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Since launching Let’s Move! on February 9, 2010, significant progress has been made to solve the problem of childhood obesity. Parents, businesses, educators, elected officials, members of the military, chefs, physicians, athletes, childcare providers, community and faith leaders and kids themselves have made substantial commitments to improve the health of our nation’s children.

Later this week, First Lady Michelle Obama is hitting the road to kick off a three day, nation-wide tour celebrating the anniversary of Let’s Move!. The Let’s Move! tour will highlight examples of people making changes across the country, from a single family to an entire state.

First Lady Michelle Obama, with chefs Todd Grey from Equinox, left, and Sam Kass, from the White House, gestures during a “Let’s Move!” event with hundreds of chefs from around the country on the South Lawn of the White House, June 4, 2010. The First Lady called on chefs to get involved by adopting a school and working with teachers, parents, school nutritionists and administrators to help educate kids about food and nutrition. June 4, 2010. (Official White House Photo by Lawrence Jackson)

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Fat Smitty’s adalah restoran keluarga yang telah dikelola turun temurun. Sejak tahun 2009, Fat Smitty’s dikelola oleh Casey Carson, generasi keempat. Bangunan resto ini telah dibangun dari tahun 1940-an, dan kini perlu diperbaiki baik bangunan maupun dekorasinya.

Akibatnya, seluruh uang di dinding restorannya harus dicabut. Nantinya, seluruh uang tersebut akan disumbangkan. Selama lebih dari seperempat abad, uang yang berhasil dikumpulkan mencapai angka Rp.91.729.000,00!

Tradisi menempelkan uang dimulai tahun 1985, ketika seorangsalesman menuliskan namanya di atas uang kertas dan menempelkannya di dinding. Hingga 27 tahun kemudian, lebih dari 10.000 pengunjung melakukan hal yang sama. Mereka menuliskan sesuatu di atas uang tersebut, lalu menempelkannya.

Dari total uang yang ada, Fat Smitty’s menyumbangkan sekitar Rp.26.670.000 pada organisasi pramuka setempat. Alasannya karena sudah bertahun-tahun anggota pramuka tersebut jadi pengunjung tetap Fat Smitty’s tiap pulang berkemah. Puluhan juta sisanya disumbangkan pada St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital, Tennessee.

Casey Carson mengaku berat untuk melepas uang tersebut dan merenovasi restorannya. Sudah empat generasi dalam satu keluarga yang tumbuh bersama restoran ini, begitu juga dengan pekerjanya yang sudah turun-temurun. Fat Smitty’s dan segala keunikannya sudah menjadi saksi pertumbuhan keluarga pemilik dan pengunjung setianya.

“Rasanya sulit untuk melepaskan uang-uang ini. Namun lebih mudah rasanya ketika tahu uang ini akan disumbangkan”, kata Carson. Iapun berharap setelah dibuka kembali pada bulan Maret mendatang, pembeli mau menempelkan uang pada dinding Fat Smitty’s lagi.

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This post was submitted by Flora Febrianindya /dtk.

                          

Misi NASA Kepler menemukan 26 planet baru di luar sistem tata surya yang mengorbit bintang-bintangnya yang berukuran lebih besar dari matahari, satu kali tiap enam hingga 143 hari.

Dua puluh enam planet baru telah ditemukan tim ilmuwan NASA yang berusaha menemukan planet di luar sistem tata surya.

Ukuran planet-planet baru yang ditemukan tim NASA itu bervariasi. Ada yang sedikit lebih besar dari Bumi sampai yang lebih besar dari planet raksasa Yupiter dalam sistem tata surya kita. Planet-planet itu ditemukan oleh Kepler, teleskop antariksa yang memantau 150.000 bintang pada bagian kecil langit malam dari orbitnya sekitar matahari.

Planet-planet asing itu mengorbit bintang-bintangnya, yang berukuran lebih besar dari matahari, satu kali tiap enam hingga 143 hari. Dalam sistem tata surya terbesar yang baru ditemukan, disebut Kepler-33, ada lima planet dengan ukuran mulai dari satu setengah sampai lima kali ukuran Bumi.

Doug Hudgins, ilmuwan program misi Kepler, mengatakan para ilmuwan tidak yakin planet-planet yang baru ditemukan itu mampu mendukung kehidupan.

“Kesemua planet itu berada dalam orbit yang lebih dekat dari orbit bumi mengelilingi matahari. Jadi planet-planet itu cukup panas,” paparnya.

Dalam dua tahun sejak Kepler mulai mengamati alam semesta, ilmuwan telah menemukan 61 planet baru, dan sekitar 2.300 kandidat planet yang perlu dikukuhkan melalui pengamatan lebih lanjut.

Kepler mengidentifikasi planet-planet yang jauh itu dengan terus memantau kecerahan bintang yang diorbitnya. Sebuah planet yang mengorbit matahari membentuk bayangan samar yang bisa dideteksi oleh Kepler.

Teleskop itu mengukuhkan kandidat-kandidat planet dengan mengukur apa yang disebut Variasi Waktu Transit atau TTV yang terjadi ketika dua atau lebih planet dalam sistem tata surya yang padat mengorbit bintang-bintang mereka.

Tarikan gravitasi dari setiap planet yang lewat membuat satu planet lainnya bergerak lebih cepat sementara planet lain melambat. Menurut Hudgins, ini membantu para astronom mengukuhkan pengamatan mengenai planet.

Ia mengatakan, “Kalau ada sesuatu yang hanya menirukan lewatnya satu planet, mereka tidak akan berinteraksi. Bahwa kita melihat variasi waktu transit ini menunjukkan bahwa ada interaksi gravitasi dan bahwa mereka pasti planet karena mereka berinteraksi satu sama lain.”

Hudgins mengatakan yang diperlukan para pemburu planet adalah teleskop yang bisa memisahkan cahaya planet yang lebih redup dari bintangnya yang terang, guna memungkinkan ilmuwan mempelajari spektrum elektromagnetiknya.

Informasi dari spektrum cahaya akan menunjukkan gas apa yang terkandung dalam atmosfer planet, bahkan mungkin beberapa karakteristik permukaannya, kata Hudgins yang bersemangat untuk menemukan tanda-tanda kehidupan.

“Itu sebabnya kami melakukan ini. Itulah hal yang menarik. Kami mempelajari salah satu pertanyaan paling tua dan paling mendasar, apakah kita sendirian di jagat raya ini?” paparnya lagi.

Hudgins percaya teleskop semacam itu akan dibuat dalam waktu dekat, memungkinkan ilmuwan Kepler bergerak ke misi penemuan mereka tahap berikutnya.

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This post was submitted by Jessica Berman / VOA.

                          

Republican frontrunner Mitt Romney has easily won Nevada’s presidential caucuses, further taking command of the party’s race to pick a challenger to President Barack Obama.

Romney’s win on Saturday was his second in a row and third in the first five contests in the state-by-state Republican nominating battle.

The well-funded and organised Romney, a former Massachusetts governor, crushed rivals Newt Gingrich, Ron Paul and Rick Santorum.

Romney captured 44 per cent of the vote, with about 43 per cent of precincts counted, taking about a 20-point lead over his closest rivals.

Nevada, which has a faltering economy and a big Mormon population, was considered friendly territory for Romney, a Mormon and former head of a private equity firm.

He captured 51 per cent of the vote in 2008 to win the state during his failed 2008 presidential bid.

Romney had stressed his business background as a cure for the ailing economy in Nevada, which has the country’s highest state unemployment rate, 12.6 per cent in December, and the highest home foreclosure rate.

One Republican voter in Pahrump, a town near Las Vegas, told Al Jazeera, “I think the consensus is that we don’t need socialism, and that’s how we feel about Obama.”

Al Jazeera’s Rob Reynolds, reporting from Parhump, said: ”With Nevada and other western swing states likely to play a crucial role in this year’s presedential election, the candidates will be paying a lot more attention to places like this.”

Romney hopes the Nevada result will launch a February winning streak that could position him for a knockout blow to his main rival, Gingrich, during the 10 “Super Tuesday” contests on March 6.

Gingrich held a news conference after the results were announced to head off any speculation that he might put an early
end to his campaign.

“I’m not going to withdraw,” Gingrich told reporters, repeating his frequent vow to continue his campaign all the way
to the nominating convention in Florida in August. “I’m actually pretty happy with where we are.”

Colorado, Minnesota and Missouri will have nominating contests on Tuesday. Maine will wrap up its weeklong caucuses next Saturday, and Arizona and Michigan hold February 28 contests.

Romney won Colorado, Minnesota, Maine and Michigan during his failed 2008 presidential bid.

He came in second in Arizona to native son and eventual nominee John McCain, an Arizona senator, and finished third in Missouri.

“It is still a race, but Romney is pulling away, for sure,” Reynolds said.

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This post was submitted by Al Jazeera / IM.

                          

It seems that Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss — the “Winklevii” twins — could get up to $300 million worth of Facebook shares when the deal goes through.

And that’s noteworthy, of course, since they so famously sued Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg for allegedly stealing their idea when he created the social media website while they were all students at Harvard (a chapter of their lives chronicled in The Social Network, a movie that didn’t present the Winklevii in that flattering a light).

After much legal maneuvering, the twins came away with about $45 million worth of Facebook (non-public) stock. Now, if the initial public offering does indeed happen, their stake is expected to grow substantially — though it won’t rival the $28 billion or so that Zuckerberg’s post-IPO share of Facebook’s worth is expected to be, according to Bloomberg Businessweek.

Cameron Winklevoss, on Twitter, professes to be very pleased what the payday headed his way:

“We r excited 4the #FacebookIPO + wish the company + all involved the very best,an amazing accomplishment!”

Whether the Winklevii are really that happy, though, might depend on what they think about this news: David Choe, an artist who painted a mural at Facebook’s first offices and was paid with about a 0.25 percent share of the company, stands to earn about $200 million from the IPO.

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This post was submitted by MARK MEMMOTT / NPR.

                          

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Menard mengatakan ia tidak tahu apakah itu binatang asli daerah itu, karena dia berasal dari Massachusetts, tapi ia percaya bahwa itu pasti makhluk. Dia mengatakan makhluk itu berbau seperti daging yang membusuk, lalat berkerumun di sekitar mulut dan area tertentu dari tubuhnya.

Monster, Chupacabra, Montauk atau apapun yang Anda ingin menyebutnya, Menard mengatakan, seperti dikutip laman nowpublic.com, baru-baru ini, panjangnya sekitar 2 meter, tubuhnya seperti babi, perut rata, dan gigi taringnya berukuran besar. Menard mengatakan dia hanya mengambil dua foto dari monster tersebut.

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The records released Tuesday by the Federal Election Commission illustrate a basic shift in political giving at the presidential level by the nation’s financial elite.

After a fling with Obama – the charismatic Democrat embraced four years ago during the severe credit crisis that erupted under President George W. Bush – Wall Street is backing Romney in a return to its largely Republican inclinations.

Romney’s six largest campaign contribution sources in 2011 were executives, family members and affiliated political action committees of Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley, Credit Suisse, Citigroup and Bank of America, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a Washington, D.C.-based group that monitors campaign finances.

The center said that the leaders of the six Wall Street giants — which were rescued from ruin by U.S. taxpayers about three years ago — have given $1.8 million to the Romney campaign.

As for Obama, Goldman Sachs was the sole major financial firm ranked among his top 20 contribution sources for 2011, with gifts of just $64,000 compared with $496,000 to Romney.

As they line up behind Romney, banks and investment firms are being joined by a new generation of hedge fund and private equity managers with deep pockets.

They are backing the candidate who comes from their ranks — Romney, a former private equity executive.

“The financial industry has preferred Romney from the beginning when he started his campaign,” said Viveca Novak, spokesperson for the center. “He is of their world. They believe he understands them. So, not surprising they would favor him.”

Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum and Ron Paul, the other three Republican presidential contenders, have received very limited support from the financial sector.

FINANCE ON TOP AGAIN

As usual, the finance/insurance/real estate sector is leading all others on the campaign donors list, the center said.

Even after the 2008 financial crisis and the 2010 passage of the Dodd-Frank laws that put new restrictions on the banks and markets, “the power of Wall Street in Washington is unmitigated,” said Richard Parker, a public policy lecturer at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government.

The sector had donated more than $23 million to presidential campaigns as of December 5, the center said. And there are nine months to go before the elections for president and Congress.

Wall Street money, like funds from other walks of life, is pouring in both as traditional campaign donations, which are limited to $2,500 per donor, and as unlimited gifts to Super PACs.

The Super PACs are the legacy of a 2010 Supreme Court decision that unlimited donations by individuals, corporations and unions to groups that operate independently from campaigns.

Working through Super PACs, a few wealthy managers of top hedge funds and private equity firms are pumping money into the political process at unprecedented levels.

Seven of them have given more than $5 million combined to Restore Our Future, a Super PAC that backs Romney. That was more than Obama’s Super PAC, called Priorities USA, raised in all of last year. Priorities USA’s donor list is topped by labor unions.

Leading supporters of Romney from the financial industry include hedge fund managers Robert Mercer, Julian Robertson, Paul Singer and Chris Shumway, as well as private equity leaders Miguel Fernandez and Steven Webster.

Each has given at least $250,000 to the pro-Romney Super

PAC.

Hedge funds and private equity firms also have been a key source of traditional campaign gifts to Romney.

He has taken in more than $850,000 from executives at firms such as HIG Capital, Blackstone Group, Elliott Management, Citadel Investment and Bain Capital, the firm he co-founded.

NEW PLAYERS ARRIVE

Private equity and hedge fund managers arrived on the political scene in 2005.

That was when Congress began scrutinizing the “carried interest” tax break that lets these managers pay a tax rate on much of their earnings that is much lower than the top U.S. income tax rates.

The first private equity lobbying group was set up in 2006, a month after Democrats won control of both houses of Congress.

More than five years later, the “carried interest” tax break remains in place, although Democrats still say they may seek to eliminate it as part of a plan to trim the federal budget.

Hedge funds and private equity firms are keen to protect the tax break, while Wall Street banks want to roll back portions of Dodd-Frank or, at least, minimize the costs and restrictions it imposes on them as U.S. regulators continue to implement it.

Democrats’ threats to close the carried interest loophole, coupled with their strong support for Dodd-Frank regulations and Obama’s frequent verbal jabs at the banks, have opened a rift between him and the industry that briefly embraced him three years ago, said American University Professor Leonard Steinhorn.

When Obama came to power, the industry assumed it would have cozy ties with him, as it had with President Bill Clinton in the 1990s.

At first, it did. Then the economy tanked and Obama began to criticize bankers for their role in the credit crisis. Such criticism from a president was a jolt to leading bankers, who were accustomed to flattery from Washington.

“These are people who were totally alienated from Obama when he stopped praising them. Some of them got bitter. These are folks with large egos who like to be stroked,” Steinhorn said.

Many bankers have felt uneasy in recent years with the social conservatives who have gained power in the Republican Party, but the bankers likely feel they can relate to Romney, analysts say.

“Romney is one of them,” Steinhorn said. “So they can feel comfortable with him.”

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This post was submitted by Kevin Drawbaugh / Reuters.

                          

The cuts will fall most heavily on the airline’s maintenance operations, which will lose 4,600 jobs. More than 4,000 additional ground worker jobs will be eliminated, as will 2,300 flight attendant jobs.

Management will be reduced by 1,400 employees, with the most narrow cut coming among pilots, which will only see a reduction of 400.

Thomas Horton, CEO of American Air parent AMR Corp. (AAMRQ), said in a letter to American employees, “We will end this journey with many fewer people. But we will also preserve tens of thousands of jobs that would have been lost if we had not embarked on this path.”

The airline and its unions will now negotiate over the company’s cost-cutting plans, but management can seek to have the bankruptcy court impose the changes if it can’t win concessions at the bargaining table.

Horton wouldn’t say how long the airline will wait before taking that step or when it wants the layoffs to begin.

“Given all the uncertainty out there, I think it will serve our company and our people best to get the changes made as quickly as possible,” Horton said on a call with reporters at the end of the day.

But union officials showed no eagerness to agree to the company’s plans.

“The negotiating team expected this to look ugly, yet it has exceeded all of our expectations,” said Laura Glading, president of the Association of Professional Flight Attendants in a statement to its members, who called the proposal “despicable.”

Horton said the company needs to save more than $1.25 billion annually in labor costs, and reduce costs in each work group, including management, by 20%. To try to cushion the blow of those cuts, it is offering employees a profit-sharing plan, and said it plans to continue to giving workers annual pay increases.

Some of the savings will come from the airline’s proposal, also announced Wednesday, to shift its underfunded pension plans to a government agency, the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp.

“If this liability is not eliminated, we will need to have more than $800 million each year in additional savings to service the unfunded liabilities,” said the company.

But the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. once again said it would seek to block the airline from dumping its pensions on the agency, which is already facing a deficit of its own. The agency’s estimate is that American’s pensions are underfunded by $10 billion.

“Before American takes such a drastic action as killing the pension plans of 130,000 employees and retirees, it needs to show there is no better alternative,” said agency director Josh Gotbaum. “Thus far, they have declined to provide even the most basic information to decide that.”

If the company is successful in shifting its pensions to the agency, thousands of workers and retirees, particularly its pilots and upper management, would have their pension benefits slashed. But American said Wednesday that 90% of those covered by the plans will not have their benefits reduced.

Other savings will come from restructuring debt and leases, grounding older planes, and improving supplier contracts. Horton said the company wants to cut $2 billion a year in total cost cuts.

AMR is also is looking for $1 billion a year in improved revenue from better use of its aircraft and improved product offerings.

There have been suggestions since the bankruptcy filing that American should close hubs, break-up the carrier or merge with another airline.

“I do not believe any of these outcomes are in the best interests of American, our people, or our stakeholders,” Horton wrote. “But as I have said since the start of this process, there will be many parties with input into the outcome of our restructuring.”

The company is meeting with the three major unions that represent the workers at American, the Allied Pilots Association, the Association of Professional Flight Attendants and the Transport Workers union, which represents ground workers including mechanics. Between them the three unions represent about 54,000 employees at American and its feeder airline, American Eagle, which also is owned by AMR.

American announced it planned to close one of its facilities outside of Dallas that performs the major overhaul of aircraft that all airlines need to do on a regular basis, as it moves to outsource that heavy maintenance work. The announced job cuts represents more than 40% of the maintenance staff represented by the Transport Workers.

American did not say where the work will be sent, but the union said it expects the airline will use lower-cost facilities overseas. Most major airlines such as Delta Air Lines (DAL, Fortune 500), United-Continental (UAL, Fortune 500) and Southwest Airlines (LUV, Fortune 500) already outsource that work. The Transport Workers have vowed to fight the move.

AMR Corp. said at the time of its Nov. 29 bankruptcy filing that it needed to achieve a more competitive labor structure. Over the past 10 years most other major U.S. airlines have gone through bankruptcy to cut labor costs.

“Just as our competitors that went through restructuring are now earning consistent profits, we believe there is a real opportunity for American’s employees to benefit when we emerge a stronger, more competitive company,” said Jeff Brundage, the airline’s senior vice president of human relations, in a letter to employees Wednesday

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This post was submitted by Chris Isidore / CNN.