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The Fruit of Knowledge
The Fruit of Knowledge
May 25th
MONACO (AP) — German driver Nico Rosberg posted the fastest time in the crash-marred third practice session of the Monaco Grand Prix on Saturday.
May 25th
Looking for your first classic bike? Try this four-cylinder Honda from the mid-Seventies.
May 25th
Unnamed sources speaking with Polygon say the Xbox One has a remote play feature between consoles, both hardwired and online, allowing friends to take over gameplay remotely. The demonstration the sources claim to have witnessed featured one Xbox One connecting to another using “a local hardwired connection between consoles,” with a Skype call bridging the two users. A similar feature is available on Sony’s next-generation console, the PlayStation 4, both between consoles and via PlayStation Vita.
The other piece of the report adds to a bit we already knew concerning the new Kinect. “At some point, we’ll be able to have conversational understanding,” Microsoft hardware lead Todd Holmdahl told us last week. That “some point” may be sooner than later, as Microsoft reps were apparently already demonstrating the functionality, and said it’ll be available either at launch or “post-launch within the first few months.”
Filed under: Gaming, Peripherals, Software, HD, Microsoft
Source: Polygon
Tags: Remote Play, microsoft hardwareMay 25th
It has no center. No “off” switch. No brain. The Internet was designed to be virtually indestructible. But what if, one day, somehow, it stops? We can’t have it anymore. What would that be like? Here’s a short video about a French couple. She’s ready. He’s not.
May 25th
Sen. Mary Landrieu filed legislation this week to delay flood insurance increases for many residents and businesses in southern Louisiana that officials fear could begin skyrocketing at the end of the year.
The National Flood Insurance Program reauthorization was approved last year. Landrieu, D-La., had an amendment that was defeated that would have stalled premium increases of 20 percent or more annually for some residents in the program.
The new Strengthen, Modernize and Reform The National Flood Insurance Program Act would indefinitely delay the hikes until six months after Congress receives an affordability study by the Federal Emergency Management Agency. The bill also protects properties that are currently “grandfathered.”
Landrieu tells The Advocate she has not yet decided on how she will try to move the bill forward.
“It could be standalone. It could be amended onto another bill,” she said. “It could be part of the appropriations process, of which I’d have a good bit of influence on since I chair the committee.”
Landrieu chairs the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Homeland Security, which oversees FEMA’s funding.
The insurance fear is that proposed flood maps will cost Louisiana residents and business owners a lot more in the congressional effort to make the flood insurance program more self-sustainable.
The proposed flood maps are still under federal review but more parts of the state’s coast are becoming high-risk velocity zones, or V-zones, where insurance rates increase more. The program also is going to start phasing out “grandfathered” rates next year.
The NFIP allows homeowners and businesses in flood zones that have trouble getting private insurance to obtain policies backed by the federal government.
Nearly 500,000 people in Louisiana participate in the NFIP. The program has been in financial distress with a loss of more than $20 billion, largely due to payments made after hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005.
Landrieu said balances must be found to ensure the insurance is “affordable, accessible and self-sustainable.”
Article source: Article Source
The post Louisiana’s Sen. Landrieu Seeks to Delay Flood Insurance Increases appeared first on .
Tags: national flood insurance program, southern Louisiana, Sen. Mary Landrieu, Louisiana residents, federal emergency management agencyMay 25th
Sen. Mary Landrieu filed legislation this week to delay flood insurance increases for many residents and businesses in southern Louisiana that officials fear could begin skyrocketing at the end of the year.
The National Flood Insurance Program reauthorization was approved last year. Landrieu, D-La., had an amendment that was defeated that would have stalled premium increases of 20 percent or more annually for some residents in the program.
The new Strengthen, Modernize and Reform The National Flood Insurance Program Act would indefinitely delay the hikes until six months after Congress receives an affordability study by the Federal Emergency Management Agency. The bill also protects properties that are currently “grandfathered.”
Landrieu tells The Advocate she has not yet decided on how she will try to move the bill forward.
“It could be standalone. It could be amended onto another bill,” she said. “It could be part of the appropriations process, of which I’d have a good bit of influence on since I chair the committee.”
Landrieu chairs the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Homeland Security, which oversees FEMA’s funding.
The insurance fear is that proposed flood maps will cost Louisiana residents and business owners a lot more in the congressional effort to make the flood insurance program more self-sustainable.
The proposed flood maps are still under federal review but more parts of the state’s coast are becoming high-risk velocity zones, or V-zones, where insurance rates increase more. The program also is going to start phasing out “grandfathered” rates next year.
The NFIP allows homeowners and businesses in flood zones that have trouble getting private insurance to obtain policies backed by the federal government.
Nearly 500,000 people in Louisiana participate in the NFIP. The program has been in financial distress with a loss of more than $20 billion, largely due to payments made after hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005.
Landrieu said balances must be found to ensure the insurance is “affordable, accessible and self-sustainable.”
Article source: Article Source
The post Louisiana’s Sen. Landrieu Seeks to Delay Flood Insurance Increases appeared first on .
Tags: insurance rates, federal emergency management agency, flood insurance program, flood insurance, national flood insurance program, southern LouisianaMay 25th
Top U.S. lawmakers and officials said that the federal government has plenty of money on hand to pay for recovery efforts in the wake of the devastating tornado that struck Oklahoma.
The government has more than $11 billion in its main disaster relief fund. Recovery costs in the Oklahoma City suburb of Moore are expected to be a relatively small fraction of that amount. The devastating 2011 tornado that wiped out much of Joplin, Mo., for instance, required about $750 million in federal disaster aid.
Top lawmakers on Capitol Hill agreed that there’s no immediate need for additional disaster aid.
“We’ll do what we have to do, but we have a pretty hefty amount of money in the disaster relief fund,” said House Appropriations Committee Chairman Harold Rogers, R-Ky. “We’re not faced with an immediate need for a supplemental,” agreed Rep. David Price, D-N.C., top Democrat on the Appropriations Homeland Security Subcommittee.
Nonetheless, some news outlets and those on social networks like Twitter rushed to speculate that Oklahoma politicians would face political problems in obtaining aid for their state – or accusations of hypocrisy for seeking such aid after voting against legislation in January to help Democratic-leaning Eastern states recover from Superstorm Sandy.
Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., for instance, was quoted as saying he thought any aid for Oklahoma should be financed with cuts elsewhere in the budget. He and most other Oklahoma Republicans voted against January’s disaster relief bill, though Rep. Tom Cole, R-Okla., whose home is very close to the Oklahoma disaster site, voted for it.
Spokesman John Hart says it’s a position Coburn has consistently held regarding federal spending on disasters dating to the 1995 bombing of a federal building in Oklahoma City.
A House panel is slated Wednesday to approve a homeland security funding bill making a routine $6.2 billion infusion into the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Disaster Relief Fund, which finances immediate recovery efforts like debris removal and temporary housing for people displaced by the storm.
Reforms put in place in 2011 gave FEMA a more predictable stream of disaster aid and the agency got additional funding from two Sandy relief bills in December and January. The relatively large FEMA balance likely means that Republicans will be spared from an internal battle over whether further aid needs to be “paid for” with cuts elsewhere in the federal budget.
Later, the government money is likely to help rebuild two schools and the city’s hospital, along with other public infrastructure damaged by the tornado.
Article source: Article Source
The post No New Federal Funds Needed for Oklahoma Tornado Recovery appeared first on .
Tags: disaster relief fund, oklahoma city, federal government, disaster aidMay 25th
Top U.S. lawmakers and officials said that the federal government has plenty of money on hand to pay for recovery efforts in the wake of the devastating tornado that struck Oklahoma.
The government has more than $11 billion in its main disaster relief fund. Recovery costs in the Oklahoma City suburb of Moore are expected to be a relatively small fraction of that amount. The devastating 2011 tornado that wiped out much of Joplin, Mo., for instance, required about $750 million in federal disaster aid.
Top lawmakers on Capitol Hill agreed that there’s no immediate need for additional disaster aid.
“We’ll do what we have to do, but we have a pretty hefty amount of money in the disaster relief fund,” said House Appropriations Committee Chairman Harold Rogers, R-Ky. “We’re not faced with an immediate need for a supplemental,” agreed Rep. David Price, D-N.C., top Democrat on the Appropriations Homeland Security Subcommittee.
Nonetheless, some news outlets and those on social networks like Twitter rushed to speculate that Oklahoma politicians would face political problems in obtaining aid for their state – or accusations of hypocrisy for seeking such aid after voting against legislation in January to help Democratic-leaning Eastern states recover from Superstorm Sandy.
Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., for instance, was quoted as saying he thought any aid for Oklahoma should be financed with cuts elsewhere in the budget. He and most other Oklahoma Republicans voted against January’s disaster relief bill, though Rep. Tom Cole, R-Okla., whose home is very close to the Oklahoma disaster site, voted for it.
Spokesman John Hart says it’s a position Coburn has consistently held regarding federal spending on disasters dating to the 1995 bombing of a federal building in Oklahoma City.
A House panel is slated Wednesday to approve a homeland security funding bill making a routine $6.2 billion infusion into the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Disaster Relief Fund, which finances immediate recovery efforts like debris removal and temporary housing for people displaced by the storm.
Reforms put in place in 2011 gave FEMA a more predictable stream of disaster aid and the agency got additional funding from two Sandy relief bills in December and January. The relatively large FEMA balance likely means that Republicans will be spared from an internal battle over whether further aid needs to be “paid for” with cuts elsewhere in the federal budget.
Later, the government money is likely to help rebuild two schools and the city’s hospital, along with other public infrastructure damaged by the tornado.
Article source: Article Source
The post No New Federal Funds Needed for Oklahoma Tornado Recovery appeared first on .
Tags: disaster aid, federal government, oklahoma city, disaster relief fund