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Wednesday, October 23, 2013

Syrian rebels battle army in Christian town

In this photo, which AP obtained from Syrian official news agency SANA and which has been authenticated based on its contents and other AP reporting, President Bashar Assad gestures as he speaks during an interview with Lebanon’s Al-Mayadeen TV, at the presidential palace in Damascus, Syria, Monday, Oct. 21, 2013. Syria’s president said Monday that the factors that would allow a landmark conference aimed at ending the country’s civil war do not yet exist, throwing further doubt on international efforts to hold peace talks that have already been repeatedly delayed. (AP Photo/SANA)

BEIRUT (AP) — Syrian government forces battled Tuesday with al-Qaida-linked rebels trying to capture an ancient Christian town north of Damascus, activists and the state media said.

The Jabhat al-Nusra, or Nusra Front, appears to have targeted Sadad because of its strategic location near the main highway north of Damascus, rather than because it is Christian. But hard-liners among the rebels are hostile to Syria's Christian minority, who tend to support the government of President Bashar Assad, and other al-Qaida-linked fighters have damaged and desecrated churches in areas they have seized.

The assault on Sadad, some 95 kilometers (60 miles) north of Damascus, began at dawn Monday, said the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. Local police fought back the initial assault and were reinforced by the army.

The rebel attack seemed to target a chief hospital in the town, said the Observatory, which monitors fighting through a network of activists on the ground. He said that there was also fighting in the nearby town of Muhin and that the Nusra Front controlled the main road leading to Damascus.

In September, rebels including Nusra Front members briefly captured the Christian town of Maaloula, northeast of Damascus. Maaloula is an ancient village that is home to two of the oldest surviving monasteries in Syria. Troops recaptured most of the town days after the rebels took it.

President Bashar Assad has drawn support from Syria's patchwork of ethnic and religious minorities, including Christians and members of his Alawite sect, a Shiite offshoot, in the country's civil war, now in its third year. The rebels are dominated by Syria's Sunni Muslim majority.

Al-Qaida-linked militant groups such as the Nusra Front and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant are among the most active rebel factions in Syria. They have fought other rebel brigades to seize strategic border areas, and are also battling Kurdish fighters in northern Syria.

Also Tuesday, mortar rounds slammed into a pro-government suburb on the outskirts of Damascus, killing at least two people, said the state SANA news agency and the Observatory. It added that a teacher and 14 students were wounded when a mortar round hit a school in the area.

It wasn't immediately clear who was behind the shelling but rebels have previously targeted Jaramana, home to Christians and the Druse religious group. It is close to another suburb, Mleiha, where fighting between rebels and government forces has been raging for days.

The Observatory reported at least three air raids and several attacks by helicopter gunships on the rebel-held town of Safira, near a likely chemical weapons facility. The Observatory said one of the helicopter attacks hit an area where refugees were encamped, killing at least seven people including a child.

Also Tuesday, Sigrid Kaag, the head of the team charged with destroying Syria's chemical weapons, said Damascus had so far "fully cooperated" with the mission.

The goal of the joint U.N. and Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons mission is to destroy Syria's chemical weapons stockpile, all chemical precursors, and the equipment to produce the deadly weapons by mid-2014.

"To date, the Government of Syria has fully cooperated in supporting the work of the advance team and the OPCW-UN Joint Mission," said Kaag, who was appointed by U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon for the post earlier this month, in the Syrian capital of Damascus.

"By joining the Chemical Weapons Convention, the Syrian Government has indicated its commitment to the task," she said referring to Syria's joining of the OPCW.

She added that the "timeframes are challenging given the goal of the elimination of Syria's chemical weapons program in the first half of 2014."

Meanwhile, international inspectors to destroy Syria's chemical weapons capability said they had visited 17 sites since they began their work at the beginning of October. In a statement issued late Monday, they said they had destroyed "critical equipment to make the facilities inoperable."

In neighboring Lebanon, the state-run National News Agency reported that several people were wounded in a heavy exchange of fire between pro- and anti-Syrian gunmen in the northern city of Tripoli.

Clashes related to Syria's civil war have broken out periodically in Lebanon's second largest city and scores of people have been killed. Lebanese are sharply divided between those who support or oppose Assad.

____

Associated Press writers Albert Aji in Damascus, Syria and Bassem Mroue in Beirut contributed to this report.

Associated PressSource: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2013-10-22-Syria/id-101ac2dd8f3649479a307274e8550557
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Underwood will star on live TV in 'Sound of Music'

Carrie Underwood seen at the T.J. Martell Foundation 38th Honors Gala, on Tuesday, Oct. 22, 2013 in New York. (Photo by Greg Allen/Invision/AP Images)

Tony Martell, Carrie Underwood and John Sykes are seen at the T.J. Martell Foundation 38th Honors Gala, on Tuesday, Oct. 22, 2013 in New York. (Photo by Greg Allen/Invision/AP Images)

Carrie Underwood seen at the T.J. Martell Foundation 38th Honors Gala, on Tuesday, Oct. 22, 2013 in New York. (Photo by Greg Allen/Invision/AP Images)

NEW YORK (AP) — The end of the year looks busy for Carrie Underwood, and she couldn't be happier.

The six-time Grammy winning singer will host the Country Music Association Awards for the sixth time. You can see her every week singing the opening on Sunday Night Football. And for one night in December, she will star in a live television version of "The Sound of Music."

The 30-year-old star told the Associated Press Tuesday night on the red carpet of the TJ Martell Foundation gala, where she was one of the night's honorees, that she nervous doing something she's never done before. But then she realized, "None of us have. This is a live show on TV. So this is definitely a challenge for all of us."

She equated the live singing and acting as "going to a Broadway show, but you're in your living room."

"The Sound of Music" airs Dec. 5 on NBC with Underwood playing Maria alongside "True Blood" vampire Stephen Moyer. He portrays Captain von Trapp. Broadway veterans — and Tony winners —Audra McDonald, Laura Benanti, and Christian Borle round out the cast as Mother Abbess, Elsa, and Max, respectively.

While the Nashville-based Underwood is no stranger to performing before millions of people on live television — she won the fourth season of "American Idol" — she felt she needed more preparation, so she showed up in New York three weeks early.

"I wanted to be here and have all my lines memorized and everything and be ready for it. It's been really wonderful," Underwood said. "Audra and Laura are incredible. Stephen's great. It's nice to be surrounded by that much talent."

Before doing that show, the multi-platinum selling artist returns to her hosting duties on the CMA's. She's also nominated for three awards including, Album of the year, and Song of the Year. While she and co-host Brad Paisley have got it down to a science, she doesn't see the experience as old hat.

"You never know what's going to happen with us hosting," Underwood joked, referring to her and Paisley.

She added: "I think being nominated — especially when hosting the CMA's — you just never know."

The CMA's take place Nov. 6 in Nashville.

Underwood also spoke of recording the opening number this season for Sunday Night Football on NBC. She claims doing it was a no-brainer.

"It's a lot of fun. I grew up watching football. I'm from Oklahoma it's what we do," she said with a big smile.

The conversation then turned to hockey and her husband Mike Fisher's team, the Nashville Predators.

"They got off to a little bit of rocky start, but definitely getting some momentum. I feel like my husband right now. I know what he feels like now. I feel there's some really great, new young talent," Underwood said.

And what about the team's star center?

"My hubby, he's been out for the past couple of games with a foot fracture thing. But he'll be back on the ice, ASAP. I hope he does, because that's the only way I get to see him, other than iChat."

_____

Follow John Carucci at —http://www.twitter.com/jacarucci

Associated PressSource: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/4e67281c3f754d0696fbfdee0f3f1469/Article_2013-10-23-People-Carrie%20Underwood/id-58d3fea6786c4eebac6fe51f3ec7085a
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AgriLife Research develops new lines of cool-season grasses

PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:

22-Oct-2013

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Contact: Dr. Dariusz Malinowski
dmalinow@ag.tamu.edu
940-552-9941
Texas A&M AgriLife Communications

Producer purchases about 3 years away

VERNON Breeding lines of summer-dormant cool-season grasses suited for the Rolling Plains are ready for seed increase after four years of improvement at the Texas A&M AgriLife Research and Extension Center near Vernon.

Dr. Dariusz Malinowski, a Texas A&M AgriLife Research forage cropping systems scientist, began work in 2000 with cool-season perennial grasses for the Rolling Plains region in collaboration with Grasslanz Technology Ltd. in New Zealand. In 2009, the collaboration turned its focus to breeding summer-dormant, cool-season grasses.

Malinowski is now ready to send his first Texas breeding lines back to New Zealand for seed increase in 2014 to ensure a high quality seed is available for worldwide evaluation and studies, he said. Final evaluation studies will be conducted in the U.S. and several other countries.

Others who are a part of the research effort are Dr. Bill Pinchak, AgriLife Research ruminant nutritionist; Dr. Yves Emendack, AgriLife Research post-doctoral plant pathologist; and Steve Brown, Texas Foundation Seed Service general manager, all of Vernon. The project is funded by Grasslands Innovation Ltd. of New Zealand.

Early on, AgResearch Grasslands in New Zealand was testing a cultivar eventually released as Fletcha, Malinowski said. He was working with Pinchak at the time on wheat grasses "and we didn't have too much luck because they only lasted for one or two seasons. When we saw the Fletcha growing here, we began working with AgResearch and they sent us more lines."

The group is trying to find forages to fill the grazing niche needed during October to December, a time when cattlemen are waiting for wheat to grow in the fall for forage, and again from March through May if wheat is produced for grain, Malinowski said.

"Our major goal has been to develop cultivars of summer-dormant tall fescue, orchard grass and perennial ryegrass with superior persistence, forage productivity and disease resistance, and tolerance to drought and high temperatures in summer," he said.

"Our previous, long-term (10 years) studies have shown that summer-dormant, cool-season perennial grasses are perfectly adapted to the environments of the Southern Great Plains and incomparably more resistant to summer drought than other introduced cool-season perennial forage grasses."

The project now has three tall fescue and three orchard grass breeding lines in the final stages of cultivar development. In addition, two synthetic lines of perennial ryegrass with exceptional tolerance to high temperatures are being developed and are ready for final selection in New Zealand, he said.

Malinowski said once the nucleus seed is increased in New Zealand, it will take about three years to evaluate the cultivars in the U.S. and other countries before the seed will be available to producers.

The tall fescue and orchard grass base populations are owned by AgriLife Research, while the ryegrass base populations originate from the U.S. Department of Agriculture-Germplasm Resources Information Network, he said.

The three lines of tall fescue being developed and evaluated are bred with different uses in mind, Malinowski said. One will be suitable for grazing by cattle or horses, another by sheep and the third will contain a friendly endophyte. Endophyte is a fungus in the plant that may improve the ability to tolerate abiotic stresses such as drought, as well as improve resistance to insect pressure.

In the orchard grass trials, the three lines also are bred for different uses, he said. For example, they differ in maturity, plant structure and tillering rate for grazing by cattle or sheep.

The two synthetic lines of ryegrass being developed are based on three accessions from the Mediterranean Basin, with one being an early maturing line and the other, late maturing, Malinowski said. The pre-nucleus seed of the early maturing selection will be produced at Vernon next year, while the nucleus seed of the late-maturing selection will be further increased in New Zealand.

###

Writer: Kay Ledbetter, 806-677-5608, skledbetter@ag.tamu.edu

Contact: Dr. Dariusz Malinowski, 940-552-9941, dmalinow@ag.tamu.edu

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AgriLife Research develops new lines of cool-season grasses

PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:

22-Oct-2013

[

| E-mail

]

Contact: Dr. Dariusz Malinowski
dmalinow@ag.tamu.edu
940-552-9941
Texas A&M AgriLife Communications

Producer purchases about 3 years away

In the orchard grass trials, the three lines also are bred for different uses, he said. For example, they differ in maturity, plant structure and tillering rate for grazing by cattle or sheep.

###

Writer: Kay Ledbetter, 806-677-5608, skledbetter@ag.tamu.edu

Contact: Dr. Dariusz Malinowski, 940-552-9941, dmalinow@ag.tamu.edu

[

| E-mail

Share

]

AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.

Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-10/taac-ard102213.php
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Bipartisan Group Slowed Down By Shutdown?

The political organization No Labels says its members are trying to move past partisan politics, and focus on solving problems for the country. But did the government shutdown and the debt ceiling debate slow down the No Labels movement? Host Michel Martin speaks once again with Congressmen Reid Ribble, R-WI., and Jim Cooper, D-TN.

MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:

This is TELL ME MORE from NPR News. I'm Michel Martin. Coming up in this program, states and cities across the country are facing major budget problems and so some leaders there are saying it's time to slash public pensions. We'll talk about that in just a few minutes.

But first, we want to go back to the issue that dominated political debate in recent weeks, which is the government shutdown. With the debate over the shutdown and the debt ceiling now behind us, we wanted to check-in with a group of lawmakers who say they are trying to put problem solving before politics. The group calls itself No Labels. It's made up of political leaders from both sides of the aisle and at all levels of government. But we're joined again today by two of the groups members, both members of Congress. Congressman Jim Cooper is a Democrat. He represents parts of Central Tennessee in the 5th Congressional District there. He joins us from the studios of Vanderbilt University in Nashville. Congressman Cooper, welcome back. Thanks so much for joining us once again.

REPRESENTATIVE JIM COOPER: Thank you. Good to be with you, Michel.

MARTIN: Also back with us, Congressman Reid Ribble. He is a Republican. He represents Wisconsin's 8th District, which includes Green Bay, and he's joining us by phone from his Capitol Hill office. Congressman Ribble, thank you so much for joining us once again, as well.

REPRESENTATIVE REID RIBBLE: Thank you, Michel. I'm happy to be here.

MARTIN: So let me start with you, Congressman Ribble, because the polls show that the Republican Party has taken the lion's share of the blame - if it's OK if I call it that - for what just happened on Capitol Hill. Are you hearing that from your constituents back home?

RIBBLE: It depends on the constituent, quite frankly. And by the way, I voted yes to end the shutdown last week. So I voted with the majority vote to see if we could put the government back to work and actually start to function again. And it is a mixed bag back home. I come from a district that is split almost 50-50. But I will tell you that the American people in Northeast Wisconsin were frustrated with the shutdown. They were frustrated for different reasons. But for the most part, the message that I was hearing from my constituents was to reopen the government and act like a grown up.

MARTIN: Now, you know, a majority of the Republican conference did not vote for the bill to reopen the government. And as I recall - maybe your account is different - but as I saw it, not a majority, but a number of the other No Labels Republicans also voted against the bill to reopen the government. I wondered if it was a tough vote for you, and at the end of the day, what was the tipping point for you? What was the deciding factor that made you vote for it?

RIBBLE: The deciding factor that made me vote for it was to hopefully put the government back into what's called regular order. The framework of the deal was that we would reopen the government. We'd lift the debt ceiling for a period of time, and then have our respective budget committees actually go with the House budget and the Senate budget to be brought into a conference to resolve the differences between those two budgets and then to appropriate to those levels. That's how the government is supposed to work. We shouldn't be having continuing resolutions. We ought to work like a real, functioning government, and this bill allows for that opportunity for the first time since I've been in Congress, and I've been in for three years.

MARTIN: Congressman Cooper, you're back in the district. And while it's true that on the whole Americans are likely to blame the Republicans for what just happened in recent weeks. They're not that pleased with Congress overall. In fact, there was one poll this month by the Associated Press that showed Congress had just a 5 percent approval rating. Are you experiencing that, as well? What kind of feedback are you getting from your constituents?

COOPER: Well, you're exactly right, Michel. Everybody suffered as a result of the shutdown. The whole nation was hurt. It's estimated to have cost about $24 billion in lost productivity. That's embarrassing for everybody, particularly for Congress. So I'm glad it's over and I think the message I'm hearing most from people is never let this happen again.

MARTIN: Can I ask each of you what kinds of conversations the two of you were having over the course of this thing? We keep hearing about a lot of the - well, the rhetoric that we heard from a lot of the leaders, let's say, was very hardball, very, you know, tough, you know, no ransom. There were a lot of words that people were using that people on each side didn't appreciate. And I just wanted to ask, were the two of you talking through all that?

COOPER: Absolutely. Reid is one of the nicest and most honorable of all members. He's relatively new to the Congress, but that can be a good thing, too, bringing a fresh perspective. The trouble's really with the extremes in both parties. One group on the Republican side called themselves the suicide caucus. That doesn't sound very friendly, does it? Then on the left, there were folks who didn't want to give an inch either. So Reid and I are centrists and I think that's a better way to govern.

MARTIN: Congressman Ribble, can I ask you the same question? Yeah.

RIBBLE: Yeah, yeah. Jim and I speak often. As well as - the thing that the American people didn't see, that was going on behind the scenes, was this interesting dynamic that I've not witnessed since I've been in Congress, where all these smaller groups that were getting - coming together, meeting in meetings and trying to work out areas of compromise and finding a way to move forward. I was having Democrats walking up to me on the House floor and saying, hey, I'd like to talk to you privately. And we'd step aside and they would say things to me like, how do we help you get out of this? How do we help Republicans save some face and move forward?

On the same hand, I was listening to Republicans asking Democrats the very same thing. So what you've got below the political aspect of this - and the leadership often is dealing in that political realm - regular members of Congress were trying to find a way forward because we knew this wasn't good for the country and we knew it wasn't a winning strategy. And we somehow had to prevent the damage so that you actually could have a functioning Congress after it was over. And so there were - it was very encouraging to me to see how many of these sidebar meetings were going on because there were a lot of them.

MARTIN: If you're just joining us, I'm speaking with Congressman Reid Ribble - he's a Republican - and Congressman Jim Cooper - he's a Democrat. They're both members of a group called No Labels. It's a no labels movement. It involves political leaders from both sides of the aisle and all levels of government. And they're trying to work toward more solution-based governance as opposed to focusing on mainly the politics. So Congressman Ribble, though, was there such a group called the suicide caucus, and if so, what did you - what kinds of conversations were you having with them?

RIBBLE: Well, yeah...

MARTIN: I mean, at some point did you all just say, look, guys, this isn't working?

RIBBLE: Yeah. No one came to me and talked to me about it. But I'm probably not the type of member that would necessarily be in that conversation or would be open to it. I spoke out fairly strongly about the strategy that the Republican conference have driven by some members in the U.S. Senate. I didn't feel this strategy was the right strategy. I felt it was a bad strategy to begin with. But there's been an interesting shift in how voters are looking at this, particularly Republican voters. They used to measure a person's conservativism - if I can use it that way - based on your voting record and based on what you were telling people back home.

And your agreement was some core principles that you believed in. Today, you're now being measured on how conservative you are based on whether you accept a particular strategy, and I think that that's really harmful. And so I spoke out fairly loudly in most of my conference meetings against this strategy, trying to move them toward regular order.

MARTIN: So going forward - I don't know - maybe, Congressman Cooper, you want to take this one. Going forward, what do you envision? Because on the one hand, you're hearing this kind of very kind of intense rhetoric. On the other hand, you're hearing from the voters that they didn't appreciate it, for the most part, except that the people who were mostly committed to this strategy seemed impervious to those kinds of pressures. What do you see going forward, and do you think relationships like yours will make a difference?

COOPER: You know, most people are actually pretty decent as individuals. The problem with Congress is when we get together, we behave terribly. So it's called a collective action problem. No Labels performed a very valuable service in having regular, daily meetings, both at breakfast and in the evenings so that members of both parties could get together and discuss things without pressure, without being scrutinized by leadership. And there's really a vacuum of leadership in both parties 'cause they were not talking to each other, so individual members had to do the talking.

We've got to somehow reduce the tension and focus more on substance. Reid's exactly right. To have your credentials judged on whether you endorse a certain political strategy doesn't make much sense. It should be principles-based because America was built on principles. So I'm hopeful that we've learned a lesson. Three months from now, people will still have this searing memory in their brains, and they will not repeat this tragedy. It's a shame for the whole country that the greatest nation on earth behaved this way. But No Labels and the problem-solve movement showed people you shouldn't be afraid to compromise. And we'll be ready, when the next crisis comes, to show the inner decency of the American people.

MARTIN: Well, Congressman Ribble, the president says that - in his remarks after the shutdown ended - that he agrees that the budget should not be handled this way. And he also put forward what has been another important public policy issue, which is immigration reform. And he also said this is something that he would like to see the country address, too, in the time that remains in his term. Do you think that that could actually happen? Because the argument of the people who were most committed to the shutdown strategy is that - their interpretation of events is that they didn't push hard enough, that they were too compromising, that other individuals in the party were too compromising. So do you hold out hope that these major policy initiatives may in fact be addressed?

RIBBLE: Well, I hold out hope that we can move forward together at some point. However, I think the rest of this fall, the remainder of the fall is going to centered around issues of the budget and how the conference committee's doing. Members are going to start weighing in. They're going to be providing ideas and having some say in that process, even if they're not on the conference committee. I think that that's where the focus is going to be in the fall. Maybe there'll be some other lighter legislative initiatives that take place, but I'm a little bit skeptical. And then, if immigration reform is not done by the end of this year, it is highly unlikely that it would be done next year because it's an election year.

And so once you get into the election year and people start shifting to rhetoric rather than policy, it makes it difficult for anything to move up that substance. If in fact President Bush, with an all-Republican House and Republican Senate, could not craft a Republican version of immigration reform that could pass the Congress, you can understand and accept the difficulties that will happen when you try to do this in a divided government who can't agree on the dollars. And so what I'm hopeful for is that we can show the American people that we can actually govern by getting a budget and appropriation system in place, which then may, in the future - maybe 12, 14 months from now - open up the door to begin to really address the immigration issue in this country. And I would be hopeful that we could.

MARTIN: Congressman Cooper, final thought from you.

COOPER: Michel, the key here is allowing the House representatives to work its will. Republicans have a few more members - 17 more than we do. But they shouldn't be able to control all the legislation that comes through the House. House members, Democrat and Republican, should be able to vote freely on issues of importance to the nation. Unfortunately, Republican leadership - just like previous Democratic leadership - has wanted this party only, and that's wrong. It's bad for the country. We need to open it up and let people vote on the important issues of the day.

MARTIN: Congressman Jim Cooper of Tennessee is a Democrat. Congressman Reid Ribble of Wisconsin is a Republican. They're both part of the group called No Labels. Thank you both so much for joining us.

COOPER: Thank you, Michel.

RIBBLE: Thank you, Michel.

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Tuesday, October 22, 2013

Banks and miners lead TSX to sixth straight gain

By Alastair Sharp

TORONTO (Reuters) - Canada's main stock index gained for a sixth straight session on Tuesday, led by banks and mining stocks after weak U.S. jobs data bolstered expectations that the U.S. Federal Reserve will stick with its monetary stimulus program for a while longer.

Optimism about the economic outlook in China, a major buyer of many of Canada's raw materials, also lifted mining companies. Among them, Teck Resources Ltd jumped 4.1 percent to C$29.72.

"The numbers out of China seem to be better now and that seems to be having an impact especially on the materials area," said John Kinsey, portfolio manager at Caldwell Securities.

He pointed to signs that Australian iron ore and coal companies are ramping up production and to improving data out of Europe, a key market for Chinese exports, as further reason to believe the massive Chinese economy might be stabilizing.

Two of the world's biggest gold miners gave the index the biggest boost, with Goldcorp Inc adding 4.9 percent to C$26.99, and Barrick Gold Corp gaining 4.8 percent to hit a one-month high of C$20.47.

The Toronto Stock Exchange's S&P/TSX composite index <.gsptse> ended up 61.53 points, or 0.47 percent, at 13,248.06. It has gained almost 3 percent since October 11, and is at its highest level since July 2011.

U.S. employers added 148,000 positions last month, the Labor Department said, below expectations of 180,000. While the job count for August was revised higher and the unemployment rate ticked down to 7.2 percent from 7.3 percent, employment gains in July were revised lower and were the weakest since June 2012.

While the soft jobs number suggests demand in Canada's largest export market will remain weak, the prospect of a looser-for-longer U.S. monetary policy has encouraged Canadian investors.

"There is a fair amount of stability in the Canadian market and people seem to be quite comfortable," said Fred Ketchen, director of equity trading at ScotiaMcLeod.

"Our market is still considerably behind the gains they've had in the U.S. market year to date, so maybe we've still got room to outperform the U.S. market for November and December."

Banks also featured heavily in the list of gainers with Bank of Nova Scotia up 0.9 percent at C$62.54, Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce rising 1.2 percent to C$86.41, and Bank of Montreal adding 0.7 percent to C$72.63.

ScotiaMcLeod's Ketchen said he expects investors will cautiously return to the market given the low-interest-rate environment, with banks, pipelines, utilities and telecoms likely to benefit.

($1=$1.03 Canadian)

(Editing by Peter Galloway)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/tsx-may-open-higher-u-job-data-125311697--sector.html
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Fla. police have suspects in escaped inmate probe

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — At least six inmates in Florida have used forged documents in attempts to escape from prison, including two killers who were mistakenly freed because of the paperwork, authorities said Tuesday.

Police said they were looking at several suspects in the investigation of the escape of Joseph Jenkins and Charles Walker, but so far they have made no arrests. Florida Department of Law Enforcement Commissioner Gerald Bailey said the prisoners were not cooperating.

"In law enforcement terms, they've lawyered up," Bailey said. "But we will find the details of what led to these escapes without their help, but should they choose to cooperate, we will have the answers that we need, the answers that we demand sooner rather than later."

Jenkins and Walker were let out of a Panhandle prison on Sept. 27 and Oct. 8, respectively, because of fake paperwork that reduced their life sentences to 15 years, authorities said. Jenkins had tried to escape using bogus documents before, Bailey said.

Jenkins and Walker were captured Saturday at a Panama City motel. Authorities found an iPad and cellphone there, and they were reviewing them for evidence. Police also want to know how the men got to the motel and who was coming from Atlanta to take them somewhere else.

Besides the forged documents, forensic examiners were looking at computers and printers seized from the prison. So far, there is no indication that any Department of Corrections workers helped the inmates with their escape, but investigators are still looking at any possibilities of an inside job, Bailey said.

"There is no hard evidence that has happened," he said. "If there were, there would be an arrest."

The mistaken release led the Corrections Department to change its policy for early prisoner releases. It also caused the chief judge in the judicial circuit that covers Orange and Osceola counties in metro Orlando to change how orders are filed in the clerks of courts offices. The forged paperwork that led to the release of Jenkins and Walker was filed in the Orange County Clerk of Courts office.

Chief Circuit Judge Belvin Perry signed an order Monday that prohibits judicial orders from being accepted at drop-off boxes. His order also requires judicial assistants to keep a log of all orders to change an inmate's prison sentence.

When the clerk's office gets an order to change a sentence, the clerk must verify with the judge or judicial assistant that the order was issued, according to the new measures.

___

AP writer Mike Schneider in Orlando contributed to this report.

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The Most And Least Lucrative College Majors, In 2 Graphs

Your college major has a bigger effect on your income than where you go to college.

We reported on this story last month, and ran a graph of the most and least lucrative college majors.

But the graph, based on research out of Georgetown, was limited to people who had only a bachelor's degree. People with graduate degrees were excluded from the data.

We were curious: How much would the picture change if you included all college grads — those with graduate degrees as well as those with bachelor's degrees alone?

The researchers at Georgetown's Center On Education And The Workforce were good enough to crunch the numbers for us. Here are the results.

For comparison, here's the graph we ran last month — the one that shows bachelor's degrees only.

Bachelor's Degree Only

Notes

Figures are median income for all full-time workers with bachelor's degrees in each subject. Workers with graduate degrees are not included in the data.

A couple interesting details in this comparison:

Petroleum engineers don't get richer (at the median) when you include those who went to grad school. A researcher at Georgetown suggested this might be because those who go to grad school are more likely to work in academia, where wages are often lower than those in the private sector.

Health and medical preparatory programs are near the bottom of the list for those who have only bachelor's degrees, but at the top of the list when you include all grads. This makes sense — the major is to prepare students to get M.D.s and other graduate-level degrees. So when you only look at students with bachelor's degrees, you're missing a key part of the picture.

Counseling psychology — at the bottom of the list for those with only bachelor's degrees — also gets a big bump when you include all graduates. This is basically the same story as health prep programs: To pursue a career in the field, you basically need to get a graduate degree.

Source: http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2013/10/22/239698749/the-most-and-least-lucrative-college-majors-in-2-graphs?ft=1&f=
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