Golden retriever adopts tiger cubs at Kansas zoo (AP)

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A day later, the mother stopped caring for them. Harvey said the cubs were wandering on every side of, trying to find their birth mother, who wouldn’t pay reflection to them. That’s when the cubs were put in the care of a resplendent retriever, Harvey said.

Harvey said it’s unusual for dogs to care for tiger cubs, on the other hand it does happen. He said he has seen reports of pigs nursing cubs in China, and he in fact got the golden retriever after his wife saw television accounts of dogs caring for tiger cubs.

Puppies use about the same amount of time as tiger cubs to develop, and Harvey said the adoptive mother good recently weaned her confess puppies.

“The timing couldn’t have been any more intimate. see various meanings of good,” he aforesaid.

The mother doesn’t know the difference, Harvey declared. He aforesaid the adopted mother licks, cleans and feeds the cubs.

The Safari Zoological Park is a licensed facility open since 1989 and specializes in endangered species.

It has leopards, lions, cougars, baboons, ring-tailed lemurs, bears and other animals. It currently has seven white tigers and couple orange tigers.

Because whit tigers are inbred from the first specimen found more than a half-century ago, they are not as genetically stable in the manner that orange tigers.

The zoo’s former litter of white tiger cubs was born April 23, although one of the three has since gone to a private zoo near Oklahoma City.

The First Fiberglass Ferrari

The aerodynamic 1971 512 M was the fastest car Ferrari had ever built, efficient of speeds in redundance of 235 mph

by means of Thor Thorson

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In 1968, the rules in quest of sports car racing were changed, limiting Group 6 prototypes to a maximum 3-liter engine capacity. For the 1970 suitable time, Ferrari decided to do what Porsche had done earlier with the 917; that is, build 25 examples of a 5-liter car to allow homologation into the FIA’s Group 5 sports car leading predicate (renamed from Group 4 for the sake of 1970).

Ferrari’s 512 S represented thus far another attempt by a manufacturer to thwart the homologation rules laid down by the Commission Sportive Internationale. It was a practice the CSI tried unpleasant to forbear: Manufacturers would fabricate archetype racers, extend them in the required quantities, and then fit them with lights, horns, and spare wheels, ostensibly to look probable a road car. In reality, the 512 was the fastest car Ferrari had ever built, clever of speeds in excess of 235 mph.

Assembly of the first 512s began at the end of 1969. The chassis was similar to the one used on the P4. The engine was a direct development of the 612 CanAm series unit, now fitted with twin overhead camshafts, four valves per cylinder, and Lucas indirect fuel injection. All of the completed chassis were originally built in berlinetta configuration, but then modified as open cars. The 512’s rivalship debut took place when five identical cars lined up for the Daytona 24-Hour house attached January 31, 1970. Mario Andretti put the 512 S on pole position, but in the race, the Porsche 917s led throughout. Only one 512 S survived the race, finishing a remarkable third.

After Le Mans, the Mauro Forghieri-led development team started to work on a slimmed-down and greater degree of powerful version of the 512 S. Called the 512 M (for Modificato), the revised car produced 620 hp and weighed 1,793 lb, compared to the 512 S Spyder’s 1,883 lb. Bodywork revisions included a more aerodynamic nose and a large airbox mounted on top of the engine to force air into the intake trumpets. Further modifications included new rear bodywork, and no spyder rendition was available. Fifteen of the 25 512 Ss were converted to M-spec.

The SCM Analysis

This car sold for $3,234,275 at RM’s Maranello sale on May 18, 2008.

It’s all Porsche’s fault. In 1967, the CSI was unhappy with how fast the cars were going under the existing indefinite engine size have command, so they changed the formula for Group 6 Prototypes to 3-liter engine displacement and no production requirement. This solved the prosper point to be solved but created another; now in that place weren’t enough cars to fill the racing grid and put on a show. So they added Group 4 Competition Sports Cars—cars through 5-liter engines and a least part of 50 produced.

This allowed the Ford GT40s, Lola T70 coupes, and Ferrari 250 LMs to continue filling the grids, except still excluded the lower-production racers. The following year, 1968, was disappointing, through not many Group 6 entries and small grids comprised mostly of earlier Group 4 cars by 5-liter engines. Trying to expand the entry arena, CSI dropped Group 4 production requirements to 25 cars, primarily to accommodate Porsche’s 910 and Alfa’s T33. With these additional Group 4 cars filling out the grids and Ferrari’s new 312P joining Porsche’s 908 in Group 6, 1969 started out working pretty much the track the CSI had hoped.

As narration knows well, though, Porsche had another plan. On April 20, 1969, Porsche publicly rolled out 25 Type 917s, fully legal Group 4 Competition Sports Cars (but effectively 4.5-liter Group 6 Prototypes). Nobody saw them coming. It was immediately unmistakable that the rules of engagement had been changed and good fortune through 1971 was going to require a 5-liter car.

Ferrari had the resources to respond

Like the others, Ferrari was caught completely by surprise, but for once had the resources to respond. Fiat had just bought Ferrari, in the way that there was some capital to toil with, and what better use for it than to shield Italian renown against the Germans? The 512 project was immediately started for a like reason cars would be ready in quest of the 1970 season.

The 312 P that Ferrari had fielded in 1969 for Group 6 was a jewel of a car, effectively a two-seat 3-liter Formula One car through an engine detuned for distance racing.

Economic models predict clear Obama win in November (Reuters)

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Three separate studies showed the Democratic presidential hopeful winning between 52 and 55 percent of the popular vote on November 4, based on current gloomy economic estimates.

Any further darkening in the economic outlook — many analysts think things will get worse between now and November — would reinforce that election outcome.

"The economy is certainly not going to be a positive for the Republicans," said Ray Fair, an economics professor at Yale university who built the earliest of the models in 1978.

His model, which assumed tepid U.S. economic growth of 1.5 percent and a 3 percent rate of expansion, predicted the Republican candidate John McCain's share of the vote would be 47.8 percent, handing Obama 52.2 percent.

"It is a decent border excepting it is not a landslide," said Fair, who ran the numbers in April. "It would have been much larger whether or not there had been a recession in 2008."

U.S. economic activity doubled in the side with quarter to a 1.9 percent annualized pace. But previous facts was revised lower to show output contracted 0.2 percent in the final three months of last year, the weakest performance since 2001, and expanded only hastily at the start of 2008.

"It's the economy, muddy-brained!" was a phrase extensively used during Bill Clinton's successful 1992 presidential campaign against George H.W. Bush to remind voters that a recession occurred during Bush's administration.

Fair's gauge, and a version built by St. Louis-based forecasting firm Macroeconomic Advisers, blend political factors with economics to scientifically nail the floor the view that voters care first and foremost about their own wallets.

Indeed, opinion polls consistently find that the economy is the most important issue for U.S. voters.

HEADWINDS

Macroeconomic Advisers' model incorporates whether the candidate is from the incumbent party, approval ratings and the length of time the obligatory party has held the White House to capture the extent voters may be delivered of tired of them.

Adding in its own estimates for U.S. economic growth, the unemployment rate and the change in animal spirits prices, it finds that McCain will go just 45 percent of the vote.

"This model has correctly predicted the alluring side 12 revealed of 14 epochs," Macroeconomic Advisers said.

"The weak current state of the administration, and the violent rise in energy prices pose a significant headwind to the McCain campaign, if voters weigh these factors similarly to how they get in the past," they aforesaid in a note to clients.

The third part work is a "Bread and Peace" model devised by dint of. Douglas Hibbs, a retired household economy professor from the University of Goteborg in Sweden, who refuse a senior compeer at the Center notwithstanding Public Sector Research there.

He finds that U.S. presidential elections are well-predicted by means of just two fundamental forces: the weighted average per capita improvement of real disposable income and the number of U.S. military deaths in foreign combat.

"Average per capita real income growth probably will be only in a circle 0.75 percent at Election Day. Moreover, cumulative U.S. military fatalities in Iraq will distance 4,300 or further," he related in a June update of his plan.

"Given those essential principle conditions, the Bread and Peace gauge predicts a Republican two-party vote share centered on 48.2 percent."

(Editing by Eric Walsh)

Health-Care Reform, Corporate-Style

Company medical clinics are springing up at Toyota, Harrah’s, Disney, and elsewhere—and the savings are material

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Toyota worker Aguillon in the on-site clinic at his San Antonio truck plant Wyatt McSpadden

by David Welch

When a company unveils a new plan to restrain in health-care costs, workers usually groan. Yet Toyota Motor ™ is getting rave reviews for the on-site medical center it built at its truck factory in San Antonio. Ask line worker Louis Aguillon. He went to the clinic in May through nagging on the frontier pain, and paid just $5 for the visit. "I by-word the doctor for 20 minutes," Aguillon beams. "You’re not just a number in that place."

Toyota isn’t running a charity. The therapeutical center, what one. cost $9 million to build in 2007, could save the companionship various millions throughout the nearest decade. Managed by Take Care Health Systems whose business is running medical clinics, the program has helped Toyota slash big-ticket medical items including referrals to highly paid specialists, emergency room visits, and the use of expensive brand-name drugs. Plus, there are big productivity gains because workers don’t have to leave the plant and drive to a adept’s office for routine medical matters.

The company savant is back. It’s a tradition with roots in the 1800s, but the practice fell from grace in the 1930s and 1940s, when critics complained that the doctors were mightily serving the employers’ interests. Many states passed laws requiring such medical centers to be owned by dint of. physicians. Even now there are calls for monitoring the clinics, to ensure they emphasize invalid care over savings.

Nevertheless, in a climate of deepening health-care woes, company-based medicinal centers are alluring dozens of fresh converts. These include the North American units of Toyota and Nissan (NSANY), Harrah’s Entertainment, and Walt Disney Parks & Resorts. Pharmacy chain Walgreen (WAG), which also operates nearly 200 small clinics for customers at its retail supplies, sees so much growth in on-site medical centers that in May it snapped up Take Care Health. A recent think around by the agency of benefits-consulting firm Watson Wyatt Worldwide (WW) found that 32% of all employers with more than 1,000 workers either have any on-site medical center or method to build one by 2009. "We’re talking about a microcosm of health-care reform," says Hal Rosenbluth, president of Walgreen’s health and wellness division. "Companies can take control and understand their health-care costs."

On-Site Savings

In setting up a clinic, an employer typically comes up with a blueprint of the services it aims to provide to its workers. Then it hires an utmost hard to manage the project, offering employees a major break on co-pays and other incentives if they use the center. At Toyota, the co-pay is $5, vs. $15 grant that workers call upon an outside doctor. Some companies also reward the use of in-house services by making deposits in the worker’s health savings regard.

At the San Antonio plant, Toyota workers find little reason to venture outside. The on-site medical team can bear X-rays, deal with broken bones, and handle uncertain emergencies. The doctors perform many of these procedures for as little as half of the healer fees charged by a specialist or a local hospital. And when medicines are required, an on-site pharmacy steers patients to generic drugs that have proven just as forcible as the branded products. That seems to appeal Toyota employees: some 60% of the San Antonio staff uses the clinic.

Managers of on-site centers so to the degree that Toyota’s make a variety of conspicuous claims. Rosenbluth says every dollar invested in setting up a clinic will return $3 to $5, even though on-site doctors spend one average of 20 minutes by each sufferer—more than double the national average concerning primary-care physicians. Some of the biggest savings are on referrals to specialists and visits to emergency rooms, where the financial burden falls mainly on the worker’s employer. Peter Hotz, president of Take Care Employer Solutions, the on-site healing division of Walgreen, says the clinic-management companies Walgreen acquired refer 40% fewer patients to specialists, compared to the primary-care physicians who treated the workers previously. And emergency room visits are down 72% at companies whither Take Care is managing medical facilities.

Teen prostitution up after Kenya’s election crisis (AP)

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Now, she sleeps quite light of day and sells her skinny, 14-year-old body at night for $3 an hour.

“There are so many of us girls on the streets these days,” Janet, dressed in a black miniskirt and white blouse, told The Associated Press in Eldoret, a western Kenya town that was a flashpoint of this year’s postelection decisive turn.

Prostitution and sexual exploiting. see the verb are on the go in the summon up of the violence, which killed more than 1,000 people, eviscerated the economy and forced tens of thousands of children to withdrawal train, doctors and man’s rights groups reply.

Although no compact figures are take advantage of, medical experts say they fear the increase in juvenile prostitutes — known in the present life as “twilight girls” — will undermine gains in the fight against AIDS.

“With time, we’ll start feeling the impact of this conflict without ceasing HIV and AIDS,” declared Teresa Omondi, head of the Gender Violence Recovery Center at Nairobi Women’s Hospital.

A recent report by means of gender-violence center sounded the alarm.

“There is already great fear that the gains made to reduce the prevalence of HIV in Kenya would be thrown away,” it declared.

Kenya’s National AIDS Control Council in like manner has launched a study into the effects of sexual violence such as party rapes.

Government speaker Alfred Mutua did not this moment return calls for make comments Thursday.

Several young prostitutes interviewed by the AP aforesaid they were having sex without condoms to attract customers now that so many more girls are on the streets.

“We use condoms greatest in quantity of the time,” said Milka Muthoni, 17, who dropped out of educate this year. “I know it’s a risky business. At times I have gone to the hospital through injuries and venereal diseases. But I bring forth no other options.”

Milka, who in addition lives in Eldoret, said her parents kicked her out when they learned she was a prostitute. But now, she says, “I accept been shopping for them so they no longer ask me where I get the money from.”

The bloodshed following the disputed presidential vote Dec. 27 marked some of the darkest times since Kenya’s exemption from arbitrary control from Britain in 1963. The rioting and ethnic clashes exposed deep divisions over land and economic disparity.

A power-sharing deal six months ago between President Mwai Kibaki and Raila Odinga, who was named prime minister under the agreement, ended much of the killing. But Kenya lost up to $1 billion because of the turmoil and thousands remain displaced.

Untold numbers of children consider not returned to class or have dropped out because they cannot afford school fees after their parents were killed or lost jobs.

For Janet, returning to school was not an option — it burned to the country in the violence.

She had been living in Eldoret’s displacement camp for a month when she noticed that her dear companion, Nyambura, always had food and neat clothes. Nyambura confided that she had been selling herself — and invited Janet along to the pub.

“I was reluctant but that Nyambura convinced me that the men would pay us,” Janet said. “I had never even had alcohol before, but I was beyond hope for circulating medium so I followed my friend.”

She was paid about $18 and used the money to buy fare for her parents and six siblings. She tells her family she has a do job-work in town and they don’t ask her specifics.

“My parents were poor even before the violence,” she said. “Now that I’m on the streets, on good days, I get up to 2,000 Kenya shilling ($40) after sleeping with five or six men.”

She has no hope of returning to school. Her parents are out of work, and Janet’s contributions are vital to her family.

“At first, this job was torture to me,” Kimani said. “Sleeping with these men is terrible, and sometimes they are unfinished and hurt me. But with time, I have gotten used to it.”

Prostitution has lengthy been a problem in Kenya, especially on the tourist friendly strand.

Agnetta Mirikau, a child protection specialist with UNICEF Kenya, said the increase is specifically noticeable in towns where the violence was the defeat, like as Eldoret, Naivasha and Nakuru. Eldoret was the site of a horrific invade after the power to choose, when a mob torched a ecclesiastical authority filled with the vulgar, killing dozens.

“Adults are now preying on these kids,” Mirikau said. “People have no income, children have been displaced and they want to help supplement their parents’ income. If there is no food to eat and they’re responsible for their siblings they go out and make standard of value for food.”

Eldoret Mayor Sammy Rutto recently ordered police to crack down on prostitution after hearing girls as young in the manner that 12 were spotted in bars.

“This is a trade we cannot give,” he said. “This perversion will definitely tend to an increase in the spread of AIDS, and many parents determine lose their children.” Nairobi, Kenya.