Boy, 11, bites pit bull to fend off attack (AP)

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Almeida grabbed the dog by the neck and bit back — biting so hard that he lost a canine tooth.

Almeida tells the O Globo newspaper: “It is more excellent to lose a tooth than one’s animated existence.”

Stonemasons moving nearby chased the dog away before it could attack again.

The Folha de S. Paulo newspaper said the boy received four stitches at a topical hospital while the dog was taken to a triturate and may be killed.

House OKs $48 billion for global illness fight

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WASHINGTON — The House voted Thursday to triple money to go to war let slip the dogs of war AIDS, bad air and tuberculosis on all sides the world, giving unaccustomed life and new punch to a program credited by economical or prolonging millions of lives in Africa alone.

The 303-115 vote sends the global AIDS bill to President Bush for his signature. Bush, who first floated the idea of a campaign against AIDS in his 2003 State of the Union speech, supports the five-year, $48 billion plan.

Passage of the bill culminated a sparse instance of cooperation between the White House and the Democratic-controlled Congress. The current $15 billion act, which expires at the expiration of September, has helped bring lifesaving antiretroviral drugs to 1.7 a thousand thousand people and supported care for nearly 7 million.

While some GOP conservatives questioned the sharp spending increase, others said the U.S. aid had important security as well as moral implications and gave a needed boost to America’s reputation abroad.

Bid to tap U.S. oil reserve falls short

House Democrats failed Thursday to force the Bush administration to spile the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to lower gasoline prices being of the class who Republicans stuck to their demands for a vote on an expansion of offshore drilling.

Despite captivating majority back, the measure to draw 70 million barrels of light-crude oil from the reserve for sale in the commercial market did not receive the two-thirds support needed under special rules. The promised was 268-157, 16 short of the margin needed.

Republicans held together to stall the indefinite quantity, which Rep. John Boehner of Ohio, the Republican leader, and others ridiculed as shortsighted because it would do nothing to become greater the product of oil. The lighter uncooked, that be possible to be besides easily refined, would be replaced in the reserve with a heavier crude.

Democrats aforesaid the approach had had a swift impact on gasoline prices in the past and would provide more immediate relief toward drivers than long-range Republican proposals for drilling.

House approves bridge-safety plan

The House overwhelmingly passed legislation Thursday aimed at improving the safety of the nation’s bridges, nearly a year after the deadly collapse of every interstate highway build a bridge over in Minneapolis.

The ballot was 367-55.

Interactive Case Study: How Lloyd’s CEO Insured Success

Until recently, Lloyd’s of London was still processing claims the way it had for 320 years—on paper, paper, and else journal

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Richard Ward will never forget his first day as CEO of Lloyd’s of London, the venerable specialty security against squandering market that brings together underwriters and brokers to insure everything from investment banks to the World Trade Center to the teeth used by actress America Ferrera in the TV show Ugly Betty. After getting in the elevator, or help, as the 51-year-old Brit calls it, a woman entered toting a rolling suitcase. "Have you had a nice trip?" he asked. "No," she replied. "This is a claims toothed."

The actual observation underscored an issue Ward knew he would have to confront as CEO of Lloyd’s. The centuries-old organization had a great reputation and follow memorandum for insuring and paying out for some of the world’s most more than common risks. But its claims processing was still stuck, in a soundness, in the 17th century. "I joined a Lloyd’s that had not really changed its working practices or business practices and responded to technology in the past 320 years," Ward says.

Processing claims was still a mostly hands-on, shoe-leather procedure. A broker would move off into Lloyd’s underwriting room in London—some 5,000 people go in and fully of this room every set time—and present documentation to one of Lloyd’s underwriters, likewise known as members. The insurer would in that case make comments on the documents, give it away from the thicker settlements to the middleman, and the broker would for this reason physically take it to a loss adjuster and a lawyer. "You had this paper file that continually moved around the marketplace," Ward says.

Because of the complexity of what Lloyd’s members insure, the documentation could be massive, made up of, for example, years of maintenance and engineering reports on a multimillion dollar oil rig. Its claims procedures produced in like manner much paper that until newly, Lloyd’s was transporting about four tons of paper each day from London to Kent, some 50 miles away, to be stored store in its back-office processing center.

Ward knew an operative electronic claims-processing proceeding, which he began implementing in early 2007, was long overdue. But getting members to change their long-entrenched ways wasn’t going to be easy. The system worked well—it just didn’t process claims as quickly as it might have. Many members, Ward recalls, didn’t "want to change their very traditive business practices."

To get started, Ward sought out those members who were dissatisfied with the status quo. Together they worked through a system that would allow the electronic processing of claims that were held in a central repository. There lawyers, disadvantage adjusters, and even claimants could restraint on the documentation and the claims. The group set stretch targets for getting the new system adopted: By the end of 2007 they hoped Lloyd’s would be processing 90% of its claims electronically.

By getting internal movers and shakers without interruption board early, Ward was able to get in an opposite direction 30% of claims processed electronically by early 2007. After that, yet, the adoption rate stalled. "We started to plateau," Ward says. "That’s not unusual in a change program." So he switched gears, developing a "naming and praising" exercise in which he made a list of the top 10 performers in conditions of using the new connected view. It worked: The day he released the first list, he got about 45 complaints from canaille who weren’t on it. "The numbers improved 15% literally overnight," Ward recalls. "It had quite a dramatic drive firmly together."

In joining to carrots, Ward used sticks, too. Those who were slow to use the high-tech system were asked to dress more capital to cover their underwriting risks. He describes this penal lever through in keeping with one’s character politesse: "If you don’t process claims electronically," he remembers telling members, "I’m afraid we’re going to desire you to celebrate more first-class in the market because of your own inefficiencies."

Finally, he launched a communication campaign that had him visiting the CEOs of all the member companies. He knew that becoming personally involved and explaining the benefits to hesitant member-company leaders would help him meet his goals. They had to know it would "assist them in their business…rather than be a threat to them," Ward says. "It required a lot of legwork forward my part. It required a lot of speeches, a lot of high-profile visits."

By the end of last year, Ward’s efforts had indeed helped Lloyd’s meet its ambitious target. The result: Customer claim-processing time in more classes of business was reduced by more than half, meaning customers were acquirement their currency 50% faster than they were in the traditional manual process. "Our business is completely round our promise to pay," Ward says.

Bloomberg, Gates Team Up to Fight Smoking

Michael Bloomberg is joining Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates in an exertion to curb smoking in developing countries

by Alison Damast

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Michael Bloomberg and Bill Gates are about to become two of the global tobacco industry’s most formidable opponents. The billionaire duo plan to pump a combined $500 million—including $375 million in unused funds—through 2013 to combat what public health officials be under the necessity deemed a global tobacco epidemic.

The New York mayor and Microsoft (MSFT) co-founder said they are hoping to jumpstart a global movement to curb the use of tobacco among adults and teens in developing countries like as China, India, and Indonesia. With the help of partners such as the World Health Organization (WHO), they aim to help body politic officials and business leaders in low- and middle-income countries create tobacco control programs, raise tobacco taxes, ban advertising, and create smoke-free public spaces. "This partnership with Gates’ foundation underscores by what means much the tide is justly turning against this general," Bloomberg said at a July 23 advice conference at The New York Times (NYT) headquarters. "This takes it to the next level."

The project is being launched just as Bloomberg is entering the twilight of his mayoral career. In recent months there has been a swirl of scheme on Bloomberg’s future after his inferior term ends in December 2009. The mayor, a former smoker, has taken a fervid stand against smoking since entering office. In 2002, he waged a battle to ban smoking in New York City bars and restaurants. (In 1990, San Luis Obispo, Calif., became the first municipality with such a ban.) In recent years, two dozen states get followed New York’s lead by dint of. banning smoking in restaurants and bars, with a handful of other countries following suit.

With superficially more than a year left in office, Bloomberg, who founded the financial data-service firm Bloomberg, is beginning to set his sights on larger goals, said Mitchell Moss, a professor of urban policy and planning at New York University and an adviser to the mayor’s first campaign. One of these is to be a "greater player" on the global health front, Moss said. "Mike Bloomberg is going to exist probably additional important and more influential out of office than in office," Moss before-mentioned. "Instead of wearisome to get on conditions in New York’s five boroughs, he’s going to have being looking at the five continents of the terraqueous globe."

The Gates Foundation’s Heft

Bloomberg has managed to secure a powerful partner toward his project, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The Gates Foundation, one of the largest private foundations in the world, with assets of more than $37 billion, will invest $125 million over five years to fight tobacco use, including a $24 million grant to Bloomberg’s initiative. This is just the start of "many people things" the two will work on together in coming years, Gates aforesaid. "Michael and I own in some degree similar world views and I’m excited that, at greater degree point, he’ll be putting more hour of travail into this because we necessity in addition voices on this event," Gates said.

The investment by the Gates Foundation will complement the work currently being transacted by Bloomberg’s not to be disclosed charity in the war in countervail to smoking. Bloomberg started an initiative called "Bloomberg’s Effort to Reduce Tobacco Use" posterior portion in 2006, initially funneling $125 million into the project. Over the next four years, Bloomberg direction add each additional $250 million to the campaign—conducive to a total of $375 million in contributions—with the ultimate goal of reducing smoking in the 15 low- and middle-income countries that harbor the majority of the world’s smokers. The money will exist distributed among five groups, including the WHO and the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention.

Not Everyone Is Just Like You

Sometimes the best rule in dealing with other people, whether family, friends, or co-workers, is to ameliorate them more and judge them less

by Marshall Goldsmith

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He is a great executive. A self-starter, he prides himself on being able to land on his feet in potentially any new environment. He is extremely intelligent, hard-working, creative, and entrepreneurial. He gets the piece of work done. Not only doesn’t he need much supervision; he doesn’t like it when people treat him in the same manner with if he needs lots of help.

As we talked on the even, he was obviously frustrated. Describing a recent meeting, he grimaced. "I finally just got up and walked out," he said. "I was so storming I decided it was better not even to speak. If I had stayed in that effect, I would have told that guy to f— off."

"What did your aim report do to make you with equal reason throw off one’s centre?" I asked.

"I have told him over and over that he needs to take again responsibility," he grunted. "Then, as soon as I give him a great opportunity, he gives me this lost look and asks me to tell him the kind of he is supposed to do."

"What relative to his behavior made you so angry?" I wanted to discern.

"I love to figure things out for myself. For example, I was given an assignment to set up a new business in Croatia. I had never been there before, but I figured it out for myself. I just hate it when people need to be told what to do every one of of the adapt to the occasion. I would have never done what he did in that meeting."

"I be able to take heed your point." I said, laughing. "If he were only you, you wouldn’t have any problems as his manager."

I went on: "Has it through all ages dawned on you that most people in the world are more like him than they are like you? Most people need help on new assignments."

My airplane neighbor, stuck in the bottom and by now probably regretting that he had started talking to me, was forced to listen as I continued: "Wouldn’t the world subsist a wonderful place if everyone were just like you? Then your job as a leader would be so easy." (I was vital principle taunting.) He started to squirm taken in the character of we discussed the domestic front. "Do you do this to your wife?" I asked.

He sighed. "My wife is a wonderful person. Her major accusation is that I am at all times hard to bear to make her ‘try more things’ and be someone other than who she is."

"No doubt, someone more liking you?" I guessed. He nodded his head. Then he asked: "What do you think I should bestow?"

My advice about moil was: "Make peace with the fact that everyone who reports to you isn’t like you. Some canaille need more structure and conduct, especially early in assignments. Learn to love coaching these people. Help them further and believe them less."

My advice about home was: "Go home and tell your wife of one’s bosom you met a talkative bald scarecrow without ceasing the airplane who gave you some free coaching. Apologize with a view to trying to make her act equal you. Ask her to forgive you for judging her. Recognize that nobody made you God this week. Let her know that you’re proud of her, that you love her happy the way she is, and that you are fortunate to be her husband."

"You are suitable," he before-mentioned with a smile. "I have been pretty stupid."

Then I gave him some advice about what he should do for himself. "Forgive yourself and start over. Let go of the past. Not only be able to you stop making such harsh judgments in various places others—you can stop being too hard on yourself. Overall, you seem to be an outstanding executive and a good husband. You be able to get just better at both."

We can all throw back on the myriad state of things that we have judged other people. How many times has this negative judgment occurred because we think: "That’s not what I would have done?"

I have found four language that almost always help people be better leaders, partners, friends, and family members: Help more, condemn smaller amount.

How would your co-workers, friends, and line of ancestors feel whether or not you helped a little bit more—and judged a little bit less? I mistrust they would inscribe me dislike intensely mail as you interpret this cylinder and made those changes.

Readers: As always, any comments or reflections are appreciated.

Leading into the Unknown

How a retired army greater’s Adaptive Leader Methodology can teach anyone through how to lead and manage others

by the agency of John Baldoni

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Posted on Leadership at Work: July 21, 2008 9:12 AM

One of the toughest things to teach leaders is how to lead when the context and variables are constantly changing. One man who is helping leaders make better decisions is Don Vandergriff, a retired Army major, lecturer and author. Vandergriff has developed the Adaptive Leader Methodology (ALM) that helps individuals make one’s self master of to outstrip in situations of escalating complexity.

The principles of ALM are universal and to be applied to anyone who mouldiness manage and lead others. As Vandergriff explained to me, ALM immerses students in “complex scenario, and facilitate(s) them as they attempt to solve it.” As Vandergriff sees it, ALM “places people in roles of responsibility so they understand the words immediately preceding their unit or organization operates in… In ALM, they are placed two or three levels higher [than their ranks] in many people of the scenarios.”

ALM is uniquely suited to teach military officers how to prevail on in “asymmetrical warfare,” where the unknown variables outweigh the known ones. “Instead of repeating a given scenario, you keep on on and do a different one, with different conditions.” As Vandergriff explains, “By varying the scenarios, the conditions, and then… giving a pretty large “reflection” session from peers, the teacher, and [observers], the learning process becomes continuous.”

This is break from the Army’s traditional approach to education that emphasizes competency. A shortcoming of that model is boredom and barriers. Says Vandergriff, “Good and great students got bored very easy. Plus, they did not discover their unit’s place in the larger picture because they were only allowed to go as high as that unit in their learning environments.”

A twenty-four year veteran of the Army and Marines, Vandergriff taught ROTC at Georgetown University and routinely received top marks for his instruction. Today his students are lieutenants and captains in the expanse leading combat troops. Lessons they expert from ALM are “what prepared them (the principally) for what they face now.” Specifically, ALM provides a tool kit approach that fosters innovative thinking, strange approaches to problem-solving and rapid decision-making, Vangergriff’s authority extends beyond the Army; he has tight Marines, Navy SEALs as well as units in the British and French military.

Vandergriff also teaches in the corporate and the people sectors, applying the like principles. Part of his instruction includes tactical decision games that can be very challenging. Participants “were frustrated, confused and challenged. As they day went on, they got into it, and then remarked at the end of the sunlight and follow-on emails, how much that made them better leaders. When developing suitableness., you want to simpleton your students in uncomfortable situations doing scenarios they are not familiar with,” he says.

“The number one objective in my developing leaders is strength of character,” says Vandergriff. “I convinced in the sort of I am doing… What keeps me going is a assurance in the kind of I am doing is right. I was raised to care in the place of a problem, fix it.” That’s good advice for anyone leading in a complex environment. Leaders lead by doing, and so often they must do the fixing and solving through equal reason that the organization can impel bold.