Super Bowl Blackout Caused By Equipment Intended To Prevent Blackout

No it wasn't the fault of Beyonce or of green energy liberals.

AP

The relay had been installed as part of a project begun in 2011 to upgrade the electrical system serving the Superdome in anticipation of the championship game. The equipment was supposed to guard against problems in the cable that links the power grid with lines that go into the stadium.

"The purpose of it was to provide a newer, more advanced type of protection for the Superdome," Dennis Dawsey, an executive with Entergy Corp., told members of the City Council. Entergy is the parent company of Entergy New Orleans, the city's main electric utility.

The Morning Report -- Tuesday February 5, 2013

Alabama Bunker Standoff Over -- Boy Scouts Consider Allowing Gays -- Obama Presses For Gun Control -- Army Sniper Killer Claims PTSD -- Superbowl Power Outage Questions -- The Obama Budget -- Romney For Senate? -- iPhone 5, iOS 6.1 Jailbreak Released

AUTHORITIES STORM ALABAMA BUNKER, RESCUE BOY

MIDLAND CITY, Ala. (AP) — Law enforcement officers stormed an underground bunker Monday in southeastern Alabama, freeing a 5-year-old boy and shooting his captor to death after they became convinced the child was in imminent danger, officials said.

Jimmy Lee Dykes, 65, of Midland City had taken the child off a school bus after fatally shooting the driver on Jan 29. He had remained holed up in the bunker with the child ever since, communicating with authorities through a ventilation pipe into the shelter.

Dykes had been seen with a gun, and officers concluded the boy was in imminent danger after nearly a week of negotiations, said Steve Richardson of the FBI's office in Mobile.

BOY SCOUTS MEETING TO CONSIDER BAN ON GAY MEMBERS

AP

Former Boy Scout leaders and activists on Monday delivered a petition with 1.4 million signatures to the Irving, Texas, headquarters of the Boy Scouts of America, urging the organization to end its ban on gay members and leaders.

Scouting executives said they were considering dropping the national ban during a three-day meeting that began Monday. A decision, if there is one, is likely Wednesday, the organization said.

One of the people delivering petitions was Eric Andresen of Moraga, Calif., whose son, Ryan, was denied an Eagle Scout badge last year because he's openly gay.

OBAMA PRESSES FOR GUN MEASURES

EPA

MINNEAPOLIS — President Obama declared Monday on his first trip outside Washington to promote gun control that a consensus is emerging for universal background checks for purchasers, though he conceded a tough road lay ahead to pass an assault weapons ban over formidable opposition in Congress.

‘‘We should restore the ban on military-style assault weapons and a 10-round limit for magazines,’’ Obama said in a brief speech in Minneapolis, standing firm on the gun-control measures he favors despite long odds.

Such a ban ‘‘deserves a vote in Congress because weapons of war have no place on our streets or in our schools or threatening our law enforcement officers,’’ he said.

The president spoke from a special police operations center in a city once known to some as ‘‘Murderapolis’’ but where gun violence has dropped amid a push to address it from city leaders. Police officers stood behind him.

SUSPECT IN 'AMERICAN SNIPER' SHOOTING CLAIMS PTSD

The former Marine and Iraq War veteran charged in the killings of a former Navy SEAL sniper and his friend on a Texas shooting range had been taken to a mental hospital twice in the past five months and told authorities he was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, law enforcement records show.

Eddie Ray Routh, 25, also told his sister and brother-in-law after the shootings that he "traded his soul for a new truck," according to an Erath County arrest warrant affidavit obtained by WFAA-TV. Police said Routh was driving the truck of one of the victims, former Navy SEAL and American Sniper co-author Chris Kyle, at the time of his arrest.

Erath County authorities have not given a motive for the fatal shootings Saturday of Kyle, 38, and Chad Littlefield, 35, at the Rough Creek Lodge west of Glen Rose.

SUPERDOME OFFICIALS WORRIED OF POWER OUTAGE BEFORE THE SUPER BOWL

GETTY IMAGES

The cause of a 34-minute blackout at the Super Bowl remains under investigation, but public records released Monday show that Superdome officials were worried about a power outage several months before the big game.

An Oct. 15 memo released by the Louisiana Stadium & Exposition District, which oversees the Superdome, says tests on the dome's electrical feeders showed they had "some decay and a chance of failure."

Entergy New Orleans, the company that supplies the stadium with power, and the structure's engineering staff "had concerns regarding the reliability of the Dome service from Entergy's connection point to the Dome," the memo says. Those concerns were due in part to "circumstances that have previously occurred with the electrical service regarding transient spikes and loads."

BOEHNER, GOP PRESSURES OBAMA TO BALANCE BUDGET

As President Obama misses a deadline today to submit a budget proposal to Congress, Republicans are working to advance techniques that not only pressure the president to present a budget plan, but also to rein in federal spending.

By law, the president is required to submit a budget request to Congress for the upcoming fiscal year by the first Monday of February. The only time Obama met the deadline during his presidency was in 2011.

House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, delivered remarks on the House floor this afternoon, declaring that by ignoring the deadline imposed by the Budget and Accounting Act of 1921, Obama “missed a great opportunity” to help the U.S. economy.

GOP'S TAGG ROMNEY, OTHERS WON'T RUN FOR KERRY SENATE SEAT

GLOBE STAFF

Tagg Romney, son of 2012 Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney, said today he would not run for the Massachusetts US Senate seat opening up because of the departure of John F. Kerry to be secretary of state.

Former governor William F. Weld and former lieutenant governor Kerry Healey also said they would not run, leaving few strong options for Bay State Republicans hoping for a victory in the June 25 special election in the traditionally blue state.

“I love my home state and admit it would be an honor to represent the citizens of our great Commonwealth. However, I am currently committed to my business and to spending as much time as I can with my wife and children,” Romney said this afternoon in an e-mailed statement, while noting that he was humbled by the “outreach” he had received over the weekend encouraging him to run.

EVASI0N HACKERS RELEASE iPHONE 5, iOS 6.1 JAILBREAK

A jailbreak tool for the latest iOS 6.1 software for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch devices has been released, just shy of a week after Apple let loose the latest mobile software.

@planetbeing made good on a promise that the software would be made available by today. The download links for the latest jailbreak software—available for Windows, OS X and Linux machines—went live today.

The Morning Report -- Monday February 4, 2013

Ravens Hold 49ers -- Netflix's House of Cards -- O'Reilly Lied -- Sniper Chris Kyle Killed -- Kerry Gets To Work -- Democrats Demand Additional 'Revenue' -- Obama: Tax Loopholes Next -- S. Korea/US Begin Naval Exercises

BALTIMORE STOPS 49ERS 3RD QUARTER COMEBACK

Image: Bleacher Report

NEW ORLEANS -- From blowout to blackout to shootout, Joe Flacco and the Baltimore Ravens had just enough power to survive one of the most electric Super Bowls ever.

The outage flipped the momentum to the San Francisco 49ers, but the Ravens used a last-gasp defensive stand to hold on Sunday night, 34-31.

America's biggest sporting event came to a half-hour standstill in the third quarter when most of the Superdome lights and the scoreboards went dark. By then, the Ravens had a 22-point lead.

Everything changed after that, though, and the 49ers staged a sensational rally before Ray Lewis and Co. shut it down. But there were plenty of white-knuckle moments and the Ravens (14-6) had to make four stops inside their 7 at the end.

NETFLIX'S HOUSE OF CARDS OFFERS BRIGHT FUTURE

Netflix

It’s hard to imagine the happiness at Netflix when they realized that House of Cards — the company’s much-heralded premiere of self-produced original programming – would debut its complete 13-episode run on the same week that the U.S. Senate held a hearing to confirm John Kerry as Secretary of State. After all, the updated American version of the 1990s BBC political drama launches with Kevin Spacey’s character, Congressman Frank Underwood, learning he won’t be nominated for that very position, a devastating insult that inspires his secret campaign to undermine the newly elected administration he pretends to serve. The show, it seemed, couldn’t be any more topical.

The problem for this new House of Cards is that despite this timely coincidence, the content of the show often feels curiously old-fashioned, especially in the context of its innovative format. That’s squarely the fault of the writing; for every smart move that writer Beau Willimon (The Ides of March)makes in updating the basic setup and plot of the BBC original for a modern American audience, he undermines his good work with clumsy dialogue and scenes that are too on-the-nose and out-of-step with the kind of sophisticated, layered writing we’ve come to expect from shows like Mad Men, Breaking Bad or even Game of Thrones.

O'REILLY'S JFK ASSASSINATION FIB

USA Today

Bill O’Reilly’s bestselling book on the JFK assassination, “Killing Kennedy,” partly follows the travails of O’Reilly himself as a young reporter trying to uncover the truth behind the president’s death. As author and former Salon politics editor Jefferson Morley highlighted this week, however, O’Reilly’s firsthand accounts appear lacking in the truth department.

In an incident detailed in the book (and flagged by media outlets including USA Today) O’Reilly claims he was tracking down an interview with George de Mohrenschildt, a Russian expat with possible CIA connections who was friends with Lee Harvey Oswald. Investigators looking into the JFK assassination were seeking information for de Mohnrenschildt when he reportedly committed suicide in 1977. According to “Killing Kennedy,” O’Reilly was on the Russian’s doorstep when he heard “the shotgun blast that marked the suicide.”

SEMIAUTOMATIC HANDGUN USED TO KILL 'AMERICAN SNIPER' NAVY SEAL CHRIS KYLE

Associated Press

The former Navy SEAL was found shot dead with a second man, Chad Littlefield, after a gunman opened 

fire and was later taken into custody. Kyle wrote a best-selling autobiography detailing his 150-plus kills of insurgents from 1999 to 2009. The gunman was identified as Eddie Ray Routh, 25, who may have been suffering from post traumatic stress disorder, according to local media.

He lived by the gun, and he died by the gun.

The military’s most famous sniper — Chris Kyle, a Navy SEAL who claimed to have killed more than 150 insurgents from long distances in the Iraq war — was gunned down point-blank by a mentally unstable vet at a Texas shooting range Saturday.

Kyle, 38, was visiting the Rough Creek Lodge range outside Fort Worth with friend Chad Littlefield when deranged vet Eddie Ray Routh, 25, fatally shot both men, police said.

Routh, a former Marine, fled and was later arrested at his home outside Dallas, where cops retrieved the semiautomatic handgun used to kill both men.

Kyle, a highly decorated Iraq veteran, wrote the best-selling book, “American Sniper: The Autobiography of the Most Lethal Sniper in U.S. Military History.”

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/american-sniper-author-chris-kyle-fatally-shot-article-1.1254181#ixzz2JuYTxg2M

SECRETARY KERRY HAS BUSY FIRST WEEKEND

Associated Press

It's possible that John Kerry might be too excited about his new job. Rather than kicking back and letting everyone enjoy their weekend, Kerry got right to work, calling Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Israeli President Shimon Peres, and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to discuss his commitment to peace in the Middle East, as well as other issues in the region. He also talked with officials from Japan, South Korea, Canada, Mexico, and Turkey, then spent his lunch break chatting with George Shultz, secretary of state under President Reagan. 

REID SAYS NEW REVENUE VITAL IN A BUDGET DEAL

ABC News

WASHINGTON—Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid drew a red line in the budget showdown with Republicans, saying Democrats will demand additional revenue as part of any deal to alter the mandatory spending cuts set to hit at the beginning of next month.

The comments, made in an interview Sunday with ABC's "This Week," come as Senate Democrats weigh options for averting at least some of the March 1 cuts, known in Washington as the sequester. One Democratic proposal would seek to offset some of the roughly $85 billion in cuts this year with a combination of tax increases and spending cuts.

"There are a lot of tax loopholes that should be closed," the Senate's top Democrat said in the interview aired Sunday. He cited tax provisions for oil companies and for companies with operations overseas. The White House has called for similar steps as part of any deal to avert some of the March 1 cuts.

OBAMA SAYS LOOPHOLES MAY BE NEXT

Reuters

WASHINGTON — President Obama said in a televised interview on Sunday that he could foresee a budget deal in Congress that did not include further increases in tax rates but instead focused on eliminating loopholes and deductions.

Mr. Obama has generally insisted that all revenue options, including higher rates, should be considered to slow the rise of federal budgetdeficits. But in the interview with Scott Pelley of CBS News, he said, “I don’t think the issue right now is raising rates.”

Having just raised rates on people earning more than $450,000 a year, Mr. Obama said the focus now should be on targeted spending cuts and changes to the tax code, which he said favored the wealthy.

SOUTH KOREA, US BEGIN NAVAL DRILLS AMID NUCLEAR TENSIONS

The scheduled drills, involving a US nuclear submarine, come after North Korea said it was planning to carry out its third test of a nuclear device.

Associated Press

The US and South Korea have promised "significant consequences" if it goes ahead with the underground explosion.

The North has criticised the naval drills as "war-mongering".

The exercises, taking place off the east coast of the Korean peninsula, involve live fire, naval manoeuvres and submarine detection drills.

Officials have stressed they were planned before the latest rise in tensions.

But South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Jung Seung-Jo said the presence of the nuclear-powered submarine USS San Francisco in the region "would itself serve as a message to North Korea".

The Morning Report -- Tuesday January 29, 2013

Immigration: A Bipartisan Endeavor -- Obama Pleads With Law -- Sandy Aid Approved -- Super Bowl Costs Going Up -- Apple Releases iOS 6.1; Jailbreak Pending -- Twitter Snitches On Government -- Google Reveals North Korea -- Canada Proposes Requiring Unlocked Phones -- America's Economy -- No More Star Wars...3D That Is

IMMIGRATION PROPOSAL A "MAJOR BREAKTHROUGH" SENATORS SAY

Associated Press

A group of bipartisan senators formally unveiled their framework for comprehensive immigration reform today, saying they are more optimistic than they have been in years for the chance of passing such legislation.

"We have come together on a set of bipartisan principles for comprehensive immigration reforms that we hope can pass the Senate in an overwhelming and bipartisan fashion," Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said today in a press conference. "We still have a long way to go, [but] this bipartisan blueprint is a major breakthrough."

OBAMA ASKS LAW ENFORCEMENT TO PUSH GUN PROPOSALS

Associated Press

WASHINGTON – President Obama on Monday met with police chiefs from around the country -- including three from communities affected by mass shootings -- as part of his effort to build support for the gun control measures he wants to push through Congress.

At a morning meeting at the White House, Obama asked the law enforcement officials to put pressure on lawmakers to act on the measures he endorsed in the wake of the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn.

“If law enforcement officials who are dealing with this stuff every single day can come to some basic consensus in terms of steps that we need to take, Congress is going to be paying attention to them and we’ll be able to make progress,” Obama said.

SENATE APPROVES $50.5 BILLION IN SANDY AID 

Getty Images

WASHINGTON – The Senate voted Monday to approve a $50.5 billion emergency aid bill for victims of Superstorm Sandy, three months after the storm began pounding the Northeast.

"We're thrilled that, finally, relief is on its way," Democratic Sen. Robert Menendez of New Jersey said moments after the vote.

Democratic Sen. Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey said the next step will be making sure funds are disbursed quickly to his state.

"Fate dealt us a bad hand," he said. "The damage was beyond belief."

The vote was 62-36, barely over the 60 votes needed for passage.

SUPER BOWL ALERT: CHICKEN WINGS WILL COST YOU

www.eatlivegrowpaleo.com

When it comes to the Super Bowl, there's lots of chatter about the millions of dollars spent on ads and the sky-high price of tickets.

But what will really hurt your wallet come game day? Chicken wings.

Every year, the cost of the beloved game-time grub shoots up at the end of January as restaurants gear up to feed the masses for the NFL's big showdown.

Prices usually go down soon after. But that drop never happened last year, because sweeping droughts in the Midwest drove up feed prices, agricultural experts say. As a result, the price of chicken farming, and therefore wings, has been gradually increasing.

APPLE RELEASES iOS 6.1, AVAILABLE FOR DOWNLOAD TODAY

(Credit: CNET)

In a statement, the Cupertino, California-based technology giant said the new software will bring 4G long-term evolution (LTE) capabilities to 36 additional iPhone carriers and 23 additional iPad carriers around the world.

New LTE markets have been updated on Apple's Web site to include Denmark, Finland, Italy, Switzerland, and some Middle Eastern states.

TWITTER'S TRANSPARENCY REPORT SHOWS INCREASE IN GOVERNMENT DATA REQUESTS

Photograph: Iain Masterton/Alamy

Government requests for Twitter users' data rose by 20% in the second half of 2012, the social network said on Monday.

The requests came from 30 countries around the world, but the vast majority were from the US and were usually linked to criminal investigations.

Updated figures on what government and rights holders have been asking of the social network were revealed in the second of its transparency reports and posted on a new site, transparency.twitter.com

GOOGLE UNVEILS DETAILED MAP OF NORTH KOREA

Associated Press

The map is a culmination of years of data collected from "citizen cartographers" via the Map Maker feature of the company's Google Maps software. Read related story

WIRELESS FEE, CONTRACT GUIDELINES PROPOSED BY CRTC - CARRIERS WOULD BE REQUIRED TO UNLOCK PHONES, CAP MONTHLY BILLS

Wireless providers would face limits on early termination fees and must unlock phones under "reasonable terms" under new draft guidelines released Monday by Canada's telecommunications regulator.

The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission is asking the public for feedback on its draft "wireless code" via an online discussion that will remain open until 5 p.m. Feb. 15, the last day of a public hearing in Gatineau, Que., on the code. The hearing begins on Feb. 11.

AMERICA'S ECONOMY: LOOKING BETTER

WHEN Barack Obama was sworn in four years ago, the economic figures were terrifying. A financial crisis and a savage recession were in full swing, and house foreclosures were soaring. The day of his inauguration, panic about the banks sent the Dow Jones Industrial Average down more than 300 points. At the start of his second term, by contrast, the Dow hit a five-year high, while a widely followed index of investor fear called the VIX reached a near-six-year low (see table).

NO MORE STAR WARS 3D PREQUELS TO BE RELEASED

Disney has announced that there will be no more releases of the 3D versions of Star Wars prequels. The decision doesn't come as a shock to movie viewers as Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace in 3D never recovered it's production costs. The prequels to the Star Wars films have long been degraded by fans as being "not true" to the originals. Disney has also scrapped plans for a 3D reincarnation of The Little Mermaid citing revenue outlooks. 

The Morning Report -- Monday January 28, 2013

POTUS & Secretary Clinton -- Immigration Reform A Possibility -- Obama's Political Fork -- Healthcare's Reality -- Super Bowl Looms -- Tiger Has Big Lead -- Aspirin Eye Abuse

PREVIEW: THE PRESIDENT AND THE SECRETARY OF STATE

IMMIGRATION REFORM: LAWMAKERS SEE OVERHAUL OF IMMIGRATION SYSTEM CLEARING CONGRESS THIS YEAR

WASHINGTON -- Republican and Democratic lawmakers were cautiously optimistic Sunday that a long-sought overhaul of the nation's immigration system that includes a pathway to citizenship for the 11 million illegal immigrants currently in the country will clear Congress this year, the result of changes in the political landscape shown in November's election.

"We are trying to work our way through some very difficult issues," said Illinois' Sen. Richard Durbin, the No. 2 Democrat in the Senate. "But, we are committed to a comprehensive approach to finally, in this country, have an immigration law we can live with. We have virtually been going maybe 25 years without a clear statement about immigration policy. That's unacceptable in this nation of immigrants."

OBAMA: COMPROMISE OR 'POLITICAL CONQUEST'? 

Associated Press

As he moves into his second term, President Obama says he’s going to spend more time communicating directly with the American people – something he acknowledges having done too little of during his first term – while working to present his administration and most congressional Democrats as willing to compromise on important issues.

“I've been spending a lot of time just thinking about how do I communicate more effectively with the American people?” Mr. Obama said in an interview with the New Republic magazine. “How do I try to bridge some of the divides that are longstanding in our culture? How do I project a sense of confidence in our future at a time when people are feeling anxious?”

CONSUMER ALERT: NEW HEALTH CARE MARKETS ON THE WAY

Getty Images

WASHINGTON - Buying your own health insurance will never be the same.

This fall, new insurance markets called exchanges will open in each state, marking the long-awaited and much-debated debut of President Barack Obama's health care overhaul.

The goal is quality coverage for millions of uninsured people in the United States. What the reality will look like is anybody's guess , from bureaucracy, confusion and indifference to seamless service and satisfied customers.

Exchanges will offer individuals and their families a choice of private health plans resembling what workers at major companies already get. The government will help many middle-class households pay their premiums, while low-income people will be referred to safety-net programs they might qualify for.

SUPER BOWL XLVII COACHES DEFINED BY BOLD MOVES DURING RUN TO BIG GAME

NFL head coaches make dozens, maybe hundreds of decisions every day. Who to start, who to promote, who to demote, who to cut, who to keep, how to attack, how to defend, all the way down to whether to kick, receive or defer at the start of the game.

Baltimore's John Harbaugh and San Francisco's Jim Harbaugh each made one critical decision down the stretch of the 2012 season that propelled their teams to a historic showdown between brothers in Super Bowl XLVII on Feb. 3 in New Orleans.

TIGER WOODS HOLDS BIG LEAD HEADING TO MONDAY

Associated Press

Due to the fog that wiped out an entire day of golf, the Farmers Insurance Open was never going to end on Sunday, even though Tiger Woods effectively ended it.

Woods walked off Torrey Pines with a six-shot lead and only 11 more holes between him and winning on this course for the eighth time in his pro career.

He drove the ball with superb control in the third round on his way to a 3-under 69 to build a four-shot lead after three rounds. He lost control with his driver in the fourth round and still managed three birdies in seven holes.

ASPIRIN USE LINKED TO AGE-RELATED EYE DISEASE

i.stockphoto

The research, published in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine, shows that the risk appears to be independent of a history of smoking, which is also a known preventable risk factor for neovascular age-related macular degeneration (AMD).

Aspirin, also known as acetylsalicylic acid, is commonly used in the prevention of cardiovascular disease, such as myocardial infarction and ischemic stroke.

While a five-year European study published last year suggested that regular aspirin use – defined as once or more per week in the past year – was associated with AMD, other studies had reported inconsistent findings. The new study was conducted over a much longer period and found clear evidence of the risk.

Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/2013/01/27/4034141/super-bowl-xlvii-coaches-defined.html#storylink=cpy