NORAD Santa Tracker 2011: Google Maps Helps Keep An Eye On Santa
From Huff Post Tech
The holidays are here at last. And you know what that means. No, not family, togetherness or even presents. It means it's time to track Santa as he makes his annual trek around the globe.
Google and the North American Aerospace Defense Command have teamed up once again to help you keep an eye on old Saint Nick from the time he takes off from the North Pole.
Starting at 2 a.m. EST on December 24, Google users who have installed the Google Earth plugin can watch 3D animations of Santa and his reindeer flying by landmarks like the Cathedral of Florence, the Taj Mahal, Big Ben and more.
Visit the official NORAD Santa Site to see where in the world you can find Santa at any moment on Christmas Eve. Click the "Santa cam" icons to see videos of Mr. Kringle piloting his sleigh above the world's cities.
You can also keep tabs on Santa's sleigh from your mobile device. Just open your Google Maps app and search "santa" for an up-to-the-minute display of Santa's delivery route…(full story)
A healthy Urban Meyer returns to coaching
From Dayton Daily News
Gene Smith was explaining why Urban Meyer was the search committee’s first choice, its only choice, its perfect choice to become Ohio State’s new football coach.
“He gets it,” the OSU athletics director said on two different occasions at a Monday evening news conference to announce the big-splash hire. “We’re fortunate to have a man who gets it.”
Whether Meyer truly does, that is the big question.
Sure he’s a born and bred Buckeye — he grew up in Ashtabula infatuated by the Ohio State Buckeyes, the Big Red Machine and the Cincinnati Bengals.
And, yes, he understands what it takes to run a big-time college football program and win a national championship. In six seasons, he took the Florida Gators to two national crowns.
But the real test for him will come with the contract he just signed.
Not the one he supposedly inked earlier Monday. That one is for six years and is thought to pay him at least $4 million a year to lift the scandal-nicked Buckeye program back to national prominence.
To hear him, that’s an easy task compared to the other pact he signed.
When he took his turn at the microphone, Meyer reached into a pocket of his dark suit coat, pulled out a folded-up pink piece of paper and held it up so the media crowd that jammed the Fawcett Center could see.
“This is the contract my kids made me sign before I was allowed to sign a real contract. And it’s tougher than any other contract I’ve signed in my life,” he said in reference to his three children — two daughters who are playing college volleyball and 13-year-old son Nate who sat next to his mom, aunt and uncle at the gathering and was nodding vigorously as his dad explained.
Although Meyer never revealed the provisos he had agreed to, his family later filled in some of the details…(full story)
Barney Frank: Don't Blame Me for Fannie, Freddie Problems
From Wall Street Journal
Rep. Barney Frank is blamed in certain quarters for spurring the financial crisis of 2008 by encouraging the government to make more loans to the poor.
In announcing his plans to retire from Congress at the end of 2012, the Massachusetts Democrat offered a characteristically detailed and spirited defense of his actions, and cast blame at Republicans for a failure to act.
Mr. Frank acknowledged that he did not see the financial crisis coming and believed that government-sponsored mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were “doing well” until 2003.
However, Mr. Frank said that in 2004, he became concerned about the growth in the market for subprime loans, those made to borrowers with weak credit. Those loans are often faulted for sparking a financial panic starting in 2007…(full story)
Reno fire expands to over 2,000 acres
A cloud of grayish-white smoke settled over upscale homes and horse pastures at Reno's edge Friday as firefighters from across Nevada came close to taming a sudden wildfire that sent 16 people to hospitals and destroyed or damaged 25 houses.
The unexplained blaze also gave a firefighter first- and second-degree burns and was blamed for the death of a 74-year-old man who had a heart attack while trying to flee, but authorities said the worst was likely over as growing snow flurries and falling temperatures stoked hopes that the remaining showers of ember and ash would die down.
Reno Fire Chief Mike Hernandez said firefighters had largely contained the blaze that sent nearly 10,000 people from their homes in the middle of the night and sent flames licking the edges of the region's mountain roads.
Think you know the US? Take our geography quiz.
"We are actually backtracking and going over areas that have burned and extinguishing hot spots," Hernandez said.
The cause of the blaze wasn't known, but a downed power line or homeless encampments in the area might be to blame, Hernandez said. He said the region is also a popular area for teenagers who might have started the fire to stay warm.
At least 400 firefighters from as far as 260 miles away flocked to Reno early Friday as multiple fires roared from the Sierra Nevada foothills in northwestern Nevada and spread to the valley floor. Flames reached 50 feet high and embers pushed by the wind traveled up to a mile.
Police went house-to-house, pounding on doors and urging residents to evacuate in the dark of the night.
Hernandez said residents ran from their homes dressed in pajamas, frantically trying to grab as many possessions as possible. One elderly man dressed in his underwear ran out with a blanket wrapped around his body.
"The people are in a state of shock and are hanging in there," Gov. Brian Sandoval said.
Dick Hecht said that when he escaped from his home with his wife, "the whole mountain was on fire," and it was so windy he could barely stand.
"It was so smoky, you couldn't hardly see," Hecht said.
The couple tried to return to their home before morning, but they were turned back by high winds and erupting flames. As they made their way back down the mountain roads, flames burned less than 40 yards from their vehicle.
Gusts of up to 60 mph grounded firefighting helicopters and made it difficult for firefighters to approach Caughlin Ranch, the affluent subdivision bordering pine-forested hills where the fire likely began after 12:30 a.m.
Source: csmonitor.com
The unexplained blaze also gave a firefighter first- and second-degree burns and was blamed for the death of a 74-year-old man who had a heart attack while trying to flee, but authorities said the worst was likely over as growing snow flurries and falling temperatures stoked hopes that the remaining showers of ember and ash would die down.
Reno Fire Chief Mike Hernandez said firefighters had largely contained the blaze that sent nearly 10,000 people from their homes in the middle of the night and sent flames licking the edges of the region's mountain roads.
Think you know the US? Take our geography quiz.
"We are actually backtracking and going over areas that have burned and extinguishing hot spots," Hernandez said.
The cause of the blaze wasn't known, but a downed power line or homeless encampments in the area might be to blame, Hernandez said. He said the region is also a popular area for teenagers who might have started the fire to stay warm.
At least 400 firefighters from as far as 260 miles away flocked to Reno early Friday as multiple fires roared from the Sierra Nevada foothills in northwestern Nevada and spread to the valley floor. Flames reached 50 feet high and embers pushed by the wind traveled up to a mile.
Police went house-to-house, pounding on doors and urging residents to evacuate in the dark of the night.
Hernandez said residents ran from their homes dressed in pajamas, frantically trying to grab as many possessions as possible. One elderly man dressed in his underwear ran out with a blanket wrapped around his body.
"The people are in a state of shock and are hanging in there," Gov. Brian Sandoval said.
Dick Hecht said that when he escaped from his home with his wife, "the whole mountain was on fire," and it was so windy he could barely stand.
"It was so smoky, you couldn't hardly see," Hecht said.
The couple tried to return to their home before morning, but they were turned back by high winds and erupting flames. As they made their way back down the mountain roads, flames burned less than 40 yards from their vehicle.
Gusts of up to 60 mph grounded firefighting helicopters and made it difficult for firefighters to approach Caughlin Ranch, the affluent subdivision bordering pine-forested hills where the fire likely began after 12:30 a.m.
Source: csmonitor.com
Out of public eye, Arab women power haute couture
Reuters, Paris/Dubai, Oct 9: They are rarely spotted on the front row of a fashion show and favor discretion when placing orders, yet women from the Middle East have become the world's biggest buyers of high fashion.
The trend may surprise given that many Arab women, particularly in the Gulf region, are traditionally kept under wraps.
But their social calendar, which usually consists of 15-20 weddings a year and private parties every month, creates much bigger demand for couture than the occasional charity ball and high society party in Europe and in North America.
And wearing the same dress twice is not an option.
Traditional buyers of exclusive designer clothes tend to include members of rich industrial or royal families and expatriates.
The biggest buyers of haute couture today center around the Gulf -- Saudis, Kuwaitis, Qataris and nationals of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) who do not hesitate to spend 50,000 euros on a low-cleavage lame for an event where no men will be present.
"All the royal families of the Middle East are our customers," Catherine Riviere, head of haute couture at Christian Dior, told Reuters at the brand's show at Paris Fashion Week which ends on Wednesday.
Middle Eastern customers have also recently shown growing support for Lebanese designers such as Elie Saab and Zuhair Murad.
Fashion executives say the Middle East is likely to remain the top couture client for the foreseeable future if the economic environment deteriorates in Europe and North America.
The luxury goods industry has not yet been hit by the global slowdown but many analysts fear it will not come out of the downturn unscathed, particularly if China's growth starts to slow down.
"Women from the Middle East are our top buyers and they are likely to remain so," said Jeffry Aronsson, who became chief executive of Emanuel Ungaro three months ago, having run Donna Karan, Oscar de la Renta and Marc Jacobs in the past.
UNIQUE, EXTRAVAGANT AND CHIC
Reem, the daughter of a major construction tycoon in the Middle East, spends much of her time flitting between Paris, London, Dubai and Beirut and is a regular buyer of couture. She has also started to design some of her own jewelry.
"I want to be different from others," she said in an interview at her Paris flat in the leafy 16th arrondissement, asking to be identified only by her first name.
"What I want is unique pieces, extravagant and chic. I do not want to pay 5,000 or 6,000 euros for a dress, as it happened to me with a Pucci outfit recently, and see it on somebody else the same evening."
Generally at weddings in Gulf countries, men and women are split into two separate groups, attendees say. Thousands of women gather together in one big ball room -- all wearing haute couture -- and some are not afraid to wear provocative and revealing outfits.
"Some women go for deep cleavage or even transparent fabrics," said Reem, who regularly attends such weddings and buys between 30-40 designer dresses a year. At a royal wedding, the dress code calls for more restraint in terms of style, neckline and hemline.
Valued at 700 million euros ($930 million), designer clothing is by far the biggest segment of the luxury goods industry representing 42 percent of overall luxury goods sales in the UAE, the biggest buyer among Gulf states, with women's designer dresses and skirts leading the way, Euromonitor International said in a report published in June.
"For us, with China, the Middle East is the market that is growing the fastest," Hermes Chief Executive Patrick Thomas told Reuters at Paris Fashion Week. "These markets for a long time preferred a more ostentatious type of luxury and now want a more refined and discreet style," he added.
Thomas said the Middle East only started to pick up strongly two to three years ago and now generates 30-35 percent in annual sales growth a year.
For Dior, Chanel, Valentino, Stephane Rolland and other luxury labels favored by affluent Middle Eastern women, the biggest challenge is keeping a detailed track record of who buys what, to avoid selling the same dress to members of the same circles, attending the same event.
"A good retailer must know the whole family of the buyer and ask her as many questions as possible as we are not allowed to make mistakes," said a Dior sales assistant based in Western Europe, specializing in the brand's Middle Eastern clientele.
Very often, the race was on for the most expensive dress, not for the most elegant or stylish, she said, declining to be named.
With weddings lasting three, and sometimes up to seven, days, each client needs at least 5-10 different outfits -- good news for fashion companies but complicated to keep track of.
"Of course, we cannot centralize everything but we try," said the Dior sales assistant.
STATUS AND SUCCESS
For Middle Eastern women, couture is a symbol of social status and success. At parties and weddings, they want to shine and impress potential mothers-in-law scouting for eligible brides.
Fashion experts say Middle Eastern women opt for dresses which use a lot of crystals, gems or heavily embroidered and embellished fabrics.
"I had the opportunity to see a wedding that was recently held here in Dubai. 4,000 women were invited to the reception and everybody in the room was wearing haute couture," said Simon Lock, who works as creative director for Dubai Fashion Week. "And there are lots and lots of weddings to attend. The wedding season is very expensive here.
"I have known of many occasions when a couturier will be invited to a private home for a showing. The hostess will buy maybe 20, 30 couture outfits for a season," says Lock, adding that prices start at $3,000 and can reach $75,000. A Dior wedding dress can fetch $1 million.
Dior, Chanel and many other major luxury brands also stage private shows at hotels in the Middle East or in the comfort of the home of their most regular customers.
"Royal families are our buyers," said Dubai-based fashion designer Rabia Z. "They will call us for an appointment and we go as often as they ask us to come. They love the fact that we give them the option of changing the color, or making it shorter or longer."
But many prefer to fly to Paris, Milan or London than shop locally so they can have more choice and see up-to-date collections, fashion insiders say.
The shopping season usually starts in Italy in June. In July and August, it tends to concentrate around the Riviera, where many Gulf women spend holidays, and it finishes in September in Paris and London.
CENTRES OF GROWTH
Qatar, the world's richest nation per capita, is one of the few economies in the world enjoying strong economic growth with a GDP growth forecast of 19 percent for this year, according to analysts.
Qatar is organizing its first fashion week with a target date of March 2012. One of the biggest supporters of the fashion event is Sheikha Mozah bint Nasser al-Missned, the glamorous wife of the emir of Qatar who regularly features in Gulf tabloids along with Queen Rania of Jordan.
Sheikha Mozah -- regarded as one of the world's biggest buyers of couture, according to fashion experts -- is also behind the creation of the Qatar Luxury Group in 2008. Based in Doha, it hired designer Stephane Rolland to create a fashion brand from scratch that it is aiming to unveil next spring.
The secretive group, financially supported by the Qatar Foundation the Sheikha created, made its first acquisition this year when it snapped up Paris-listed leather goods maker Le Tanneur for 26 million euros, and is on the lookout for more European brands.
The group is headed by Gregory Couillard, a former executive at the world's biggest luxury group LVMH, which owns Dior and Louis Vuitton. Couillard declined several requests for an interview.
The trend may surprise given that many Arab women, particularly in the Gulf region, are traditionally kept under wraps.
But their social calendar, which usually consists of 15-20 weddings a year and private parties every month, creates much bigger demand for couture than the occasional charity ball and high society party in Europe and in North America.
And wearing the same dress twice is not an option.
Traditional buyers of exclusive designer clothes tend to include members of rich industrial or royal families and expatriates.
The biggest buyers of haute couture today center around the Gulf -- Saudis, Kuwaitis, Qataris and nationals of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) who do not hesitate to spend 50,000 euros on a low-cleavage lame for an event where no men will be present.
"All the royal families of the Middle East are our customers," Catherine Riviere, head of haute couture at Christian Dior, told Reuters at the brand's show at Paris Fashion Week which ends on Wednesday.
Middle Eastern customers have also recently shown growing support for Lebanese designers such as Elie Saab and Zuhair Murad.
Fashion executives say the Middle East is likely to remain the top couture client for the foreseeable future if the economic environment deteriorates in Europe and North America.
The luxury goods industry has not yet been hit by the global slowdown but many analysts fear it will not come out of the downturn unscathed, particularly if China's growth starts to slow down.
"Women from the Middle East are our top buyers and they are likely to remain so," said Jeffry Aronsson, who became chief executive of Emanuel Ungaro three months ago, having run Donna Karan, Oscar de la Renta and Marc Jacobs in the past.
UNIQUE, EXTRAVAGANT AND CHIC
Reem, the daughter of a major construction tycoon in the Middle East, spends much of her time flitting between Paris, London, Dubai and Beirut and is a regular buyer of couture. She has also started to design some of her own jewelry.
"I want to be different from others," she said in an interview at her Paris flat in the leafy 16th arrondissement, asking to be identified only by her first name.
"What I want is unique pieces, extravagant and chic. I do not want to pay 5,000 or 6,000 euros for a dress, as it happened to me with a Pucci outfit recently, and see it on somebody else the same evening."
Generally at weddings in Gulf countries, men and women are split into two separate groups, attendees say. Thousands of women gather together in one big ball room -- all wearing haute couture -- and some are not afraid to wear provocative and revealing outfits.
"Some women go for deep cleavage or even transparent fabrics," said Reem, who regularly attends such weddings and buys between 30-40 designer dresses a year. At a royal wedding, the dress code calls for more restraint in terms of style, neckline and hemline.
Valued at 700 million euros ($930 million), designer clothing is by far the biggest segment of the luxury goods industry representing 42 percent of overall luxury goods sales in the UAE, the biggest buyer among Gulf states, with women's designer dresses and skirts leading the way, Euromonitor International said in a report published in June.
"For us, with China, the Middle East is the market that is growing the fastest," Hermes Chief Executive Patrick Thomas told Reuters at Paris Fashion Week. "These markets for a long time preferred a more ostentatious type of luxury and now want a more refined and discreet style," he added.
Thomas said the Middle East only started to pick up strongly two to three years ago and now generates 30-35 percent in annual sales growth a year.
For Dior, Chanel, Valentino, Stephane Rolland and other luxury labels favored by affluent Middle Eastern women, the biggest challenge is keeping a detailed track record of who buys what, to avoid selling the same dress to members of the same circles, attending the same event.
"A good retailer must know the whole family of the buyer and ask her as many questions as possible as we are not allowed to make mistakes," said a Dior sales assistant based in Western Europe, specializing in the brand's Middle Eastern clientele.
Very often, the race was on for the most expensive dress, not for the most elegant or stylish, she said, declining to be named.
With weddings lasting three, and sometimes up to seven, days, each client needs at least 5-10 different outfits -- good news for fashion companies but complicated to keep track of.
"Of course, we cannot centralize everything but we try," said the Dior sales assistant.
STATUS AND SUCCESS
For Middle Eastern women, couture is a symbol of social status and success. At parties and weddings, they want to shine and impress potential mothers-in-law scouting for eligible brides.
Fashion experts say Middle Eastern women opt for dresses which use a lot of crystals, gems or heavily embroidered and embellished fabrics.
"I had the opportunity to see a wedding that was recently held here in Dubai. 4,000 women were invited to the reception and everybody in the room was wearing haute couture," said Simon Lock, who works as creative director for Dubai Fashion Week. "And there are lots and lots of weddings to attend. The wedding season is very expensive here.
"I have known of many occasions when a couturier will be invited to a private home for a showing. The hostess will buy maybe 20, 30 couture outfits for a season," says Lock, adding that prices start at $3,000 and can reach $75,000. A Dior wedding dress can fetch $1 million.
Dior, Chanel and many other major luxury brands also stage private shows at hotels in the Middle East or in the comfort of the home of their most regular customers.
"Royal families are our buyers," said Dubai-based fashion designer Rabia Z. "They will call us for an appointment and we go as often as they ask us to come. They love the fact that we give them the option of changing the color, or making it shorter or longer."
But many prefer to fly to Paris, Milan or London than shop locally so they can have more choice and see up-to-date collections, fashion insiders say.
The shopping season usually starts in Italy in June. In July and August, it tends to concentrate around the Riviera, where many Gulf women spend holidays, and it finishes in September in Paris and London.
CENTRES OF GROWTH
Qatar, the world's richest nation per capita, is one of the few economies in the world enjoying strong economic growth with a GDP growth forecast of 19 percent for this year, according to analysts.
Qatar is organizing its first fashion week with a target date of March 2012. One of the biggest supporters of the fashion event is Sheikha Mozah bint Nasser al-Missned, the glamorous wife of the emir of Qatar who regularly features in Gulf tabloids along with Queen Rania of Jordan.
Sheikha Mozah -- regarded as one of the world's biggest buyers of couture, according to fashion experts -- is also behind the creation of the Qatar Luxury Group in 2008. Based in Doha, it hired designer Stephane Rolland to create a fashion brand from scratch that it is aiming to unveil next spring.
The secretive group, financially supported by the Qatar Foundation the Sheikha created, made its first acquisition this year when it snapped up Paris-listed leather goods maker Le Tanneur for 26 million euros, and is on the lookout for more European brands.
The group is headed by Gregory Couillard, a former executive at the world's biggest luxury group LVMH, which owns Dior and Louis Vuitton. Couillard declined several requests for an interview.
Cold storage owners seek govt intervention
Cold storage owners and potato farmers in Rajshahi on Saturday sought intervention of the government for solving their prevailing problems.
They said at a news briefing in the city that the potato traders and growers had been facing an embarrassing situation with their 25 lakh tonnes of stored potato in cold-storages in the region.
Besides, they mentioned that the traders as well as the growers would face incurring loss at Tk 300 per bag if they sold their stored potato at present.
Due to lack of adequate preservation facilities and abundance of unpreserved potato in the local markets, the wholesale and retail price had been declined to an unexpected level making the farmers frustrated, they informed.
Most of the farmers were seen opting for high yielding potato varieties and adopting scientific methods of cultivation, resulting in bumper yield, said Abu Bakkar Ali, president of Rajshahi Cold Storage Owners Association.
But the potato growers incurred losses this year as they did not get fair price of their produce, he said. To overcome the loss, he sought government intervention for exporting potato.
There had been a bumper production of potato in Rajshahi this year due to favourable climatic condition. But the bumper production could not bring fruit for the growers for low price of potato which could not cover production cost, he added.
'The farmers are not happy over the market price. For inadequate preservation facilities in the region, they are being forced to sell their potatoes at low price incurring loss,' he also said.
This adverse situation would have impact on the cultivation of potato in the region in the next year as the growers would surely loss their interest to cultivate potato again, he said.
Muhammad Ali Sarker, owner of Raj Cold Storagte, said, 'The government is initiating many safety-net programmes including VGF, VGD, OMS, FW and so on for vulnerable group development. It will be a great solution if government includes potato in the programmes which will help the farmers to get a reasonable price,' he said.
He urged the government to add potato in government's rationing which was operational for Bangladesh Army, Bangladesh Police, Border Guard of Bangladesh, Ansar-VDP.
This inclusion of potato would help farmers to get a reasonable price for their products and would encourage the farmers to boost the production, he said.
Association members of Rajshahi Cold Storage Owners Association Ful Muhammad and Ahsan Uddin also spoke at the programme.
2 muggers held with firearms in Pabna
The police arrested two persons along with firearms while they were allegedly trying to snatch money from a trader at village Kalikapur of Sujanagar in Pabna on Saturday.
The arrestees were Liton Sardar, 20, and Sheikh Shahin, 22, of the village Kalikapur.
The Sujanagar police station officer-in-charge, Ahsanul Haque, said that the accused muggers halted Ashok Kumar, a trader of the upazila, at Kalikapur at noon when he was going to Dhaka with Tk 30 thousand.
Hearing screams, locals rushed to the spot. Being informed, a mobile team of the Sujanagar police station chased the criminals and held Liton and Shahin with firearms and recovered the looted money from them.
The arrestees were kept in the police custody.
Housewife commits ‘suicide’ in Jamalpur
A housewife allegedly committed suicide under a running train at Jamalpur railway station on Saturday afternoon.
The victim was identified as Kobita Begum, 18, wife of Shahinur Islam at village Pashchim Dakpara in Jamalpur town.
The Jamalpur Railway police said that Kobita was waiting at the station platform with other passengers in the afternoon. When the Dhaka bound intercity train Teesta was leaving the station, she suddenly jumped in front of the running train. She died on the spot.
The police recovered the body and sent it to Jamalpur General Hospital morgue for autopsy.
The reason behind the suicide could not be known immediately.
A UD case was registered with Jamalpur GRP thana.
Students want supplementary examinations
Under-graduate students of the Institute of Health Technology in Rajshahi city boycotted their classes and brought out procession on Saturday, demanding provision of supplementary examinations.
More than one hundred BSc students from the departments of laboratory technology, dental and physiotherapy of the institute took part in the procession and later formed a human chain at Shaheb Bazar Zero Point.
Computer training centre burnt in Jessore
A computer training centre was burnt in a fire, which broke out on Ghop Jel Road in Jessore town on Saturday.
Jessore fire service sources said the fire originated from a switch board of the centre, Acme IT, located on the fourth floor of a building, and soon it engulfed the building at about 10:00am.
Receiving information, local fire service personnel rushed in and quelled the fire after an hour long hectic efforts.
The centre said 10 rooms, 27 computers, five ACs and other goods were burnt.
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