Clint Eastwood joins moderate GOP in supporting gay marriage

A growing split in the Republican Party deepened today when Clint Eastwood, the movie star who rocked the GOP convention by interviewing an invisible President Obama, joined the ranks of Republicans who are in favor of legalizing gay marriage.

The support for gay marriage by Eastwood and about 100 prominent Republicans, along with budding support within the party for immigration reform, is creating an obvious divide in the party. It pits moderate Republicans and party operatives on one side against conservative activists who drive turnout in the primary elections.

One of the four former Republican governors who signed the legal brief in favor of same sex marriage is ex-New Jersey governor Christine Todd Whitman who she says there are days she "absolutely" doesn't feel like part of the party because she says the GOP is being "defined by the talking heads and they don't for the most part represent me."

Another Republican who is taking on some conservative elements in the party is Carlos Gutierrez, the former commerce secretary under George W. Bush. Gutierrez announced last week he is forming a new super PAC "Republicans for Immigration Reform."

Gutierrez says there are House members who "understand we have to fix the problem" of immigration, but "the concern is they get primaried or have a primary challenger from the right who throws out the word amnesty, which is so easy to do."

"We will be very involved in the primary process for the House to give members cover?If they have a rival from the right screaming amnesty or a primary challenger from the right screaming amnesty, those are the people we want to cover, we want to support and if that means going after the challenger that is screaming amnesty we will do that," Gutierrez told ABC News.

Gutierrez says Mitt Romney's comments during the Republican primary that undocumented aliens should "self-deport" clearly hurt him and he was questioned about it well into the general election. When asked if the primary system, which is dominated by grassroots conservatives, is broken Gutierrez said yes calling it a "crazy system."

"To think in this day and age in 24 hour media coverage you can run and say far right policies and then for the national election sneak back in the center and nobody notices, you can't do that," Gutierrez said.

Clint Eastwood Joins Republicans for Gay Marriage

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, a possible presidential contender four years from now, also said today the GOP needs to change the way it appeals to Hispanic voters.

"We cannot expect to get support from the Latino community if we don't make the Latino community feel welcome and important in our party," Christie said while accepting the endorsement of a group of Latino leaders, according to the Newark Star Ledger. "Everyone here in the Latino community, a community that is steeped in faith, understands that our faith in the country comes from the power of the individual to be able to pursue their faith openly, vigorously, and in a way they believe helps to build and strengthen their families."

Christie added: "Now with all those agreements why is it that over 70 percent of the Latino community in the last national election voted for the other party?"

The New Jersey governor is a glaring example of litmus test conservatism when it was revealed this week that he is not being invited to the Conservative Political Action Conference, a confab of conservative activists next month.

Christie is one of the most popular governors in the country and widely thought to be eyeing the 2016 presidential race. But he has angered conservatives after he blasted House Speaker John Boehner for adjourning the House without approving a $60 billion relief package for the victims of superstorm Sandy.

Christie also angered some Republicans when just one week before the presidential election he praised President Obama's handling of the storm, which slammed into his state on Oct. 29.

Whitman, one of the four former Republican governors who signed the legal brief in favor of same sex marriage, said she was "blown away by those who criticized [Christie] so severely for embracing the president."

"He did what you elect a governor to do. He was not acting like a politician," Whitman said.

Whitman said the problem with moderates in the party's tug-of-war is "they tend to be more moderate."

"We have a responsibility to not allow ourselves to be drowned out," Whitman said. "Let them know when senators and those in Congress work across the aisle or Chris Christie stands up?(that) this is what we want. This is what we expect of our elected leaders."

Whitman said she signed the gay marriage brief because it's important to be heard and it's an opportunity to get this issue behind us."

"We are talking about family values, we are talking about commitment that so many people hold in such high regard it shouldn't make a difference if it's between a man and a woman or two men or two women," Whitman said. "We are the party of family values and limited government. Getting out of the bedroom is a good first step."

Whitman, who is also the former administrator for the Environmental Protection Agency, said the purist conservatives are statistically a smaller number of people in the party, but are the loudest because of their role in the party's primaries where voter turnout can be very low.

"It allows the most partisan people the first say in who your choices?and because they are the most partisan they are going to choose the most partisan people," Whitman said. "They have influence beyond their numbers."

Margaret Hoover, a GOP strategist and former George W. Bush staffer who signed the brief, agrees with Whitman, but said she always feels like a member of the party because she is "totally committed to changing it."

"You can leave or you can change it and frankly we are having a lot of success changing it," Hoover said. "We are making it truer to our principals and we are calling out the people who claim to be for individual freedom."

Hoover said she thinks the people "gearing up for civil war" are the "social conservatives who insist on purity tests," but there are "other elements of the party that are quickly trying to tamp that down and pivoting to, 'No we are going to be the party of the big tent.' We are going to get back to being a big tent party on social issues. We will be strict on fiscal issues."

"It's fair to say that increasingly behind the scenes Republicans are saying we have to be a big tent on social issues. Social conservative activists are going to hate that, (American Conservative Union president) Al Cardenas is going to hate that and his people are going to hate that, but that's not the reality," Hoover said.

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Source: http://news.yahoo.com/clint-eastwood-joins-republicans-gay-235008273.html

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US economy expanded, barely, at end of 2012

Reuters ? ? ? 4 hrs.

The U.S. economy barely grew in the fourth quarter although a slightly better performance in exports and fewer imports led the government to scratch an earlier estimate that showed an economic contraction.

Gross domestic product expanded at a 0.1 percent annual rate, the Commerce Department said on Thursday, missing the 0.5 percent gain forecast by analysts in a Reuters poll.

The growth rate was the slowest since the first quarter of 2011 and far from what is needed to fuel a faster drop in the unemployment rate.

However, much of the weakness came from a slowdown in inventory accumulation and a sharp drop in military spending. These factors are expected to reverse in the first quarter.

Consumer spending was more robust by comparison, although it only expanded at a 2.1 percent annual rate.

Because household spending powers about 70 percent of national output, this still-lackluster pace of growth suggests underlying momentum in the economy was quite modest as it entered the first quarter, when significant fiscal tightening began.

Initially, the government had estimated the economy shrank at a 0.1 percent annual rate in the last three months of 2012. That had shocked economists.

Thursday's report showed the reasons for the decline were mostly as initially estimated. Inventories subtracted 1.55 percentage points from the GDP growth rate during the period, a little more of a drag than initially estimated. Defense spending plunged 22 percent, shaving 1.28 points off growth as in the previous estimate.

There were some relatively bright spots, however. Imports fell 4.5 percent during the period, which added to the overall growth rate because it was a larger drop than in the third quarter. Buying goods from foreigners bleeds money from the economy, subtracting from economic growth.

Also helping reverse the initial view of an economic contraction, exports did not fall as much during the period as the government had thought when it released its advance GDP estimate in January. Exports have been hampered by a recession in Europe, a cooling Chinese economy and storm-related port disruptions.

Excluding the volatile inventories component, GDP rose at a revised 1.7 percent rate, in line with expectations. These final sales of goods and services had been previously estimated to have increased at a 1.1 percent pace.

Business spending was revised to show more growth during the period than initially thought, adding about a percentage point to the growth rate.

Growth in home building was revised slightly higher to show a 17.5 percent annual rate. Residential construction is one of the brighter spots in the economy and is benefiting from the Federal Reserve's ultra easy monetary policy stance, which has driven mortgage rates to record lows. (Reporting by Jason Lange; Editing by Andrea Ricci)

Copyright 2013 Thomson Reuters.

Source: http://www.nbcnews.com/business/economywatch/us-economy-expanded-barely-end-2012-1C8611202

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Op-ed: Love is what makes a family

Just last week, Puerto Rico?s Supreme Court upheld a law that prohibits joint adoption by gay couples.

In a 5-4 decision, the court said a woman could not adopt a 12-year-old girl whom her longtime partner conceived through in vitro fertilization. In the majority opinion the court stated a family composed of a mother and father is best for a child?s ?dignity, stability and well-being.?

A few days later state senator V?ctor Vassallo Anad?n compared homosexuality to bestiality and pedophilia, wondering why homosexuality was not outlawed. He has since apologized but his words show a great deal of prejudice and ignorance.

As a Puerto Rican man it hurts even more?it?s personal!

Many of us who are Boricua and LGBT enjoy family support?more and more of us every day, actually. The embrace we experience from our mothers, fathers, siblings, and abuelas is won through sometimes difficult, but always profoundly moving, acts of courage. We stand before our loved ones and tell our truths and we are free to let the people we love most in the world see us as we actually are. And in knowing us, wholly and completely, we form familial bonds that are stronger and more loving because of it.

In many ways, family is THE source of our strength. I find strength in the memory of my abuela, who modeled for me how transformational truth and love can be. Growing up, I never would?ve imagined that she could have embraced me as fully as she did after I disclosed to her my sexual orientation. I know she didn?t understand it right away but she grew in her understanding and showed me as only grandmothers can, in big ways and small. She told me in the way she ran to me whenever I walked in her door, in the way she bestowed her blessing on me at the end of every phone call, ?Que dios te bendiga?? ?May God bless you.? In the end, it didn?t matter to my grandmother WHO I loved, it mattered THAT I loved. All she saw was the love between us. I miss her and I?m so proud of her for that.

I like to think that, someday, I could be a father and that my husband and I could share with the kids we adopt together the story about my abuela, Carmen, and her capacity to grow in love her entire life. That?s my dream. I?d love to take them for a walk on the beach in Luqillo or a hike in El Yunque and know that the beautiful island from which I can track my family?s history for generations acknowledged and respected my family ? ALL OF IT! If my abuela could do it, I know that the government of Puerto Rico can do it, too.

The fact is, Puerto Rico?s Supreme Court sent a cruel message to gay people: that we?re less of value than anyone else, that our parenting skills are secondary to opposite sex couples. I?m sure their decision was based on ignorance about same-sex parents.

If Puerto Rico is truly going to have an island-wide conversation about the rights of families and pass judgment on what constitutes a family let me first suggest that those in positions of power base those judgments on facts and not myths, on love and not fear.

A large body of research consistently concludes that being raised by gay or lesbian parents has no adverse effects on children. Kids of gay parents are just as healthy and well-adjusted as other children.

It?s now up to the government of Puerto Rico to teach what the Courts obviously don?t know?that in the end, it?s only the love that counts. Let the people of Puerto Rico witness for themselves the love modeled to them by LGBT families and they?ll know the truth and be transformed by what my abuela taught me: LOVE makes a family.

(Photo by Jason Merritt/Getty Images)

Wilson Cruz is an openly gay actor and National Spokesperson and Strategic Giving Officer at GLAAD. Tweet him at @wcruz73 and @glaad.

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Source: http://nbclatino.com/2013/02/27/op-ed-love-is-what-makes-a-family/

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Imperial H1 up 14 pct, sees challenging market ahead

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - South African logistics group Imperial Holdings reported a 14 percent rise in first-half profit on Wednesday as debt-led consumer spending lifted its auto unit and offset a weak logistic market.

Imperial, which runs car rentals, dealerships and logistics businesses, said headline earnings per share totalled 829 cents in the six months to end-December compared with 727 cents a year ago.

Headline EPS, the primary profit gauge in South Africa, strips out certain one-off items.

Imperial, the nation's biggest owner of car showrooms, is benefiting from decades-low interest rates and above-inflation wage increases that have helped underpin car sales while its logistics business at home is struggling due to a tentative economic recovery.

Revenue was 18 percent higher at 45.3 billion rand.

Imperial and other car showroom operators sold 9.2 percent more cars in 2012, a solid year despite slowing economic growth and job losses.

The company said trading conditions in the South African logistics market and in the car rental and tourism industries would remain challenging, while its international logistics business would be impacted by a slowing German economy.

"We expect subdued growth in the 2013 financial year," it said, but added that its balance sheet was strong and the company was well positioned to take advantage of any attractive growth and acquisition opportunities as they arise.

The company declared an interim dividend of 380 cents, up 27 percent on the previous year.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/imperial-h1-14-pct-sees-challenging-market-ahead-061159111--finance.html

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US nuclear dump is leaking toxic waste

Waste from the production of US nukes is on the loose. Toxic cargo is escaping from six of the 177 ageing tanks at the Hanford site in Washington state where the nation stores two-thirds of its high-level nuclear waste, most of it from the production of nuclear bombs.

The site houses 200 million litres of radioactive and hazardous waste, and 67 tanks have leaked waste before. The new leaks undermine recent reassurances that the dump is now secure.

The biggest worry is that highly radioactive sludges containing heat-generating isotopes are corroding the bottoms of the tanks, following work to drain off most of the liquid waste which allowed the isotopes to collect there, says Bob Alvarez of the Institute of Policy Studies in Washington DC.

"There is no immediate public health risk," said Lindsey Geisler, a spokesperson for the Department of Energy. However, much of the waste has already contaminated groundwater, says Tom Carpenter of Hanford Challenge, an environmental watchdog in Seattle, Washington.

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Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 LTE ships to US Cellular

Americans wanting a Galaxy Note 10.1 LTE of their own have largely been biding their time for a Verizon model. They're still waiting for that variant to show, but US Cellular isn't -- it just started shipping its own variant of the 4G tablet. From all indications, the slate is largely a branding swap that's adapted to the carrier's network, which is good news for prospective buyers who aren't dead set on Big Red. Pricing might give at least some customers pause, however. US Cellular's Note 10.1 LTE costs $500 only when it's paired with at least a 2GB data plan, and $800 no strings attached. With that kind of outlay, you'll want to be fully committed to the concept of pen-based computing before picking one up.

Filed under: Tablets, Samsung

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Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/02/27/samsung-galaxy-note-10-1-lte-ships-to-us-cellular/

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Tamera Mowry-Housley: It?s Important to Let Post-Baby Body Pressure Go

"I have all of these curves I didn't have before," the new mom - with twin sister Tia Mowry-Hardict by her side at the Essence Black Women in Hollywood Awards Luncheon - tells PEOPLE. "I wanted to show them off!"

Source: http://feeds.celebritybabies.com/~r/celebrity-babies/~3/oFdnuTQD0ms/

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Chris Cooper cast as Green Goblin in "Amazing Spider-Man" sequel

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - Chris Cooper has been cast as Norman Osborn - the Green Goblin's corporate alter ego - in Marc Webb's "The Amazing Spider-Man 2," a spokesman for Sony told TheWrap.

The character is one of Peter Parker's most infamous villains, and was portrayed by Willem Dafoe in Sam Raimi's "Spider-Man" trilogy. "Chronicle" star Dane DeHaan has already been cast as Harry Osborn, who is Norman's son and Parker's best friend.

Spider-Man, played by Andrew Garfield, will have his hands full in his next big-screen adventure, as it's been previously announced that he'll be facing off against Jamie Foxx ("Django Unchained") as Electro and Paul Giamatti ("Sideways") as the Rhino.

The teenage superhero will also be juggling multiple romantic relationships, too. Emma Stone is returning as Gwen Stacy, while Shailene Woodley ("The Descendants") is portraying Mary Jane Watson - a character previously played by Kirsten Dunst.

Production for the second film in the planned trilogy is already underway, with its release scheduled for May 2, 2014.

Cooper, an Academy Award winner in 2002 for best supporting actor in "Adaptation," was seen in theaters as the maniacal oil executive Tex Richman in 2011's "The Muppets," and will next appear in "August: Osage County."

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/chris-cooper-cast-green-goblin-amazing-spider-man-215826547.html

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Video: Dule Hill: ?We don?t take ourselves too seriously?

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Google Settings app sneaks onto Android to bolster G+ Sign-In

If you're wondering what that pretty green icon is that may have popped up recently on your Android device, worry not -- it's just the new Settings app from Google. You can now access preferences from Maps, Google+ and Search from one place through the app, and also see which are hooked in to the new Google+ Sign-In system we saw yesterday. Google took the unusual step of installing the app without asking via a Google Play service update, and if you haven't seen it yet you can force the issue by going to the application manager, clearing the data from Google Play services and rebooting. With its various apps becoming more intertwined, it wouldn't be surprising if Google dumped more settings there in the future, so you may as well get a handle on it now.

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'Vulcan' and 'Cerberus' Win Pluto Moon Naming Poll

The votes are in, and it looks like 'Vulcan' could be the new name for one of Pluto's smallest moons.

After weeks of online ballot casting by people around the world, the poll asking the public to name two of Pluto's moons ? currently called P4 and P5 ? ended today (Feb. 25).

As of 12 p.m. (1700 GMT), the polls closed with a total of 450,324 total votes cast since Feb. 11 with 'Vulcan,' a Pluto moon name proposed by Star Trek's William Shatner,?is the clear winner.?Vulcan nabbed roughly 160,000 votes, with Cerberus in clear second place with nearly 100,000 votes.

Vulcan was a late addition to the Pluto moon name contenders, and pulled into the lead after Shatner, building on his Capt. James T. Kirk persona, plugged the name on Twitter. Vulcan, the home planet of Kirk's alien-human hybrid first officer Spock, is not just a fictional world in the Star Trek universe. It is also the name of the god of fire in Roman mythology, and officials at SETI added the sci-fi favorite to the ballot for that reason.

"Vulcan is the Roman god of lava and smoke, and the nephew of Pluto. (Any connection to the Star Trek TV series is purely coincidental, although we can be sure that Gene Roddenberry read the classics.)," wrote SETI scientist Mark Showalter in a blog officially adding the name to the list on Feb. 12. "Thanks to William Shatner for the suggestion!"

These votes don't necessarily mean that P4 and P5 will end up being called Vulcan and Cerberus, however. SETI is going to recommend the winning names to the International Astronomical Union ? the organization responsible for naming the moons. The IAU will take the results into consideration, but ultimately they have final say over what the tiny moons are called.

Pluto has five moons ?that astronomers currently know of. Scientists first caught sight of Pluto's largest moon Charon in 1978, but it was not until 2005 that astronomers discovered two other moons (Nix and Hydra) using the Hubble Space Telescope.

The moon P5 was discovered in 2012, also using the?Hubble telescope ?. The moon P4 was discovered in 2011. Both P4 and P5 are only 15 to 20 miles (20 to 30 km) in diameter.

Follow Miriam Kramer on Twitter?@mirikramer?or SPACE.com?@Spacedotcom. We're also on Facebook?&?Google+.?

Copyright 2013 SPACE.com, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/vulcan-cerberus-win-pluto-moon-naming-poll-173418595.html

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White House steps up campaign to avoid spending cuts

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The White House escalated a campaign on Monday to convince Americans dire consequences await if government spending cuts go ahead on March 1, warning of a slowdown in global trade, a stalled fight against cancer and Alzheimer's disease and compromised security at U.S. borders.

At the same time, prominent Republicans said President Barack Obama was overstating the potential damage of the $85 billion in government-wide cuts to frighten the public.

"There is a responsible way to cut less than 3 percent of the federal budget. It's time for the president to show leadership," Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal told reporters after a meeting between the president and governors. "The president needs to stop campaigning, stop trying to scare the American people."

Jindal's comments followed the president's plea for Republican and Democratic governors to press Congress to stop the cuts, telling them he was willing to compromise with Republican lawmakers.

Obama will meet leading Senate Republicans John McCain and Lindsey Graham on Tuesday to discuss immigration reform efforts, but a McCain aide said the talks could also delve into efforts to halt the cuts.

Graham is a member of Senate committees on appropriations and the federal budget. He and McCain both sit on the armed services panel. The McCain aide said the U.S. troop drawdown from Afghanistan could also be discussed on Tuesday.

But the president has given no sign that he would try to start negotiations or take steps to blunt the effect of the cuts. He bemoaned what he described as a confrontational atmosphere in Washington, where budget battles have provoked one near-crisis after another since the summer of 2011.

In recent weeks the White House has sought to highlight in stark terms the disruptions that would begin on Friday if federal programs are cut.

On Monday, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano warned the cuts would increase delays at ports of entry into the United States for container cargo by "up to five days."

Average wait times at customs for travelers will increase "by as much as 50 percent," she added, with even longer delays at the busiest airports such as Newark, Los Angeles and New York's JFK where delays could double to "four hours or more."

"I'm not here to scare people, I'm here to inform," Napolitano said at a White House briefing. "Please don't yell at the customs officer or the (Transportation Security Administration) officer because the lines are long," she said. "The lines over the next few weeks are going to start to lengthen in some dramatic ways in parts of the country."

Also Monday, Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health, told reporters that the $1.6 billion cutback would hit the 240-bed NIH Clinical Center in Bethesda, Maryland, where doctors study rare diseases and conduct clinical trials to test new drugs for conditions ranging from cancer and AIDS to depression and genetic disorders.

The NIH also predicted that a lack of funding for hundreds of new grants could jeopardize as many as 20,000 research jobs across the United States and slow vital projects to fight cancer and Alzheimer's disease, develop a universal influenza vaccine and gain fresh insights into the activities of the human brain.

The administration began ratcheting up its warnings on Friday when Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood described cuts at airports that he said would cause domestic air travelers significant delays.

Over the weekend, the White House distributed state-by-state projections of lost jobs and cuts in education funding for poor children. These figures were widely reported on local news broadcasts.

HOW LONG WILL CUTS LAST?

The actual impact of the cuts will depend largely on how long they last.

Many of the projections are based on the likelihood that government employees will be furloughed - told to take unpaid days off - in order to meet the demands of the cuts.

But the furloughs won't occur for at least a month, or perhaps later, because federal rules require the government to give its employees 30-days notice.

Congress and the White House also could agree to stop or ease the cuts before they run their course.

Neither the White House nor members of Congress have offered reason to hope for a deal before Friday's deadline.

Asked Monday whether he thought the automatic cuts, called "sequestration" in Washington-speak, would take effect, House Speaker John Boehner, a Republican, responded: "hope springs eternal."

Both sides have concentrated more in recent days on apportioning responsibility for the spending reductions, to which both sides agreed in August 2011 with the expectation that the sequestration would never come to pass.

The White House public relations initiative has increasingly drawn criticism from Republicans who accuse the president of exaggerating and traveling around "campaigning" instead of looking for ways to avoid the cuts.

"We heard the president say last week that he was going to be forced because of the sequestration to let criminals loose on the street if he didn't get another tax hike," House Majority Leader Eric Cantor told reporters Monday.

"Today, we're hearing discussions from the Secretary of Homeland Security that somehow we're going to have to sacrifice homeland security efforts and keeping our country safe if we don't get another tax hike. This is a false choice."

White House press secretary Jay Carney responded Monday that the administration is just trying to "highlight the impact of sequester, and by doing so, hope that attention will be brought to bear on that problem, and the need for Congress to act responsibly to avoid it."

Obama is scheduled to travel to Cantor's state of Virgina on Tuesday, to press his case at the Newport News shipyard. The cuts fall evenly on non-defense and defense spending, with states like Virginia, heavily dependent on Pentagon contracts, expected to be hardest hit.

(Reporting by Mark Felsenthal and David Morgan; Editing by Fred Barbash, Eric Beech, Jackie Frank, Eric Walsh)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/white-house-steps-campaign-avoid-spending-cuts-021455164--business.html

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On sequester, Boehner tells Senate to get "off their ass" (cbsnews)

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Writing Articles To Increase Your Google Ranking | ? The Online ...

Search engines determine their rankings based on two things:

1) Is your site relevant? (Optimized for certain keywords)

2) Is your site important? (Many links back to your site from other sites)

Only when you address both of these considerations are you guaranteed of making an impact. Your degree of success depends on how hard you try and how many other people you?re competing against (and how hard they?re trying).

Optimizing your site for keywords is the easy part. (See http://www.divinewrite.com/seocopy.htm for more information on SEO copy.) Generating links back to your site is much more challenging ? and time consuming (especially considering Google?s dampening link filter ? see http://www.divinewrite.com/googlelinkfilter.htm). But it can be done; and you don?t need a huge budget.

The key to topping Google on a budget is writing articles.

Here?s how it works?

STEP 1) You?re an expert in your field so you possess knowledge that other people want.

STEP 2) You write a helpful article ? sharing your hard-earned knowledge and expertise.

STEP 3) You submit your article to recognized ?Article Submit? sites on the Internet.

STEP 4) Publishers of online newsletters, ezines, etc. gather content from these sites for free.

STEP 5) Helpful, well written articles are snapped up by thousands of publishers from all around the world.

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Q) What should I write about?

A) Write about what you know. Make sure it?s related to your business (so you can use the keywords you want to rank with) and helpful (so it gets published). For example, if you?re a manufacturer of industrial plastics, you might write an article ? or series of articles ? on how best to handle teflon tubing prior to installation. Once you get thinking about it, you?ll probably find there are hundreds of articles you could write that are helpful. You may even have some of them partly written already in your instruction manuals or installation guides, etc. Another good idea is to think of all the questions you get asked by customers and potential customers. These questions show you what people are interested in. If you write an article answering every one of these questions, you?ll get published, and you?ll also show yourself to be a credible expert. (You may even cut down phone support time!)

Q) How long should my article be?

A) The best articles are only as long as they need to be. Keep it short and sweet ? there?s nothing wrong with a 400 word article. By the same token, if you need 1500 words to say all you need to say, that?s fine as well.

Q) What kind of writing should I use?

A) Simply write in a style that your audience will be comfortable with. If they?re from the old school, don?t write like I am. Don?t use contractions, don?t end sentences with prepositions, and don?t start sentences with ?and? or ?but?. But if they?re not old school, just use conversational English. In fact, the more of yourself you include in the article, the more engaging it will be. The key is to make it readable.

Q) Should I focus on keywords?

A) Yes! Yes! Yes! Any SEO website copywriter will tell you that just as you need to optimize your website for specific keywords, so too should you optimize your articles. If possible, turn keywords into links back to your site. And always try to include keywords in the headline and byline of your article. And don?t worry about being seen as Spam; if your article provides good quality information and guidance, it won?t be seen as spam by the search engines even when it?s very keyword rich.

Q) Where should I submit my article?

A) There are hundreds, if not thousands, of submit sites on the Internet. Too many to include here. Do a search for ?article submit? and just find the ones that are most applicable to your industry and offer the most subscribers. Alternatively, you can purchase a list.

Q) Who will publish my article?

A) Generally people publish pre-written articles because they want ?eyes on paper?. In other words, they want to generate traffic to their site. Helpful articles are one way of doing that. It also sets them up as credible authorities on a particular subject. And it develops customer loyalty. There are hundreds of thousands of companies (maybe even millions) publishing online newsletters, ezines, and article pages. No matter what your industry, you?re bound to find quite a few who are interested in what you have to say. In fact, once a few publishers recognise you as a good source of content, they keep coming back looking for more (and even email you asking if you can send them directly).

Q) How will I know when my article has been published?

A) As one of the conditions of publications, you can request that the publisher notifies you when they use your article. Of course, most don?t bother to do this, so it?s a good idea to set up a Google Alert (http://www.google.com/alerts) which notifies you when your URL has been published on a web page. Google doesn?t pick them all up, but it picks up a lot. Whenever you receive an alert, you make sure the article in unchanged and the link back to your site is functioning.

Q) Will the publisher change my article?

A) No, generally not. Changing articles is just extra work. In fact, that?s why publishers like good articles and consistent content providers ? because that means they don?t have to do any extra work. I?ve had many articles published, and don?t recall a single instance of an article being changed without my permission. If you?re worried about it, you can include an instruction not to change the article in your conditions of publication.

Q) Can I get an SEO copywriter to write and submit my articles?

A) Yes. Any SEO copywriter should be able to write keyword rich articles and submit them to a number of high traffic article submit sites.

Q) What kind of information would I need to supply an SEO copywriter to write my article?

A) You?d need to tell your SEO copywriter something like, ?We want to write an article which helps people install teflon tubing. The kinds of people who?d be doing it are? They?d be doing it because? The benefits of our tubing are? The difficulties they?d face are? Here are the key steps to successful installation?? Using this information, your SEO copywriter should be able to put together a very readable article which would be bound to get published.

Q) Will my reputation suffer if my article appears on a dodgy site?

A) It shouldn?t. Most dodgy sites will be either unrelated or have very low traffic. If the site is unrelated, the publisher won?t go to the effort of publishing your article. If it?s related but has very low traffic, very few people will see your article there anyway. And besides, even if your article appears on a dodgy site, it probably won?t be changed because ? dodgy or not ? publishers don?t create extra work for themselves. So your original presentation, content, and intent will be unaffected. Write? good articles, and it always reflects well on you, no matter where?they are?published.

Source: http://theonlinemarketingplace.com/blogging/writing-articles-to-increase-your-google-ranking/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=writing-articles-to-increase-your-google-ranking

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2nd blizzard bearing down on Plains region

DODGE CITY, Kan. (AP) ? A second major winter storm was bearing down on the central Plains, forcing cancellations and sending public works crews scrambling for salt and sand supplies less than a week after another system dumped more than a foot of snow on parts of the region.

National Weather Service officials in Kansas issued blizzard warnings and watches through late Monday ahead of the strong storm system that's packing snow and high winds. The storm has been tracking across western Texas toward Oklahoma, Kansas and Missouri.

"We're expecting more wind with this storm," said Jeff Johnson, meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Dodge City, Kan. "Snow amounts are varying, but we could see upward of a foot across south-central Kansas with lesser amounts across west-central and central Kansas."

Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback amended the state of emergency declaration he signed last week to include the new storm.

"This storm has the potential to be more dangerous than last week's storm," said Brownback, who held a briefing Sunday night along with emergency officials in his state to warn residents about the weather.

He urged motorists to "stay off the road unless it's absolutely critical" but said drivers who must travel should pack their charged cellphones and emergency kits containing food, water, blankets, road flares and shovels.

The region was hit by a massive storm last week that dumped a foot of snow in some sections, closed airports and caused numerous accidents.

"It would have been nice if we'd had a few days to recover, to do some equipment rehab," Joe Pajor, deputy director of public works in Wichita, Kan., told The Wichita Eagle. The city saw its second-highest snowfall ever Thursday with 14.2 inches.

Other totals from the Thursday snowstorm included 18 inches in the southern Kansas town of Zenda, 17 inches in Hays, Kan., about 13 inches in northeast Missouri and 12 inches of snow in parts of Kansas City.

Steve Corfidi, meteorologist with the National Weather Service's Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Okla., said the storm also will affect southern states and could spawn tornadoes Tuesday in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, the Florida Panhandle and Georgia.

"It definitely will be one of the more significant events of the season, the winter season, absolutely," Corfidi told The Associated Press. "Both in winter weather and severe weather potential, and rain, down in the southeast United States."

More than a foot of snow is possible from the Texas Panhandle, across the Oklahoma Panhandle and into Kansas and possibly Missouri as the storm moves eastward from the southwestern United States.

While snowfall is expected to taper off by Monday afternoon, wind gusts of up to 35 mph will remain a hazard, said Sarah Johnson, a meteorologist in the National Weather Service's Amarillo, Texas, office.

Pajor told the Wichita newspaper the new storm "looks worse than the last one" and that sand and salt supplies are low because of last week's record storm, as are the number of locations where snow can be transported off city streets. He said the plowing strategy for the new blizzard may have to involve plowing snow into the center of arterial streets, and cutting traffic to one lane each direction.

He also said streets won't be treated with the city's limited sand and salt supplies until the snow ends and plowing is under way.

The threat of the pending storm forced cancellations Sunday and Monday in Kansas and Missouri, including the championship basketball tournament for the Kansas Collegiate Athletic Association, which rescheduled the tournament for Tuesday in Park City, Kan.

Matt Lehenbauer, emergency management director for Woodward County, Okla., said he expected rain or snow to begin there Sunday evening and forecast up to a foot of snow and wind gusts up to 50 miles per hour.

"We're expecting white-out conditions," he told the AP.

He said there is plenty of salt and sand on hand to help clear roads, but the conditions may cause delays.

"We may not get the roads cleared until midday Tuesday if we get the expected amount of snow and wind. As it's falling, in the blizzard-like conditions, we just won't be able to keep up," he said.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/2nd-blizzard-bearing-down-plains-region-213115525.html

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Scientists develop a whole new way of harvesting energy from the sun

Feb. 24, 2013 ? A new method of harvesting the Sun's energy is emerging, thanks to scientists at UC Santa Barbara's Departments of Chemistry, Chemical Engineering, and Materials. Though still in its infancy, the research promises to convert sunlight into energy using a process based on metals that are more robust than many of the semiconductors used in conventional methods.

The researchers' findings are published in the latest issue of the journal Nature Nanotechnology.

"It is the first radically new and potentially workable alternative to semiconductor-based solar conversion devices to be developed in the past 70 years or so," said Martin Moskovits, professor of chemistry at UCSB.

In conventional photoprocesses, a technology developed and used over the last century, sunlight hits the surface of semiconductor material, one side of which is electron-rich, while the other side is not. The photon, or light particle, excites the electrons, causing them to leave their postions, and create positively-charged "holes." The result is a current of charged particles that can be captured and delivered for various uses, including powering lightbulbs, charging batteries, or facilitating chemical reactions.

"For example, the electrons might cause hydrogen ions in water to be converted into hydrogen, a fuel, while the holes produce oxygen," said Moskovits.

In the technology developed by Moskovits and his team, it is not semiconductor materials that provide the electrons and venue for the conversion of solar energy, but nanostructured metals -- a "forest" of gold nanorods, to be specific.

For this experiment, gold nanorods were capped with a layer of crystalline titanium dioxide decorated with platinum nanoparticles, and set in water. A cobalt-based oxidation catalyst was deposited on the lower portion of the array.

"When nanostructures, such as nanorods, of certain metals are exposed to visible light, the conduction electrons of the metal can be caused to oscillate collectively, absorbing a great deal of the light," said Moskovits. "This excitation is called a surface plasmon."

As the "hot" electrons in these plasmonic waves are excited by light particles, some travel up the nanorod, through a filter layer of crystalline titanium dioxide, and are captured by platinum particles. This causes the reaction that splits hydrogen ions from the bond that forms water. Meanwhile, the holes left behind by the excited electrons head toward the cobalt-based catalyst on the lower part of the rod to form oxygen.

According to the study, hydrogen production was clearly observable after about two hours. Additionally, the nanorods were not subject to the photocorrosion that often causes traditional semiconductor material to fail in minutes.

"The device operated with no hint of failure for many weeks," Moskovits said.

The plasmonic method of splitting water is currently less efficient and more costly than conventional photoprocesses, but if the last century of photovoltaic technology has shown anything, it is that continued research will improve on the cost and efficiency of this new method -- and likely in far less time than it took for the semiconductor-based technology, said Moskovits.

"Despite the recentness of the discovery, we have already attained 'respectable' efficiencies. More importantly, we can imagine achievable strategies for improving the efficiencies radically," he said.

Research in this study was also performed by postdoctoral researchers Syed Mubeen and Joun Lee; grad student Nirala Singh; materials engineer Stephan Kraemer; and chemistry professor Galen Stucky.

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by University of California - Santa Barbara.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

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Journal Reference:

1. Syed Mubeen, Joun Lee, Nirala Singh, Stephan Kr?mer, Galen D. Stucky, Martin Moskovits. An autonomous photosynthetic device in which all charge carriers derive from surface plasmons. Nature Nanotechnology, 2013; DOI: 10.1038/nnano.2013.18

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/top_technology/~3/aTqnvmAaFnw/130224142917.htm

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Video: Sequestration blame game

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Source: http://video.msnbc.msn.com/nightly-news/50932978/

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Link Building Strategy ? The Right Way To Do It.

Website promotion is essential to pimp your e-business. Building an internet site isn't enough for carrying on a successful online business. You've got to adopt right link building method to push your website in a search engine compliant demeanour. Search sites consider link acclaim as an important factor to determine the ranks of the websites.

An internet site with top quality links is probably going to list among the first ten results of the search websites. The link acceptance for each search engine isn't the same as the other. You will find out the link acclaim by typing Link: domain name of the website in the search engine. The compete details of the sites linking to your website will be in front of you.

You can create an effective link building system to raise the link popularity of your website. You can incorporate three types of links for this reason internal, external and reciprocal links.

The very best way to have a good linking plan for your website is to develop a site map. A site map is the plan of the whole internet site that contains whole links on an internet site. The links are specified in the opinion of the specific details of a topic. They're most often given in a hierarchical manner. The links must be text links containing the keywords related to your site. This makes the search of the search website for links quite straightforward.

You can have a top notch internal links and can get the pages of your website linked internally. The internet site is rated as a top quality web site, if it has correctly placed internal links. The link building strategy also tensions up on the outgoing links. They make your website user friendly.

Connecting to the right websites makes your internet site to access great content. If the content of the sites related to your internet site is not good or useless, the search sites will not consider such links as handy. The message is clear that you must stress on the standard of the links instead of the quantity.

The inbound links are the most significant for link building technique. It is possible to get other internet sites to provide a link to your website by developing good content. According to the specialists, content of an internet site is the primary decisive allow for link building. Others will be interested to link to your internet site, if and only if, you've got a good content on it.

The expert link building strategy is also to build reciprocal links with the competition. This is favourable to both the parties of linking. Both will supply carefully targeted traffic to each other. This link building technique is the final mantra for getting top quality links and gain good link popularity as the data on both the links will be related to one another.

The accurate link building method pushes ahead your target of link recognition, leading to high search website ranks.

WP-backlink-Prois 1 back-link 1 tool can offer you the solution. Stop wasting your time and economize on your link building

Source: http://10minutesqueezepages.com/news/link-building-strategy-the-right-way-to-do-it/

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On Sunday talk shows, automatic budget cuts find few fans

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The automatic budget cuts set to take hold this week were roundly condemned Sunday as governors, lawmakers and administration officials hoped for a deal to stave off the $85 billion reduction in government services.

Suggestions intended to instill a spirit of compromise included bringing all sides to the bargaining table, where they could act like "adults, a presidential summit at Camp David and even a field trip to watch "Lincoln."

The alternative, as the White House outlined, is a damaging impact on everything from commercial flights to classrooms and meat inspections.

With Friday's deadline nearing, few in the nation's capital were optimistic that a realistic alternative could be found. Instead of dealing with problem at hand, both sides made assigning blame a priority as the clock ticked down.

"Unless the Republicans are willing to compromise and do a balanced approach, I think it will kick in," said Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo.

No, it's the Democrats who are to blame, the GOP countered.

"The reason there is no agreement is because there's no leadership from the president on actually recognizing what the problem is," said Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla.

The administration warned of the approaching economic fallout.

Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said travelers could see delayed flights. Education Secretary Arne Duncan said 70,000 fewer children from low-income families would have access to Head Start programs. Furloughed meat inspectors could leave plants idled.

"It's senseless and it doesn't need to happen," said Gov. Martin O'Malley, D-Md., during the annual meeting of the National Governors Association this weekend.

"And it's a damn shame, because we've actually had the fastest rate of jobs recovery of any state in our region. And this really threatens to hurt a lot of families in our state and kind of flat line our job growth for the next several months."

Some governors said the impasse was just the latest crisis in Washington that is keeping businesses from hiring and undermining the ability of state leaders to develop their own spending plans.

"I've not given up hope, but we're going to be prepared for whatever comes," said Gov. Brian Sandoval, R-Nev. "There will be consequences for our state."

Connecticut Gov. Dan Malloy said it is past time for both sides to sit down to help dodge cuts that will hurt all states' budgets.

"Come to the table, everyone. Everybody. Let's work this thing out. Let's be adults," Malloy said.

Obama has not been able to find success for his approach of reducing deficits through a combination of targeted savings and tax increases. House Republicans have said reduced spending needs to be the focus and have rejected the president's demand to include higher taxes as part of a compromise.

LaHood warned travelers could face delays because the Federal Aviation Administration is in line for $600 million in spending cuts.

"We're going to try and cut as much as we possibly can out of contracts and other things that we do," said LaHood, a Republican serving in the Democratic Obama administration. "But in the end, there has to be some kind of furlough of air traffic controllers, and that then will also begin to curtail or eliminate the opportunity for them to guide planes in and out of airports."

Duncan said school districts were already bracing for fewer teachers when school starts in the fall but urged lawmakers to return to negotiations.

"This is not rocket science. We could solve this tomorrow," Duncan said.

There are fewer signs of urgency among congressional leaders, who have recently indicated their willingness to let the cuts take effect and stay in place for weeks, if not much longer.

"It will kick in, but at a pro rata rate. So, you're not going to see $85 billion all of a sudden shrink from the federal government," Coburn said, suggesting the reality would not turn dire immediately.

The cuts would trim from domestic and defense spending alike, leading to furloughs for hundreds of thousands of workers. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has said the cuts would harm the readiness of U.S. fighting forces.

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., called those defense cuts "unconscionable" and urged Obama to call lawmakers to the White House or the presidential retreat of Camp David for a last-minute budget summit.

"I won't put all the blame all on the president of the United States. But the president leads. The president should be calling us over somewhere ? Camp David, the White House, somewhere ? and us sitting down and trying to avert these cuts," McCain said.

LaHood, who served as a Republican representing Illinois in the U.S. House, urged his colleagues to watch "Lincoln," Steven Spielberg's film about President Abraham Lincoln's political skills.

"Everybody around here ought to go take a look at the 'Lincoln' movie, where they did very hard things by working together, talking together and compromising," LaHood said. "That's what's needed here."

McCaskill and Coburn appeared on "Fox News Sunday." Malloy and McCain were interviewed on CNN's "State of the Union." LaHood spoke with CNN and NBC's "Meet the Press." Duncan spoke to CBS' "Face the Nation."

___

Follow Steve Peoples at: http://twitter.com/sppeoples and Ken Thomas at: http://twitter.com/AP_Ken_Thomas

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/automatic-budget-cuts-few-fans-163613854.html

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Acura comes roaring back with NSX supercar

Paul A. Eisenstein , The Detroit Bureau ? ? ? 1 day

These days, it?s common for automakers to display ?concept cars? on the auto show circuit that are thinly disguised versions of upcoming production models ? like the MDX Acura introduced at the Detroit Auto Show last month.

But the show car that drew the real crowds was a model that won?t hit the street for at least two years, the reincarnation of Acura?s once formidable NSX supercar.

The Japanese maker is desperately hoping that the re-born NSX will grab the high-line brand some much-needed attention and bring curious new shoppers into Acura showrooms even before it reaches production.

When it was launched more than a quarter-century ago, Acura transformed the way Americans thought about Japanese cars, proving that the Asians could challenge the well-established European and domestic luxury brands. But the initial success of the Honda Motor Co. subsidiary proved far too fleeting and in recent years, Acura has lagged in the back of the premium pack.

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?It was a brave experiment when it was first launched,? says automotive analyst George Peterson, of AutoPacific, Inc. And now, he adds, there are signs Acura ?has hit bottom and is on the upswing.?

That was clearly something the maker intended to prove when it invited automotive journalists to the race track in Sonoma, California, several weeks back, to check out the new Acura RLX and pit it against some of its most formidable competitors, including the Mercedes-Benz E-Class and BMW 5-Series.

?This is a big deal for us,? asserted Mike Accavitti, the marque?s head of marketing. ?It?s the best product we have ever built.?

What the Honda subsidiary has pronounced its new ?flagship? is the direct heir to the original Acura Legend, a stylish and technically sophisticated product that turned conventional wisdom on its head. Produced in both coupe and sedan body styles, the original Acura model quickly ran up the sales chart and, if anything, created a conundrum for Honda officials who feared the Legend nameplate was better known than that of Acura itself.

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Their solution proved disastrous. They not only replaced the Legend but switched to a new, European-style alphanumeric nameplate strategy for its replacement ? and for the new models to follow. The problem is that the cache of the original products was lost and motorists became completely confused by the new names; was the new flagship the RL or TL was a frequently heard question.

?Internally, they believe that (name) change cost them $1.5 billion in lost sales,? says Peterson, who has worked with Acura strategists over the years to figure out how to regain lost momentum.

Compounding the situation, Acura faced a wave of new competitors, including the even more up-market Japanese upstarts Lexus and Infiniti, launched by Toyota and Nissan respectively, which looked at Acura as a ?case study,? says the analyst.

Acura seemed to be regaining its footing in the early days of the new Millennium with an assortment of products such as the downsized RDX crossover, sales climbing to a record 209,610 in 2005 and putting it within striking distance of the first-tier luxury brands.

The Detroit Bureau: VW to Build 261 mpg 2-seater

But then, industry observers suggest, the Honda subsidiary again shot itself in the foot with a series of new mistakes, such as the introduction of an oversized chrome grille shield that has been derisively dubbed the ?beak.?

The new RLX and upcoming MDX feature a significantly smaller version of that shiny proboscis, but Acura remains committed to the alphanumeric nameplate strategy despite senior officials admitting it still confuses many customers.

But they?re hoping that a broader product line that is receiving generally positive reviews will overcome such concerns. It should also help, said Accavitti, to have new products like the Acura RLX offered at prices ?$1000s less than comparably equipped competitors.?

In keeping with its roots, meanwhile, the new models will also put an emphasis on advanced technologies, from state-of-the-art infotainment systems to the electric Super-Handling All-Wheel-Drive Acura will launch in the coming year.

That technical mouthful, abbreviated as e-SH-AWD, is a hybrid drivetrain that can deliver excellent fuel economy in routine driving but transform a vehicle like the RLX into a serious performance machine when the driver stomps the throttle. The unusual layout, which uses a V-6 gas engine and three electric motors also can direct power to individual wheels to help improve handling in aggressive turns, a concept known as torque vectoring.

An even more aggressive version of the system will be the fast-beating heart of the NSX, which is expected to debut in late 2014 or early 2015, Acura officials hint.

The maker clearly needs the boost. Sales tumbled to just 105,723 in 2009, a notably sharper downturn that the overall U.S. automotive market. Last year, the maker posted a strong gain, but at 156,216 cars and crossovers it was still down nearly 25% from its all-time high.

The new year is off to a good start, January volume up about 13%, year-over-year, buoyed by other new models such as the entry-lux sedan the Acura ILX.

Acura still has some serious challenges to overcome, but the maker appears to be making inroads after what some have dubbed a lost decade. It helps to have new products at the top and bottom of the luxury range ? and a striking new NSX supercar in the offing that packs potential buyers in whenever it goes on display.

Copyright ? 2009-2012, The Detroit Bureau

Source: http://www.nbcnews.com/business/acura-comes-roaring-back-nsx-supercar-1C8496355

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