s Specific Rate Guidelines,? the worst-case scenario has been revised:?It is important to note that a small number of flood insurance policies protecting properties in very high-risk coastal areas (VE zones) ? where wave action combined with high water causes increased damage ? will see significantly higher premiums which could be in excess of $20,000 in rare cases,? reads the document.

It?s also important to keep in mind what exactly it is the Biggert-Waters Act does, and doesn?t, do. Biggert-Waters made a number of changes to rates charged by the National Flood Insurance Program, although in truth, most of the changes are fairly modest. The primary change is to phase out ?grandfathered? rates for some properties that either were built before the introduction of Flood Insurance Rate Maps in the mid-1970s, or in communities that joined the NFIP subsequent to the introduction of rate maps.

The law calls for certain properties ? vacation homes, business properties and those that have been subject to ?severe repetitive loss? ? to see rate increases of 25 percent per year until premiums reflect the full actuarial rate, a process that for most properties will take about four years. The phase-out for 345,000 second homes started in January, while 9,000 repeat loss properties and 87,000 business properties will see their rates start to rise in October.

The law also calls for subsidized rates to end immediately when a home is sold, when a policy is allowed to lapse or when a property is damaged or improved by more than 50 percent. New construction within existing flood hazard zones also will be charged full actuarial rates immediately.

A separate group of policies ? those that are newly mapped into flood zones or whose zone designation changes ? will see their rates rise by 20 percent a year until they reach the full actuarial rate, starting with the finalization of new flood maps, which are expected by 2015.

All told, the law is projected by the U.S. Government Accountability Office to phase out subsidies for 438,000 of the NFIP?s 5.5 million policies, while retaining them for about 715,000 properties ? primarily single-family homes in A/AE and V/VE zones.

But even with the bill, six states each will still have more than 40,000 subsidized properties: New York, New Jersey, Florida, Louisiana, Texas and California. Moreover, subsidized properties will still represent more than 20 percent of all NFIP-insured properties in Washington, California, Montana, Wyoming, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri, Arkansas, Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut and New Jersey; more than 30 percent of insured properties in Nebraska, Kansas, Wisconsin, Illinois, Ohio, Kentucky and Pennsylvania; and more than 40 percent of properties in Michigan, Indiana, West Virginia and Puerto Rico.

It?s also worth remembering to whom these subsidies have historically gone, and who will continue to benefit.Looking at the 3,100 counties in which the NFIP operates, 29 percent of the remaining subsidized rate properties are in counties that rank in the top 10 percent nationwide of median household income. By comparison, just 24 percent of the subsidized rate properties are in counties ranking among the bottom 60 percent of median household income.? A total of 65 percent of the subsidized rate policies are in counties that rank among the top 30 percent of median household income.

You see a similar picture with home values, where 43 percent of subsidized properties are in counties in the top 10 percent of home values and 69 percent are in the top 20 percent.? Less than 1 percent of all subsidized properties are in the bottom 30 percent.

Finally, in addition to FEMA offering individual policyholders opportunities to lower their flood insurance premiums by elevating their homes and engaging in other risk mitigation activities, the agency also extends that opportunity to local communities. A good case study can be found in Palm Coast, Fla., a planned community about 10 miles south of St. Augustine that sits both on Florida?s Atlantic coast and the Intercoastal Waterway.

Since joining the NFIP in 2002, Palm Coast has been a participant in FEMA?s community rating system, which awards flood insurance discounts to communities that demonstrate sound floodplain management. The community received a score of 7 on its first audit (grades are scaled 1 to 10, with 1 being the highest), which was good enough to earn the community a 15 percent discount. It improved to 6 in its 2008 audit, leading to a 20 percent discount, largely in recognition of its preservation of open space and natural wetlands buffers. In anticipation of its 2013 audit, the results of which will be released this fall, Palm Coast is looking to become one of only a handful of Florida communities to earn a 5.

City Manager Jim Landon said developers historically have kept floodplain management in mind whenever new buildings go up and city officials also know to keep high-risk flood areas devoid of structures.

?We seldom have any structural flood damage,? said Landon. ?That?s really the goal for us.?

If only it were the goal for more of our friends in Congress.

Source: http://rstreet.org/2013/07/17/whats-really-going-on-with-flood-rates-fema-provides-some-clarity/

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