Showing posts with label Sees. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sees. Show all posts
Thursday, March 27, 2014
Thursday, March 6, 2014
NYC Sees Rash of Rare Infections Tied to Seafood
NYC Sees Rash of Rare Infections Tied to Seafood
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(Newser) – Two things you never want to see linked: “outbreak” and “rare skin infection.” Unfortunately, that’s apparently the case in New York City, where some 30 people who bought seafood in Chinatown markets over the last six months have found themselves battling “Mycobacterium marinum.” The city’s Health Department made the announcement yesterday, and painted a picture of the bacteria and how it operates: It enters the body via open wounds (so wearing gloves at home while prepping dinner is apparently a good preventative measure, notes the DOH) and causes bumps to appear under the skin; that morphs into a wound that won’t heal.
Symptoms can take weeks to show, and while the infection can turn serious and even require surgery, it’s easily fixable with a course of antibiotics. A not-so-appetizing assurance from the DOH: Any seafood that may be behind the infection is safe to eat. The New York Times reports the outbreak came to light after a Chinatown hand surgeon last week contacted the health department after seeing 15 patients with the infection, compared to a previous tally of about one patient a year; he believes most were infected after puncturing their skin with a fish bone. The city’s deputy commissioner for disease control noted that the bacterium is most commonly seen in fish and aquariums, not humans.
Read more about NYC Sees Rash of Rare Infections Tied to Seafood and other interesting subjects concerning Health and Lifestyle at TheDailyNewsReport.com
Tuesday, January 28, 2014
JPM Sees 28% Withdrawal From Gold Vault In One Day As Another 10 Tons Depart
On Friday, when we remarked on the biggest recorded withdrawal from the JPM gold vault, we said: “Something tells us the next few days will see matching withdrawals from JPM’s gold vault, which at last check was officially owned by the Chinese.” As it turns out we were absolutely correct: according to the just released update from Comex, on Monday the infamous gold vault located below 1 C(hina)MP saw an identical withdrawal of 321,500 ounces, matching the record withdrawal, and amounting to 28% of all JPM gold in storage. Adding to Friday’s drop, this means that a record 47% of JPM’s gold has been withdrawan in a few short days: a trend we are certain will continue until the total holdings of the vault drop to new record lows.
This withdrawal means total JPM gold slides from 1.128 million ounces to 816,027 ounces, down from 1.459 million ounces a week ago.
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JPM Sees 28% Withdrawal From Gold Vault In One Day As Another 10 Tons Depart
Friday, January 3, 2014
Spain’s unemployment sees one of the sharpest drops on record
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Spain’s unemployment sees one of the sharpest drops on record
Monday, December 23, 2013
Pentagon sees progress on cost of F-35, long way to go
WASHINGTON
Workers can be seen on the moving line and forward fuselage assembly areas for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter at Lockheed Martin Corp’s factory located in Fort Worth, Texas in this October 13, 2011 handout photo provided by Lockheed Martin.
Credit: Reuters/Lockheed Martin/Randy A. Crites/Handout
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Pentagon’s recent focus on pricing has led to “remarkable progress” in cutting the cost of the Lockheed Martin Corp F-35 fighter program, but the plane still costs more than it should to build and operate, Director of Defense Pricing Shay Assad said.
“We’re making progress. We’re doing OK, but we have a long way to go to get to what a Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) should cost,” Assad said in an interview last week.
The Pentagon expects to spend $ 392 billion to develop and build 2,443 F-35 jets for the Air Force, Marine Corps and Navy, 70 percent more than initial projections. But the projected cost has begun coming down, dropping $ 4 billion from 2012 to 2013, and further reductions are expected next year.
Assad said the cost analysis initiative had saved taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars on some contracts.
“Compared to where we were … we’ve made remarkable progress in understanding the costs associated with the JSF. And just as importantly, understanding what it should cost, and what it’s going to take to get to that point,” he said.
The Pentagon in September finalized two agreements with Lockheed valued at $ 7.8 billion for work on 71 more jets. It said the average cost of the planes in a sixth batch was down 2.5 percent from the previous one. Lockheed said it expects a further reduction in the next contract to be signed next year.
Assad was named to the newly created job of director of defense pricing in June 2011, part of a larger drive by chief weapons buyer Frank Kendall, and his predecessor Ashton Carter, to reverse years of cost overruns on weapons like the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, the Pentagon’s most expensive program.
Since then, Assad’s office has developed a database on specific weapons programs and companies, allowing contract officers from across the military to compare notes on overhead and material costs, pricing data, and contractor performance.
He said acquisition officials now have nearly instant access to data that would have taken months to research in the past.
“You get a complete snapshot of what kind of contractor am I dealing with. Can I rely on the quality of the proposals they’re giving me,” he said.
As part of the effort, contracting officers must explain their negotiations with the companies in detailed reports, Assad said, citing a recent 500-page report on the F-35.
The Pentagon’s Defense Contract Management Agency also set up 15- to 30-member teams of engineers and other experts at nearly a dozen of the biggest defense contractors, including Lockheed, Boeing Co, Raytheon Co, and Sikorsky Aircraft, a unit of United Technologies Corp.
One of those “integrated cost analysis teams” or ICATs is at the Fort Worth, Texas plant where Lockheed builds the F-35.
Dave Hess, president of engine maker Pratt & Whitney, another United Technologies unit, told Reuters last week that his company and other F-35 contractors were developing a plan with the Pentagon that would encourage companies to invest their own funds to lower production costs. He said details of that plan would be released next month.
Assad said Air Force Lieutenant General Chris Bogdan, who runs the F-35 program for the Pentagon, was exploring how to inject more competition into the longer-term cost of operating and maintaining the new jets, but it was a complex issue that involved everything from training to simulators to logistics.
He said Kendall was keeping close tabs on the longer-term cost of operating the F-35, a bill the Pentagon previously projected at around $ 1.1 trillion over the next 55 years. The Pentagon is expected to lower that estimate next year.
“Mr. Kendall expects us to be unrelenting in trying to find a way to reduce that nut,” Assad said.
(Reporting by Andrea Shalal-Esa; Editing by Richard Chang)
Pentagon sees progress on cost of F-35, long way to go
Sunday, December 15, 2013
The Boy Who Sees Without Eyes - Extraordinary People
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The Boy Who Sees Without Eyes - Extraordinary People
Wednesday, November 27, 2013
UPDATE 1-IMF sees Canada economy picking up in 2014, rates on hold
UPDATE 1-IMF sees Canada economy picking up in 2014, rates on hold
http://currenteconomictrendsandnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/b5314__p-89EKCgBk8MZdE.gif
* IMF says economy should grow by 2.25 percent in 2014
* Sees interest rates rising in early 2015
* Projects inflation to reach 2 percent by end 2015
By Leah Schnurr
TORONTO, Nov 27 (Reuters) – Economic growth in Canada should accelerate next year as a pick-up in the U.S. recovery boosts exports, but low inflation means the Bank of Canada can wait to raise interest rates until early 2015, the International Monetary Fund said on Wednesday.
The IMF sees Canada’s economic growth accelerating to 2.25 percent in 2014 from an estimated 1.6 percent this year. While household consumption has remained robust this year, growth in exports and business investment has disappointed.
As demand and capacity utilization increase next year, business investment is expected to strengthen, particularly spending on machinery and equipment, the IMF said in a report.
“Twelve months ago we were expecting the economy to accelerate over 2013. I have to say, that hasn’t happened to the extent to which we were expecting,” Roberto Cardarelli, IMF mission chief to Canada, told reporters.
“The culprit is especially exports, which have not picked up as much as we were expecting last year, and business investment, which has slowed over the last few quarters.”
The Bank of Canada has also said it is looking for corporate investment and exports to contribute more to growth, picking up from highly indebted consumers who helped fuel the recovery from the financial crisis.
That rotation should happen next year, but hinges on a stronger U.S. recovery, said Cardarelli, who warned risks to the IMF’s growth scenario are predominantly on the downside. The United States is Canada’s largest trading partner.
Beyond lackluster demand for exports, obstacles hampering the sector include Canada’s strong currency, weak productivity growth and capacity constraints in the energy sector, Cardarelli said.
“That casts a little bit of a shadow, or a question mark, over the capacity for Canada to benefit from a recovery of the U.S. economy as much as it used to do in the past,” he said.
Another political standoff south of the border over fiscal policy and a faster-than-expected increase in long-term rates as the Federal Reserve looks to wind down its economic stimulus could also affect the U.S. recovery and demand for Canadian exports adversely, the IMF said.
With inflation muted, the Bank of Canada should keep monetary policy accommodative until there are firmer signs that a sustainable transition from household spending to exports and investment is taking hold, the multinational agency said.
It projected the Bank of Canada will lift its main policy rate in early 2015, with the inflation rate climbing back to 2 percent by the end of that year as existing slack in the economy is absorbed. The annual inflation rate dipped to 0.7 percent in October, below the Bank of Canada’s target range.
The Bank of Canada surprised markets in October by taking a more dovish stance on monetary policy after 18 months of saying rate hikes were on the horizon. The central bank has held its key interest rate at 1 percent since 2010.
HOMES LESS OVERVALUED
The IMF report warned elevated house prices and household debt could amplify the impact of external pressures, but sees the property sector as less overpriced than it was a year ago.
On a national basis, home prices are overvalued by 5 to 10 percent, down from last year’s range of 5 to 15 percent, Cardarelli said.
Canada’s post-crisis housing market boom, fueled by record low borrowing costs, has increased fears of a property bubble that could end in a U.S.-style crash. But the market has cooled since the federal government intervened last year to tighten mortgage rules.
“We think that the risk that people wake up in morning and say, ‘Oh my God, house prices are too high,’ … and everything falls and that the bubble is going to burst, we don’t believe that’s the case,” Cardarelli said.
“If the economy is going to struggle next year, then the risks around housing are much higher.”
The report said that over the long run, Canada should re-examine the need for the country’s extensive government-backed mortgage insurance program. Through its housing agency, the federal government insures billions of dollars worth of mortgages for homeowners with low downpayments.
While there are merits to the current system, the IMF said it exposes the federal budget to financial system risks and might distort the allocation of capital away from other uses, such as small business lending.
Read more about UPDATE 1-IMF sees Canada economy picking up in 2014, rates on hold and other interesting subjects concerning Real Estate at TheDailyNewsReport.com
Wednesday, November 20, 2013
Lockheed sees more clarity on Saudi naval buy in next months
Lockheed sees more clarity on Saudi naval buy in next months
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DUBAI
DUBAI (Reuters) – Lockheed Martin Corp (LMT.N) expects news about a multibillion dollar program to modernize the Saudi Arabian Navy in the next several months, senior company executives told Reuters at the Dubai Airshow on Wednesday after meetings with Saudi officials.
“We’re hopeful in the next several months that some clarity will present itself on how they want to go forward on what hull, what design, and what mission equipment,” said Patrick Dewar, executive vice president of Lockheed Martin International.
Lockheed Chief Executive Marillyn Hewson discussed the naval modernization program and other issues during the air show with Prince Salman bin Sultan, the Saudi deputy defense minister, who was appointed in August, Dewar said.
“We understand the new Saudi deputy defense minister is doing his own assessment on how they should go forward,” Dewar said. “We’ve had good meetings with them here at the show as well as in the (Saudi) kingdom over the last couple of months.”
U.S. executives and government delegates said they had not seen any signs of a chill in U.S. ties to Saudi military officials after Saudi intelligence chief Prince Bandar bin Sultan, last month said the kingdom was hoping to make a major shift away from the United States.
Saudi Arabia is continuing to evaluate a range of options for the naval modernization program, including purchases of up to 12 of Lockheed’s steel monohull Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) or the larger DDG-51 destroyer built by General Dynamics Corp (GD.N), executives said.
The number of ships would depend on whether Saudi Arabia opted for the smaller or larger of the hull forms, they said.
The Saudi Naval Expansion Program II, or SNEP program, has been under discussion for years, but U.S. industry and government officials say the effort picked up some fresh momentum in recent months. Earlier estimates had put the value of the program at around $ 20 billion.
Dewar said proposals submitted to Saudi officials by the U.S. government also included Lockheed’s Aegis combat system, an MH-60R helicopter it builds with Sikorsky Aircraft, a unit of United Technologies Corp (UTX.N), and a fast missile craft it designed with VT Halter Marine, a unit of ST Engineering.
He said no decisions had been made on the program.
Paul Lemmo, Lockheed senior vice president for corporate strategy and business development, told Reuters in a separate interview at the air show that the LCS ship was one of the options still being evaluated by Saudi Arabia.
The U.S. Navy had planned to buy 52 of the faster, more agile warships, but may scale back that order due to mounting budget pressures, which makes any possible foreign orders that much more important for Lockheed.
Australia’s Austal (ASB.AX) builds a different aluminum-hulled trimaran version of the LCS ship, but the Saudi government is not looking at possible purchases of that model at this time, U.S. officials said.
The U.S. LCS ships were designed to carry interchangeable mission packages or “modules” for the Navy, but Lemmo said Saudi Arabia and other potential foreign buyers all wanted permanent weapons capabilities built into the ship.
He said Lockheed had proposed outfitting the ship with a lighter version of the Aegis combat system that would carry vertical missile launchers and the Aegis SPY-1F radar that Norway installed on five frigates for Norway.
That is a smaller radar with less range than Lockheed’s SPY-3 radar that is installed on the DDG-51 destroyers built by General Dynamics.
Lemmo said Saudi was still evaluating if it needed larger ships that could carry the large missile defense system, or a larger number of smaller, multi-mission ships.
He said the smaller LCS ships could be outfitted with vertical launch systems that could fire smaller missiles, including the SM-2 missiles.
No comment was immediately available from the Pentagon’s Defense Security Cooperation Agency, which oversees major foreign arms sales.
(Editing by Mark Potter)
Read more about Lockheed sees more clarity on Saudi naval buy in next months and other interesting subjects concerning Business at TheDailyNewsReport.com
Friday, November 1, 2013
In Pelosi, Obama Sees Vital Ally for Securing Legacy
President Obama has worked alongside Nancy Pelosi for five years, but his appreciation for her has gone from polite blandishments to something akin to rediscovery.
While raising money for House Democrats in Boston Wednesday night, the president said the minority leader from California “has just constantly surprised me by just how good, how tough, how visionary and how committed she is, and dedicated to the well-being of not just her own constituents but the American people.”
Less publicly he’s described Pelosi as “tough as nails,” confiding his respect for her ability to corral votes in her conference, even when some of her Democratic members initially feel less than united.
Whether Obama is correct that Pelosi occasionally subsumes her personal druthers or those of her San Francisco constituents in order to extricate the president, their party, John Boehner, or the country from jams is beside the point. Obama’s recent gushing that the 14-term congresswoman is a valued weapon against Washington’s dysfunction is a message welcomed by Democrats who viewed a government shutdown and the country’s near-default as a consequence of erratic House Republicans.
For years the president has been telling Democratic donors that Pelosi “perhaps” could be returned as speaker — a position she lost to Boehner after the Democrats’ 2010 midterm wipe-out. It’s a posture that White House Press Secretary Jay Carney deadpanned with sarcasm Thursday is “a shocking position to hold.” In other words, would Obama really suggest anything else to his party?
But the president is nearly at the end of a year devoid of major legislative breakthroughs, and he blames Republicans in the House. Pelosi, he suggests, is more helpful than Democrats comprehend while they remain in the minority in the lower chamber. But if they win back the majority next year, the president thinks his second term could gain some altitude.
“The interests of the American people will be better served if I’ve got Nancy Pelosi standing by my side and we get the agenda done,” the president said Thursday night.
When Democrats controlled the House during Obama’s first two years in office, Pelosi and her lieutenants helped enact a stimulus bill, controversial bank bailouts and the Affordable Care Act. The House also passed climate change legislation. But as a consequence, she lost her gavel to Boehner when Republicans gained 63 seats in the 2010 midterm elections.
Pelosi last week said Obamacare was not the Democrats’ undoing at the polls. She said the GOP was able to capitalize on the unpopularity of the Troubled Asset Relief Program that used taxpayer funds to buoy some of the nation’s largest financial institutions in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis.
“One of the most damaging votes that our members had to take was the TARP, 700-plus billion dollars to bail out Wall Street in the view of the public,” she said during a news conference last week on Capitol Hill. “We didn’t see it that way. We saw it as rescuing our economy from a financial services meltdown.”
“People never even got over that vote,” she added. “It really in some ways gave birth to the Tea Party. … That was really the vote that sort of soured people. … And they judged many other things in light of” that action.
This month, Pelosi led her members to deliver the necessary votes to end a 17-day government shutdown and avert a debt ceiling crisis after the speaker failed to muster consensus inside his divided GOP caucus. All 198 Democrats who voted gave their assent, while 144 Republicans voted no.
Those are among the House votes Obama has in mind when he praises Pelosi’s command of her troops.
Whether she’ll be speaker in 2015 is a separate question. It presumes an unlikely sweep for Democrats — and the conference’s decision to crown her rather than any of the younger members who might represent the next generation of party leadership.
Nonpartisan House analysts describe the chances of Democrats taking back the House as iffy, but not impossible, a year from now. According to an Oct. 31 analysis by the Cook Political Report, Democrats would need to win all solidly Democratic districts (165); all the “likely” Democratic districts (counted as 12); all the districts that lean Democratic (15); all of the tossup races (12); plus 14 of the 16 races in districts labeled “lean GOP.” Democrats — now numbering 201 to the GOP’s 234 — need a net gain of 17 seats to secure a House majority of 218 votes.
Charlie Cook, in an Oct. 22 column in National Journal, wrote that House control may turn on whether Republicans lose their footing, more than on Obama’s or Pelosi’s efforts to propel Democrats to victory. “One of the top Democrats in the House told us privately months ago, ‘Democrats can’t take the House but Republicans can lose it.’ Well said,” Cook wrote.
Nonetheless, Obama has in mind a brisk schedule through the end of the year to raise money to help House Democrats in those races, and next year he’ll campaign for candidates in many of the districts he captured in 2012.
An unlikely comeback in the House could transform the flagging Obama presidency, in which Washington gridlock has taken a toll.
“Our former speaker and, hopefully, soon-to-be speaker once again, Nancy Pelosi,” the president said when he introduced his smiling “partner” in Boston.
In Pelosi, Obama Sees Vital Ally for Securing Legacy
Tuesday, October 22, 2013
Chicago Sees First Freezing Temperatures Of The Season; First Snow Possible
CHICAGO (CBS) – The Chicago area could get the first snowfall of the season on Monday, after temperatures dipped below freezing overnight.
CBS 2 Meteorologist Megan Glaros reports, although it’s a bit early for measurable accumulations of snow, it’s not out of the realm of possibility later Tuesday along I-80 in Illinois, and as far east as Porter County, Ind.
A freeze warning was in effect through 8 a.m. Tuesday, as temperatures dropped below freezing, with temperatures as low as 24 degrees in Aurora, 25 degrees in Joliet, and 26 degrees in Kankakee at 4:30 a.m.
The temperature also dropped to 30 degrees overnight at O’Hare International Airport, and 31 degrees at Midway International Airport.
Though conditions were dry for the morning rush, the evening rush could see a mix of rain and snow. The best chance of snow will be south of I-80.
Any snow that falls won’t stick around long, with high temperatures around 45 degrees in the city on Tuesday.
Temperatures likely will drop below freezing again Tuesday night.
WHAT REALLY HAPPENEDPost id = does not exist.
Chicago Sees First Freezing Temperatures Of The Season; First Snow Possible
Chicago Sees First Freezing Temperatures Of The Season; First Snow Possible
CHICAGO (CBS) – The Chicago area could get the first snowfall of the season on Monday, after temperatures dipped below freezing overnight.
CBS 2 Meteorologist Megan Glaros reports, although it’s a bit early for measurable accumulations of snow, it’s not out of the realm of possibility later Tuesday along I-80 in Illinois, and as far east as Porter County, Ind.
A freeze warning was in effect through 8 a.m. Tuesday, as temperatures dropped below freezing, with temperatures as low as 24 degrees in Aurora, 25 degrees in Joliet, and 26 degrees in Kankakee at 4:30 a.m.
The temperature also dropped to 30 degrees overnight at O’Hare International Airport, and 31 degrees at Midway International Airport.
Though conditions were dry for the morning rush, the evening rush could see a mix of rain and snow. The best chance of snow will be south of I-80.
Any snow that falls won’t stick around long, with high temperatures around 45 degrees in the city on Tuesday.
Temperatures likely will drop below freezing again Tuesday night.
Chicago Sees First Freezing Temperatures Of The Season; First Snow Possible
Wednesday, October 2, 2013
EU-wide surge of metal theft sees governments and farmers fight back
A new law has come into force in England and Wales, obliging scrap dealers to keep a record of who they buy their metal from.
Known as The Scrap Metal Dealers Act 2013, it’s the latest attempt by European governments to fight back against a rising trend of metal theft across the EU, sparked by the deepening economic crisis.
Portugal’s no exception, as some of its farming communities have taken up arms after been hit hard by scrap scavengers. RT’s Sarah Firth went to meet a group of vigilante farmers in Mondego.
“We’ve already had so much stolen. It’s almost time to harvest the crops and we cannot risk our equipment being stolen again. So we decided to start an armed patrol to protect our property. We’ve told everyone who takes part in the patrols to keep calm, to only use their weapon if they feel their own safety is at risk and to call the police first,” said Amindo Valente, a member of the local farmer patrol squad.
The armed volunteers refused to be filmed with their weapons, as their actions are not officially sanctioned by the government.
But the farmers say they’re left with no other option but to take up arms, as they’ve already been robbed of metal parts worth a total of around 100,000 euro.
While local metal recycling companies say the illegal business is booming because it’s lucrative and often unaccountable.
“It’s an industry that’s incredibly hard to regulate. There are laws but as with all laws it’s possible to get around them,” said Rui Alem from the ‘Recif Alem Metal Recycling Company.
A new law was passed just last year, granting Portuguese police more powers and tightening industry requirements, including a ban on cash payments for metal scrap.
These countermeasures also include the implementation of a ‘cashless system’ – meaning for sales of more than 50 euro, scrapyards should be required to write a check.
But despite new measures being introduced, metal theft cost the state an estimated 20 million euro last year.
The vigilante farmer patrol in Mondego say they will keep standing guard over their property, until the authorities succeed in rooting out metal theft.
EU-wide surge of metal theft sees governments and farmers fight back
Monday, August 5, 2013
Fonterra CEO apologizes, sees China dairy curbs lifted within days
WELLINGTON/BEIJING (Reuters) – Fonterra, the world’s leading exporter of dairy products, apologized on Monday for a milk powder contamination scare in China that risks tainting New Zealand’s reputation for food safety.
Fonterra CEO apologizes, sees China dairy curbs lifted within days
Tuesday, July 30, 2013
Montana"s State-Run Free Clinic Sees Early Success
Montana opened the first government-run medical clinic for state employees last fall. A year later, the state says the clinic is already saving money.
Dan Boyce for NPR
Montana opened the first government-run medical clinic for state employees last fall. A year later, the state says the clinic is already saving money.
Dan Boyce for NPR
A year ago, Montana opened the nation’s first clinic for free primary healthcare services to its state government employees. The Helena, Mont., clinic was pitched as a way to improve overall employee health, but the idea has faced its fair share of political opposition.
A year later, the state says the clinic is already saving money.
Pamela Weitz, a 61-year-old state library technician, was skeptical about the place at first.
“I thought it was just the goofiest idea, but you know, it’s really good,” she says. In the last year, she’s been there for checkups, blood tests and flu shots. She doesn’t have to go; she still has her normal health insurance provided by the state. But at the clinic, she has no co-pays, no deductibles. It’s free.
That’s the case for the Helena area’s 11,000 state workers and their dependents. With an appointment, patients wait just a couple minutes to see a doctor. Visitation is more than 75 percent higher than initial estimates.
“For goodness sakes, of course the employees and the retirees like it, it’s free,” says Republican State Sen. Dave Lewis.
He wonders what that free price tag is actually costing the state government as well as the wider Helena community.
“If they’re taking money out of the hospital’s pocket, the hospital’s raising the price on other things to offset that,” Lewis says.
He and others faulted then-Gov. Brian Schweitzer for moving ahead with the clinic last year without approval of the state legislature, although it was not needed.
Now, Lewis is a retired state employee himself. He says, personally, he does like going there, too.
“They’re wonderful people, they do a great job, but as a legislator, I wonder how in the heck we can pay for it very long,” Lewis says.
Lower Costs For Employees And Montana
The state contracts with a private company to run the facility and pays for everything — wages of the staff, total costs of all the visits. Those are all new expenses, and they all come from the budget for state employee healthcare.
Even so, division manager Russ Hill says it’s actually costing the state $ 1,500,000 less for healthcare than before the clinic opened.
“Because there’s no markup, our cost per visit is lower than in a private fee-for-service environment,” Hill says.
Physicians are paid by the hour, not by the number of procedures they prescribe like many in the private sector. The state is able to buy supplies at lower prices.
“ Because there’s no markup, our cost per visit is lower than in a private fee-for-service environment.
Bottom line: a patient’s visit to the employee health clinic costs the state about half what it would cost if that patient went to a private doctor. And because it’s free to patients, hundreds of people have come in who had not seen a doctor for at least two years.
Hill says the facility is catching a lot, including 600 people who have diabetes, 1,300 people with high cholesterol, 1,600 people with high blood pressure and 2,600 patients diagnosed as obese. Treating these conditions early could avoid heart attacks, amputations, or other expensive hospital visits down the line, saving the state more money.
Clinic operations director and physician’s assistant Jimmie Barnwell says this model feels more rewarding to him.
“Having those barriers of time and money taken out of the way are a big part [of what gets] people to come into the clinic. But then, when they come into the clinic, they get a lot of face time with the nurses and the doctors,” Barnwell says.
That personal attention has proved valuable for library technician Pamela Weitz. A mammogram late last year found a lump.
“That doctor called me like three or four times, and I had like three letters from the clinic reminding me, ‘You can’t let this go, you’ve got to follow up on it,’ ” she says.
Two more mammograms and an ultrasound later, doctors think it’s just a calcium deposit, but they want her to keep watching it and come in for another mammogram in October.
Weitz says they’ve had that same persistence with her other health issues like her high blood pressure. She feels the clinic really cares about her.
“Yeah, they’ve been very good, very good,” she says.
Montana recently opened a second state employee health clinic in Billings, the state’s largest city. Others are in the works.
Montana"s State-Run Free Clinic Sees Early Success
Thursday, July 25, 2013
After Years Of Violence, L.A."s Watts Sees Crime Subside
Los Angeles police officers take a break during a basketball game with residents of the Nickerson Gardens housing project in July 2011. Violent crime at Nickerson Gardens and two nearby housing projects has fallen by almost half since 2010.
Thomas Watkins/AP
Los Angeles police officers take a break during a basketball game with residents of the Nickerson Gardens housing project in July 2011. Violent crime at Nickerson Gardens and two nearby housing projects has fallen by almost half since 2010.
Thomas Watkins/AP
On most weeknights, in the middle of his shift, Los Angeles police officer Keith Mott trades his gun and uniform for a T-shirt and shorts and heads to a park in the Watts neighborhood of South Los Angeles. He’s there to coach seven- and eight-year-old boys on the Pop Warner Pee Wee football team, the Watts Bears.
The kids come from three nearby housing projects: Jordan Downs, Nickerson Gardens and Imperial Courts. The park was carefully chosen. It’s a neutral site for local gangs. Otherwise, most of the Bears’ parents wouldn’t allow them to come and play.
Since the 1960s, the Watts neighborhood of South Los Angeles has been synonymous with gang violence and racial tension. Combative relations between police and members of the community have long been the norm.
Lately, there’s been some improvement. Violent crime has dropped by almost 50 percent in three of Watts’ toughest housing projects. There’s been only one homicide there in the past two years.
It’s a dramatic turnaround — one that’s explained in part by proactive efforts by community leaders and changes within the Los Angeles Police Department.
“Even some of the parents who have come out here … they’ve talked to us, and they’ve told us, ‘You know, the idea of me standing next to a police officer, [after] all the years I’ve hated the police.’ And they realize we’re just here trying to make a difference in the community,” Mott says.
Mott, with the LAPD’s Southeast Division, is not just any Los Angeles police officer. He’s one of 30 cops selected to be part of the force’s relatively new anti-crime effort in Watts, the Community Safety Partnership. It’s a pilot program targeting the three projects where the Watts Bears’ kids come from.
Much of the time, the officers patrol the sprawling, two-story developments on foot. They try to be on a first-name basis with residents. The idea is to engage more than arrest, Mott says, and the program’s early success is backed up by the numbers.
The Los Angeles Police Department helped launch the Watts Bears, a team of the Pee Wee division of Pop Warner football, in 2012. The players come from the neighborhood and practice at a park that’s considered a neutral site between local gangs.
Courtesy of The Housing Authority of the City of Los Angeles
The Los Angeles Police Department helped launch the Watts Bears, a team of the Pee Wee division of Pop Warner football, in 2012. The players come from the neighborhood and practice at a park that’s considered a neutral site between local gangs.
Courtesy of The Housing Authority of the City of Los Angeles
Take homicides, for example. Among the three projects, there were 43 between 2005 and August 2011 — the month the Community Safety Partnership began. There’s been just one homicide since. And according to the LAPD, since 2010, violent crime is down 57 percent in Imperial Courts, 54 percent in Jordan Downs and 38 percent in Nickerson Gardens.
“People look around and they’re always seeing the officers,” Mott says. “The gangsters, the knuckleheads and the dope dealers, they look around their corners. [If] there’s a police officer on the corner, they’re moving their activities elsewhere.”
A Community Steps Up
Some of the crime Mott is referring to has just moved elsewhere, like the streets beyond the three projects that the CSP isn’t currently patrolling. And some residents who regularly attend a weekly anti-gang task force in Watts say crime is on the uptick in a fourth housing project known as Gonzaque Village.
Still, at those community meetings, people are sitting at the table and bringing up issues to the police. There’s dialogue and, sometimes, action. This sort of thing would never have happened here 10 or 15 years ago.
Hang around the neighborhood for a few days, and it’s clear the CSP isn’t the only reason the projects are getting safer.
At a recent “Summer Night Lights” event at Imperial Courts, kids drink Kool-Aid, munch on chili dogs and get their faces painted. The older ones are in the gym playing in a basketball league. The gray, cinder block recreation center sits at the heart of the World War II-era apartment buildings lined with peeling green paint.
These days, the recreation center is for more than just sports. Perry Crouch, who’s lived in Watts since 1955, does a lot of his gang intervention work here. He says residents and some former gang members here simply got fed up with all the violence and demanded change.
“What we have to do is lead through example,” Crouch says. “You’re not going to come up in here and fight and cuss and do all that and gang-bang, that ain’t the lip.”
Crouch wins a lot of praise here for helping create safe zones like this and for brokering several treaties between warring gangs recently. Over the years, Crouch has made some of the loudest calls for police reforms, too.
The reforms have come, he says, starting with the LAPD’s former chief William Bratton and continuing today with Chief Charlie Beck.
“Havin’ officers be more in touch with the community, instead of just hookin’ and bookin’,” he says.
Tensions Persist
Memories of the race riots of the 1960s, police brutality and Rodney King still haunt every corner. And even with the improved police relations, there’s still tension.
One afternoon in Imperial Courts, two CSP officers get out of their cars and walk briskly up to three teenagers parked legally across from the recreation center. Their music is up loud, but the teens are just hanging out and talking sports. The cops tell them to leave; they don’t want people congregating in this area, they say, because there could soon be 20 or 30 people.
One of the officers accuses one of the teens of mouthing off. The teen speeds off in disgust and the officers think about pursuing him — but in the end, they don’t. They’re also mindful of a growing crowd of onlookers across the street.
Joe Evans, who lives and works in Imperial Courts as a teen mentor, says situations like these sometimes escalate into something much worse.
“Because you have a lot of people who’s looking from the outside, they don’t know what’s being said,” Evans says. “They automatically assume, ‘OK, the police is harassing this person.’ “
Evans says the police harassment still happens from time to time, and that there are even a couple of CSP officers who still don’t get the idea of engagement. But like a lot of people here, Evans says these projects are getting safer overall.
Evans is glad to see the crime drop in his neighborhood. Just a few years ago, he says, it wouldn’t have been safe to stand out in the open here and do an interview.
“It was like a war zone at times,” Evans says.
After Years Of Violence, L.A."s Watts Sees Crime Subside
Sunday, July 14, 2013
Patrolling Border, Sheriff Sees Immigrants" "Determination"
Tony Estrada is the sheriff of Santa Cruz County, Ariz.
Courtesy of Tony Estrada
Tony Estrada is the sheriff of Santa Cruz County, Ariz.
Courtesy of Tony Estrada
“ “When they come through these valleys and canyons and mountains of Santa Cruz County with their feet blister[ed] and torn … It’s that desire and that determination and that spirit that they have that you’ve got to tap into it … That’s what you really need as a country.”
Each week, Weekend Edition Sunday host Rachel Martin brings listeners an unexpected side of the news by talking with someone personally affected by the stories making headlines.
Tony Estrada is the sheriff of Santa Cruz County, Ariz., the poorest of all the border counties in the U.S. There are more than 1,000 Border Patrol Agents stationed in the county, which shares some 50 miles of border with Mexico.
Some parts of that border have a wall with steel barriers. But in rural parts of the county, the border is little more than a fence — in some cases, nothing at all. That makes Arizona vulnerable to a stream of illegal immigrants.
Estrada, who came across the border with his family at age 1, talks to NPR’s Rachel Martin about life on this geographic edge. He shares the complexity of immigration in the area and what kind of security issues he deals with.
“I don’t want anybody to think that I am for illegal immigration because I think we all agree that people should come across this border legally. But the reality of it is that the majority — or a large number — of the people that are coming across are coming from extreme poverty. They have no paper trail. They have nothing that will ever give them the opportunity to get a visa or a permit.”
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Patrolling Border, Sheriff Sees Immigrants" "Determination"
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