Source: ABC News

Secret Service Director Julia Pierson, who has been skewered by critics over the Sept. 19 White House security breach, is resigning, sources told ABC News.

Pierson’s resignation comes in the wake of an incident in which Omar Gonzalez, a knife-wielding Iraq War vet, allegedly managed to slip over the fence, past several layers of security, and into the White House’s East Room, where he was subdued by an off-duty agent.

Lawmakers at a congressional hearing Tuesday demanded to know how such a breach of one of the most secure buildings in the world could have taken place.

"It will never happen again,” Pierson assured lawmakers at the hearing.

Read more: http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/secret-service-director-julia-pierson-resigning/story?id=25889952

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Secret Service Director Julia Pierson listens on Capitol Hill in Washington, Sept. 30, 2014, as she testifies before the House Oversight Committee as it examines details surrounding a security breach at the White House. J. Scott Applewhite/AP Photo

More than $100 trillion in public and private spending could be saved between now and 2050 if the world expands public transportation, walking and cycling in cities, according to a new report released by the University of California, Davis, and the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy. Additionally, reductions in carbon dioxide emissions reaching 1,700 megatons per year in 2050 could be achieved if this shift occurs.

Further, an estimated 1.4 million early deaths associated with exposure to vehicle tailpipe emissions could be avoided annually by 2050 if governments require the strongest vehicle pollution controls and ultralow-sulfur fuels, according to a related analysis by the International Council on Clean Transportation included in the report. Doubling motor vehicle fuel economy could reduce CO2 emissions by an additional 700 megatons in 2050.

“The study shows that getting away from car-centric development, especially in rapidly developing economies, will cut urban CO2 dramatically and also reduce costs,” said report co-author Lew Fulton, co-director of NextSTEPS Program at the UC Davis Institute of Transportation Studies. “It is also critical to reduce the energy use and carbon emissions of all vehicles.”

The report, A Global High Shift Scenario, is the first study to examine how major changes in transportation investments worldwide would affect urban passenger transport emissions as well as the mobility of different income groups. The findings should help support wider agreement on climate policy, where cleanup costs and equity between rich and poor countries are key issues.

http://www.news.ucdavis.edu/search/news_detail.lasso?id=11027



The study's findings should help support wider agreement on climate policy, where cleanup costs and equity between rich and poor countries are key issues. (Thinkstock photo)

In decades of public debate about global warming, one assumption has been accepted by virtually all factions: that tackling it would necessarily be costly. But a new report casts doubt on that idea, declaring that the necessary fixes could wind up being effectively free.

A global commission will announce its finding on Tuesday that an ambitious series of measures to limit emissions would cost $4 trillion or so over the next 15 years, an increase of roughly 5 percent over the amount that would likely be spent anyway on new power plants, transit systems and other infrastructure.

When the secondary benefits of greener policies — like lower fuel costs, fewer premature deaths from air pollution and reduced medical bills — are taken into account, the changes might wind up saving money, according to the findings of the group, the Global Commission on the Economy and Climate.

“We are proposing a way to have the same or even more economic growth, and at the same time have environmental responsibility,” said the chairman of the commission, Felipe Calderón, the former president of Mexico and an economist. “We need to fix this problem of climate change, because it’s affecting all of us.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/16/science/earth/fixing-climate-change-may-add-no-costs-report-says.html?_r=0



A wind turbine being installed in northern France. Research says the benefits of such efforts may offset the cost of subsidies. Credit Benoit Tessier/Reuters

It seems as natural as, well, water: Harness the energy potential of a 95-billion-gallon reservoir to run four turbines and generate electrical power cleanly and at a profit.

Having overcome potential hurdles ranging from drought-stricken rafters on the Delaware River to the endangered dwarf wedgemussel and northern wild monkshood, New York City is tapping the vast resources of its upstate reservoir system to commission a new hydroelectric plant.

The plant is projected to generate 14 megawatts of electric power, which the city would sell to the New York power grid. That is enough to provide electricity, on average, to 6,000 homes. By not using oil or coal to generate electricity, it is estimated that the plant would avoid the emission of 25,620 metric tons of greenhouse gases annually, or the equivalent of removing 5,400 cars from the road.

This would be the largest hydroelectric development in New York State in more than two decades and the first time power would be generated directly from a Delaware River branch.


http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/16/nyregion/new-hydroelectric-plant-to-be-built-for-new-york.html?_r=0



The city is planning to build a $72 million hyrdoelectric power plant at its Cannonsville Reservoir. Credit New York City Department of Environmental Protection

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- People who live closer to natural gas wells, including those that were drilled using "fracking," or hydraulic fracturing, report more health symptoms than those who live farther away, according to a study reported today by Yale University researchers.

The study, which drew strong negative reaction from the oil and gas industry, was published online in Environmental Health Perspectives, a journal of the National Institutes of Health. It surveyed 492 people in 180 households with ground-fed water wells in southwestern Pennsylvania, where the concentration of natural gas extraction is very high.

Respondents, who were not asked about fracking, reported more upper respiratory and dermal (skin) symptoms over the past year when they lived less than a kilometer from a gas well, and fewer such symptoms when they lived more than two kilometers from a well. There was no such difference in other health symptoms reported in the survey, which included heart, gastrointestinal and neurological complaints, among others.

"The result stood even when we controlled for a lot of other things, so it wasn't just a simple correlation," said Meredith Stowe, senior author on the paper and an associate research scientist and epidemiologist at the Yale Occupational and Environmental Medicine Program. Researchers controlled for the survey respondents' age, gender, smoking status, education level, and awareness of environmental risk factors in the study.

http://www.cleveland.com/healthfit/index.ssf/2014/09/residents_living_nearer_natura.html



A Yale study has shown that residents who live closer to natural gas wells, including ones where fracking is used, report more upper respiratory and skin symptoms than those who live farther away from the wells. (Lynn Ischay, The Plain Dealer)

NEW YORK -- Still-mourning family members will again gather at ground zero on the morning of Thursday, September 11, as has become the grim annual tradition, to mark the 13th anniversary of the terror attacks that rocked the nation and changed the way we live our daily lives.

>> WATCH LIVE STREAM HERE TOMORROW AT 8AM

Moments of silence will again mark each significant moment of the day, with bells tolling on six separate occasions, to mark the moments each plane hit the towers, the Pentagon and a field in Shanksville, as well as when both towers fell.

Memorial organizers are taking over primary responsibility for the ceremony from the city for the first time, and they plan to continue concentrating the event on victims' loved ones, even as the museum creates a new, broader framework for remembering 9/11.

At sundown, the Tribute in Light will again shine into the Lower Manhattan sky.

The twin beams of light also honor those who worked so hard to get New York City through its greatest trial. The lights, which can be seen for miles, fade away at dawn Friday.

http://abc7news.com/news/annual-ground-zero-ceremony-to-honor-9-11-victims/303071/

NEW YORK - New York is about to get a new taxi app service – with cabs driven by women for women, according to a report in the New York Times.

Serving New York City, suburban Westchester and Long Island, the latest Uber-like taxi app will be available through an Apple application for smartphones as of Sept. 16, with an Android app to follow. It will be called SheTaxis in the suburbs and SheRides in New York City, due to regulations barring the use of “taxi” in the name.

Women who summon the service will be met by a female driver wearing a hot pink pashmina scarf.

Favored by women leery of getting into hired cars with male drivers or being groped by men on crammed buses, trains and subways, women-only transport can be found in many cities around the world.

http://www.reviewjournal.com/news/nation-and-world/nyc-taxi-app-service-will-be-women-only

Her sister is trying to locate her, family emergency, so she decided to try DU. Thanks!

Her post:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1018&pid=661499