NBA commissioner David Stern and players' union director Billy Hunter began negotiations on the remaining points of their tentative labor deal Friday and were expected to continue talking Saturday, sources said.
NBA Lockout
The NBA lockout began on July 1, but a tentative agreement has been reached to save the season. ESPN.com Topics keeps you up to date with all of the latest on the NBA's labor situation. Topics Page ?
If enough progress is made, the two sides are expected to take Sunday off and resume Monday.
The objective is to have a completed deal to present to the executive negotiating committees for both sides Wednesday and then conduct an electronic vote Thursday, in time for Friday's targeted start of training camp and free agency, according to sources.
League sources say big-name free agents such as Nene, Tyson Chandler and David West aren't expected to be close to signing Friday.
Teams have been slow to make offers, several agents with free agents have said, presumably because they are wary about just how extravagant they can be under the terms of a new labor deal they have yet to see in full.
Ric Bucher is a senior NBA writer for ESPN The Magazine.
Kazuo Okawa's luckless career as a "nuclear gypsy" began one night at a poker game.
The year was 1992, and jobs were scarce in this farming town in the shadow of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. An unemployed Okawa gambled and drank a lot.
He was dealing cards when a stranger made him an offer: manage a crew of unskilled workers at the nearby plant. "Just gather a team of young guys and show up at the front gate; I'll tell you what to do," instructed the man, who Okawa later learned was a recruiter for a local job subcontracting firm.
Okawa didn't know the first thing about nuclear power, but he figured, what could go wrong?
He became what's known in Japan as a "jumper" or "nuclear gypsy" for the way he moved among various nuclear plants. But the nickname that Okawa disliked most was burakumin, a derisive label for those who worked the thankless jobs he and others performed.
Such unskilled contractors exist at the bottom rung of the nation's employment ladder, subjecting themselves to perilous doses of radioactivity.
Solicited from day labor sites across the country, many contractors are told little of the task ahead.
"The recruiters call out their windows that they have two days of work; it's not unlike the way migrant farm workers are hired in the U.S.," said Kim Kearfott, a nuclear engineer and radiation health expert at the University of Michigan.
"Many are given their training en route to the plant. They're told: 'Oh, by the way, we're going to Fukushima. If you don't like it, you can get off the truck right now.' There's no such thing as informed consent, like you would have in a human medical experiment," she said.
After an earthquake-triggered tsunami deluged the Fukushima plant in March, a disaster that cascaded into reactor core meltdowns, activists are calling for better government regulation of what they call the nuclear industry's dirtiest secret.
For decades, they say, atomic plants have maintained a two-tiered workforce: one made up of highly paid and well-trained utility employees, and another of contractors with less training and fewer health benefits.
Last year, 88% of the 83,000 workers at the nation's 18 commercial nuclear power plants were contract workers, according to Japan's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency, a government regulator.
A study by the Citizens' Nuclear Information Center, a Tokyo-based watchdog group, found that contractors last year accounted for 96% of the harmful radiation absorbed by workers at the nation's nuclear power plants. Temporary workers at the Fukushima plant in 2010 also faced radiation levels 16 times higher than did employees of the plant's owner-operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co., because contractors are called in for the most dangerous work, according to the government's industrial safety agency.
"This job is a death sentence, performed by workers who aren't being given information about the dangers they face," said Hiroaki Koide, an assistant professor at Kyoto University's Research Reactor Institute and author of the book "The Lie of Nuclear Power."
Okawa, who was off work from the plant the day of the tsunami, immediately quit the job and the "suicidal work" he performed there: mopping up leaks of radioactive water, wiping down "hot" equipment and filling drums with contaminated nuclear waste.
He described an unofficial pecking order at most nuclear plants among contractors, with the greenest workers often assigned the most dangerous jobs until they got enough experience to question the work or a newer worker came along.
"In the beginning, you get a little training; they show you how to use your tools," said Okawa, 56. "But then you're left to work with radiation you can't see, smell or taste. If you think about it, you imagine it might be killing you. But you don't want to think about it."
Okawa, a small man with powerfully built hands, said contractors knew they faced layoff once they reached exposure limits, so many switched off dosimeters and other radiation measuring devices.
"Guys needed the work, so they cut corners," he said. "The plant bosses knew it but looked the other way."
Everyone knows that adding lemon juice to sliced fruit will keep it from browning, but it can also impart a bitter flavor to the fruit unless you balance it with a little sugar or other sweetener. Bento weblog Lunch in a Box recommends having a small container of water with lemon juice and sweetener ready to go in your fridge so you can quickly assemble lunches and snacks on the fly.
Lunch in a Box also notes that
any form of ascorbic acid (Vitamin C) will work including lime juice, orange juice, cream of tartar, a crushed vitamin C tablet dissolved in water, or even ground chili pepper. I like the flavor that orange juice adds to fruit, but often use bottled lemon juice with a little Splenda or sugar for the same effect without the pucker. Salt water also slows browning and adds an interesting savory bite to fruit.
Adding the acidulated water to a spray bottle would also work well.
Speed Tip: Keep acidulated water for slicing fruit | via
BRUSSELS ? More than ever before, the European Central Bank seems willing to consider bolder action to address the continent's financial crisis.
A month ago, at his first news conference as ECB President, Mario Draghi said it was "pointless" for European governments to expect the bank to rescue them through massive bond purchases. That had been the same stance as his predecessor, Jean-Claude Trichet. But On Thursday, Draghi hinted that such expectations might not be futile after all.
Draghi opened the door to further ECB intervention ever so slightly in a speech to the European Parliament. He said the bank is prepared to play a bigger, yet limited role in the resolution of Europe's debt crisis ? but only after the 17 countries that use the euro tether their economies more tightly.
Speculation is mounting that EU leaders will align their spending policies more closely to bring government debt levels under control in the future. This must happen, Draghi said Thursday, before the ECB or other institutions could take more aggressive steps to help prevent the continent's current debt overload from ripping apart the euro and the global financial system.
"Other elements might follow, but the sequencing matters," Draghi said. "And it is first and foremost important to get a commonly shared fiscal compact right."
Draghi gave the speech after delivering the bank's 2010 annual report to the European Parliament, a body of elected representatives to which the ECB is accountable.
Analysts' decoding Draghi's message ? which was delivered in typically vague central bank speak ? sensed an opening they hadn't heard before.
"Draghi seems to suggest that if a fiscal compact does get approval and looks credible then the ECB can shift gears and become more interventionist," said Neil MacKinnon, global macro strategist at VTB Capital.
Adds Laura Veldkamp, an economics professor at New York University: "I would say this is a big change. Traditionally, the ECB has seen its only objective as maintaining a stable, low rate of inflation.
"The very idea that he's (considering) doing something to stabilize bond markets ... is a big change," Veldkamp said.
Still, Draghi's comments were laced with enough caveats to temper the euphoria that swept across financial markets Wednesday, when the ECB, the Federal Reserve and four other central banks took decisive action to make it cheaper for commercial banks to borrow dollars.
The ECB cannot lend directly to governments, including by buying their national bonds. It can, however, buy national bonds on the secondary market, lowering borrowing costs for governments. The ECB has committed just over euro200 billion ($268 billion) to such purchases, but it has resisted going further because it believes that would take the pressure off politicians to cut spending.
Draghi said such interventions "can only be limited" and said it was up to governments to first put their finances in order to convince bond markets that they are creditworthy borrowers.
"Governments must ? individually and collectively ? restore their credibility vis-a-vis financial markets," said Draghi, who only replaced Jean-Claude Trichet as ECB head a month ago.
Three relatively-small countries ? Greece, Ireland and Portugal ? had to be bailed out because of unsustainable debt levels, and Italy, the eurozone's third-largest economy, is facing intense strains as its borrowing costs surge. The big worry in the markets now is that Italy, with its debt mountain of euro1.9 trillion ($2.55 trillion) is just too big to bail out under current rules.
A summit of EU leaders on Dec. 9 is expected to focus on how to make the eurozone more unified. Analysts say the eurozone has little choice but to back proposals for much closer coordination of their spending and budget policies.
The hope is that a closer alignment of budget policies will convince markets that countries as disparate as Greece, Germany, Spain and Finland, can coexist in the same currency zone.
Speeches over the coming couple of days from French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel will be closely monitored to see how their thinking is developing in the run-up to next week's make-or-break summit.
Since the euro was established in 1999, the rules governing the eurozone have been fairly lax. A commitment for countries to keep their budget deficits in check was violated on numerous occasions, including by Germany, Europe's biggest economy.
Draghi said the joint intervention by the six major central banks was only a temporary measure. Still, the move was wildly cheered in the markets on Wednesday, with the Dow Jones industrial average rising nearly 500 points.
On Thursday, the Stoxx 50 index of leading European shares closed 0.5 percent lower though there were encouraging signals in the bond markets, where the borrowing rates of France, Italy and Spain all fell amid hopes of an imminent resolution.
France and Spain survived a test of investor sentiment Thursday, selling all the bonds they offered at rates lower than feared.
Still, the eurozone economy shows all the signs of returning to recession.
A survey of the eurozone's manufacturing sector by the financial information company Markit showed that output fell in November for the fourth month in a row, and at a deeper pace. Also on Thursday, credit rating agency Standard & Poor's warned that a mild recession has a 60 percent probability while a more severe one has a 40 percent likelihood.
"Europe's approaching recession first took hold in Spain, Portugal, and Greece, and the economic woes are now spilling over into the eurozone's core of France and Germany," Standard & Poor's chief Europe economist Jean-Michel Six said.
Wednesday's coordinated action by central banks will reduce borrowing costs for banks, but it does little to solve the underlying problem of mountains of government debt in Europe, leaving markets still waiting for a permanent fix.
In theory, the ECB has unlimited financial firepower through its ability to print money. However, Germany's leaders find the idea of the ECB intervening in this way unappealing, arguing that it lets the more profligate countries off the hook for their bad practices. In addition, it conjures up bad memories of hyperinflation in Germany in the 1920s.
Veldkamp, the NYU economist, said the preconditions Draghi laid out to any further ECB action allowed him to address two audiences: bond traders worried about a financial meltdown; and Germans and other Europeans who worry that overly aggressive ECB policy will trigger inflation.
One option that appears to be gaining traction would be to have the ECB provide the International Monetary Fund with more resources so it can then lend that money to countries that need financial help.
"Draghi didn't rule out the ECB providing funds to the IMF to provide to Italy, but he's equally making it very clear that the ultimate solution lies with the governments," said Simon Derrick, a senior analyst at the Bank of New York Mellon.
Hanson are prepping the launch of MMMHop, their own brand of beer. The squeaky-clean pop trio hope to make the brew, an India Pale Ale, available to fans sometime in early 2012.
"We of course make records, they are fundamental to what we do, but we wanted to create a brand so that our fans have a greater experience," Zac Hanson told reporters at Oxford University Union in Oxford, England on Monday, justifying the new project. "What is vital is that Hanson merchandise is quality and not made solely with the purpose of profit."
Photos: Random Notes
"We have a board game and even a record player to play our last record on, but we will never make dolls, lunch boxes or toothbrushes that play our songs, for example. It's vital our fans have trust in everything Hanson do," says Hanson. "In fact, we are soon going to be selling our own beer, I'm not even joking. MMMHop IPA, anyone?"
Los Angeles, CA (December 2nd, 2011) Most of us would agree that prevention is better than cure. But new results out in the journal Clinical Rehabilitation, published by SAGE, indicate that a costly intervention programme designed to reduce early retirement on health grounds in Finland had no measurable effect.
The research was a large scale evaluative study of vocational rehabilitation, which followed 872 participants and their 2440 matched controls for up to nine years. The participants went through a four-week prevention programme incorporating physical and psychological health education and support. It aimed to help participants adopt a healthier lifestyle, and to achieve greater aerobic capacity, muscle strength and endurance, and to better manage their own stress.
This research was part of the Finnish Public Sector Study, an ongoing prospective study among employees working in 10 towns and 21 hospitals in Finland. Among other data, researchers gathered information on psychosocial factors at work, individual factors, health, and health behaviors. All of the participants were linked to employers' records and national health registers.
When the researchers compared how frequently participants and controls complained suboptimal health, psychological distress, and anxiety, there was no significant difference. After the intervention there was also no significant difference between scores for the groups, either in the short term (on average after 1.7 years) or in the longer term (on average followed up after almost six years or in some cases for up to nine years).
The four week programme is widely used in Finland in a bid to reduce early retirement on health grounds. But this study suggests that the programme had little effect, either in the short or long term, on how those who took part perceived their health. The intervention would typically involve a physician, a physiotherapist, a psychologist, a social worker, and a vocational rehabilitation specialist. Sometimes a nurse, an occupational therapist, an occupational physiotherapist, and a nutritionist would also join the team.
Of the 872 participants who received the intervention, 90 percent were women. The perceived work-related health effects were not limited to particular groups of workers: 36 percent held the highest occupational positions, and 35 percent were in service work or manual jobs.
Although the authors stress that their findings may not hold true beyond Finland, the study will shine a spotlight on similar, work-related interventions. These tend to be either individual-based, offering tools in areas such as healthy lifestyle or stress management; or they are work-directed, and might include changes in working environment or organization. To date, solid evidence for the effectiveness of either type of intervention is limited.
Perceived health is a strong predictor and marker of morbidity, work disability, and mortality. Almost one in three workers complains of psychological distress, tiredness, or anxiety, estimated to cause an annual loss of at least EUR 20 billion in the European states.
This most widely used multidisciplinary inpatient rehabilitation programme in Finland primarily aims to prevent work capacity deteriorating in physically, mentally, or socially stressful occupations at an early stage, before illnesses causing work disability develop. It may be that the programme simply isn't reaching those who need it most - the study authors note that those put forward for the intervention were often highly educated, satisfied employees who are not exposed to severe stress or do not perceive stress-related symptoms.
"Our results suggest that the vocationally oriented, individual-based multidisciplinary prevention programme focused on in this study may not be effective in improving perceived health," said the leading author Mikhail Saltychev, Department of Rehabilitation, Turku University Hospital, Finland. "Future research is needed to examine the reasons for the ineffectiveness of this costly early intervention and to identify more effective preventive measures to improve subjective health in working populations."
###
Effect of a Multidisciplinary Rehabilitation Programme on Perceived Health among Employees at Increased Risk of Incapacity for Work: a Controlled Study by Mikhail Saltychev, Katri Laimi, Tuula Oksanen, Jaana Pentti, Marianna Virtanen, Mika Kivimaki and Jussi Vahtera will be published today, December 2nd, 2011 in Clinical Rehabilitation.
The article will be free to access for a limited time here: http://cre.sagepub.com/content/early/2011/11/18/0269215511425963.full.pdf+html
SAGE is a leading international publisher of journals, books, and electronic media for academic, educational, and professional markets. Since 1965, SAGE has helped inform and educate a global community of scholars, practitioners, researchers, and students spanning a wide range of subject areas including business, humanities, social sciences, and science, technology, and medicine. An independent company, SAGE has principal offices in Los Angeles, London, New Delhi, Singapore and Washington DC. www.sagepublications.com
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Costly intervention program has no measurable effect on early retirementPublic release date: 2-Dec-2011 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Los Angeles, CA (December 2nd, 2011) Most of us would agree that prevention is better than cure. But new results out in the journal Clinical Rehabilitation, published by SAGE, indicate that a costly intervention programme designed to reduce early retirement on health grounds in Finland had no measurable effect.
The research was a large scale evaluative study of vocational rehabilitation, which followed 872 participants and their 2440 matched controls for up to nine years. The participants went through a four-week prevention programme incorporating physical and psychological health education and support. It aimed to help participants adopt a healthier lifestyle, and to achieve greater aerobic capacity, muscle strength and endurance, and to better manage their own stress.
This research was part of the Finnish Public Sector Study, an ongoing prospective study among employees working in 10 towns and 21 hospitals in Finland. Among other data, researchers gathered information on psychosocial factors at work, individual factors, health, and health behaviors. All of the participants were linked to employers' records and national health registers.
When the researchers compared how frequently participants and controls complained suboptimal health, psychological distress, and anxiety, there was no significant difference. After the intervention there was also no significant difference between scores for the groups, either in the short term (on average after 1.7 years) or in the longer term (on average followed up after almost six years or in some cases for up to nine years).
The four week programme is widely used in Finland in a bid to reduce early retirement on health grounds. But this study suggests that the programme had little effect, either in the short or long term, on how those who took part perceived their health. The intervention would typically involve a physician, a physiotherapist, a psychologist, a social worker, and a vocational rehabilitation specialist. Sometimes a nurse, an occupational therapist, an occupational physiotherapist, and a nutritionist would also join the team.
Of the 872 participants who received the intervention, 90 percent were women. The perceived work-related health effects were not limited to particular groups of workers: 36 percent held the highest occupational positions, and 35 percent were in service work or manual jobs.
Although the authors stress that their findings may not hold true beyond Finland, the study will shine a spotlight on similar, work-related interventions. These tend to be either individual-based, offering tools in areas such as healthy lifestyle or stress management; or they are work-directed, and might include changes in working environment or organization. To date, solid evidence for the effectiveness of either type of intervention is limited.
Perceived health is a strong predictor and marker of morbidity, work disability, and mortality. Almost one in three workers complains of psychological distress, tiredness, or anxiety, estimated to cause an annual loss of at least EUR 20 billion in the European states.
This most widely used multidisciplinary inpatient rehabilitation programme in Finland primarily aims to prevent work capacity deteriorating in physically, mentally, or socially stressful occupations at an early stage, before illnesses causing work disability develop. It may be that the programme simply isn't reaching those who need it most - the study authors note that those put forward for the intervention were often highly educated, satisfied employees who are not exposed to severe stress or do not perceive stress-related symptoms.
"Our results suggest that the vocationally oriented, individual-based multidisciplinary prevention programme focused on in this study may not be effective in improving perceived health," said the leading author Mikhail Saltychev, Department of Rehabilitation, Turku University Hospital, Finland. "Future research is needed to examine the reasons for the ineffectiveness of this costly early intervention and to identify more effective preventive measures to improve subjective health in working populations."
###
Effect of a Multidisciplinary Rehabilitation Programme on Perceived Health among Employees at Increased Risk of Incapacity for Work: a Controlled Study by Mikhail Saltychev, Katri Laimi, Tuula Oksanen, Jaana Pentti, Marianna Virtanen, Mika Kivimaki and Jussi Vahtera will be published today, December 2nd, 2011 in Clinical Rehabilitation.
The article will be free to access for a limited time here: http://cre.sagepub.com/content/early/2011/11/18/0269215511425963.full.pdf+html
SAGE is a leading international publisher of journals, books, and electronic media for academic, educational, and professional markets. Since 1965, SAGE has helped inform and educate a global community of scholars, practitioners, researchers, and students spanning a wide range of subject areas including business, humanities, social sciences, and science, technology, and medicine. An independent company, SAGE has principal offices in Los Angeles, London, New Delhi, Singapore and Washington DC. www.sagepublications.com
[ | E-mail | Share ]
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
NEW YORK (AP) ? From the colorful, couture frocks worn during her two weddings with actor Richard Burton, to the dazzling ruby and diamond Cartier jewelry set, a gift from her third husband, film producer Mike Todd, "The Collection of Elizabeth Taylor" on display at Christie's auction house in New York tells a passionate story, spanning seven husbands and nearly five decades.
"(Through the collection) you can see that all the men were really, really fundamentally in love with her," said Orianne Collins, a jewelry designer and Taylor aficionado who hosted a preview of the exhibition Thursday before it opens to the public on Saturday.
Other tokens from admirers include jewelry and an autographed poster from Taylor's cherished friend, Michael Jackson. The 1987 print is signed "To my true love Elizabeth. I love you forever."
Patrons of the exhibition, which runs through Dec. 12, will certainly flock to one of Taylor's most prized possessions ? a 33.19-carat, emerald cut diamond ring. The estimated worth of the gift Burton gave her in 1968 is $2.5 million to $3.5 million.
Thomas W. Burstein of Christie's said the only time the famous ring left Taylor's hand was when she offered it up to friends to try on. "She really had this notion that the jewelry should be shared and loved by everybody," he said.
One of the most precious items of the collection is a 16th century pear-shaped pearl, the centerpiece of a ruby and diamond necklace designed by Cartier and Taylor herself.
"This is such a rare piece. I compare it to the Hope diamond," Burstein said.
The necklace's estimated worth is $2 million to $3 million.
The exhibition is also a journey through Taylor's evolving fashion sense, from her glamorous red carpet gowns to a chorus line of colorful kaftans and a bevy of beaded Versace jackets. The second floor offers a look at Taylor's vibrant purse and shoe collection, a sea of gold Hermes bags, sequin Chanel clutches and satin Louboutins.
Meredith Etherington-Smith, curator of Taylor's fashion collection, called the exhibit a glimpse into Taylor's "tempestuous, fabulous, technicolor personality that epitomizes gutsy glamour."
The collection will be up for auction both live and online Dec. 13-17. Part of the proceeds will go to The Elizabeth Taylor AIDS Foundation. The beloved actress died March 23 at age 79.
___
Online:
www.christies.com
___
Nicole Evatt covers entertainment for The Associated Press. Follow her on Twitter at http://twitter.com/NicoleEvatt
Everyone knows that adding lemon juice to sliced fruit will keep it from browning, but it can also impart a bitter flavor to the fruit unless you balance it with a little sugar or other sweetener. Bento weblog Lunch in a Box recommends having a small container of water with lemon juice and sweetener ready to go in your fridge so you can quickly assemble lunches and snacks on the fly. 
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Public release date: 2-Dec-2011
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