Play Ball

By ASSOCIATED PRESS

Published: May 13, 2012 17:40
Updated: May 13, 2012 17:40

MOSCOW: Several prominent novelists are leading a rare unsanctioned gathering of around 10,000 people along a central boulevard in Russia’s capital.

The gathering is just one of several impromptu protests which have taken place in Moscow since President Vladimir Putin’s inauguration Monday, which was marked by unprecedented security measures. Police detained hundreds of people who tried to get near Putin’s cortege.

Activists have also staged flash mobs across Moscow, suddenly assembling in public places where they camp and remain for the night. Many of them have been detained for taking part in an unsanctioned gathering.

The writers led what they termed a “stroll” Sunday, defending people’s rights to gather on the streets without authorities’ permission. None of the marchers chanted slogans, or carried posters as has been the case in previous events.

Around 400 people were arrested at an unsanctioned rally last Sunday.

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Clark published her first novel, “Guilt by Association,” last year to strong sales and positive reviews. It featured Rachel Knight, a strong-willed deputy district attorney in Los Angeles, with a deep sense of justice and a bit of a rebellious streak. Sound like anyone familiar?

Now Rachel Knight returns in “Guilt by Degrees,” which hits book stores May 8. This time out Rachel is looking for a homeless man’s killer. In her investigation she uncovers a connection to the brutal murder of a Los Angeles police officer. As Rachel gets closer to the truth, she becomes the target of a cunning psychopath.

Given her background, it’s no surprise that Clark’s writing crackles with authenticity. The courtroom exchanges in her latest novel are crisp and brimming with tension. The lawyers, cops and bad guys feel real. The story is fast-paced and will keep readers interested to the end.

While Clark closed the door on her career as a prosecutor, she continues to stay active with the law by working on appellate court cases. She’s also a frequent legal commentator and analyst for several TV networks, including CNN, but Clark says writing has become her real passion. She recently talked to CNN from her home in Los Angeles. The following is an edited transcript:

CNN: I understand you’re a longtime fan of crime fiction. When did you know you wanted to be a writer?

Clark: This has been a lifelong addiction for me. It started with Nancy Drew. She was my hero. I loved reading those stories. When I was 10 or 11 I cracked her code. I figured out the formula that every time her dad went out of town she caught a case. I was still fascinated. Then I graduated into crime fiction of the adult variety. I was so addicted that even when I was a prosecutor I was reading murder mysteries, authors like James Ellroy and watching “Law & Order,” as well as doing it for real all day long. So that’s obsessed.

CNN: It seems like you share a lot in common with your heroine, Rachel Knight. How autobiographical are your books?

Clark: I share traits in common with all the characters. I don’t know if there’s a way to avoid putting yourself into each and every character, the bad guys as well as the good ones. I’d like to try because I certainly don’t want the book to be about me, but it is about a female prosecutor so there’s going to be things in common. I was only conscious of giving her my bad traits. I think of Rachel as being so much better than me, with the exception of the places where she’s like me and then she’s not so good.

CNN: How did being a prosecutor help you in becoming a writer?

Clark: First of all, the experience of meeting the kind of people that you meet being a criminal attorney, whether its prosecutor or defense attorney, is unmatchable. There’s nothing like it. There’s no duplicating that in any other job or career. You run into worlds of people you would never ordinarily meet. That gives you a sense of the kinds of characters that are out there. As a criminal lawyer, especially as a prosecutor, you have to be able to tell a story and put that story together as cogently as possible and then try to present it as cogently as possible. You do set up a case with the idea in mind that you’re going to be telling a story as effectively, as comprehensively, and as dramatically as you can. Now judges can get in the way of that, every time an objection gets sustained and every time you get a bad ruling things can go awry. You can’t control it all, but you try.

CNN: What kind of feedback have you had from other lawyers?

Clark: From what I’ve heard so far they agree that it feels spot on. What I was trying to do was capture more than the technical and procedural details, because sometimes I had to bend those rules, shorten time frames and things like that. If I have to start talking about the backlog at the crime lab or how long it takes to get a rape kit tested — snore! I need to tighten that up and make it sound like we can get our results as fast as we wish we could. Other than that, I wanted to share the feeling of camaraderie among prosecutors and police officers, the kind of humor they share, their dialogue, the way they’re always needling each other, messing with each other, that kind of sense of sharing a world together, I wanted to convey that feeling. The people who have read the books who are in the business tell me it feels very real.

CNN: Do you miss your days in court?

Clark: I get as much as I want from doing appellate work. I handle criminal appeals. That’s something you can do from home. You review transcripts for technical errors and you write briefs, so it’s all written. It keeps me up to speed with how cases are being tried today, as opposed to back when I was in court. It keeps me up to speed with the technology they’re using in courtrooms, the kinds of crimes that are being prosecuted, the kinds of criminals that are coming through. So it keeps me fresh that way. I really don’t miss the trials and courtroom appearances.

CNN: As a legal analyst, I expect you’re following the Trayvon Martin case. What’s your take?

Clark: I would expect now what’s going to happen is this is going to go away for quite some time. If I’m a defense attorney what I want is for everybody to calm down, go away and forget about the case and let tempers cool. Because right now it’s still very hot, there’s a lot of hard feelings and emotion in the air. That’s the last thing the defense wants if you go to trial under these circumstances. So, I would expect the defense to do everything they can to delay the trial and it wouldn’t surprise me if it took at least a year to get into court.

CNN: Is this a case you would have wanted to prosecute?

Clark: I can’t say there’s any case I look at and say, “Gee, I wish I was the prosecutor.” I’m really done. I’ve really closed that door.

CNN: What’s next for you?

Clark: I’m sticking with the books. I’m wrapping up book three right now and then jumping into book four. I just want to continue the Rachel Knight series and focus on that because I’m really loving it. I just know if I had to stop writing Rachel, I’d miss her!

Connect with Marcia Clark on her website.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – As brokerages search for ways to grow in a tight economy, many firms are cutting back on new adviser training programs and instead investing in experience.

“We’ve consolidated a lot of the hiring,” Morgan Stanley’s (MS.N) president of global wealth, Greg Fleming, said at the Reuters Wealth Summit this week.

He said that Morgan Stanley decided this year to cut the number of people it brings into its adviser training program by nearly 30 percent, to 1,250 adviser trainees per year, from 1,750 trainees.

On average, about two out of 10 in a typical training program will be successful and start a career at a firm, said Danny Sarch, a financial services recruiter based in White Plains, New York. Brokerages facing tighter budgets are weighing that with the greater certainty that comes with hiring an experienced adviser, Sarch said.

“Morgan Stanley, from their Dean Witter routes, had always been aggressive in hiring young trainees,” he said. “It’s becoming tougher. You don’t see entire trainee offices anymore.”

Jim Weddle, chief executive at investment firm Edward Jones, said the new financial adviser joining his firm is, on average, a career changer who is 37 years old and 10 to 12 years out of college. He said the firm recently raised productivity requirements of some of its advisers, and revamped its compensation plan.

“If you’re recruiting better people who have been more successful in the past, you have to be willing to pay them,” Weddle said.

Ameriprise Financial’s Don Froude, president of the firm’s Personal Advisors Group, also he expects his firm to recruit more heavily from the pool of seasoned advisers.

“Our model now, instead of bringing in the novices, is now recruiting experienced advisers,” he said. “People who are coming into the franchise now are people who are coming from other businesses.”

The strategy makes sense given the changing environment in wealth management, Sarch said. For one, advisers’ clients have become more sophisticated over the past decade. Add to that the rise of mutual funds, exchange-traded products and novel investment vehicles. Together, it has created a stronger need for more experienced advisers, Sarch said.

An adviser’s client base is largely built on long-standing relationships between the adviser and his or her client. That’s true for both career-changing advisers and those who have built their client base for years.

David Drucker, a veteran Wall Street adviser who spent his early advising career at Morgan Stanley Dean Witter, said the bulk of advisers he sees in the industry now are between the ages of 30 and 50. He sees the focus on building up more established advisers as a positive.

“They (firms) have to give more support to the people who are paying the bills,” Drucker said.

(Reporting by Ashley Lau; Editing by Jennifer Merritt and Walden Siew)

Release Date: 04/03/2012Contact Information: Chris Whitley, 913-551-7394, whitley.christopher@epa.gov

Environmental News

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

(Kansas City, Kan., April 3, 2012) – Cosmoflex, Inc., a manufacturer of rubber and plastic hoses and belts, has agreed to pay an $80,000 civil penalty to the United States to settle a series of violations of environmental regulations related to the public reporting of toxic chemicals at its manufacturing facility in Hannibal, Mo.

According to an administrative consent agreement filed by EPA Region 7 in Kansas City, Kan., the Agency conducted an inspection of Cosmoflex’s facility at 4142 Industrial Drive in Hannibal in February 2011. Among its findings, the inspection noted that the company had failed to make timely reports to EPA and the State of Missouri on certain quantities of toxic chemicals that were manufactured, processed or otherwise used at the facility during 2007, 2008 and 2009.

More specifically, the inspection found that the facility:

Failed to conduct Toxic Release Inventory (TRI) reporting for antimony, barium and zinc compounds for calendar years 2007, 2008 and 2009.
Was late in filing inventory reports for dioctylphthalate and lead compounds for calendar years 2007, 2008 and 2009.
Failed to maintain documentation for lead compounds during calendar years 2007, 2008 and 2009.
Had a data quality error in its reporting of lead compounds for calendar year 2007.

Cosmoflex uses more than one million pounds of dioctylphthalate, a carcinogen, in its plastic manufacturing operations each year. Several thousand pounds of lead-containing PVC is also used at the facility as a raw material. Antimony, barium, zinc compounds, dioctylphthalate and lead compounds are toxic chemicals that can have negative impacts on human health and the environment. General information about potential health concerns and environmental effects associated with releases of and exposures to toxic chemicals is available at www.atsdr.cdc.gov/substances/index.asp.

Submission of the annual toxic chemical reports is a requirement of the Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act (EPCRA). Under EPCRA regulations, companies of certain size are required to submit annual reports to EPA and state authorities listing the amounts of regulated chemicals that their facilities release into the environment through routine activities or as a result of accidents. The reports provide an important source of information to emergency planners and responders, and residents of surrounding communities.

EPCRA was enacted by Congress in 1986 as an outgrowth of concern over the protection of the public from chemical emergencies and dangers. After the catastrophic accidental release of methyl isocyanate at Union Carbide’s Bhopal, India, facility in December 1984, and a later toxic release from a West Virginia chemical plant, it was evident that national public disclosure of toxic release inventory information was needed.

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<span class="articleLocation”>(Reuters) – Free-swinging Josh Hamilton provided the fireworks and pitcher Yu Darvish lit up the mound on a stormy evening in Texas as the Rangers thumped the Anaheim Angels 10-3 on Friday.

While thunder echoed above the Rangers Ballpark, Hamilton’s booming bat made the most noise in the arena as the Texas slugger cracked a pair of home runs to give him eight big blasts in five games.

Hamilton’s explosive night overshadowed a gritty display by expensive acquisition Darvish with the Japanese rookie sensation improving his record to 5-1.

Despite another extraordinary night at the plate, Hamilton was more interested in talking about his pitcher, who waited out a long rain delay to return to the mound and secure the win.

“I was proud of him (Darvish) coming back out there and just sticking it out and doing what you got to do,” Hamilton told reporters. “It says a lot to his team mates about him as player and a competitor.”

The first of 19 meetings this season between the American League West rivals expected to battle for the division crown promised a fascinating clash packed with intriguing sub-plots.

The game offered up something for every baseball taste, including a showdown between sluggers Hamilton and Albert Pujols, and a pitching duel between C.J. Wilson, who led the Texans to two World Series appearances before signing for Anaheim, and the man who replaced him in the Rangers rotation.

“The outside perception is (that this series is bigger than normal),” Rangers manager Ron Washington said. “But it’s just a day on the schedule and it happens to be the Angels.

“It’s not going to make us feel any different about the team we think we have if we lose the series.”

While Washington downplayed the evening’s significance, it is not hard to understand why the three-game series is completely sold out and has attracted national attention.

For nearly a decade, the rivals have dominated the division and both conducted off-season shopping sprees in an effort to maintain their supremacy.

Texas went “all in” and out-bid several teams for Darvish’s services while Anaheim opened up their wallet to sign Pujols, snaring the biggest free agent on the market with a staggering 10-year, $240 million deal.

PUJOLS SLUMP

The Rangers (22-11) have lived up to expectations, settling in at the top of the division with the best record in the league but the big-spending Angels have received precious little bang for their buck, anchored at the bottom of the West standings.

Hamilton, who has battled drug and alcohol addiction throughout his career and suffered a relapse just prior to the start of Spring Training, has put the spotlight back on his play with a jaw-dropping display of power.

With the help of a record-tying four home runs in a single game against the Baltimore Orioles on Tuesday, Hamilton leads the major leagues with 17 homers and 40 RBI.

While Hamilton has climbed back on the wagon with devastating results, Pujols has fallen into a horrendous slump.

One home run is not the production the Angels (14-19) were expecting from a three-time National League MVP, who has 446 career homers (445 of them with the St Louis Cardinals) and never fewer than 32 in a single major league season.

Washington, however, said he would do his best not to disturb Pujols from his early season slumber.

“I’m not buying it,” said Washington, who watched Pujols slug three home runs in Game Three of last year’s World Series against the St Louis Cardinals. “You don’t shut down Pujols.

“As a baseball player, all it takes is for you to step into the box and one guy toeing the rubber to give you your stuff back and I certainly don’t want to be the team that gives it to him.”

Pujols endured another unproductive night, going hitless in four at-bats while the anticipated pitching duel between Darvish and Wilson fizzled out early.

When the action resumed after a nearly two-hour rain delay, Wilson was out of the game, the Angels opting not to risk the arm of their ace and ending the showdown after less than one inning, leaving Texans fans to vent their anger elsewhere.

Wilson’s work lasted just one third of an inning but it was long enough to be saddled with the loss as he surrendered four runs on three hits.

(Reporting by Steve Keating in Toronto; Editing by John O’Brien)

One of Europe's main contributions to the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is built and ready to ship to the US.

The Mid-Infrared Instrument (Miri) will gather key data as the $9bn (£5.5bn) observatory seeks to identify the first starlight in the Universe.

The results of testing conducted at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in the UK have just been signed off, clearing Miri to travel to America.

James Webb – regarded as the successor to Hubble – is due to launch in 2018.

It will carry a 6.5m primary mirror (more than double the width of Hubble's main mirror), and a shield the size of a tennis court to guard its sensitive vision from the heat and strong light of our Sun.

The observatory has been tasked with tracking down the very first luminous objects in the cosmos – groupings of the first generation of stars to burst into life.

To do so, Webb will use its infrared detectors to look deeper into space than Hubble, and further back in time – to a period more than 13 billion years ago.

"The other instruments on James Webb will do massive surveys of the sky, looking for these very rare objects; they will find the candidates," explained Miri's UK principal investigator, Prof Gillian Wright.

"But Miri has a very special role because it will be the instrument that looks at these candidates to determine which of them is a true first light object. Only Miri can give us that confirmation," she told BBC News.

JWST is a co-operative project between the US (Nasa), European (Esa) and Canadian (CSA) space agencies.

Europe is providing two of the telescope's four instruments and the Ariane rocket to put it in orbit.

Miri is arguably the most versatile of the four instruments, with a much wider range of detectable wavelengths than its peers (5-28 microns).

Fundamentally, it is a camera system that will produce pictures of the cosmos.

But it also carries a coronagraph to block the light from bright objects so it can see more easily nearby, dimmer targets – such as planets circling their stars. In addition, there is a spectrograph that will slice light into its component colours so scientists can discern something of the chemistry of far-flung phenomena.

Miri is a complex design, and will operate at minus 266C. This frigid state is required for the instrument's detectors to sample the faintest of infrared sources. Everything must be done to ensure the telescope's own heat energy does not swamp the very signal it is pursuing.

The hardware for Miri has been developed by institutes and companies from across Europe and America.

The job of pulling every item together and assembling the finished system has had its scientific and engineering lead in the UK.

Miri has just gone through a rigorous mechanical and thermal test campaign at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory (RAL) in Oxfordshire.

This included shaking the instrument to simulate the pounding it will receive during the ascent to orbit on the Ariane.

It was also put in a vacuum chamber and subjected to the kind of temperatures it will experience in space.

"It's been a real privilege to work on Miri and great to see it finally ship out," said Paul Eccleston, the engineer at RAL who has overseen the test campaign.

"It will be so exciting when we put it on top of the rocket and light the blue touch paper, so to speak, and watch it go up into space."

The paperwork signing off the test results has now been accepted by Nasa.

The next step is for Miri to be put in a special environment-controlled shipping box, so it can travel to the US space agency's Goddard centre. The Maryland facility is where the final integration of James Webb will take place.

Miri will be fixed inside a cage-like structure called the Integrated Science Instrument Module and positioned just behind the big mirror.

The years to 2018 promise yet more testing.

Recommended 16 years ago as the logical evolution beyond Hubble, the JWST has managed to garner a fair amount of controversy.

Technical difficulties and project mismanagement mean the observatory is now running years behind schedule and is billions of dollars over-budget.

Elements of the US Congress wanted to cancel the telescope last summer. That did not happen, but Capitol Hill now has James Webb on a very short leash, with Nasa required to provide monthly updates on milestones met or missed.

Much of the talk around James Webb tends to centre on cost. The current estimate for the US side is $8.8bn, which covers the full life cycle of the project from its inception to the end of initial operations. Extra to that bill is some $650m for the European contributions like Miri and Ariane.

Dr Eric Smith is Nasa's deputy programme director for James Webb. He believes taxpayers do appreciate the venture.

"When you're able to show people that James Webb will do things that not even Hubble can do – then they understand it," he told BBC News.

"People recognise how iconic Hubble has been, and how much it has affected their lives.

"The images and scientific results that Hubble has returned have permeated popular culture. Webb pictures will be just as sharp but because the telescope will be looking at a different part of the spectrum, it will show us things that are totally new."

If Peter King picked the first round correctly in his Mock Draft last week, nearly half of this year’s newest crop of millionaires will have played high above recruitniks’ predictions. Fifteen of the 32 players in King’s Mock rated three stars or fewer out of high school, meaning evaluators felt they would, at best, be solid contributors at the FBS level.

So how did the recruitniks misjudge so many players so badly? They didn’t. They misjudged a few players, which is to be expected when trying to project how 17-year-olds will fare as 20-year-olds. After last year’s draft, writer Matt Hinton broke down the numbers, and they backed up the star ranking system’s relative reliability as a predictor of success in college and beyond.

If 15 of 32 earning three stars or fewer sounds like a lot, consider the fact that from 2003-08, Rivals.com ranked 208 players as five-stars, 1,807 players as four-stars and 13,862 as a three-star or lower. In other words, two- and three-star players made up 87.3 percent of the players Rivals ranked during that period. Meanwhile, four- and five-stars — of which King’s Mock included 17 — made up only 12.7 percent of the players ranked during that period. So, if the numbers hold, 53 percent of the first-rounders will come from the top eighth of the recruits.

That said, the stories always seem to be better when the player claws his way out of relative obscurity.

Hometown: Houston
Class: 2008
Rivals.com rank: Four-star

In June 2007, the Houston Stratford High star narrowed his choices to Purdue, Northwestern, Stanford, Virginia and Rice. Sound as if Luck was under-recruited? He wasn’t. Nebraska, Oklahoma State and Texas A&M wanted him, too. He just happened to be an Elite 11 quarterback who wanted to play at an elite academic school. Luck’s commitment legitimized the recruiting chops of then-Stanford coach Jim Harbaugh, who at the time had yet to coach a game on The Farm. Of course, Harbaugh had to first be talked out of chasing Terrelle Pryor and Landry Jones before turning his attention to Luck and one other Texas quarterback.

Hometown: Copperas Cove, Texas
Class: 2008
Rivals.com rank: Four-star

Meet the other quarterback Harbaugh ultimately considered for the 2008 class. (Think the coach knew what he was doing?) But another rising star coach already had Griffin in his sights. In September 2007, Griffin committed to Houston coach Art Briles. After Briles left the Cougars a few months later to take over at Baylor, Griffin followed, committing in December 2007. Tennessee also recruited Griffin, and that sound you hear is palms slapping foreheads across the Volunteer State as fans imagine what might have happened had RG3 gone to Knoxville. Here’s an even more interesting alternate history: Griffin had some contact with LSU, but the Tigers backed off after taking a commitment from Aldine, Texas, quarterback Darron Thomas. Thomas wound up going to Oregon — which had also recruited Griffin — after LSU decided to take Jordan Jefferson. Imagine Griffin at either place. He might have matched up with Cam Newton in the BCS title game after the 2010 season, or he might have given LSU a far more dynamic offense against Alabama in the BCS title game after the 2011 season.

Hometown: Corona, Calif.
Class: 2008
Rivals.com rank: Five-star

Any school in the nation would have loved to take Kalil, but only one school had a chance. After watching his older brother, Ryan, dominate at USC, Kalil planned to be a Trojan as soon as coach Pete Carroll offered. Carroll offered in October of Kalil’s junior year, and Kalil committed on the spot.

Hometown: Pensacola, Fla.
Class: 2009
Rivals.com rank: Five-star

Then-Florida coach Urban Meyer — whose team had just won a national title — spent six hours at Richardson’s home the week before National Signing Day in an attempt to sway the Sunshine State’s top-rated player to flip from Alabama. But despite the best efforts of Meyer and LSU’s Les Miles, Richardson donned a houndstooth hat on Signing Day and pledged to roll with the Tide. Two national titles later, he’s the most coveted back in the NFL draft. (Crazy side note: Richardson was the No. 2 back in the 2009 class behind Bryce Brown, who left Tennessee and then Kansas State and who will spend the weekend hoping to hear his name called in any round.)

Hometown: Shreveport, La.
Class: 2009
Rivals.com rank: Three-star

The man with a Quiet Storm DJ’s name wasn’t a big name in recruiting circles. A high school option quarterback who thought he’d play receiver in college, Claiborne didn’t have a lot of schools projecting him as a cornerback. Not that he would have minded; Claiborne didn’t really care what position he played if it got him to one of the schools he liked. Nebraska and Texas A&M joined the ranks of Arkansas State and Louisiana Tech in pursuit of Claiborne, but Claiborne committed quickly when LSU offered in November of his senior season.

Hometown: Ardmore, Okla.
Class: 2008
Rivals.com rank: Three-star

Blackmon grew up a Texas fan, but he probably had no chance to play at Texas. The Longhorns know most of their targets by February of a prospect’s junior year, and Blackmon didn’t turn heads until his senior season. That year, Blackmon caught 14 touchdown passes and also scored six special teams touchdowns and four touchdowns on interceptions. That piqued the interest of a few Big 12 schools. In the end, Blackmon chose Oklahoma State over Missouri and Colorado.

Hometown: Rock Hill, S.C.
Class: 2009
Rivals.com ranking: Four-star

Gilmore’s commitment on Oct. 14, 2008 marked a turning point for the Gamecocks. They had struggled to land the Palmetto State’s best prospects, who tended to go either to Clemson or outside the state’s borders. When Gilmore picked South Carolina over Alabama, it signaled the start of a new era in South Carolina recruiting. A few months later, the Gamecocks would turn receiver Alshon Jeffery. In 2010, they grabbed tailback Marcus Lattimore, the state’s top prospect. In 2011, Gilmore helped South Carolina recruit former South Pointe High teammate Jadeveon Clowney. Clowney was the nation’s top-ranked recruit.

Hometown: Big Spring, Texas
Class: 2007
Rivals.com ranking: Three-star

Tannehill’s father, Tim, played at Texas Tech, but the Red Raiders didn’t recruit the 6-foot-4 quarterback out of Big Spring High. Instead, Tannehill decided between TCU and Texas A&M. Once he got to College Station, he played receiver until the middle of the 2011 season, when coach Mike Sherman benched Jerrod Johnson in favor of Tannehill. Even if he had never moved back to quarterback, Tannehill probably would have his name called in this draft. But that call might not have come so early.

Hometown: Yazoo City, Miss.
Class: 2009
Rivals.com ranking: Four-star

Three years and 50 pounds ago, Cox ran the anchor leg of the 4 X 100 relay for Yazoo City High. That’s not so out-of-the-ordinary in SEC country. Some of the league’s best defensive tackles left high school as tall, lean athletes. What made them special is that they didn’t lose speed as they put on weight. Mississippi State coaches projected Cox correctly, but so did another staff known for putting defenders in the NFL. After Sylvester Croom and his staff were fired in Starkville, Cox gave serious thought to flipping on his commitment. Alabama coaches had never stopped recruiting Cox, and they convinced him to make an official visit to Tuscaloosa in January 2009. The visit didn’t sway Cox, and he opted to stick with Mississippi State. Once in Starkville, the 245-pounder began eating. Hamburger steak smothered in gravy was his favorite. "I would load it down a little bit," Cox said in a 2010 interview. "Then I’d go back, get some more, load it down a little bit. In between, I would drink some milk." The gravy-soaked hamburger and milk did Cox’s body good enough to become a first-rounder.

Hometown: St. Paul, Minn.
Class: 2008
Rivals.com ranking: Five-star

College coaches flocked to Cretin-Derham Hall to see Floyd, then a 6-foot-3 star with room to grow. Floyd also checked out Florida, Michigan, Ohio State and Wisconsin before finally deciding on Notre Dame, where he thought he would rack up catches and yards in coach Charlie Weis’ offense. He was half right. He spent his final two seasons playing for Brian Kelly.

Hometown: Cincinnati
Class: 2009
Rivals.com ranking: Three-star

Like Luck, Kuechly chose his finalists based on U.S. News and World Report rankings instead of Associated Press poll rankings. Boston College, Duke, Stanford and Virginia got official visits. Boston College felt most comfortable to Kuechly, who attended St. Xavier, a Jesuit high school. There was a brief anxious moment when BC unexpectedly fired Jeff Jagodzinski, but when Kuechly found out defensive coordinator Frank Spaziani would be elevated to head coach, he kept the Eagles out front. Kuechly committed in January 2009. He began tackling everything in sight soon after.

Hometown: Hamlet, N.C.
Class: 2007
Rivals.com rank: Four-star

The Butch Davis staff had just taken over at North Carolina in early 2007, and the Tar Heels made one last run at Ingram, then a 224-pound linebacker. Ingram took an official visit to Chapel Hill, but he remained solid to South Carolina. Fifty pounds later, Ingram turned into a stud defensive end/touchdown machine.

Hometown: Bellevue, Wash.
Class: 2008
Rivals.com rank: Three-star

Oregon State, Washington and Washington State wanted DeCastro, but he committed to the Cardinal in May 2007. Still, he wanted to make sure he had made the correct choice. So he visited Washington in December 2007. The fact that the hometown team couldn’t sway him only served to reinforce DeCastro’s belief that something special was going on down at Stanford. He was correct. His class changed the program.

Hometown: Mobile, Ala.
Class: 2008
Rivals.com rank: Four-star

The biggest question surrounding Barron in high school was what position he would play in college. He starred at tailback at St. Paul’s, but he also wowed recruiters as a receiver, safety and linebacker. LSU coaches told Barron to pick a position. Alabama coaches said they saw him as a safety. Ultimately, Barron chose Alabama. He took a late visit to Auburn, but the Tigers didn’t really have a chance to flip Barron, who would be joined in Tuscaloosa a year later by St. Paul’s quarterback AJ McCarron.

Hometown: Kinston, N.C.
Class: 2008
Rivals.com rank: Four-star

Coples enrolled at Hargrave Military Academy in Chatham, Va., for his senior year to help shore up his academics. The plan worked. Coples qualified, and he chose North Carolina over Florida State, N.C. State and Tennessee.

Hometown: Memphis, Tenn.
Class: 2008
Rivals.com rank: Two-star

Wooddale High coach Cedric Miller discovered Poe playing the bass drum in the school’s band and asked the jumbo percussionist tojoin the football team. Though Poe developed into a dominant high school player, his grades scared off elite schools. His options were Memphis or … Memphis. Now, Poe will have to prove he isn’t just a combine wonder after failing to dominate in Conference USA.

Hometown: Eufaula, Ala.
Class: 2008
Rivals.com rank: Four-star

Like Cox and Ingram, Upshaw is another weight-gainer who didn’t lose a step. Upshaw left Eufaula High at 220 pounds and finished his college career as a 265-pound quarterback-seeking monster. Upshaw had offers from Auburn, Georgia, South Carolina and others, but he never seriously considered any school besides Alabama.

Hometown: Parkston, S.D.
Class: 2008
Rivals.com rank: Three-star

Iowa and Nebraska each wanted Reiff, and they both got him. But Iowa got him first and last. Reiff committed to the Hawkeyes in April 2007, but by the fall, he wondered if he had made his choice too early. So he visited Nebraska for the Cornhuskers’ game against USC and decided he wanted to play in Lincoln. Nebraska fired Bill Callahan’s staff six weeks later, and Reiff reconsidered. In December, he committed to Iowa again.

Hometown: Pittsburg, Texas
Class: 2008
Rivals.com rank: Three-star

Like most top prospects in Texas, Wright committed early. In March of his junior year, he chose Texas A&M. But that commitment wouldn’t last. Wright, who played quarterback and starred on the basketball team at Pittsburg High, decommitted in May. He opened his options to schools that wanted him as a receiver, and despite interest from Oklahoma, Nebraska and Arkansas, his only official visit was to Baylor.

Hometown: Akron, Ohio
Class: 2008
Rivals.com rank: Three-star

Mercilus liked three schools: Illinois, Michigan and Ohio State. The problem? He only had an offer from one of them. After a December 2007 official visit to Champaign, Mercilus chose the Illini. At the time, Illinois was about to play in the Rose Bowl. Mercilus never got close to Pasadena, but his breakout season as a redshirt junior may have vaulted him into the first round.

Hometown: Gadsden, Ala.
Class: 2009
Rivals.com rank: Five-star

Texas doesn’t often venture outside the Lone Star State for players. Nor do the Longhorns typically leave scholarships open for anyone. But Texas wanted Kirkpatrick badly. That was a testament to how good the class of 2009′s top-ranked cornerback was at Gadsden City High. Kirkpatrick took official visits to Texas and Florida, but in the end, he elected to stay close to home and win two national titles at Alabama.

Hometown: Los Angeles
Class: 2008
Rivals.com rank: Three-star

Martin always wanted to go to Stanford, but he wasn’t sure his grades and test scores would make the cut at the (academically) highest ranked school in the FBS. So Martin originally committed to another classroom powerhouse. In June 2007, he pledged to UCLA. But in January 2008, Stanford coaches informed Martin that he had made it through the admissions gauntlet. He immediately accepted their scholarship offer.

* Projected trade with Detroit

Hometown: Lewisburg, Tenn.
Class: 2008
Rivals.com rank: Four-star

The jumbo linebacker was a perfect fit for Nick Saban’s defense, and Hightower committed to the Crimson Tide in November 2007. His other finalist? Vanderbilt. Still, Hightower’s commitment didn’t deter Tennessee from trying to convince him to remain in his home state. Unfortunately for the Volunteers, Hightower wasn’t interested.

Hometown: Waukesha, Wis.
Class: 2008
Rivals.com rank: Three-star

As a svelte — for a Wisconsin offensive lineman — 279-pound high school junior, Zeitler narrowed his options to two schools. He could stay close to home and play for the Badgers, or he could go to Michigan. Zeitler stayed in America’s Dairy Land and won two Big Ten titles.

Hometown: Houston
Class: 2009
Rivals.com rank: Four-star

Even when Houston and Texas A&M were the main schools pursuing him before his junior season began, Brockers was hoping for an offer from LSU. He got it, and he jumped on it. Brockers committed to the Tigers in February of his junior year, becoming the first commitment in a class that included Claiborne, defensive end Sam Montgomery and receiver Rueben Randle.

Hometown: Bastrop, La.
Class: 2009
Rivals.com rank: Five-star

Randle didn’t choose the Tigers nearly as early as future teammate Brockers. The nation’s No. 2-rated prospect milked the recruiting process until the very end, choosing LSU on National Signing Day. Randle also took official visits to Alabama and Oklahoma and considered Tennessee and Auburn, but in the end, the pull of his home state team was too strong.

* Projected trade with New England

Hometown: Edmond, Okla.
Class: 2002
Rivals.com rank: Zero stars

Don’t blame the recruitniks for this oversight. Star rankings were in their infancy when Weeden graduated from Santa Fe High. (For perspective: Facebook wouldn’t launch for two more years.) Football coaches shied away from Weeden because of his success on the mound. The New York Yankees picked the right-handed pitcher in the second round of the 2002 draft. After an injury-plagued minor league career, Weeden decided to give football another shot. Now, he’ll take the Chris Weinke career path and enter a league where most of the five-year veterans are younger than him.

Hometown: Huber Heights, Ohio
Class: 2008
Rivals.com rank: Three-star

Under Mark Dantonio, the Spartans have had a good eye for diamonds in the rough. Michigan State offered Worthy at a camp before his senior season, and the Spartans recruited Worthy hard even though other schools at that level remained cool on the 290-pounder. Meanwhile, Worthy supplemented his football training with martial arts and yoga workouts. That helped create a 300-pounder who moved better than any 300-pounder should move.

* Projected trade with Baltimore

Hometown: Tracy, Calif.
Class: 2007
Rivals.com rank: Two-star (Out of junior college in 2009)

After a career as a two-way lineman at West High, Silatolu remained close to home and went to San Joaquin Delta College. From there, he signed with Nevada in 2009, but he failed to qualify academically to play in Reno. After a year off from football, Silatolu wound up at Division II Midwestern State in Wichita Falls, Texas. He dominated at left tackle there, and now he is one of the 2012 draft’s most intriguing prospects.

Hometown: Joliet, Ill.
Class: 2007
Rivals.com rank: Three-star

Fleener didn’t draw major interest until his senior season. That might have something to do with the fact that Fleener caught more passes (four) in Joliet Catholic’s first game in 2006 than he did in his entire junior season. Fleener entertained offers from Arizona State and Nebraska, but, like Martin, he held out hope for admission to Stanford. When he got that in January 2007, he committed soon after.

Hometown: Detroit
Class: 2008
Rivals.com rank: Four-star

One of the best players in years to emerge from Detroit’s public school system — playing nine different defensive positions at various times, he led King High to the first state title captured by a Detroit public — Perry was a high-priority target for Michigan and Michigan State. He took official visits to both — as well as Miami — but ultimately decided he wanted to play for Pete Carroll at USC. It marked the second time in two years that Carroll had swiped one of Michigan’s best players from under the noses of the Wolverines and Spartans. In 2007, Carroll grabbed Muskegon receiver Ronald Johnson.

Hometown: Knoxville, Tenn.
Class: 2007
Rivals.com rank: Four-star

Smith had his share of SEC offers, including Alabama, Auburn and hometown Tennessee, but a September 2006 official visit to South Bend made the Fighting Irish the team to beat. Smith ultimately chose between Notre Dame and his hometown Volunteers, and he picked the Irish. It would be the first of two consecutive years in which a metro Knoxville player who could have helped the Vols went north. In 2008, Alcoa, Tenn., receiver Randall Cobb signed with Kentucky. Cobb went to the Packers in the second round of last year’s draft.

Story By: Talk of the Nation

Budget cuts in many school districts have some parents and teachers questioning whether they have the resources to support their students. NPR education correspondent Claudio Sanchez and Thomas Hehir of Harvard University talk about how to integrate special needs students into mainstream classrooms.

DETROIT (Reuters) – Carroll Shelby, designer of the Shelby Cobra and other sports cars that placed him in the pantheon of auto industry legends, has died at age 89, his company said on Friday.

He died on Thursday at Baylor Hospital in Dallas, according to the company, Carroll Shelby Licensing. The firm did not disclose the cause of death. A post on his Facebook page last month revealed he had been hospitalized for pneumonia.

Shelby was one of the few prominent designers to work with all three major American car companies, starting with Ford Motor Co in the 1960s. His last collaboration with Ford was on the 2013 Ford Shelby GT500.

Shelby’s high-performance cars helped Detroit challenge the dominance of the Europeans in racing. Ralph Gilles, head of product design for Chrysler, said Shelby created cars that helped enthusiasts worldwide find “joy and self-actualization.”

“My name is Carroll Shelby and performance is my business,” Shelby said in an early commercial for the Cobra.

He was born in Leesburg, Texas, in 1923. He started racing cars in the 1950s, and in 1959 he won the 24 Hours of Le Mans, a marathon race held in France.

He was diagnosed with a serious heart condition in 1959 that forced him to quit racing. Shelby had a heart transplant in 1990 and a kidney transplant in 1996.

He drove one race with nitroglycerin pills under his tongue to prevent against a heart attack. He complained that he would have won if not for the pills.

He soon turned his attention toward designing. He approached Lee Iacocca, who was then at Ford, about building a lightweight A.C. roadster with a Ford engine. That car became the Cobra, a name that Shelby said came to him in a dream.

In 1962, the Cobra was introduced at the New York Auto Show and Shelby’s company began making the cars in California later that year. In 1964, Ford asked Shelby to develop a high-performance Mustang. That same year the song “Hey Little Cobra” by the Rip Chords embedded the sports car in pop culture.

“Whether helping Ford dominate the 1960s racing scene or building some of the most famous Mustangs, his enthusiasm and passion for great automobiles over six decades has truly inspired everyone who worked with him,” said Edsel Ford II, grandson of the No. 2 U.S. automaker’s founder Henry Ford.

He parted ways with Ford in the 1970s and headed to Chrysler, where he revamped the K car and worked on the initial design of the Dodge Viper. He also worked for General Motors Co’s Oldsmobile division.

Shelby sued Ford in the 1990s over the use of the Cobra name. That suit was settled and by 2001, he was collaborating with the automaker again.

“From his personal influence on our Dodge GLH cars to his inspiration on the original Dodge Viper concept, we’ve lost a true automotive legend,” said Gilles, who also leads Chrysler’s performance brand, SRT, which unveiled the 2013 SRT Viper at the New York Auto Show this year.

Shelby is survived by three children six grandchildren, four great grandchildren and his wife, Cleo.

(Reporting by Deepa Seetharaman; Editing by Xavier Briand, Bernard Orr)

Release Date: 05/09/2012Contact Information: David Sternberg (215) 814-5548 Sternberg.david@epa.gov

PHILADELPHIA (May 9, 2012) – The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency recognized three elementary and middle schools and one college in the Schuylkill River Watershed today for their environmental projects which help educate the public about the value of protecting sources of drinking water.

The Schuylkill Action Network (SAN) Drinking Water Scholastic Awards were presented to recipients at the Wissahickon Valley Watershed Association, in Ambler, Pa. in celebration of National Drinking Water Week, May 6-12, 2012.

“Education plays an enormous part in protecting and restoring the Schuylkill watershed,” said EPA Regional Administrator Shawn M. Garvin. “Schools in the watershed are educating students about pollution sources and environmental protection, and the students in turn are educating their families and friends.”

Awards were given to the following schools:
• Sandy Run Middle School in Dresher, Pa.
• Spring-Ford Intermediate School, Royersford, Pa.
• Limerick Elementary School, Royersford, Pa.
• Cabrini College in Radnor, Pa.

The schools each took a unique approach to educating the students and community about source water protection such as removing invasive species, replanting native trees, coordinating a watershed day, rain harvesting to reduce the school’s dependence on the public water supply and coordinating a stormwater attitude and education survey.

The awards are presented on behalf of the Schuylkill Action Network, which was formed in 2003 to create a team approach to cleaning up and protecting the Schuylkill River and its tributaries. Members include EPA, Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection, Philadelphia Water Department, Delaware River Basin Commission, Partnership for the Delaware Estuary, conservation districts, local, state and federal agencies, watershed organizations and other non-governmental organizations.

The Schuylkill River and its tributaries provide drinking water to 1.5 million people who live in the 11 counties and 232 municipalities included in the watershed.

Source water is the water in streams, lakes or underground aquifers which when treated is used for public drinking water. The Schuylkill River and its tributaries are an important source of drinking water and fish habitat. For more information on the SAN, visit: www.schuylkillwaters.org/.

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Serbia became a stand-alone sovereign republic in summer 2006 after Montenegro voted in a referendum for independence from the Union of Serbia and Montenegro.

When the vote was followed by a formal declaration of independence by Montenegro, a special session of parliament in Belgrade declared Serbia to be the legal successor to the now defunct union of Serbia and Montenegro.

Serbia inherits membership of the United Nations and other international institutions.

Serbia and Montenegro, the two republics still left in the old Yugoslav federation, had agreed in 2002 to scrap remnants of the ex-communist state and create the new, looser Union of Serbia and Montenegro.

The EU-brokered deal under which the union came into being in 2003 was intended to stabilise the region by settling Montenegrin demands for independence and preventing further changes to Balkan borders.

The same agreement also contained the seeds of the Union's dissolution. It stipulated that after three years the two republics could hold referendums on whether to keep or scrap it. Montenegro duly voted for independence in a referendum in May 2006.

The two republics had been united in one form or another for nearly 90 years. With separation from Montenegro, Serbia is cut off from the Adriatic Sea and becomes landlocked.

The end of the Union of Serbia and Montenegro marked the closing chapter in the history of the separation of the six republics of the old Socialist Republic of Yugoslavia which was proclaimed in 1945 and comprised Serbia, Montenegro, Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia-Hercegovina and Macedonia.

Under Yugoslavia's authoritarian communist leader, Josip Broz Tito, the lid was kept on ethnic tensions. The federation lasted for over 10 years after his death in 1980 but under Serbian nationalist leader Slobodan Milosevic it fell apart through the 1990s.

The secession of Slovenia and Macedonia came relatively peacefully but there were devastating wars in Croatia and Bosnia. Serbia and Montenegro together formed the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia between 1992 and 2003.

In 1998 violence flared in the autonomous province of Kosovo in Serbia. The Kosovo Liberation Army, supported by the majority ethnic Albanians, came out in open rebellion against Serbian rule. International pressure on Milosevic grew amid the escalating violence.

Nato launched air strikes in Kosovo and Serbia in March 1999. An exodus of ethnic Albanians to neighbouring countries gathered pace. The UN took over administration of the region after Serbian forces had been driven out.

Kosovo declared independence on 17 February 2008 after the failure of UN-brokered talks on the status of the province. Serbia said the declaration was illegal, and other countries are divided as to whether to recognise it.

In late 2005, the EU began talks with Belgrade on the possibility of reaching a Stabilisation and Association Agreement. These were called off some months later because of the continuing failure of the Serbian authorities to arrest several war crimes suspects.

One of the most notorious of these, the former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic, was arrested in Belgrade in July 2008 by Serbian security forces and extradited to The Hague, weeks after a pro-Western government took office. European foreign ministers praised the arrest as a significant step for Serbia in its efforts to join the EU.

In December 2009 Serbia formally submitted its application to join the EU. The beginning of accession talks was delayed while two major Serbian war crimes suspects were still at large, but with the arrest of former Bosnian Serb military commander Ratko Mladic and Croatian Serb leader Goran Hadzic in 2011, this block to Serbia gaining EU candidate status was removed.

The European Commission duly recommended Serbia for EU candidate status in a report in October 2011, but said that talks could only start after Serbia normalised ties with Kosovo. Continued Serbian refusal to recognise Kosovar independence undermined hopes for swift progress.

Though the current Serbian government is pro-Western and sees eventual membership of the EU as being in the country's best interests, Serbia is traditionally an ally of Russia, which supported its opposition to Kosovo's independence.

In 2008, Serbia-Russia ties were further strengthened by the signing of a major energy deal, and in October 2009 Russia granted Serbia a 1bn euro (£0.9bn) loan to help it cover its budget deficit after the economy was hit hard by the global downturn.