NEW BRAUNFELS, Texas (AP) ? Dozens of law enforcement officers have raided the Texas headquarters a power wheelchair and scooter company as part of an investigation into alleged fraud.
Authorities on Wednesday carried out a search warrant at the New Braunfels offices of The Scooter Store. Company officials didn?t immediately return messages for comment Thursday.
Timothy Menke with the Office of the Inspector General says the investigation involves his agency, plus the Department of Justice, the FBI and the Texas attorney general?s Medicaid fraud unit. An FBI spokesman declined comment.
The Scooter Store earlier this month cut 150 jobs and blamed pending government changes in claims processing and reimbursement. The company in September laid off about 220 workers, citing a drop in Medicare reimbursements.
Two wild bobcats are captured on camera in a standoff following a cat fight, and it all takes place steps away from someone's front door in a suburban Texas neighborhood.
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Two top Federal Reserve officials offered a fresh defense of the U.S. central bank's asset-buying program on Friday, arguing that it helps the nation's fiscal health by boosting the economy.
The comments from Boston Federal Reserve Bank President Eric Rosengren and Fed Governor Jerome Powell amounted to an effort to inoculate the central bank against political pressures that might mount if it faces losses on its massive bond portfolio when interest rates finally rise.
Both officials pointed to increased economic output and the related rise in tax revenues as two benefits of the central bank's policy of buying $85 billion in bonds per month.
"We do well to ... consider these benefits, and the costs of inaction, when evaluating policy," Rosengren, who is considered one of the more dovish Fed officials, said at a conference hosted by the University of Chicago's Booth School of Business.
The Fed has said it would keep purchasing assets until the outlook for the labor market improved substantially, although minutes from the central bank's January policy meeting released on Wednesday showed some officials thought they might have to stop short of that goal due to risks the policy presents.
Most officials have focused on the possibility of asset price bubbles and future inflation, or the potential for roiling markets when the time comes to shrink the Fed's balance sheet, which has tripled since 2008 to around $3 trillion.
Bloomberg, citing anonymous sources, reported on Friday that Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke had played down concerns that monetary policy was fueling asset bubbles at a private meeting with U.S. bankers earlier this month.
But the prospect of political blowback if the Fed loses money on its bonds also troubles officials, particularly since any losses would likely come when the central bank is raising the interest rate it pays commercial banks to park their excess reserves at the Fed.
The central bank plans to jack up that rate when it comes time to withdraw money from the economy to make sure it does not overheat.
"We're going to pay interest on reserves to large banks in the U.S., and to foreign banks, to the tune of tens of billions of dollars, at a time when we're not going to pay anything back to the U.S. Treasury," St. Louis Fed President James Bullard said from the audience at the conference.
"That sounds like a recipe for political problems."
PAYING THE PRICE
The central bank returns portfolio profits to the Treasury each year and it has never missed a payment before. Last year, remittances hit a record $89 billion thanks to its bloated balance sheet.
The Congressional Budget Office estimates it will contribute some $95 billion a year to federal coffers through 2016. But remittances are expected to hit zero from 2018 through 2020, before resuming in 2021.
"We are in a period where the attacks on the Federal Reserve are the worst I have seen," former Fed Governor Frederic Mishkin said during a panel at the conference. "This issue is going to come up big time in Congress."
Powell, in his first public remarks since joining the central bank's board last May, acknowledged the Fed could come under public and political criticism, but said any losses needed to be put in a broader context.
"Any temporary losses should be weighed against the expected social benefits of the increased economic growth generated by the (bond buying), which would include higher tax revenue from increased output," he said.
In his remarks Rosengren, who along with Bullard and Powell backed the Fed's bond buying plan in a vote last month, said the program helps the nation lower its debt-to-GDP ratio by reducing the interest rate the government pays bond holders.
It also reduces government spending in areas such as unemployment insurance because it reduces joblessness, he said.
Bullard, considered an inflation hawk, has expressed caution about expanding the central bank's balance sheet too far.
On Friday, he acknowledged more voices within the Fed are pressing to scale back bond buying. "The idea of tapering the program at some point in the future may be gaining some steam on the committee," he said on CNBC television.
But he added: "Fed policy is very easy and it's going to stay easy for a long time."
(Additional reporting by Jason Lange in Washington and Richard Leong in New York; Editing by James Dalgleish, Tim Ahmann and Chizu Nomiyama)
A Predator B unmanned aircraft taxis at the Naval Air Station in Corpus Christi, Texas. (Eric Gay/AP)Just how many people have America?s drones killed? Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham has put the death toll at 4,700?the first time an American official has publicly put a figure on the impact of strikes by unmanned aerial vehicles. The South Carolina lawmaker's office said he was citing an estimate already discussed on cable television.
Graham, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, disclosed the figure during a question and answer session on Tuesday with the Rotary Club of Easley in his home state of South Carolina. His remarks were first reported by the Easley Patch.
?We've killed 4,700,? the lawmaker said. ?Sometimes you hit innocent people, and I hate that, but we're at war, and we've taken out some very senior members of al-Qaida.?
Drone strikes, President Barack Obama?s signature tactic for killing suspected al-Qaida and other extremist fighters, have been ?very effective,? said Graham. ?It's a weapon that needs to be used.?
Amid a controversy sparked by Obama?s targeted assassination of American citizens overseas suspected of consorting with terrorists, Graham came down sharply against any judicial oversight of the drone war, calling the idea ?crazy.?
?I can't imagine, in World War [II] for Roosevelt to have gone to a bunch of judges and said, 'I need your permission before we can attack the enemy,'? Graham said.
Drone war expert Micah Zenko of the Council on Foreign Relations noted on his blog that Graham?s figure lined up with the high-end estimate by The Bureau of Investigative Journalism.
?Either Graham is a big fan of TBIJ?s work, or perhaps he inadvertently revealed the U.S. government?s body count for nonbattlefield targeted killings,? Zenko said.
Asked about the disclosure, Graham's office forwarded a clip from MSNBC in which the anchor cites the figure of 4,700 killed. Asked whether the Obama Administration harbored any concerns about Graham's comments, National Security Council Spokesman Tommy Vietor sent along a blog post including the same clip.
Graham did not specify whether he was discussing CIA drone strikes or military drone strikes.
Obama's expanded drone war has broad popular support in the U.S., according to a poll released earlier this month by the nonpartisan Pew Research Center. That survey found 56 percent support such strikes and 26 percent oppose them. At the same time, 53 percent worry about potential civilian casualties. But overseas it faces majority opposition, Pew found last year.
(Hat tip: Agence France-Presse via the London Telegraph)
US defense contractor selling unarmed Predator drones to UAE
AUSTIN, Texas (AP) ? Lance Armstrong won't do a tell-all interview under oath with the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency to reveal everything he knows about the use of performance-enhancing drugs in cycling.
USADA officials had told Armstrong he must speak with them if he wanted to reduce his lifetime ban from sports. Under their offer, Wednesday was the deadline for him to agree to the interview.
Armstrong attorney Tim Herman said that, after two months of negotiations, the cyclist refused participate in a process designed "only to demonize selected individuals."
Armstrong said previously he is willing to participate in an international effort to clean up a sport that is based mostly in Europe.
USADA chief executive Travis Tygart said the agency had expected Armstrong would agree to talk and would be "moving on" without him.
"Over the last few weeks he has led us to believe that he wanted to come in and assist USADA, but was worried of potential criminal and civil liability if he did so," Tygart said. "Today we learned from the media that Mr. Armstrong is choosing not to come in and be truthful and that he will not take the opportunity to work toward righting his wrongs in sport."
For more than a decade, Armstrong denied using performance-enhancing drugs. But last year, USADA released a report that detailed extensive doping on his seven Tour de France-winning teams and stripped him of those titles. Armstrong then admitted last month in an interview with Oprah Winfrey that he doped to win those races.
He still faces several legal challenges.
Armstrong was the subject of a two-year federal grand jury investigation that was dropped a year ago without an indictment, but the Department of Justice is still considering whether to join a federal whistle-blower lawsuit filed by former Armstrong teammate Floyd Landis.
Armstrong also has been sued by a Dallas-based SCA Promotions to recover more than $12 million in bonuses. And he has been sued by The Sunday Times in London to recover a libel judgment that Armstrong won against the paper.
Contact: Christopher Capot c.capot@elsevier.com 212-633-3164 Elsevier
Acclaim from the American Publishers Awards for Professional and Scholarly Excellence
Philadelphia, PA, February 20, 2013 Elsevier, a world-leading provider of scientific, technical and medical information products and services, today announced that it received six 2012 PROSE Awards and three Honorable Mentions.
The 37th annual PROSE Awards the American Publishers Awards for Professional and Scholarly Excellence were presented at the Association of American Publishers' Professional and Scholarly Publishing Division Annual Conference in Washington. PROSE honors the best in professional and scholarly publishing, as judged by peer publishers, librarians, academics and medical professionals. This year's competition attracted 518 entries of books, reference works, journals and electronic products in more than 40 categories; these represented the fifth consecutive year of a record-breaking entries count.
"The recent PROSE Awards show Elsevier's continuing dedication to publishing top-notch content in science and technology," stated Suzanne BeDell, managing director, Elsevier Science & Technology Books. "We congratulate all of the Elsevier authors that won these most prestigious awards."
The Elsevier 2012 PROSE Award winners, print as well as digital, are as follows, by category:
Chemistry & Physics, Honorable Mention
Chemical Analysis of Food: Techniques and Applications
By Yolanda Pico
Computing & Information Sciences
Practical Text Mining and Statistical Analysis for Non-Structured Text Data Applications
By Gary Miner, John Elder, Andrew Fast, Thomas Hill, Robert Nisbet, Dursun Delen, Andrew Fast
eProduct / Biological & Life Sciences
SimChart, by Elsevier
eProduct / Social Sciences
Policing in America: Exam Cram
By Larry Gaines, Victor Kappeler, an iTunes App
Multivolume Reference / Science
Comprehensive Renewable Energy
Edited by Ali Sayigh
The Geologic Time Scale 2012 2-Volume Set
By F M Gradstein, J G Ogg, Mark Schmitz, Gabi Ogg
Nursing & Allied Sciences
Know the Body: Muscle, Bone and Palpation Essentials
By Joseph E. Muscolino
Nursing & Allied Health Sciences, Honorable Mention
Local Anesthesia for the Dental Hygienist
By Demetra Daskalos Logothetis, RDH, MS
Single Volume Reference / Science
The Laboratory Rabbit, Guinea Pig, Hamster, and Other Rodents
By Mark Suckow, Karla Stevens, Ronald Wilson
###
For more information or to purchase these titles, please visit www.store.elsevier.com.
About Elsevier
Elsevier is a world-leading provider of scientific, technical and medical information products and services. The company works in partnership with the global science and health communities to publish more than 2,000 journals, including The Lancet and Cell, and close to 20,000 book titles, including major reference works from Mosby and Saunders. Elsevier's online solutions include ScienceDirect, Scopus, Reaxys, ClinicalKey and Mosby's Nursing Suite, which enhance the productivity of science and health professionals, and the SciVal suite and MEDai's Pinpoint Review, which help research and health care institutions deliver better outcomes more cost-effectively.
A global business headquartered in Amsterdam, Elsevier employs 7,000 people worldwide. The company is part of Reed Elsevier Group PLC, a world-leading provider of professional information solutions in the Science, Medical, Legal and Risk and Business sectors, which is jointly owned by Reed Elsevier PLC and Reed Elsevier NV. The ticker symbols are REN (Euronext Amsterdam), REL (London Stock Exchange), RUK and ENL (New York Stock Exchange).
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Contact: Christopher Capot c.capot@elsevier.com 212-633-3164 Elsevier
Acclaim from the American Publishers Awards for Professional and Scholarly Excellence
Philadelphia, PA, February 20, 2013 Elsevier, a world-leading provider of scientific, technical and medical information products and services, today announced that it received six 2012 PROSE Awards and three Honorable Mentions.
The 37th annual PROSE Awards the American Publishers Awards for Professional and Scholarly Excellence were presented at the Association of American Publishers' Professional and Scholarly Publishing Division Annual Conference in Washington. PROSE honors the best in professional and scholarly publishing, as judged by peer publishers, librarians, academics and medical professionals. This year's competition attracted 518 entries of books, reference works, journals and electronic products in more than 40 categories; these represented the fifth consecutive year of a record-breaking entries count.
"The recent PROSE Awards show Elsevier's continuing dedication to publishing top-notch content in science and technology," stated Suzanne BeDell, managing director, Elsevier Science & Technology Books. "We congratulate all of the Elsevier authors that won these most prestigious awards."
The Elsevier 2012 PROSE Award winners, print as well as digital, are as follows, by category:
Chemistry & Physics, Honorable Mention
Chemical Analysis of Food: Techniques and Applications
By Yolanda Pico
Computing & Information Sciences
Practical Text Mining and Statistical Analysis for Non-Structured Text Data Applications
By Gary Miner, John Elder, Andrew Fast, Thomas Hill, Robert Nisbet, Dursun Delen, Andrew Fast
eProduct / Biological & Life Sciences
SimChart, by Elsevier
eProduct / Social Sciences
Policing in America: Exam Cram
By Larry Gaines, Victor Kappeler, an iTunes App
Multivolume Reference / Science
Comprehensive Renewable Energy
Edited by Ali Sayigh
The Geologic Time Scale 2012 2-Volume Set
By F M Gradstein, J G Ogg, Mark Schmitz, Gabi Ogg
Nursing & Allied Sciences
Know the Body: Muscle, Bone and Palpation Essentials
By Joseph E. Muscolino
Nursing & Allied Health Sciences, Honorable Mention
Local Anesthesia for the Dental Hygienist
By Demetra Daskalos Logothetis, RDH, MS
Single Volume Reference / Science
The Laboratory Rabbit, Guinea Pig, Hamster, and Other Rodents
By Mark Suckow, Karla Stevens, Ronald Wilson
###
For more information or to purchase these titles, please visit www.store.elsevier.com.
About Elsevier
Elsevier is a world-leading provider of scientific, technical and medical information products and services. The company works in partnership with the global science and health communities to publish more than 2,000 journals, including The Lancet and Cell, and close to 20,000 book titles, including major reference works from Mosby and Saunders. Elsevier's online solutions include ScienceDirect, Scopus, Reaxys, ClinicalKey and Mosby's Nursing Suite, which enhance the productivity of science and health professionals, and the SciVal suite and MEDai's Pinpoint Review, which help research and health care institutions deliver better outcomes more cost-effectively.
A global business headquartered in Amsterdam, Elsevier employs 7,000 people worldwide. The company is part of Reed Elsevier Group PLC, a world-leading provider of professional information solutions in the Science, Medical, Legal and Risk and Business sectors, which is jointly owned by Reed Elsevier PLC and Reed Elsevier NV. The ticker symbols are REN (Euronext Amsterdam), REL (London Stock Exchange), RUK and ENL (New York Stock Exchange).
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
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Public release date: 20-Feb-2013
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