Transforming testing is emerging as a stealth strategy to take your digital transformation initiatives to the next level.
Do we really know the business risks associated with the new software we design, build, test, and implement? Will the new capabilities we invested so much time and resources in actually function and perform and expected, or will they draw the ire of customer? Getting answers to these questions is the last “Holy Grail” of IT. Unfortunately, most IT stakeholders focus on the number of tests that are successfully run, not whether the tests are providing insight into critical business risks.
It is a rare enterprise CIO who likes to dive into software testing methodologies. But, IT leaders at all levels might be intrigued to learn what an archaic and ineffective process most enterprises are using to test the innovations driving their digital transformation initiatives. The way it’s commonly done, testing is an expensive activity that holds back your innovation—without providing clear insight into the business risks of your applications.
As an industry veteran with experience across a broad swath of industries, I can tell you that transforming testing is emerging as a stealth strategy to take your digital transformation initiatives to the next level. Many organisations are quietly transforming their testing process to deliver instant insight into the business risks of each release candidate. At the same time, they’re slashing testing costs, which frees up additional resources to dedicate to innovation. With this new competitive edge, they’re surging ahead.
What might surprise IT leaders—and especially CIOs—is that amount of time and money that testing requires vs. the business value that it actually delivers.
Most testing focuses on the number of tests that are run, not whether the tests are addressing the risks that are most important to the business. Often the last stage of testing is conducted by a dedicated independent testing organisation with inadequate understanding of their company’s business risks or objectives with the new software system. To make matters a bit worse, defects (or even false positives) discovered late are triaged for impact, and perhaps not addressed because of mounting pressure to release. And load testing – streaming transactions and queries against a system to make sure the system can handle full production volumes – usually gets short thrift.
I understand that many IT leaders find software testing boring. However, upon learning that this process often consumes 40 per cent of an IT application budget, people tend to find it more intriguing.
Why is testing so ineffective yet expensive? Thanks to agile methodologies and DevOps, software development cycle times have been reduced significantly, yet today’s software testing continues to operate at a slower pace—creating a process cadence mismatch. This is because testing is dominated by manual tests. In fact, 70-80 per cent of software testing is manual, tedious, and time-intensive. At the end of the day, we do not really know whether the right tests were done, nor do we know if the software system and databases can perform well in production.
So, should a CIO care about software testing? Yes – but not about how many tests were completed. What is far more important is whether the tests that were completed actually address the business risks of the enterprise in a way that gives confidence in test results.
Risk-based test automation provides a fast and cost-efficient way to control top business risks in software releases. This can’t be reliably achieved by simply throwing more people or more tools at the problem. It requires a deliberately architected approach to continuous risk-based testing of what is important to you and your customers.
Risk-based testing involves knowing that the organisation designed what the user needed, that what was designed was built to handle the risks of the business and perform to the requirements of the business, and what was released can handle the scaling of volume loads once in production.
The success of a business’s innovative ideas depends on how quickly your team can develop and deploy those ideas in software. Any hiccup that slows down the process could hinder the success of your project. There's a delicate balance between moving fast enough to be first to market and moving cautiously enough to ensure that you won’t crash and burn.
It’s never going to be feasible to find and fix every issue with the application system before each release. But risk-based testing, which balances speed with quality, tells us whether we each detected issue is a small glitch that can be fixed later or a true showstopper.
Manual testing can rapidly become a roadblock to speeding new release candidates to market. But that’s just the beginning. Manual testing, even with scores of testers often employed for even a single application, becomes exceedingly costly because it takes time and knowledge to know whether the critical risks to the business are being validated. The lost revenue and profitability in getting to market late can often dwarf testing costs, or allow a more nimble competitor to seize market advantage. If the cadence of software testing doesn’t match development, there’s an issue.
The adoption of risk-based test automation is rapidly becoming a priority for companies in the early stages of the development process, for the simple reason of keeping up with market demand. Enterprises must be up for the challenge of handling frequent changes to their system landscape and able to conduct end-to-end testing across all enterprise systems and remain stable in the production environment.
Now that software is now the primary interface to the business, a software failure is a business failure and brand reputation risk. Automated risk-based testing is key to reducing the overall amount of testing while achieving the highest possible risk coverage. It’s exactly what fast-moving DevOps teams need in order to immediately assess whether their changes have impacted the overall user experience. In addition, knowing that the new release can satisfy core functionality expectations, perform acceptably under the expected volume of transactions, and handle surges in volume is key for building confidence at the CXO level.
Testing might not be exciting as the innovation process, which involves brainstorming ideas, watching them come to life as prototypes, and witnessing the process of bringing prototype to final production-ready software. Nevertheless, transforming testing is an often-overlooked, yet powerful, catalyst for innovation. With a modern approach driven by risk-based test automation, your organisation can free additional IT resources for innovation, bring your innovations to market faster, and ensure that they have a positive impact on the customer experience.


A four-day Bangalore Health Festival will be held in the city from April 27 to provide a platform for stakeholders in the healthcare industry to interact with the public on general health.
Organised by TV House Network Pvt Ltd, the festival will be held at Tripuravasini, Palace Grounds. The festival aims at increasing awareness on preventive healthcare. “The mortality rate has come down, but the quality of life too has suffered. New diseases have come to the fore. Skyrocketing costs of medicine and treatment are the primary causes for this,” said festival director Deepak Thimmaiah.
Even as there are good hospitals and skilled experts as well as insurance policies which prioritise patient care, people are skeptical about the medical field. This is mainly due to lack of awareness, he said, adding the festival aimed at familiarising the common man with the medical field.
The festival will have activities such as open house, talks by specialists, health check-up, hospital promotion and presentation booths, panel discussions, debates and streetplays. A committee of five prominent doctors from Karnataka will take part in the sessions. The ticket rates are Rs 50 per day and Rs 100 for three days for adults and Rs 20 for children.


A computer fault delayed a number of flights out of UK airports this morning.
National Air Traffic Services (NATS) said its Flight Data Processing (FDP) system at West Drayton developed a fault today at 0930 but was restored to full operations by 0950.
Nats said restrictions that were imposed on flights as a result of the fault led to delays for some travellers — but added that the restrictions have been lifted and controllers are working to clear the backlog.
According to the BBC, 100 flights at Heathrow Airport were directly affected by the fault as no planes were allowed to take off for 40 minutes.
But NATS emphasised "throughout the period, NATS controllers were able to operate normally using radar and radio systems which were unaffected."
Maastricht Air Traffic Control Centre also suffered a service interruption from 1000 this morning. NATS said that while there is no reason to believe the failures are connected this will also lead to further travel delays.
Ian Hall, director of operations at NATS, said: "We sincerely apologise to those who have been inconvenienced this morning. We did everything we could to restore the full air traffic control service as quickly as possible and minimise the delays and impact on the day's schedules."
He added: "A new FDP system sits at the heart of our £1bn modernisation programme. It will enable us to deliver the robust service our customers expect."


Manchester City’s pursuit of Liverpool and England star Raheem Sterling could soon be over.
The Daily Star are reporting City will complete a £50m deal for the winger in time to take him on their tour of Australia.
Across the city, Manchester United could be swapping Argentina midfielder Angel Di Maria for Bayern Munich’s 25-year-old Germany forward Thomas Muller and former Chelsea star Arjen Robben, reports Bild.
Tottenham are lining up a £20m move for Everton’s Republic of Ireland midfielder James McCarthy, 24, with winger Aaron Lennon also part of a possible deal, according to the Daily Mirror.


KAMPALA (Reuters) - Ugandan police are holding a Ghanaian preacher over a stage magic device they fear may dupe people into believing they have experienced miracles.
Customs officials seized the Electric Touch device — which magicians use to give small electric shocks to volunteers — from “Prophet” Obiri Yeboah at the airport last week, the state owned New Vision daily reported on Tuesday.
The pastor heads one of many Pentecostal churches in Uganda, receiving large sums of money from congregations seeking miracle cures for diseases or help with financial problems.
The Electric Touch device is usually sold in magic shops alongside card tricks, magic coins and disappearing balls.
“With a simple touch, make a fluorescent bulb glow on and off at your command, make confetti move, charge a spoon and watch as it shocks a volunteer!” says one online magic shop selling the device.
“People could be duped to think it is a miracle,” the New Vision quoted Civil Aviation Authority security chief Herman Owomugisha as saying.
Officials are worried about the proliferation of “miracle” churches in Uganda, many of which claim to cure HIV/AIDS.


Major multinational aid funding may be cut unless it provides better value for money, International Development Secretary Priti Patel has said.
More than £4bn of UK aid goes to global organisations such as the World Bank.
In an interview in Kenya with the BBC's James Landale, Ms Patel also said that she wanted to use the aid budget to help pave the way for trade deals.
But Labour said Ms Patel had "no mandate" for changing how aid was given and called on her to abandon the plans.
Ms Patel, who was speaking on her first visit to Africa since she was appointed to her new role, witnessed what some of her department's £12bn budget is supporting on the ground.
She saw humanitarian aid being delivered, via a payment card that gives Kenyan women £20 a month from the British taxpayer to buy the food they need to survive.
She said: "We have to make sure that our aid works in our national interest and also that it works for our taxpayers. Much more openness, much more transparency and much more accountability."
She is about to publish a review of the work of big multinational aid organisations that spend money on behalf of the UK, and said she would cut off funding if they did not meet new performance targets by spending better and wasting less.
"The government's approach is focused on ensuring that we drive taxpayer value - so when it comes to multilateral organisations, focus on performance agreements," she said.
"If they are not performing then obviously we'll look at the contributions that we give to them. We need to be challenging."
Ms Patel was referring to agencies such as the World Bank, the European Union and other smaller bodies. They spend 40% of the UK's aid budget.
It is the first time this multilateral funding has been reviewed as a whole for five years.
Our diplomatic correspondent says Ms Patel also wants to use bilateral aid to secure new trade deals and make allies in the World Trade Organization, which the UK will need after Brexit. She also hopes to use aid to reduce the flow of migrants to Europe.
Ms Patel said: "British soft power is exactly where DfID (the Department for International Development) and our aid and other relationships around the world come together to deliver in our national interest and deliver for Britain when it comes to free trade agreements but also life post-Brexit."
Government officials would not name specific projects potentially at risk in the Multilateral Aid Review but pointed to criticism levelled at the World Health Organisation for its handling of the Ebola crisis as an example of where reform was needed.
Ms Patel has been a longstanding critic of some aid spending and her remarks will unnerve many multilateral agencies and non-governmental charities opposed to the idea of further so-called "conditionality" being imposed on their spending, our correspondent says.
She told him she wanted to use Britain's aid budget to boost economic development, announcing a £30m programme to encourage more job-creating investment in Kenya.
And she promised £95m to help Kenya break down barriers to trade, particularly by speeding up the flow of goods through the port of Mombasa.
She said she would undertake joint missions overseas with International Trade Secretary Liam Fox to gather what she called "intelligence" about economic opportunities for British businesses.
"We are a global leader when it comes to international development, we have a strong footprint overseas and it is right that we use that footprint in the national interest," she added.
Kate Osamor, Labour's shadow development secretary, said "Priti Patel has no mandate or evidence to fundamentally change the way UK aid is distributed.
"She seems fixated on imposing her dogma of the free market over the clear evidence that UK aid is the most efficient and effective in the world.
"It reaches the people who need help, including many young girls and women."


We’re just four days away from Election Day, and voter suppression schemes continue to strike—as does the push back against them. The aftermath of Hurricane Sandy may mark an additional, and unforeseen barrier to the vote. Meanwhile, everyday people will contribute to the way we understand this election than ever before.
As seen above, Video the Vote is empowering communities to document what happens Tuesday, from long lines to voter machine failures. Their new promo video encourages voters to sign up, monitor hot spots, and hashtag shared social media content with #VideoTheVote.
The Advancement Project has also released a short series of films, produced by Stanley Nelson, that focus on people whose right to vote was threatened this year. The inspirational films encourage people to get out and vote.
Political organizers in Virginia are working down to the wire and putting boots to the ground to influence the vote in the remaining days before the election. The aftermath of Hurricane Sandy has political pundits are making all sorts of predictions for which way Virginia will swing come Election Day. The anticipation of massive storm forced the closing of twenty-one voter registrar offices offering early absentee voting in ten counties in Virginia, including Arlington County, Fairfax County, Virginia Beach City and Suffolk Counties—four of the most highly populated areas of the state. As the storm subsided and its most disastrous effects circumnavigated a majority of the state, Governor Bob McDonnell authorized, not mandated, local registrar offices to extend in-person absentee voting hours for the remainder of the week until the November 3 deadline.
In 2008, absentee votes accounted for 13 percent of all ballots cast in Virginia. Of these absentee votes, then nominee Barack Obama won 63 percent, making his margin of victory 6.3 percent. According to Daily Kos, the Virginia legislature initially reported that the margin of victory was only 3.4 percent, because it did not include absentee ballots. However, the Virginia Public Access Project indicates that absentee voting is down by 30 percent.
The state doesn’t make it easy to vote early. Unlike other states, Virginia demands that early voters meet one of more than a dozen qualifications and sign a sworn statement. What does this mean for a president who won a state in 2008 on a winning margin provided by absentee ballots? With its thirteen electoral votes, Virginia remains the tightest race—and it’s still unknown what effect the closure of twenty-one registrar offices will mean.
Are These Voting Machines Colorado’s ‘Hanging Chads’?
Colorado-based Community Journalist Rosemary Harris Lytle writes in that touch-screen voting machines may cause a problem in the swing state. As the Denver Post reports, Colorado Secretary of State Scott Gessler’s office is accused of providing unreliable voting machines that violate his state’s election rules. Despite the complaints, Arapahoe County, a swing county in the swing state, will be using the machines as the primary way of casting ballots on Tuesday, along with two other counties.
And, with just two working days left before the election, Univision is reporting that Gessler is also pursuing a purge of what he says are noncitizens on Colorado’s voter rolls. Election officials may challenge voters on the list, which could discourage eligible voters.
I spoke with Helen Butler, Executive Director of the Georgia Coalition for the People’s Agenda (GCPA) yesterday. Based on records kept by GCPA, the Fulton County Registration and Elections Department has yet to mail back fifty-seven absentee ballots to applicants that GPCA assisted. Georgia law requires that absentee ballots be mailed within two days of receipt of the application. Butler says that the applications in question were sent September 25, 2012, and she advised that the Elections Department is working with her to ensure that the affected applicants for absentee ballots will be processed in time for Election Day. Fulton County has continued to deny a backlog of voter registration applications.
But that’s not all. Noni also writes that new immigrants are being targeted for disenfranchisement in Georgia, because of the state’s citizenship verification law. According to OnlineAthens.com, at least three people who provided passports for early voting in Cobb and Fulton Counties were initially denied the opportunity to vote.
After twisting through Pennsylvania’s legal system over the summer, the state’s new voter ID law won’t be in effect this November. Still, the state has sent out false letters to senior citizens, has been slow to take down outdated billboards and posters, and is still putting out “Show It” ads encouraging voters to bring ID to the polls, only slightly amended from their original version.
Today, Commonwealth judge Robert Simpson rejected the petition for the state to take corrective action. To combat the inertia, the ACLU has teamed up with the Service Employees International Union to mail out 90,000 letters clarifying for voters that they don’t need ID. On election day, there will be a election protection coalition effort.
“A major focus will be to ensure that poll workers are not wrongfully insisting on ID as a requirement of voting,” Walczak says.
Voting Rights Watch obtained a copy of a training manual that True the Vote uses in Virginia. Part of the front cover features a caricature of what is supposed to be a man dressed up as a woman, with the slogan “Prevent voter fraud” directly above it. As Colorlines.com’s Jamilah King has pointed out, a voter’s gender identity can prove to be an unnecessary burden at the polls. The National Center for Transgender Equality has released public service announcements and other resources that address the problem that voter ID laws may pose for transgender voters—images like the one found on True the Vote’s manual testify to poll watchers may target transgender voters for disenfranchisement.
Although the state does not require voters to show ID unless they did not show one or provide a signature when they registered (Nevada recently implemented online voter registration services), many individuals are being told at the polling booth that their signature does not match the one on file and are then asked to show identification before they can vote.
I have heard multiple firsthand accounts similar to this one, and so far, it’s been impossible to count how many people experiencing these barriers don’t speak out—or worse, don’t have the requested ID, don’t know their rights and end up walking away from the poll booths without casting their ballots.
From New Mexico, Community Journalist George Lujan writes in that the Secretary of State has banned the League of Women Voters’ voting guide at early voting locations. The League’s guide is nonpartisan, and has been used to educate voters for years. According to the Santa Fe New Mexican, the guide, on the pretext that it amounts to electioneering, is now banned.
George also writes in that voters received deceptive phone calls informing them that early voting had ended in Doña Ana County, despite the fact that early voting continues.
But that growing clout is exactly why there are renewed efforts to limit Native voting.
LA-based Community Journalist Maegan E. Ortiz writes in that Democrats are accusing Riverside County of reversing voters’ party affiliations in order to create a Republican Advantage. California Watch reports that more than 100 Democrats signed affidavits claiming they were duped into signing petitions “outside of welfare offices and stores,” which were then used to re-register the voters as Republicans.
A concerned reader wrote in that Southern California Edison (SCE) is planning an outage from 7 a.m. to 7 pm on Election Day in South Bay area of Los Angeles. Voting Rights Watch contacted SCE to ask how many outages were planned for Tuesday. Our call was eventually returned by media relations representative Paul Klein. Klein, whose job it is to answer reporters’ questions, insisted that we answer his questions first, and reveal our source. When we declined, he became recalcitrant and asked if we were “doing a story about this.” We claimed that we were, and he angrily stated that he would call back. We never heard back from Klein, and our subsequent calls were never returned. It remains unknown how many power outages are planned for Election Day.
They call themselves “dream voters” and have signed a pledge promising to keep in mind the pressing needs of the undocumented community—namely education access and protection form deportation—as they cast their votes this election. Immigrant, and often undocumented youth in particular, from groups like Education Initiative Association in Beaumont and the San Antonio Immigrant Youth Movement, have been registering voters across the state of Texas and encouraging them not just to vote, but to be dream voters.
Colorlines.com recently asked if President Obama is taking the Latino vote for granted. Since Latinos make up a large part of the undocumented demographic in the United States, it raises the question whether mobilizing dream voters will result in more accountability at the ballot box next week. It seems that if “Mi Voto es Mi Voz” (“My Vote is My Voice”) does not apply, “Su Voz, Mi Voto” (Your Voice, My Vote) just might.
Ohio-based Community Journalist Nelson Pierce authored an opinion piece urging voters not to be discouraged by efforts to disenfranchise them. The piece, written with the Advancement Project’s Judith Browne Dianis, can be read here.


Jure Robic, the Slovene soldier who might be the worldÂs best ultra-endurance athlete, lives in a small fifth-floor apartment near the railroad tracks in the town of Koroska Bela. By nature and vocation, Robic is a sober-minded person, but when he appears at his doorway, he is smiling. Not a standard-issue smile, but a wild and fidgety grin, as if he were trying to contain some huge and mysterious secret.
Robic catches himself, strides inside and proceeds to lead a swift tour of his spare, well-kept apartment. Here is his kitchen. Here is his bike. Here are his wife, Petra, and year-old son, Nal. Here, on the coffee table, are whiskey, JÃ¤germeister, bread, chocolate, prosciutto and an inky, vegetable-based soft drink he calls Communist Coca-Cola, left over from the old days. And here, outside the window, veiled by the nightly ice fog, stand the Alps and the Austrian border. Robic shows everything, then settles onto the couch. ItÂs only then that the smile reappears, more nervous this time, as he pulls out a DVD and prepares to reveal the unique talent that sets him apart from the rest of the world: his insanity.
Tonight, RobicÂs insanity exists only in digitally recorded form, but the rest of the time it swirls moodily around him, his personal batch of ice fog. Citizens of Slovenia, a tiny, sports-happy country that was part of the former Yugoslavia until 1991, might glow with beatific pride at the success of their ski jumpers and handballers, but they tend to become a touch unsettled when discussing Robic, who for the past two years has dominated ultracyclingÂs hardest, longest races. They are proud of their man, certainly, and the way he can ride thousands of miles with barely a rest. But theyÂre also a little, well, concerned. Friends and colleagues tend to sidle together out of RobicÂs earshot and whisper in urgent, hospital-corridor tones.
Petek glances carefully at Robic, standing a few yards off. ÂÂWe lock the doors,ÂÂ he whispers.
When he overhears, Robic heartily dismisses their unease. ÂÂThey are joking!ÂÂ he shouts. ÂÂJoking!ÂÂ But in quieter moments, he acknowledges their concern, even empathizes with it Â though heÂs quick to assert that nothing can be done to fix the problem. Robic seems to regard his racetime bouts with mental instability as one might regard a beloved but unruly pet: awkward and embarrassing at times, but impossible to live without.
The craziness is methodical, however, and Robic and his crew know its pattern by heart. Around Day 2 of a typical weeklong race, his speech goes staccato. By Day 3, he is belligerent and sometimes paranoid. His short-term memory vanishes, and he weeps uncontrollably. The last days are marked by hallucinations: bears, wolves and aliens prowl the roadside; asphalt cracks rearrange themselves into coded messages. Occasionally, Robic leaps from his bike to square off with shadowy figures that turn out to be mailboxes. In a 2004 race, he turned to see himself pursued by a howling band of black-bearded men on horseback.
The DVD spins, and the room vibrates with Wagner. We see a series of surreal images that combine violence with eerie placidity, like a Kubrick film. RobicÂs spotlit figure rides through the dark in the driving rain. Robic gasps some unheard plea to a stone-faced man in fatigues whoÂs identified as his crew chief. Robic curls fetuslike on the pavement of a Pyrenean mountain road, having fallen asleep and simply tipped off his bike. Robic stalks the crossroads of a nameless French village at midnight, flailing his arms, screaming at his support crew. A baffled gendarme hurries to the scene, asking, Quel est le problÃ ̈me? I glance at Robic, and heÂs staring at the screen, too.
And going. In addition to races, Robic trains 335 days each year, logging some 28,000 miles, or roughly one trip around the planet.
Yet Robic does not excel on physical talent alone. He is not always the fastest competitor (he often makes up ground by sleeping 90 minutes or less a day), nor does he possess any towering physiological gift. On rare occasions when he permits himself to be tested in a laboratory, his ability to produce power and transport oxygen ranks on a par with those of many other ultra-endurance athletes. He wins for the most fundamental of reasons: he refuses to stop.
In a consideration of Robic, three facts are clear: he is nearly indefatigable, he is occasionally nuts, and the first two facts are somehow connected. The question is, How? Does he lose sanity because he pushes himself too far, or does he push himself too far because he loses sanity? Robic is the latest and perhaps most intriguing embodiment of the old questions: What happens when the human body is pushed to the limits of its endurance? Where does the breaking point lie? And what happens when you cross the line?
The Insight Race Across America was not designed by overcurious physiologists, but it might as well have been. ItÂs the worldÂs longest human-powered race, a coast-to-coast haul from San Diego to Atlantic City. Typically, two dozen or so riders compete in the solo categories.
Winners average more than 13 miles an hour and finish in nine days, riding about 350 miles a day. The ones to watch, though, are not the victors but the 50 percent who do not finish, and whose breakdowns, like a scattering of so many piston rods and hubcaps, provide a vivid map of the human bodyÂs built-in limitations.
The final collapse takes place between the ears. Competitors endure fatigue-induced rounds of hallucinations and mood shifts. Margins for error in the race can be slim, a point underlined by two fatal accidents at RAAM in the past three years, both involving automobiles. Support crews, which ride along in follow cars or campers, do what they can to help. For Robic, his support crew serves as a second brain, consisting of a well-drilled cadre of a half-dozen fellow Slovene soldiers. It resembles other crews in that it feeds, hydrates, guides and motivates Â but with an important distinction. The second brain, not RobicÂs, is in charge.
His system is straightforward. During the race, RobicÂs brain is allowed control over choice of music (usually a mix of traditional Slovene marches and Lenny Kravitz), food selection and bathroom breaks. The second brain dictates everything else, including rest times, meal times, food amounts and even average speed. Unless Robic asks, he is not informed of the remaining mileage or even how many days are left in the race.
Stanovnik is adept at motivating Robic along the way. When the mujahedeen appeared in 2004, Stanovnik pretended to see them too, and urged Robic to ride faster. When an addled Robic believes himself to be back in Slovenia, Stanovnik informs him that his hometown is just a few miles ahead. He also employs more time-honored, drill-sergeant techniques.
In all decisions, Stanovnik governs according to a rule of thumb that he has developed over the years: at the dark moment when Robic feels utterly exhausted, when he is so empty and sleep-deprived that he feels as if he might literally die on the bike, he actually has 50 percent more energy to give.
In this dual-brain system, RobicÂs mental breakdowns are not an unwanted side effect, but rather an integral part of the process: welcome proof that the other limiting factors have been eliminated and that maximum stress has been placed firmly on the final link, RobicÂs mind. While his long-term memory appears unaffected (he can recall route landmarks from year to year), his short-term memory evaporates. Robic will repeat the same question 10 times in five minutes. His mind exists completely in the present.
Interestingly Â or unnervingly, depending on how you look at it Â some researchers are uncovering evidence that StanovnikÂs rule of thumb might be right. A spate of recent studies has contributed to growing support for the notion that the origins and controls of fatigue lie partly, if not mostly, within the brain and the central nervous system. The new research puts fresh weight to the hoary coaching clichÃ©: you only think youÂre tired.
Questions about the muscle-centered model came up again in 1989 when Canadian researchers published the results of an experiment called Operation Everest II, in which athletes did heavy exercise in altitude chambers. The athletes reached exhaustion despite the fact that their lactic-acid concentrations remained comfortably low. Fatigue, it seemed, might be caused by something else.
In 1999, three physiologists from the University of Cape Town Medical School in South Africa took the next step. They worked a group of cyclists to exhaustion during a 62-mile laboratory ride and measured, via electrodes, the percentage of leg muscles they were using at the fatigue limit. If standard theories were true, they reasoned, the body should recruit more muscle fibers as it approached exhaustion Â a natural compensation for tired, weakening muscles.
Instead, the researchers observed the opposite result. As the riders approached complete fatigue, the percentage of active muscle fibers decreased, until they were using only about 30 percent. Even as the athletes felt they were giving their all, the reality was that more of their muscles were at rest. Was the brain purposely holding back the body?
From this, Noakes and his colleagues concluded that A.V. Hill had been right about the automatic brake, but wrong about its location. They postulated the existence of what they called a central governor: a neural system that monitors carbohydrate stores, the levels of glucose and oxygen in the blood, the rates of heat gain and loss, and work rates. The governorÂs job is to hold our bodies safely back from the brink of collapse by creating painful sensations that we interpret as unendurable muscle fatigue.
The governor theory is far from conclusive, but some scientists are focusing on a walnut-size area in the front portion of the brain called the anterior cingulate cortex. This has been linked to a host of core functions, including handling pain, creating emotion and playing a key role in whatÂs known loosely as willpower. Sir Francis Crick, the co-discoverer of DNA, thought the anterior cingulate cortex to be the seat of the soul. In the sports world, perhaps no soul relies on it more than Jure RobicÂs.
Noakes and his colleagues speculate that the central governor theory holds the potential to explain not just feats of stamina but also their opposite: chronic fatigue syndrome (a malfunctioning, overactive governor, in this view). Moreover, the governor theory makes evolutionary sense. Animals whose brains safeguarded an emergency stash of physical reserves might well have survived at a higher rate than animals that could drain their fuel tanks at will.
The theory would also seem to explain a sports landscape in which ultra-endurance events have gone from being considered medically hazardous to something perilously close to routine. The Ironman triathlon in Hawaii Â a 2.4-mile swim, 112-mile bike ride and marathon-length run Â was the ne plus ultra in endurance in the 1980Âs, but has now been topped by the Ultraman, which is more than twice as long. Once obscure, the genre known as adventure racing, which includes 500-plus-mile wilderness races like Primal Quest, has grown to more than 400 events each year. Ultramarathoners, defined as those who participate in running events exceeding the official marathon distance of 26.2 miles, now number some 15,000 in the United States alone. The underlying physics have not changed, but rather our sense of possibility. Athletic culture, like Robic, has discovered a way to tweak its collective governor.
When we try understanding RobicÂs relationship to severe pain, however, our interest tends to be more visceral. Namely, how does it feel?
ItÂs a gray morning in December, and Robic is driving his silver Peugeot to one of his favorite training rides in the hills along SloveniaÂs Adriatic coast. The wind is blowing 50 miles an hour, and the temperature is in the 40Âs. If RobicÂs anterior cingulate cortex can sometimes block out negative information, this is definitely not one of those times.
Robic often complains like this. Even when the weather is ideal, he points out the clouds blowing in and how horrible and lonely his workout will be. At first it seems like showboat kvetching that will diminish as he gets more familiar with you, but as time wears on itÂs apparent that his complaints are sincere. He isnÂt just acting miserable Â he is miserable.
The negativity is accentuated, perhaps, by the fact that Robic trains exclusively alone. WhatÂs more, heÂs famously disinclined to seek advice when it comes to training, medical treatment and nutrition. ÂÂCompletely uncoachable,ÂÂ says his friend Uros Velepec, a two-time winner of the Ultraman World Championships. Robic invents eclectic workout schedules: six hours of biking one day, seven hours of Nordic skiing the next, with perhaps a mountain climb or two in between, all faithfully tracked and recorded in a series of battered notebooks.
Robic goes on to detail his motivational fuel sources, including his neglectful father, persistent near poverty (three years ago, he was reduced to asking for food from a farmer friend) and a lack of large-sponsor support because of SloveniaÂs small size. (ÂÂIf I lived in Austria, I would be millionaire,ÂÂ he says unconvincingly.) There is also a psychological twist of biblical flavor: a half brother born out of wedlock named Marko, JureÂs age to the month. Robic says his father favored Marko to the extent that the old man made him part owner of his restaurant, leaving Jure, at age 28, to beg them for a dishwashing job.
As a young man, Robic was known as a village racer, decent enough locally but not talented enough to land a professional contract. Throughout his 20Âs, he rode with small Slovene teams, supporting himself with a sales job for a bike-parts dealer. It was with the death of his mother in 1997 and his subsequent depression that Robic discovered his calling. On the advice of a cyclist friend, he started training for the 1999 Crocodile Trophy, a notoriously painful week-and-a-half-long mountain bike race across Australia. Robic finished third.
In October of 2001, Robic set out to see how far he could cycle in 24 hours. The day was unpromising: raw and wet. He nearly didnÂt ride. But he did Â and went an estimated 498 miles, almost a world record.
A year later, he quit his job and volunteered to join the Slovene military, undergoing nine months of intensive combat training (he surprised his unit with his penchant for late-night training runs). He earned a coveted spot in the sports division, which exists solely to support the nationÂs top athletes. For Robic, the post meant a salary of 700 euros (about $850) a month and the freedom to train full time.
This day, despite the foul conditions, Robic trains for five and a half hours. He rides through toylike stone villages and fields of olive trees; he climbs mountains from whose peaks he can see the blue Adriatic and the coast of Italy. He rides across the border checkpoint into Croatia, along a deserted beach and past groves of fanlike bamboo. He rides in a powerful crouch, his big legs churning, his face impassive.
While I watch from the car, IÂm reminded of a scene the previous night. Robic and his support crew of fellow soldiers met at a small restaurant for a RAAM reunion. For several hours, they ate veal, drank wine out of small glass pitchers and reminisced in high spirits about the race. They spoke of the time Robic became unshakably convinced his team was making fun of him, and the time he sat on a curb in Athens, Ohio, and refused to budge for an hour, and the time they had to lift his sleeping body back onto his bike.
Robic sat quietly in their midst, his eyes darting and quick. Sometimes heÂd offer a word or a joke, but mostly he listened. At first it seemed he was being shy, but after a while it became apparent that he was curious to hear the stories. The person of whom they spoke Â this sometimes frightening, sometimes inspiring man named Jure Robic Â remained a stranger to him.
Robic finishes his ride as the winter sun is going down. As we drive back toward Koroska Bela, a lens of white fog descends on the roadway. We pass ghostlike farms, factories and church spires while Robic talks about his plans for the coming year. He talks about his wife, whose job has supported them, and he talks about their son, who is starting to walk. He talks about how he will try to win a record third consecutive RAAM in June, and how he hopes race officials wonÂt react to the recent fatalities by adding mandatory rest stops. (ÂÂThen it will not be a true race,ÂÂ he says.) In a few months, heÂll do his signature 48-hour training, in which he rides for 24 hours straight, stays awake all night, and then does a 12-hour workout.
But this year is going to be different in one respect. Robic is going to start working with a local sports psychologist who has previously helped several Slovene Olympians. It seems that Robic, the uncoachable one, is looking for guidance.
Robic attempts to convey the intensity of his feeling, but can only gesture dramatically with his hands, which unfortunately are needed to control the steering wheel. The car veers toward a ditch.
Acting quickly, Robic regrips the wheel. After a shaky second or two, he regains control of the car. We barrel onward through the mist. His sidelong smile is pure confidence.


ARLINGTON, Texas -- Detroit Tigers rookie starter Michael Fulmer breezed through eight scoreless innings and entered the ninth with a seemingly safe 7-0 lead.
But he still had to sweat every pitch.
Yes, Fulmer had to retire the Texas Rangers for a final time, but he also had to do so before his pitch count climbed so high that manager Brad Ausmus would have no choice but to make a switch.
When he gave up a lead-off single to Nomar Mazara, Fulmer glanced over to the dugout.
When he started Ian Desmond off with three straight balls, he knew he was only one ball away from being pulled. He fought back to strike Desmond out.
Texas slugger Carlos Beltran was to be Fulmer's final batter one way or another. A hit, and Fulmer's day was done. Instead Beltran hit a sharp grounder to Ian Kinsler for the third out, giving Fulmer the first shutout and complete game of his career.
"It's special because it's the first, and hopefully there are many more to come in my career," Fulmer said.
By any measure, Sunday's game was the high point of his already impressive rookie season. Fulmer allowed only four hits, struck out nine and didn't walk a batter.
"I've got to believe that it's one of his highest moments, to have his first complete game, especially against an offense like that," said catcher James McCann.
After losing the series opener on Friday, the Tigers ended the series by throwing 21 consecutive scoreless innings and winning the final two games of the series against the first-place Rangers. And they did it at their home-run-friendly home park.
"Having come off a three-game sweep in Seattle, it's a nice turnaround to what could have been a very tough road trip," Ausmus said.
Minus a rough outing for Anibal Sanchez on Friday, Tigers pitchers had a 2.00 ERA in 54 innings during the six-game road trip.
"In baseball, momentum can last 10 minutes," Kinsler said. "Things change very quickly. But when you shut out the Rangers two games in a row, you feel good about yourself. It's a tough ballpark to pitch in and the guys that we had on the mound the last two days did a tremendous job. Hopefully our pitchers can continue the trend and we can get a bunch more wins in a row."
The Tigers, who are 16-3 when Fulmer starts, hope that he's on the mound for many more wins down the stretch.
But Ausmus has acknowledged the Tigers are counting both innings and pitches with an eye toward limiting Fulmer's workload in 2016.
Ausmus believes Fulmer can make it to the end of the season if the Tigers use him wisely. But his tendency to pitch deep into games -- although in a very pitch-efficient manner -- is making them reconsider some of their assumptions.
"He's making it increasingly difficult to keep his innings down," Ausmus said dryly.
When a reporter suggested that the situation might resolve itself, Ausmus replied, "If he keeps going nine, it's not going to resolve itself."
At the moment, Fulmer is at 120 innings (not including 15 in Triple-A Toledo). He's faced 474 batters and thrown about 1,800 pitches.
The Tigers have no firm limit, but Ausmus said they will use upcoming off days to spread out his starts and might even use a spot starter occasionally when rosters expand in September.
"We're going to have to do something -- push him back, skip him at some point," Ausmus said. "If he keeps pitching like this, we might have to do it more than once, because we'd like to have him around all the way through."
Ausmus could have saved two innings and a few dozen pitches by pulling Fulmer after the seventh Sunday, with the game well in hand.
But Ausmus opted to leave him in. After he breezed through the eighth, Fulmer returned to the dugout without approaching Ausmus or his pitching coach, not knowing for sure whether he would stay in for the ninth.
"I just did my normal thing and sat down and Brad never came and got me," Fulmer said. "My mindset was just staying focused to go back out for the ninth and try to get a win for the team."
Ausmus said he "didn't think twice" about taking Fulmer out after eight.
"There was no wrestling (with the decision)," he said. "It was an opportunity for his first complete game shutout."
Fulmer got the job done, much to the delight of family and friends who had come from his home in the Oklahoma City area to cheer him on.
They saw Fulmer become the American League ERA leader (he qualified after surpassing the innings requirement on Sunday) and bolster his Rookie of the Year resume.
"He made a pretty good case for it today and he's done it all year," Ausmus said.


1. "Going broad" and reaching a diversity of audiences across non-traditional media platforms such as entertainment film and television, new genres of documentary film, new forms of multi-media storytelling, new genres involving satire and comedy, and through collaborations with the creative arts.
2. "Going deep" and creating new non-profit forms of digital science journalism, especially at the local or regional level, that offer rich reservoirs of information via content contributed by professional journalists, experts, citizen journalists, and that is re-purposed, re-mixed, and commented on by a variety of users.
3. "Going direct" and creating institutionally sponsored media in the form of videos, blogs, and other forms of interactive media.
On this third strategy, a leading example appears today in the form of the National Science Foundation's Science Nation, a weekly multi-media magazine "that's all about science for people" [News Release].
The initiative has been part of the buzz among the science policy cognoscenti here in DC for sometime and today marks its launch with a report on "extremophiles" research in astrobiology. It will be interesting to watch how the initiative expands and if the focus on "science for the people" will include an emphasis on fostering dialogue and discussion among a range of users and stakeholders.
Formative research with influentials and early adopters. Understanding impact starts before a digital journalism initiative is launched. A key method is to engage with influentials among a targeted set of users or groups, a form of "upstream engagement" that is often used in documentary film. This research can take the form of in-depth interviews and online surveys with influentials who are asked about the types of content and tools that would be of interest and use to their respective communities and affiliated groups. Then once a site is launched, these influentials would be asked to serve as active endorsers, promoters, and early adopters of the news project. They can also serve as bloggers or citizen journalists at the site.
Longitudinal panel surveys of users. Once a journalism project is launched, visitors and/or registered users to the site can be randomly sampled and interviewed at regular intervals over time. These surveys would track their usage patterns, their knowledge gain; their connections and interactions with other users, their feedback on features and content of the site; and their identification and/or support for the sponsoring organization.
Analysis of "quality of participation." Tools such as traffic counters, google analytics, and third party vendors such as Nielson Online and comScore can deliver metrics on total user size for a digital media outlet, but the quality of engagement also matters. One of the benefits of having users register at a site, is that their "social recommendation" activity can be tracked, specifically monitoring whether users are spreading information and promoting the site through forwarded stories, recommending content to news aggregators, or linking by way of their blogs or social media applications. Content analysis techniques should also be used to track the quality of user engagement and contributions, examining depth of content, level of disagreement versus consensus and level of social support. This type of tracking will add insight as to whether a digital journalism project is indeed serving as a mechanism for engaging users, facilitating discussion, and participation.
Tracking media and policy impact. Beyond evaluating users directly, the influence on the agenda of other media and that of community groups or policymakers are also relevant dimensions of impact. These are easier to monitor through "google news" alerts that track mentions in other news media and blogs. Services such as Technorati and Wikio also track the "embeddedness" of online content based on the number and quality of links to the site.


Eaton senior Maley Tinstman tips the ball over the net during the Eagles match with Dixie on Tuesday, Aug. 21. Eaton swept the Greyhounds 25-13, 25-7, 25-18. The Eagles are 3-0 after wins over National Trail, Dixie and Oakwood.
EATON — Eaton’s volleyball team is off to a 3-0 start after the first week of the season.
The Eagles picked up wins over National Trail, Dixie and Oakwood.
Eaton opened the season with a 25-9, 25-17, 25-11 win at National Trail on Monday, Aug. 20.
Shay Perry and Courtney Giffen each had six kills, while Ava Miller added five. Maley Tinstman had 22 assists. Kayleigh Michael led the team with four aces.
On Tuesday, Eaton cruised by visiting Dixie in straight sets 25-13, 25-7, 25-18.
Miller led the team with eight kills. Perry added seven, while Giffen and Kylee Pitsinger added six each. Tinstman had 20 assists and seven service aces.
As a team, Eaton had 14 aces.
Eaton began league play with a trip to Oakwood on Thursday and came away with a 25-19, 23-25, 25-16, 25-15 win.
Perry collected a team-high 11 kills and had 2 1/2 half blocks.
Pitsinger had five kills, while Becca Mowen added five kills.
Annika Gels had 16 digs to lead the team.
Tinstman had 23 assists, seven digs and four aces.
Carsyn Lammers added eight assists. Michael added four aces and four digs.
Eaton has an early season test this week as they battle a pair of the league powers Monroe and Bellbrook.
The Eagles were scheduled to play at Monroe on Tuesday, Aug. 28, before hosting defending league champion Bellbrook on Thursday.
Eaton is currently ranked 10th in the area coaches poll in Division I-II. Bellbrook is No. 4.
https://www.registerherald.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/41/2018/08/web1_ehsvb12.jpgEaton senior Maley Tinstman tips the ball over the net during the Eagles match with Dixie on Tuesday, Aug. 21. Eaton swept the Greyhounds 25-13, 25-7, 25-18. The Eagles are 3-0 after wins over National Trail, Dixie and Oakwood.


Rubbish dumped at the rear of Bideford Street in the Grangetown area of Sunderland.
Two fly-tippers have been fined after leaving rubbish dumped in streets.
Amy Spraggon and Helen Ritson have both been convicted following hearings at Sunderland Magistrates' Court.
Rubbish found dumped in the Ryhope Street area of Grangetown, Sunderland.
Spraggon, of Ryhope Street, in Grangetown, had left waste outside her property on 22 September last year.
In mitigation, magistrates were told Spraggon, who was in receipt of benefits, was waiting for a relative to remove the waste.
Magistrates ordered her to pay a fine of £60, clean-up costs of £70.46 and council legal costs of £210.00 - a total of £370.46.
The case was brought after the council received information from a member of the public about fly-tipping at the rear of the address in Ryhope Street and more tipping only a few metres away in Bideford Street.
The council's statement outlined how the waste was traced to Spraggon.
A council enforcement officer interviewed her and offered her the opportunity to take the waste back into her property if it was being removed by a relative.
Spraggon told the officer "I'm not paying £350, take me to court."
She was sent a Fixed Penalty Notice for £350 on September 25, 2017, reminders in October and November, and a court summons in December.
The second conviction was against Helen Ritson, of Kelvin Grove, South Shields.
The case was brought after a resident contacted the City Council about fly-tipping in Frosterley Close, Easington Lane, in October 2017.
Waste was traced to Ritson, who in a telephone call to the council's investigating officer said she was unable to discuss matters face-to-face because of her unsociable work hours.
She ended the telephone call and said she was being 'paged' to attend an incident and would return the call.
There was no further contact from Ritson and letters were sent to her in November 2017 and January this year about the disposal of waste from her property.
No information was received and the notice to Ritson stated that an offence is committed if she failed to provide information about the waste and how it got to Easington Lane.
She did not attend court, the case was found proved in her absence and magistrates imposed a fine of £330, a victim surcharge of £33 plus costs of £120 - a total of £483 that Ritson has to pay within 28 days.
Councillor Amy Wilson, the city council's cabinet member for environment and transport, said: "Not responding and not providing information about how your own domestic waste has been fly-tipped can still lead to a fine.
"If you have information that can help and assist an investigation then it is in your interest to respond to the notice that is served.
"As I and others at the City Council have been saying, the council will investigate and it will prosecute people who do not dispose of their waste appropriately.
"I'm sure the vast majority of people in Sunderland are with me on this and I would like to thank the householders who reported the fly-tipping incidents that helped lead to these convictions."
The latest convictions come as the Echo continues its Clean Streets campaign, which is calling on Wearsiders to be more responsible for their own waste in an effort to build a cleaner, more inviting and more welcoming city.
Anyone who sees items they think have been fly-tipped on a street or green space can contact Sunderland City Council to arrange its removal either by reporting it online at sunderland.gov.uk or by calling 0191 520 5550.


Which Type of Company is Best for Your Business?
Namely, should you incorporate, form a Limited Liability Company (LLC), or remain sole proprietor of your business?
It can certainly be alarming to think that this decision really matters. But truthfully, business advisers agree — it can be one of the most glaring wrong decisions that entrepreneurs make as they’re just starting out.
By default, the IRS will assume that your business is a sole proprietorship unless you claim otherwise. Often, this is what self-employed contractors do, and they never change. If this is your choice, however, remember that your business and personal funds will be considered jointly in a sole proprietorship. This means that if someone sues you, they can go after your personal assets as well as your business assets.
Being sole proprietor also means that all revenues will be subject to taxes. In most states, if a business name is used other than the name of the owner in a sole proprietorship, you’ll need to register that name. For more information on this, look up “Doing Business As” or “DBA” online.
You’ll find the most settled laws surrounding corporations. In fact, corporations are the oldest form of business structure in the world. With the corporation, it’s easy to receive investments on return for shares, offer shares, and allocate profits according to shareholding.
There are also clear separations between the business dealings of shareholders and personal assets, and this accordingly limits possible issues with liability. In turn, however, your corporation will be taxed before leftover profits are dispersed as personal income to shareholders.
If you are interested in having investors and partners join in on your business, an LLC is a great option. The report filing and paperwork associated with forming an LLC is also less stringent than other entity types.
Generally speaking, you’ll need the main “engine” for this entity, which is the Operating Agreement. This acts as a contract between all members of your LLC and is easily customizable. Many startups decide to go with an LLC because it accommodates both silent investors and working members. It’s also easy to use, and all revenues are distributed easily as personal income (or loss) to members.
A recent variant of the LLC is the single-member LLC. Each state may treat this differently. Generally speaking, LLCs were founded for partnerships, so for this offshoot, there are specific state legislatures and court clarifications required for tax protections and liability. You’ll want to check in your own state for details.
A general partnership is like a sole proprietorship as there are no protections or tax sheltering. This entity is simply two partners coming together in an agreement to create a common enterprise as equal co-owners.
According to the agreement, the revenues will be disbursed to each partner as personal income. If there is a lawsuit, however, it is important to know that the full debt of the business may lay on the shoulders of each partner, which can get messy.
All states treat various types of business entities differently, so the requirements necessary for forming your entity will depend on your particular state. As such, the necessary information (including procedures and forms) for the formation of each of these entities can be found on your state’s Secretary of State website. Additionally, you should consider local county and city laws as these may vary too.
It is often said that spending money on advice as it pertains to important decisions like how you should form your business is wise. That’s because it can be a lot cheaper than “winging it” and realizing you’ve made the wrong choice in the end. Still, doing your research on the laws and regulations in your home state, county, and city is smart. And this will give you a better idea of the specific questions you’ll want to ask your accountant or attorney.
What you read here is in no way professional accounting or legal advice. It’s simply a general guide to get you started on making this important choice in the formation and progression of your business. As a rule, handling all of these obligations is fairly straightforward, but filing services such as my own can take the startup and annual filing workload off your shoulders, for affordable fees.
What’s most important is to take your time and be diligent about acknowledging each aspect of your business that will be influenced by your final decision.


The state's largest business association said Wednesday that it was disappointed by Gov. Dannel P. Malloy's decision to extend tax surcharges that he had promised were temporary.
Reimposing the surcharges may have allowed Malloy to say that his budget contained "no new taxes," but the Connecticut Business & Industry Association questioned the long-term consequences of extending the levies, which were instituted two years ago as an emergency budget-balancing measure.
"Our priority is getting the economy moving," John R. Rathgeber, president and chief executive of CBIA, said in a phone interview. "Until we restore business confidence in this state ... we are not going to end this budget shortfall."
The surcharges most notably affect taxes on electric-generation facilities and corporations over the next two fiscal years. These levies alone are expected to bring more than $270 million to state coffers over that period.
Another measure that was set to expire, a limit on the insurance premium tax credit, will bring in additional revenue if it is extended as well.
Steven Lanza, a University of Connecticut economist, said it is understandable that Malloy, under severe budget pressure, would grasp for revenue sources already in place rather than propose new taxes. But, he said, the governor and legislature are putting their credibility with the business community on the line if they promise the sunsetting of taxes that never go away.
"If taxes come and go, I think you can kind of get away with that," Lanza said. "But if the business community thinks that this one is here to stay, they're going to re-evaluate their position and probably interpret this tax now as essentially a permanent fixture."
"One of (the) most important criteria for (a) business person, whether large or small, is that there is some assurance of predictability," said Tony Sheridan, president and chief executive of the Chamber of Commerce of Eastern Connecticut. "When the state makes a commitment to eliminate a tax ... that's a commitment; business people run with that and say, 'Good, we can plan the next couple of years.'"
Ken Holt, a spokesman for the power-generation firm Dominion, said the extended surcharge inevitably will show up in rates state residents pay for electricity - rates that are already the highest in the continental United States. Dominion's tax alone would be $42 million a year under Malloy's plan, while the traditional-energy industry as a whole - coal, natural gas, nuclear and oil - would pay a total of $76 million annually.
Connecticut is the only state in the nation with a broad-based tax on the production of electricity, Holt said.
"We're disappointed with the governor's decision to break his promise," Holt said in a phone interview. "By reintroducing the tax in this budget, customers will be the ones to ultimately bear the burden."
Rathgeber of CBIA said the General Assembly needs to work hard to find more spending cuts, focusing on a lean bureaucracy while spending money on education, public safety, infrastructure improvements and economic development.
"We need to aggressively pursue policies that will grow the state's economy and close out what has become an endless cycle of budget deficits," he said in a statement. "Connecticut must make its tax system more competitive if we're going to attract private investment, allow businesses to grow and get people back to work."


Sponsored by the Bill Lane Center and the Stanford Arts Institute in cooperation with the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, "Burning Man: Art & Technology" featured two scholars, a photojournalist, and a museum curator, who regaled 300 attendees with a visual wonderland of images and critical insight into the ethos of Burning Man as a uniquely western art happening. The event is part of the Bill Lane Center for the American West’s ongoing ArtsWest Initiative.
Read a synopsis of the symposium: Burning Man: A Journey Through a Desert Oasis of Art and Technology.


A conservation agency has announced more than $99 million in projects funded through a settlement resulting from the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill — including more than $13 million for restoration work on Louisiana's coast.
The National Fish and Wildlife Federation announced the latest projects Monday. It marks the second round of grants from a program funded as a result of plea agreements between the U.S. Justice Department, BP and Transocean.
Alabama is receiving $9.6 million of the latest grants; Mississippi is getting $28.8 million for three projects; Texas, $13 million; and Florida, more than $34 million.


John Birdeno hitched up the holster around his waist, drew his pistol and spun it with his thumb and forefinger.
Just like the cowboys in the movies of his youth.
"I found this one in a box of junk I bought for $20," he explained as he slipped the one-time movie prop back into its holster.
Birdeno's collection of cowboy memorabilia started after he was asked to give a program for his son's third-grade class and the few pieces he had obtained barely covered a card table. The collection has since blossomed into thousands of pieces - enough to fill a museum.
And that's where they're headed.
With the help of a volunteer board likewise dedicated to the days of the Old West, Birdeno, 67, has established the Silver Screen Cowboy Museum on U.S. 50, two miles west of Newton.
A sneak preview is planned for Feb. 14, with a catered Valentine's Day dinner and a program. Movie cowboy Dale Berry will open the show, with ZERF, the singing cowboy from Manhattan, presenting his "six-string justice" songs about the Kansas frontier. Honored guests are Paul Mix, a cousin of silent film icon Tom Mix, and Hooter Gibson, a cousin of actor Hoot Gibson.
Birdeno's collection hearkens back to the silent-screen days and moves forward to scores of lesser-known Hollywood cowboys as well as popular favorites Tom Mix, The Lone Ranger, Roy Rogers and Gene Autry.
Among local cowboy aficionados whom Birdeno admittedly roped into helping set up the museum is retired Reno County Senior Court Judge Steven Becker.
They're a couple of wannabe hombres, the two admit. On a work day at the museum, they showed up attired in blue jeans and Western shirts, boots and felt cowboy hats.
The choices for play in their boyhood days were limited to "Cops and Robbers" or "Cowboys and Indians."
"For me, it was always 'Cowboys and Indians,' " Becker said.
Becker houses his own museum of working cowboy artifacts in the century-old Medora Hotel on K-61 north of Hutchinson - a place he calls The Bunkhouse.
Birdeno's interest lies in the Wild West that emerged from Hollywood: the cowboy movie heroes whose riding and roping brought the romance and glamour of the Old West - even though they often used doubles, and some didn't know which side of a horse to mount.
Only a few true lawmen and cowboys made the movies. As for real-life robbers and outlaws, Birdeno knows only the one member of the famed Dalton brothers, Emmett, who survived to make his way to Hollywood as a consultant to moviemakers.
Birdeno's memory holds a catalog of the scores of former actors and the parts they played.
The holster he wears is autographed by Roy Rogers' daughter, Cheryl Rogers, and he has met Paul Mix, cousin of the late Tom Mix.
At the Silver Screen Museum, the vast collection of photos, many of them autographed, along with posters, publicity still shots and other memorabilia, have been sorted. Many are in place, though more await being hung on walls or arranged in display cases.
The fun of establishing the Silver Screen Cowboy Museum is the authenticity of the location, Becker said.
"Kansas is so rich in cowboy history - Abilene, Ellsworth, Wichita, Dodge City. Being a part of Kansas, to me, means to be a part of the cowboy era," he said.
For Birdeno and his museum gang, Jerry Shell and Jack Mace, it's a way of remembering an era that entertained moviegoers for decades.
"The museum is a return to the day of the Saturday matinee," Birdeno said, "when the heroes wore white hats and fancy gun rigs and rode prancing steeds. The bad guys in black hats rode ordinary horses - and maybe, just maybe, the leading lady got a kiss."


It had been a hectic day for Shaharyar M. Khan. The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) chairman, on his first visit to Karachi after beginning his second stint at the helm of PCB, carried out a series of meetings and also addressed what was quite an explosive media conference at the National Stadium Friday afternoon.
Our meeting for an interview was lined up for the evening and as I entered his hotel my fears were that I might be interrupting his nap. But just minutes later, Shaharyar entered the room in a sporty outfit that included a bright-coloured ICC T-shirt. I greeted him with a “You look good, sir!” comment and he replied with a beaming smile: “Well, I expect that after a good swim”.
There is a brief chitchat but well aware that Shaharyar has to leave for a few pressing commitments we get down to business almost straightaway. The interview begins with the inevitable question as to what prompted him to accept a role that was snatched away prematurely from him and that too at the ripe old age of 80. We move to the Big Three issue when he tells him how he helped save sub-continent’s bid for the previous edition of the ICC World Cup.
Our conversation gets briefly interrupted by Agha Akbar, the veteran journalist now working as PCB’s media man. After receiving a phone call he tells us that the last-remaining legal hassle for the Board was over after the Islamabad High Court threw out a writ petition against the Board’s new constitution. He informs us that IHC has even fined the four petitioners Rs 1 million each for misguiding the court and concealing facts. “The money will have to be paid directly to PCB,” says Akbar. “It will help us cover our legal costs,” he adds with a smile. Shaharyar nods his head in agreement.
From then onwards, we got down to a formal Q/A session. Following are the excerpts.
TNS: Pakistan is one of the various countries marginalised by the so-called Big Three. Do you think that under your command PCB can manage to regain its lost status in world cricket?
Shaharyar Khan: Well, if you consider that there was a time when our stake in international cricket had gone below-zero I would say that at the moment we aren’t in a very bad position. I must praise Najam Sethi here because he is the one who helped us recover from a terrible situation. We were completely isolated and utterly marginalised. But he managed to get us a good deal in the end. Now we are part of the action and would be getting important positions (in the ICC).
That said, I would add that the power division was always there. In the past, too, India would dictate terms with Australia as its number two. England was ranked a bit lower and then came the other countries. The thing is that the division has become official now. PCB never had any huge clout (in ICC) but we did have goodwill. I still remember that when we were jointly bidding for the World Cup with India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh our effort almost went down the drain because of a faulty bid from India. I played some role and even though the joint bid by Australia and New Zealand was much better we were given an extension and later the Indians managed to come out with a better bid and eventually the World Cup was awarded to the sub-continent. I’m confident that Pakistan will continue playing its role and we will make efforts to build bridges and mend fences for the greater interest of the game.
TNS: There are expectations that using your diplomatic experience and goodwill you will help PCB revive Indo-Pak bilateral ties. How confident are you about it?
SK: Reviving cricketing ties with India is an important task but a lot of it will depend on the relations between the two countries. I certainly enjoy goodwill in India and will use it to pave the path for a revival but the issue will eventually be decided on the basis of the overall Indo-Pak relations.
TNS: Do you think that bringing normalcy in Indo-Pak cricketing relations is even a possibility considering the volatile ties between the two nations?
SK: You should understand that since the 2008 Mumbai attacks the general public of India has turned against Pakistan. This wasn’t the case in the past. And the only way we can move forward is by having closure on the Mumbai attack case.
TNS: Do you believe that having a hardliner like Narendra Modi as India’s prime minister would make things worse?
SK: It’s too early to reach any conclusion. He (Modi) began on a positive note by inviting our prime minister for his swearing-in ceremony. We will have to wait and see how things go on in the coming days.
TNS: At the moment, Pakistan does not come across as a team that can win the World Cup next year. What sort of recipe do you have in mind to boost Pakistan’s chances?
SK: I do agree that our team doesn’t look like a winning unit. I mean we don’t have the sort of stars needed to win a major title. Maybe the team is good enough to win a match or two but to play well in seven, eight matches at a stretch in a tournament like the World Cup seems tough, at the moment. Frankly, we don’t have impactful players like Inzamam (ul-Haq) or the fiery Shoaib Akhtar or Saqlain Mushtaq. We might not even have Saeed Ajmal for the World Cup.
I believe that our team needs players who can rise to the occasion. You need them to shine in crisis situations. I will not interfere in team selection but I will provide guidance. I’ve been talking to Misbah (ul-Haq), Waqar (Younis) and Moin Khan. I’ve been telling them to pick people who can fight for the team because we don’t need the ones who would abandon the team in difficult situations. You need boys like Fawad Alam who have the guts to handle crisis situations. Also I believe that playing the boys at the right position is very important. Personally I would expect Sohaib Maqsood to move up the order but they wasted him at No 7 position.
TNS: Misbah has come under a lot of criticism especially after the disappointing tour of Sri Lanka. But you continue to back him, why?
SK: Take a look at the bigger picture. Misbah has been your most prolific batsman during the last few years. He has mostly done a decent job as captain, too. Yes he had a bad series in Sri Lanka but that happens. I would expect Misbah to grit his teeth and bounce back. But I would also clarify one thing here. We are still discussing this issue. I’ve been to talking to all relevant people and will take a final decision (on captaincy) in a week’s time.
TNS: What are the most important tasks for you as PCB chairman?
SK: My biggest goal is revamp our domestic cricket. It’s been in a shambles for a long time. We have to go to the grassroots and invest in schools, colleges, clubs etc. We have prepared a blueprint for the development of grassroots cricket and are now looking for sponsors. We have discussed the issue with Aman Foundation who are interested and will also go to all top business houses because that is the area from where we can provide a lasting boost to Pakistan cricket.
TNS: There is a general impression that there are lots of politics, intrigues and other such stuff going on in Pakistan cricket both in the field and also in the boardroom. How much of that do you think is true?
SK: Not much. I mean you keep hearing stories about politics and conspiracies but most of it is nonsense. We don’t have many political types in our board anyway. There are a couple of them in our governing board but they are hardly the types who would indulge in politics.
TNS: There is also this impression that PCB is infested with various vested-interest elements and incompetent officials. Do you agree with that?
SK: I don’t agree with that. I’m pretty happy with the team (of officials) in the PCB. Subhan Ahmad (COO) is a terrific, sound person who has great experience. Zakir Khan, I know, has been there for donkey’s years. Previously I was a bit unsure about him but now that I’m back I can see that he has really improved and deals with important matters professionally.
TNS: PCB, overall, is like a ship sinking under its own weight because of an inflated payroll. What are you planning to do about it?
SK: Yes, downsizing is certainly on our agenda but we will have to do in a humane manner. We must cut our coat according to our cloth. We would downsize but there won’t be one sweeping action as we plan to do it gradually.
TNS: In the past PCB had been making tall claims about its plans of successfully launching the so-called Pakistan Super League. But one of the initial decisions you’ve made was to shelf it. Why?
SK: It wasn’t feasible. We received some below-par bids for the league and knew straight away that if we went ahead with it the Board would not be able to achieve its targets. We need it to be a financial success as well as a cricketing success but that can’t happen at the moment. You look around and you’ll see that various other (Twenty20) leagues happening in Bangladesh, Sri Lanka or even in the Caribbean are not very successful. The only league that can boast both financial and cricketing success is the IPL (Indian Premier League) but that’s a different story.
TNS: How do you think your second stint is going to be different from you first one as PCB chairman?
SK: In the past PCB chairman would be like a dictator with sweeping powers. But not anymore. The new PCB would be democratic, we will make sure that it is. I plan to have five things given utmost importance in PCB: continuity, transparency, democracy, balance and stability. Without things like continuity, transparency and balance we cannot have progress. I believe my biggest task it to make sure that the board instills all of these much-needed elements.
We had planned for a 40-minute interview but over conversation had already stretched over an hour. But Shaharyar, in his element, didn’t seem to mind. As we were wrapping things up, he assures me that under his watch things in Pakistan cricket will improve. We shook hands and he left, asking me to stay in touch. “I have to be somewhere,” he tells me. It has been a long, tiring day but Shaharyar is looking forward to some more action. His critics might reject him as an octogenarian will little left in him to offer. But at that particular moment, he comes across as just the person that Pakistan cricket needs – a wise, old man with a plan.


Jacob Hale Russell is assistant professor of law at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey.
Justice Kennedy’s retirement has prompted a chorus of cries by Democrats to resuscitate a seemingly unlikely idea: “packing” the Supreme Court.
For would-be packers, expanding the court from nine to 11 justices, if and when the Democrats take back executive and legislative power, provides the only opportunity to regain a liberal majority on the court. A packing approach, in proponents’ view, is justified by the need to “fight dirty” in exigent times. The equally vociferous refrain of anti-packers worries about protecting the integrity of court: It’s not worth compromising the institution, they say, for a temporary policy result.
The battle over court packing is being fought on the wrong terms. Americans of all political stripes should want to see the court expanded, but not to get judicial results more favorable to one party. Instead, we need a bigger court because the current institutional design is badly broken. The right approach isn’t a revival of FDR’s court packing plan, which would have increased the court to 15, or current plans, which call for 11. Instead, the right size is much, much bigger. Three times its current size, or 27, is a good place to start, but it’s quite possible the optimal size is even higher. This needn’t be done as a partisan gambit to stack more liberals on the court. Indeed, the only sensible way to make this change would be to have it phase in gradually, perhaps adding two justices every other year, to prevent any one president and Senate from gaining an unwarranted advantage.
Such a proposal isn’t unconstitutional, nor even that radical. There’s nothing sacred about the number nine, which isn’t found in the constitution and instead comes from an 1869 act of congress. Congress can pass a law changing the court’s size at any time. That contrasts it with other potentially meritorious reform ideas, like term limits, which would require amending the constitution and thus are unlikely to succeed. And countries, with much smaller populations, have much larger high courts. In 1869, when the number nine was chosen, the U.S. was roughly a tenth of its current size, laws and government institutions were far smaller and less complex, and the volume of cases was vastly lower. Supreme Court enlargement only seems radical because we have lost touch with the fundamentals of our living, breathing constitution. The flawed debate over court-packing is an opportunity to reexamine our idea of what a Supreme Court is, and some foundational, and wrong, assumptions.
The court’s current design is troubling. Proof is found in a commonplace observation at every mid-term and presidential election, when it is said that the most critical outcome of the election will be the one or handful of justices appointed to the Supreme Court by the President. The refrain has become so common that we have become blind to its frightening implications. How could it be that the most important decision a President makes is picking one non-elected lawyer, distinguished at this point mainly by their ability to avoid ever saying anything controversial, to a court that decides cases at an average rate of one or two a week?
Our framers’ conception of constitutional interpretation was far more complicated, messy, and democratic. Constitutional interpretation was seen as fundamentally in the hands of the people, not of courts, much less of nine unelected justices, as Larry Kramer and others have cogently demonstrated. Judicial supremacy, the idea that the court is the ultimate interpreter of the Constitution, took off later, arguably not gaining wide acceptance until the past half-century. In that transition, we the people abdicated our constitutional role—creating and interpreting fundamental rights as part of an ongoing process—to a non-transparent, non-democratic, non-representative body of nine. That is dangerous: we are taught, from our earliest civics courses, to revere the court as higher, more “supreme,” and less subject to the whims of politics—despite the increasingly close splits and increasingly frequent reversals of precedent, the political maelstrom surrounding each nomination, and the fact that it is just one of several co-equal branches of government. We have been lulled into believing that the Supreme Court possesses oracular powers to divine the Constitution’s meaning in a way the rest of us can’t.
Recent years’ decisions, and the frequency of 5-4 splits, have made it difficult to disagree with the fact that the Supreme Court is a fundamentally political, partisan body. How we got to that point is contestable. Liberals might date true partisanship—when the court went from being liberals and conservatives to being Democrats and Republicans—to Bush vs. Gore. Conservatives might say liberals themselves opened the floodgates to politicization with the Warren court’s expansive decisions on rights. Legal theorists might suggest this is simply part of the fundamental nature of law. As first-year law students learn, “easy cases” are rare and laws are never unambiguous. There is no unanimously agreed upon mode of interpretation. And even if we agreed on a mode of interpretation—even if, for instance, originalism was universally adopted as a means of constitutional interpretation—what the constitution “originally meant” is almost always up for reasonable debate.
A much larger court would make the Supreme Court more comparably sized to our federal circuit courts, as law professor Jonathan Turley observed in a his 2012 call for a 19-person court. Those regional circuit courts are composed of anywhere from 6 to 29 judges. Not all judges sit on all cases heard by the circuits, as most cases are decided by smaller panels of three. In a small number of cases, the entire circuit sits to review a previously convened panel’s decision. The larger size of the circuits, then, yields two advantages. First, it reduces the influence of a single, swing voter like Kennedy or, before him, Justice Sandra Day O’Connor. Second, there is variance in the panels, which are randomly drawn. Even on a supposedly liberal circuit, like the west coast’s 9th Circuit, cases are sometimes heard and decided by panels composed of three conservatives. The system promotes variety and prevents excessive entrenchment of, say, a 5-4 majority. This is counterbalanced by the fact that the full circuit can choose to review the decision, providing consistency. A modified version of this approach could be adopted for an an enlarged Supreme Court.
There are further benefits to a much larger Supreme Court. A larger court could hear more cases, which could help break up the cabal that currently controls the court’s docket. One of the most terrifying aspects of current Supreme Court practice is the politicking to get particular cases before it, which benefits a small cadre of insiders who are usually the system’s most staunch defenders. Unlike circuit courts, the Supreme Court picks and chooses which appeals it wants to hear. Currently it grants hearings for only about 80 out of 8,000 cases filed each term, making it five times harder to get your case in front of the court than to get into the nation’s most competitive colleges. That’s, put plainly, absurd. Because the court issues so few opinions, its few pronouncements have outsize influence. What’s especially disturbing is how the 80 cases are chosen. An increasingly small number of lawyers, who are usually past Supreme Court clerks themselves and who know what the court will look for in a petition for hearing, are responsible for most of the arguments before the court. A 2014 Reuters investigation found that just 66 lawyers, of whom 63 were white and 58 were men, were six times as likely to get their cases heard than any other lawyers. Half were former Supreme Court clerks. By hearing many more cases, a larger court would break up this scheme. A larger docket would be healthy in other ways, allowing a uniform national resolution of more disagreements between regional circuits. There is nothing in the Constitution that envisions the court hearing such a small fraction of the nation’s cases, and the framers lived in an era of extremely low federal judicial volume and minimal influence of the Supreme Court. At three times its current size, the court’s ratio of justices to filed appeals would be more in line with that of the circuits.
The greatest feature of an expansion is that it would convert what currently seems like an unavoidable vice—the court’s politicization—into a strength. Law cannot be divorced from politics. But politics can be made to work better with better institutional design. Just as a 9-person Congress would be highly undemocratic, dangerously powerful, and ultimately ineffective, a 9-person court is no better. Larger bodies have some inherent features that are more democratic and effective: they are more representative, and they can include a more diverse group; they can do more work; their splits are less likely to be narrow and therefore arbitrary; they have more regular, natural turnover, and any one vacancy would not dominate the political scene as it does today. If politics are inevitable, they should at least be made to work: a larger number means Republican justices and Democratic justices would be less likely to engage in simple bloc voting. With a larger body, more natural coalitions can develop, yielding richer dynamics than the 5-4 decisions that have become all too common these days. (Because justices serve for life, the coalitions could be more free-flowing and less beholden to the party system, unlike legislators who must maintain party support for committee assignments and reelection.) Finally, court size isn’t one of the design features that supposedly insulates the judiciary from the tyranny of the majority, unlike lifetime appointments.
The framers would be appalled by the degree to which we have abdicated responsibility for the constitution to a small, homogenous, unelected group. We should be appalled, too. But there is a solution. Enlargement will involve sacrifices by partisans on both sides, as a larger court will be less predictable. For liberals, it may be hard to move past their memories of a court that served them well over a half-century in expanding rights when political branches would not do the same. For conservatives, it may be hard to give up control just as they are finally cementing the victory of a multi-decade campaign to retake the judiciary. But increasing court size should not favor one particular party, and should appeal to all Americans—save perhaps the Supreme Court bar and former clerks.


Three men died in a horror crash in the Peak District last night.
They were in a Ford Fiesta which was involved in a collision with a Land Rover near Buxton.
Emergency services were alerted to the smash in Waterswallows Road at 6.30pm.
The men who lost their lives in the collision were pronounced dead at the scene.
The driver of the Land Rover was taken to hospital with injuries which are not believed to be life-threatening.
The road was closed for several hours while investigation work was carried out at the crash scene.
It re-opened at around 4am.


If you’ve seen the President of Des Moines Area Community College, you might have spotted him driving the DMACC 18-wheeler through parades.
Rob Denson rose from a child attending class in a one-room school house to the president of the largest community college system in Iowa.
Denson recently celebrated his 10-year anniversary in the top position and now he’s sitting down with Channel 13’s Dan Winters to spend Three Minutes in the Chair.
The DMACC spring semester begins Monday.


"Living Mas" may soon include more vegetables. Taco Bell announced it will test a dedicated vegetarian menu, new menu items and in-restaurant menu boards later this year.
The company, based in Oak Brook, Illinois, says it's the first time it has flipped its Golden Arches logo since it first appeared at a restaurant six decades ago.
In December 2017, Alexander Acosta announced a new proposed regulation to allow restaurant owners to pocket tips of millions of workers. This would result in an estimated $5.8 billion in lost wages each year - wages that they rightfully earned.
Establishments are ditching plastic straws as public backlash grows against the ubiquitous convenience.
The Trump Department of Labor, backed by the National Restaurant Association, is moving quickly to push a new rule that will make tips the property of employers rather than workers. We can't let them get away with this #TipTheft.
MoveOn Petitions - Tell Andy Puzder, the CEO of Hardee's and Carl's Jr., That HE'S the Problem!
Petition by Fight for $15 To be delivered to Andy Puzder, Hardee's and Carl's Jr. CEO Andy Puzder, it's time to stop blaming your employees for depending on public assistance when it's your low wages that trap them in poverty.
As Seattle prepares for the April launch of the highest minimum wage law in America, conservatives are warning that businesses are already shuttering under the pressure of higher labor costs. Hogwash.
Buried in the terms are clauses requiring you to give up your right to a jury of your peers.


The Italian way with the knife is done.
at the bottom of my father’s dusty stacks?
what dials down the volume knob to 1?
limitless pitch, limitless in time, Hallelujah.
my father finishes mowing the lawn.
nor the dumb sea confusing Ithacan sailors.
Stop pestering those strange creatures.


Mid-rangers: Designed for average players, they act a lot like tour balls.
The most expensive balls get the attention, but now some are made with average players in mind that feature similar distance and short-game spin technology -- at $10 to $20 a dozen less than tour balls. Mid-price balls with soft covers designed for short-game spin include the urethane-covered Bridgestone e5, TaylorMade RocketBallz Urethane and Top-Flite Gamer Tour, as well as the soft ionomer-covered Srixon Q-Star.
There also are mid-price balls with multiple cores (Titleist NXT Tour) and multiple layers (Callaway Hex Hot, Nike One RZN). Not sure if a slightly lower-price ball is for you? Try a nine-hole test with a high-price ball and a lower-price model, says TaylorMade's Dean Snell, vice president of research and development. "If you can't tell the difference, then choose the cheapest one."


MOSCOW — Olympic figure skating medalist Denis Ten was killed Thursday, and prosecutors in Kazakhstan said they were treating the case as murder.
Ten was stabbed after a dispute with people who allegedly tried to steal a mirror from his car in his home city of Almaty, Kazakh news agencies reported. Doctors in Almaty say the 25-year-old skater died in the hospital there.
Born in Kazakhstan to a family of Korean descent, Ten moved to Los Angeles in 2009 to train with Frank Carroll, the longtime coach of five-time World champion Michelle Kwan and Evan Lysacek, the 2010 Olympic champion. Ten’s bronze at the Winter Olympics in Sochi in 2014 made him Kazakhstan’s first medalist in figure skating.
He was considered a longshot for a medal in Sochi because in the months leading up to the Olympics he suffered a series of injuries and illness. Still he managed to take the bronze medal at the Olympic Games.
The International Skating Union said it was “deeply saddened” by news of Ten’s death.
Ten also won the Four Continents championships in 2015, and took the silver medal the 2013 World Championships in London, Ontario.
Ten hadn’t formally retired from skating, but in recent months he’d often spoken of his studies in economics and his plans to write a movie script.
“Independently of what happens in the future, I realize that I had a great career, where everything happened — highs and lows, medals and disappointments, nice memories and not so nice ones, unique events, meetings and many magical things,” Ten said in September in an interview with the ISU website.


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Accenture has been chosen to replace CGI Federal as the lead contractor for the Obamacare enrollment website, which failed to work when it launched in October for millions of Americans shopping for health insurance, the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said on Saturday.
CGI Federal, a subsidiary of CGI Group, built the website, HealthCare.gov, which was plagued by error messages and slow speeds for weeks after the launch. The glitches created a political crisis for President Barack Obama, threatening the roll-out of his signature healthcare law and emboldening Republican foes to call for its repeal.
“As CMS moves forward in our efforts to help consumers access quality, affordable health coverage, we have selected Accenture to become the lead contractor for the HealthCare.gov portal and to prepare for next year’s open enrollment period,” the agency said in a statement.
CGI Federal said on Friday that its contract, which was originally awarded in 2011 and is scheduled to end February 28, would not be renewed.
Accenture said the contract was worth $45 million for the initial phase of the project, and the Washington Post reported that the final value of the one-year contract would be about $90 million.
“Accenture will bring deep healthcare industry insight as well as proven experience building large-scale, public-facing websites to continue improving HealthCare.gov,” David Moskovitz, chief executive of Accenture Federal Services, said in a statement.
Obama has said the fiasco with the website has made him want to overhaul the way the federal government buys technology services. Critics say the system favors large, established contractors such as CGI.
Although the site is vastly improved, technical glitches continue to bedevil enrollment. The improvements allowed more than 1.1 million people to shop for and enroll in insurance on HealthCare.gov by the end of 2013, far short of original hopes.
The deadline for signing up for 2014 health insurance under the Affordable Care Act is March 31, meaning Accenture will take over at a time when the government needs the site to handle what it hopes will be a surge of last-minute sign-ups.


Whether you’re tuk-tukking through Chiang Mai or strolling the Champs-Élysées, a few key apps like Uber, Google Trips, and Google Translate will take the kinks out of any itinerary. But for a real power-up, try these ninja-level favorites.
You won’t catch a Pokémon with this AR app, but you will learn about those winged horse-fish creatures in the Trevi Fountain. Just point your phonecam and it annotates the scene with pop-ups on everything from ancient ruins to taco stands.
Lose yourself in the mysteries and histories of the world’s great cities with this superb walking-tour app. Detour tracks your location to cue the audio, so it’s all hands-free and you can go at your own pace. In 10 cities so far.
Wherever you find yourself, pick your next destination and Rome2rio will plot the best way to get there—whether it be planes, trains, and automobiles or buses, ferries, and bike shares. It’s the freedom to not plan ahead.
Download free maps for anyplace in the world—even the top of the Andes—and use them when you don’t have an Internet connection. Bonus: Since it all happens on your device, zooming and swiping is faster than with web maps.
Don’t spend your layover washing in a restroom sink. This app helps you get into airport lounges all over the world, no first-class ticket required. It lists the options near your gate with hours, amenities, and access tactics.
Your most precious currency abroad is your data allowance—don’t run dry in a strange city. This tool tracks how much of your limit you’ve used, and it shows how much each app is sucking up so you can spot the bit hogs.