Pro-gun billboard featuring Native Americans causing controversy in Colorado

Jim Rydbom / Greeley Tribune via AP

A billboard on U.S. 85 and 18th Street in Greeley, Colo., has residents upset on how the political billboard is depicting Native American.

By Andrew Rafferty, Staff Writer, NBC News

Two billboards that attempt to make the case for gun rights are being called disrespectful by some residents of a northern Colorado town.?

The black and white billboards, which are placed beside busy roadways in Greeley, Colo., feature three men dressed in traditional Native American attire with the words?"Turn in your arms. The government will take care of?you." ?The person in the front of the photo is holding a rifle.

Matt Wells, and accountant with Lamar Advertising in Denver, told the Associated Press that a group of local residents who wish to remain anonymous purchased the space.

"I think it's a little bit extreme, of course, but I think people are really worried about their gun rights and what liberties are going to be taken away," Wells told the Greeley Tribune.

He refused to disclose how much the ads cost, but said they are only appearing around Greeley. He also said he has not personally received any complaints so far.

But Irene Vernon, a Colorado State University professor and chairwoman of the ethnic studies department, told the Associated Press that the plight of Native Americans history with the U.S. is much more complicated than whether or not American Indians were armed.

"It wasn't just about our guns," said Vernon, herself a Native American.?

Others who saw the billboard criticized it for politicizing or making light of the United States broken promised to Native Americans that date back to the country's founding.

The story also lit up the Denver Post's comments section, with a strong amount of comments supporting the billboards.

"I am a Navajo Indian and I am not offended by the billboard. The billboard merely points out broken promises by the U.S. government," said one comment.

Others critiqued the ad's message, citing that the current debate about guns is not over whether or not existing gun owners need to turn their firearms in, but how to regulate how they are bought and sold.

"If you feel you are putting out a strong message about gun control, why use a Native American image to make your gun-rights argument and then dastardly ask to remain anonymous?" another comment said.

?

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Physicists, biologists unite to expose how cancer spreads

Monday, April 29, 2013

Cancer cells that can break out of a tumor and invade other organs are more aggressive and nimble than nonmalignant cells, according to a new multi-institutional nationwide study. These cells exert greater force on their environment and can more easily maneuver small spaces.

The researchers report in the journal Scientific Reports that a systematic comparison of metastatic breast-cancer cells to healthy breast cells revealed dramatic differences between the two cell lines in their mechanics, migration, oxygen response, protein production and ability to stick to surfaces. The researchers discovered new insights into how cells make the transition from nonmalignant to metastatic, a process that is not well understood.

The resulting catalogue of differences could someday help researchers detect cancerous cells earlier and someday prevent or treat metastatic cancer, which is responsible for 90 percent of all cancer deaths, according to the study. It was conducted by a network of 12 federally funded Physical Sciences-Oncology Centers (PS-OC) sponsored by the National Cancer Institute. PS-OC is a collaboration of researchers in the physical and biological sciences seeking a better understanding of the physical and chemical forces that shape the emergence and behavior of cancer.

"By bringing together different types of experimental expertise to systematically compare metastatic and nonmetastatic cells, we have advanced our knowledge of how metastasis occurs," said Robert Austin, professor of physics and leader of the Princeton PS-OC, along with senior co-investigator Thea Tlsty of the University of California-San Francisco.

Researchers with the Princeton PS-OC, for instance, determined that metastatic cells, in spite of moving more slowly than nonmalignant cells, move farther and in a straighter line, Austin said. The investigators studied the cells' behavior in tiny cell-sized chambers and channels etched out of silicon and designed to mimic the natural environment of the body's interior.

"The mobility of these metastatic cells is an essential feature of their ability to break through the tough membrane [the extracellular matrix] that the body uses to wall off the tumor from the rest of the body," Austin said. "These cells are essentially jail-breakers."

The tiny silicon chambers were built using Princeton's expertise in microfabrication technology ? typically used to create small technologies such as integrated circuits and solar cells ? and are an example of the type of expertise that physicists and engineers can bring to cancer research, Austin said. For the current study, the Princeton team included physics graduate students David Liao and Guillaume Lambert, and postdoctoral researchers Liyu Liu and Saurabh Vyawahare. They worked closely with a research group led by James Sturm, Princeton's William and Edna Macaleer Professor of Engineering and Applied Science and director of the Princeton Institute for the Science and Technology of Materials (PRISM) where the microfabrication was done.

The Princeton PS-OC also includes collaborators at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, the Salk Institute for Biological Studies and the University of California-Santa Cruz.

The nationwide PS-OC program aims to crack the difficulty of understanding and treating cancer by bringing in researchers from physics, engineering, computer science and chemistry, said Nastaran Zahir Kuhn, program manager for the PS-OC at the National Cancer Institute.

Other notable findings from the paper include that metastatic cells recover more rapidly from the stress of a low-oxygen environment than nonmetastatic cells, which is consistent with previous studies. Although the low-oxygen environment did kill many of the metastatic cells, the survivors rebounded vigorously, underscoring the likely role of individual cells in the spread of cancer. The study also looked at total protein production and detected proteins in the metastatic cells that are consistent with the physical properties such as mobility that malignant cells need to invade the extracellular matrix.

"The PS-OC program aims to bring physical sciences tools and perspectives into cancer research," Kuhn said. "The results of this study demonstrate the utility of such an approach, particularly when studies are conducted in a standardized manner from the beginning."

For the nationwide project, nearly 100 investigators from 20 institutions and laboratories conducted their experiments using the same two cell lines, reagents and protocols to assure that results could be compared. The experimental methods ranged from physical measurements of how the cells push on surrounding cells to measurements of gene and protein expression.

"Roughly 20 techniques were used to study the cell lines, enabling identification of a number of unique relationships between observations," Kuhn said.

For example, a technique known as atomic force microscopy indicated that metastatic cells are softer than nonmalignant cells whereas a different technique, traction force microscopy, suggested that metastatic cells exert more force on their surroundings, Kuhn said. Together these two findings may indicate that metastatic cells can exert force to stick to, migrate on and remodel the tough extracellular matrix that surrounds the tumor, while remaining flexible enough to squeeze through small spaces in that membrane.

###

Princeton University: http://www.princeton.edu

Thanks to Princeton University for this article.

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Source: http://www.labspaces.net/127975/Physicists__biologists_unite_to_expose_how_cancer_spreads

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Farrah Abraham to Jenelle Evans: YOU SUCK at Parenting, Life!

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CA-NEWS Summary

Syrian prime minister survives Damascus bombing, six die

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Syrian Prime Minister Wael al-Halki survived a bomb attack on his convoy in Damascus on Monday, state media and activists said, as rebels struck in the heart of President Bashar al-Assad's capital. Six people were killed in the blast, the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said, the latest in a series of rebel attacks on government targets including a December bombing which wounded Assad's interior minister.

Italy's new government begins life in climate of crisis

ROME (Reuters) - New Italian Prime Minister Enrico Letta seeks the backing of parliament in a confidence vote on Monday, facing severe political and economic problems that will test the solidity of his broad coalition government in the months ahead. Letta is due to speak in parliament at 3 p.m. (9:00 a.m. EDT) before the lower house confidence vote in the evening, where he will be backed by his center-left Democratic Party and former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's center-right People of Freedom.

Lawyers, public chant "hang him" as Bangladesh building owner led to court

DHAKA (Reuters) - Bangladeshi lawyers and protesters chanted "hang him, hang him" on Monday as the owner of a factory building that collapsed last week killing nearly 400 people was led into court dressed in a helmet and bullet-proof jacket, witnesses said. The drama came as rescue officials said they were unlikely to find more survivors in the rubble of the building that collapsed on Wednesday, burying hundreds of garment workers in the country's worst industrial accident.

South Africa's Mandela in good health, good spirits: ANC

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - Anti-apartheid hero Nelson Mandela is in good health and good spirits, South Africa's ruling African National Congress said on Monday, in the first update on his condition since he was discharged from hospital in early April. President Jacob Zuma and other party leaders visited the 94-year-old former president at his Johannesburg home.

In changing region, U.S. committed to military ties with Gulf Arabs

DUBAI/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Washington is signaling its military commitment to its Gulf Arab allies at a time of unfamiliar strain in their decades old partnership. Syria's civil war and Iran's nuclear program have led to tensions, with Gulf Arab states willing a more assertive U.S. response to bring Iran to heel and force Syrian President Bashar al-Assad from power. Growing U.S. energy independence has further complicated a relationship founded on oil and defense.

Kenya chief justice denies taking bribe in presidential petition

NAIROBI (Reuters) - Kenya's chief justice on Monday denied accusations that he had received bribes to rule in favor of President Uhuru Kenyatta in a petition challenging the outcome of last month's election that was the biggest test yet of the newly reformed judiciary. Kenya's Supreme Court, chaired by Chief Justice Willy Mutunga, upheld Kenyatta's victory, dismissing a petition by presidential contender Raila Odinga. Former Prime Minister Odinga accepted the verdict, helping douse tensions after tribal violence blighted the previous election five years before.

Dubai court jails Britons for four years on drug charges

DUBAI (Reuters) - A Dubai court sentenced three Britons to four years in jail on drug charges on Monday, a decision that may overshadow a visit to Britain by the United Arab Emirates president because of allegations that the defendants were tortured. The three were convicted a day after British Prime Minister David Cameron voiced concern about the allegations and his spokesman said the case would be on the agenda of his talks this week with UAE President Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed al-Nahayan.

British voters see more gloom in years ahead: poll

LONDON (Reuters) - Nearly half of Britons expect their living standards to fall further by the time they vote in the next election in 2015, but the opposition Labor Party could still struggle to win if the economy does rebound, a pollster said on Monday. A YouGov poll showed 46 percent of respondents thought they would be worse off in 2015 than now. Only seven percent saw a full recovery in the next two to three years.

Myanmar should deploy more troops in volatile state: commission

YANGON (Reuters) - Myanmar must urgently address the plight of Muslims displaced by sectarian bloodshed in western Rakhine State and double the number of security forces to control the still-volatile region, an independent commission said on Monday. Its long-awaited report recommended a mixed bag of humanitarian and security responses to violence last June and October that killed at least 192 people and left 140,000 homeless, mostly stateless Rohingya Muslims in an area dominated by ethnic Rakhine Buddhists.

Car bomb blasts kill 18 in Iraqi Shi'ite provinces

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Car bombs in busy Shi'ite Muslim areas of southern Iraq killed at least 18 people on Monday, medics and police sources said, taking the week's death toll to nearly 200 as sectarian violence intensifies. Militant attacks have increased as the civil war in neighboring Syria puts further strains on fragile Sunni-Shi'ite relations, and tensions are at their highest since U.S. troops left Iraq more than a year ago.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/ca-news-summary-014908619.html

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Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 announced, joins the Android tablet line-up with a 7-inch screen

If an 8-inch stylus-enabled Galaxy Tablet wasn't your cup of tea, perhaps Samsung's new seven-inch model will hit your screen-size sweet spot. The Galaxy Tab 3 has gone official and the third iteration of the company's first Android tablet arrives with a dual-core 1.2GHz processor, 8GB or 16GB of storage (with expansion up to 64GB), a 3- and 1.3-megapixel camera array and a substantial 4,000mAh battery. That 7-inch WSVGA (1,024 x 600) TFT display suggests it's likely to be a keenly-priced slate, although we're still waiting to hear on specifics. Samsung's loaded up the Galaxy Tab 3 with Android 4.1 and says that the WiFi version will launch "globally" in May, while an incoming 3G model (no LTE at this point, but it'll be able to make calls) will follow in June.

Gallery: Samsung Galaxy Tab 3

Filed under: Tablets, Samsung

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LG will launch the world's first 55-inch curved OLED HDTV (update)

We heard that the curved OLED HDTV prototypes LG showed at CES would be coming soon, and now it's official. A Korean press release indicates we can expect the 55EA9800 to launch in the next month, with shipments starting in June. According to the specs, its 4.3mm depth results in a weight of just 17kg, probably thanks to a carbon-fiber reinforced frame. Like an IMAX theater screen, the edges are curved towards the viewer to provide a more immersive feeling. Given the fact that we're still waiting for LG's flat OLED TVs to see a wider release we doubt it will arrive on US shelves any time soon, but until then you can check out our in-person pics from CES below, and a video after the break.

Update: LG sent over the English press release, which confirms pre-orders start today at more than 1,400 retail locations with a price of 15 million Korean won ($13,500), a healthy bump over the standard version's $10K MSRP. Release dates and pricing for non-Korean markets are coming "in the months ahead," check after the break to read all the details first hand.

Gallery: LG's curved EA9800 OLED display eyes-on

Filed under: Displays, Home Entertainment, HD, LG

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Source: LG Korea

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Italian court rejects Nomura seizure order: sources

SIENA, Italy (Reuters) - An Italian judge has rejected an order to seize around 1.8 billion euros ($2.3 billion) of assets from Japanese bank Nomura as part of a probe into suspected fraud involving troubled lender Monte dei Paschi di Siena, legal sources said on Saturday.

Assets worth 140 million euros that were already seized from the Japanese bank have been released under the judge's ruling, which was made on Friday, the judicial source said.

A spokeswoman for Nomura in Italy declined to comment.

Prosecutors in Siena investigating lossmaking derivatives trades made under Monte Paschi's previous management ordered the seizure of around 1.8 billion euros of assets from the Japanese bank on April 16, but the court has rejected their request to have the order endorsed.

The trades under scrutiny include a structured deal with Nomura known as 'Alexandria', as well as a similar trade with Deutsche Bank called 'Santorini' and a smaller deal called 'Nota Italia' with JP Morgan.

It was not immediately clear whether under the judge's ruling Monte Paschi has to resume collateral payments on the Alexandria deal, which had been frozen by the prosecutors order.

On Friday Nomura's chief financial officer, Shigesuke Kashiwagi, said in a note that his bank intended to engage with Italian prosecutors to find a solution.

Monte Paschi was forced earlier this year to book losses of nearly 1 billion euros after disclosing details of the complex derivatives deals.

The bank had already been weakened by the euro zone crisis and has been forced to accept help from the state in the form of 4 billion euros of state bonds to meet tough capital requirements set by European regulators.

The investigation is also politically sensitive in Italy as the Tuscan bank had strong links with local center-left party leaders.

($1=0.7676 euros)

(Reporting by Silvia Ognibene and Danilo Masoni; Editing by Greg Mahlich)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/italy-court-rejects-seizure-nomura-assets-monte-paschi-095954292.html

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Soils Cannot Lock Away Black Carbon

Environmentalists have argued that the use of biochar could slow and ultimately reduce global warming by taking carbon out of circulation. Image: Flickr/Lou Gold

LONDON ? Climate scientists may have to rethink some of their old assumptions about carbon. US and European researchers have just established that black carbon, soot and biochar ? the burnt remains from countless forest fires ? doesn't stay in the soil indefinitely.

Around 27 million tons of the stuff gets dissolved in water and washed down the rivers into the oceans each year.

Black carbon or biochar has been hailed as one possible way of limiting greenhouse gas emissions, by taking carbon out of circulation. But this study, according to a report in the journal Science, "closes a major gap in the global charcoal budget and provides critical information in the context of geo-engineering."

Forest, bush, scrub and peat fires produce somewhere between 40 and 250 million tons of black carbon every year. Had this burning been complete, this would have ended up as carbon dioxide, back in the atmosphere.

'A significant amount of black carbon'
So researchers have counted the biochar locked in the soil ? where it enhances fertility ? as carbon out of circulation for millions of years. But analysis of water from the world's 10 largest rivers ? the Amazon, the Yangtse, the Congo and so on ? told a different story.

"Each sample included a significant amount of black carbon," said Anssi V?h?talo, of the University of Jyv?skyl? in Finland. "On average, the amount of black carbon was 10 percent of the amount of dissolved organic carbon.

"The results prove that the proportion of water-soluble carbon may be as much as 40 percent of black carbon created annually."

The sampled rivers carry one third of the water running to the oceans, from a catchment area that embraces 28 percent of the planet's land area.

Stubbornly on the increase
The research is yet another step in the long and tricky international effort to understand just how the world works: How life's raw materials are consumed, exploited and recycled, and why greenhouse gas emissions are stubbornly on the increase.

Fossil fuel burning puts back into the atmosphere the carbon dioxide ? and the warmth ? locked away in the Carboniferous period and buried for 300 million years.

Log fires simply restore carbon dioxide to the atmosphere that was locked up a few decades earlier, in the growing tree: Log fires in that sense are carbon neutral, or even carbon negative, since a lot of the carbon lingers and is buried as ash, soot or charcoal.

Some environmentalists have argued that greater use of biochar could slow and perhaps ultimately reduce global warming by taking carbon out of circulation. The accounting may not be so simple.

"Most scientists thought charcoal was resistant. They thought, once it is incorporated in the soils, it would stay there," said Rudolf Jaff? from Florida University.

"When charcoal forms it is typically deposited in the soil. From a chemical perspective, no one really thought it dissolves, but it does," he added.

"It doesn't accumulate, like we had for a long time believed."

This article originally appeared at The Daily Climate, the climate change news source published by Environmental Health Sciences, a nonprofit media company.

Source: http://rss.sciam.com/click.phdo?i=82674a0abdacd3cd4fe145880651f65b

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Mystery clouds deadly clash in western China with 'suspected terrorists'

Some say that Beijing deliberately exaggerates the terrorist threat in order to justify the iron grip it keeps on the Muslim majority province of Xinjiang in?western China.

By Peter Ford,?Staff Writer / April 24, 2013

A woman looks up as a dust storm hits Kashgar, Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region, last week. Xinjiang, once a predominantly Muslim province in China's far west, has seen massive settlement by ethnic Han immigrants in recent decades.

Reuters

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Mystery surrounds official Chinese reports Wednesday of a violent clash between ?suspected terrorists? and the authorities in the restive Muslim province of Xinjiang yesterday that left 21 people dead, including 15 officials.

Skip to next paragraph Peter Ford

Beijing Bureau Chief

Peter Ford is The Christian Science Monitor?s Beijing Bureau Chief. He covers news and features throughout China and also makes reporting trips to Japan and the Korean peninsula.

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According to a statement on the provincial government website, a group ?planning to conduct violent terrorist activities? armed with knives seized three local officials who had surprised them in a house near the city of Kashgar (see map).

They then killed the three hostages and 12 of the policemen and local community workers who came to the rescue, setting fire to the house before armed police regained control of the situation, killing six of the suspects and arresting eight of them, the statement said.

The Chinese authorities have given only sketchy details of the incident, and have not accused any particular group of responsibility. Beijing has previously blamed Islamist separatists for earlier violent attacks on officials.

Xinjiang, once a predominantly Muslim province in China?s far west, has seen massive settlement by ethnic Han immigrants in recent decades. Local people complain that their culture and language are being eroded and that Han now outnumber original inhabitants, who are ethnic Uighurs, with linguistic and cultural ties to central Asian peoples.

Violence flares sporadically, despite a stiflingly heavy handed police and army presence. In 2009 almost 200 people were killed ? mostly ethnic Han ? in deadly rioting in the provincial capital of Urumqi. Last month the government announced that courts in Xinjiang had sentenced 20 men to prison terms as long as life for plotting jihadi attacks.

The men ?had their thoughts poisoned by religious extremism,? according to the Xinjiang provincial website, and had ?spread Muslim religious propaganda.?

Determining the truth behind such allegations, and incidents such as Tuesday?s clash,?is difficult. Chinese media are not allowed to carry reports other than those by the state-run news agency Xinhua and foreign reporters have found themselves restricted and harassed when trying to work in Xinjiang.

A leading Uighur activist, Dilxat Raxit, who lives in Germany, questioned the official account, telling the AP that local residents had reported that the police sparked the incident by shooting a Uighur youth during a house search.

It was not clear how the suspects, armed only with knives, had managed to kill 15 policemen and local officials before they were subdued.

China has often accused a shadowy group known as the East Turkestan Islamic Movement of being behind violence in Xinjiang, but foreign observers are dubious, with some saying that Beijing deliberately exaggerates the terrorist threat in order to justify the iron grip it keeps on Xinjiang.

The US State Department put the group on its terrorist watch list in 2002, but has since removed it amid doubts about whether the group is a real organization.?

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/csmonitor/globalnews/~3/tasBOUfpA_A/Mystery-clouds-deadly-clash-in-western-China-with-suspected-terrorists

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Hunting That Elusive Tea Party Bomber (Powerlineblog)

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Flights are delayed at major East Coast airports as sequester-related furloughs begin (Washington Post)

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EU Commission recommends start of Serbia EU membership talks

LUXEMBOURG (Reuters) - The European Commission recommended on Monday that negotiations begin with Serbia on membership of the European Union.

After months of on-off negotiations, Serbia agreed last week to cede its last remaining foothold in Kosovo, its former province, striking an historic accord to settle relations in exchange for talks on joining the European Union.

"The Commission considers that Serbia has met the key priority of taking steps towards a visible and sustainable improvement of relations with Kosovo," the European Union's executive body wrote in a joint report on the Serbia-Kosovo talks.

"The European Commission therefore recommends that negotiations for accession to the Union should be opened."

Launching negotiations to join the EU represents a milestone for Serbia, which has taken longer than most other Balkan states to emerge from the ruins of the conflicts that followed the break-up of Yugoslavia in the early 1990s.

Croatia, another former Yugoslav state, is set to join the European Union from July this year, becoming the 28th member of the bloc. Accession is likely to bring large benefits in terms of foreign investment and trade opportunities.

Serbia will be hoping for similar benefits once its accession talks are complete, a process that is likely to take at least a couple of years.

While all parties to the negotiations over Serbia and Kosovo are hoping the terms of the agreement will hold firm, there are already concerns about potential backsliding.

Serb municipal lawmakers in northern Kosovo, which Serbs consider a cradle of their nation, have demanded a referendum on whether Kosovo should be part of Serbia, or whether Belgrade should accept the conditions set down by the European Union.

(Reporting by Justyna Pawlak and Martin Santa; editing by Rex Merrifield)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/eu-commission-recommends-start-serbia-eu-membership-talks-095132792.html

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Boston suspects' Chechen family traveled long road

TOKMOK, Kyrgyzstan (AP) ? The two brothers accused of blowing up homemade bombs at the Boston Marathon came from a Chechen family that for decades had been tossed from one country to another by war and persecution.

Their father and former neighbors from Kyrgyzstan ? home to many Chechens who were deported from their native villages by Soviet dictator Josef Stalin ? tell of a family often on the move in search of safety and a better life.

Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, who was killed in a shootout, and his 19-year-old brother, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who was captured alive, had moved to the United States about a decade ago with their parents and two sisters. By all accounts, the younger brother had many friends, but his older brother felt alienated from American society and in recent years had turned increasingly to Islam.

Although neither spent much time in Chechnya, a province in southern Russia that has been torn apart by war and an Islamic insurgency, both strongly identified themselves as Chechens. They took up boxing and wrestling, two of the most popular sports in Chechnya, where people are proud of their warrior traditions.

The brothers' story begins in Tokmok, a town about 60 kilometers (35 miles) from the capital of Kyrgyzstan, a country in Central Asia that was once part of the Soviet Union. Stalin rounded up the Chechens and shipped them east during World War II, seeing them as potentially disloyal. Their father, Anzor Tsarnaev, was born in Kyrgyzstan.

"This was a very good family," Badrudi Tsokoev, a fellow Chechen who lived next door to the Tsarnaevs, said Saturday. "They all strove to get a higher education, to somehow set themselves up in life."

The brothers' grandfather had died tragically when a shell exploded as he was scavenging for metal that could be sold as scrap, neighbors said.

After the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union, the family moved to Chechnya, only to have war break out in 1994 between Russian troops and Chechen separatists fighting for an independent homeland. Dzhokhar was born in 1993 and shares the name of Chechnya's first separatist leader.

The fierce battles, which reduced much of Chechnya to rubble, sent the Tsarnaevs fleeing back to Kyrgyzstan with their two young sons, a daughter and another one on the way.

"As soon as the war started they came back," said Nadezhda Nazarenko, another former neighbor in Tokmok. The children's mother "described how they were in clothes they would wear only around the house and fled the bombing, managing only to grab their documents and a few things."

Neighbors said Anzor Tsarnaev, who had studied law and previously served in the prosecutor's office, worked hard to provide for his family.

"Soon they began to live well and renovated their home," Nazarenko said. "The children did well in school and were well behaved."

Russian troops rolled into Chechnya again in 1999 and took it under Moscow's control. The same year, the Tsarnaev family moved back to Russia, according to Anzor Tsarnaev, settling briefly in Dagestan, which like neighboring Chechnya is a predominantly Muslim republic. They left from there in 2002 for the United States, joining relatives who had emigrated earlier.

Anzor Tsarnaev told The Associated Press that the move to the U.S. was motivated in part by a desire to escape discrimination against Chechens in Russia and Kyrgyzstan.

He returned about a year ago to Dagestan, which has become the epicenter of the Islamic insurgency that spilled over from Chechnya to spread throughout the North Caucasus region.

His elder son visited him last year, according to neighbors in Makhachkala, the capital of Dagestan.

No evidence has emerged to connect Tamerlan Tsarnaev with the insurgents, who have carried out a series of terrorist attacks in Russia. The FBI said it interviewed him in 2011 at the request of an unspecified foreign government and found nothing of concern at the time.

Anzor Tsarnaev visited his hometown in Kyrgyzstan last year, according to Tsokoev, the former neighbor. "He was very happy and proud of his sons' success in the U.S.," Tsokoev said. "We also were happy for him. He worked hard to give his children a good education."

Tsarnaev, who worked as an auto mechanic in the U.S., seems unable to comprehend that his sons could have been involved in such a gruesome bombing.

"These children were brought up with kindness," Tsarnaev said in an interview shown Saturday on Russian television. "We're a family of lawyers, and everyone who knows us knows that."

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/boston-suspects-chechen-family-traveled-long-road-161148637.html

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Labor Nominee Faces GOP Scrutiny

Apr 18, 2013 2:53pm

Secretary of Labor nominee Thomas Perez faced two hours of intense scrutiny at his nomination hearing Thursday morning as he sought to alleviate Republican concerns over his role in the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice.

At issue is a lengthy report released earlier this week in which GOP leaders accuse Perez of attempting to influence the city of St. Paul, Minn., to withdraw a housing discrimination case before it could be brought before the Supreme Court. In exchange, the Department of Justice agreed not to intervene in two whistleblower cases against St. Paul that could have won up to $200 million for taxpayers.

Sen. Lamar Alexander engaged Perez in a heated line of questioning, accusing Perez of doing ?an extraordinary amount of wheeling and dealing.?

?You have a duty to protect the money, a duty to protect the whistleblower, and at the same time, it seems to me that you?re manipulating the legal process to try to get the result you want from the Supreme Court in a way that?s inappropriate,? Alexander, R-Tenn., said.

Perez defended his actions, saying DOJ chooses not to stay out of ?a lot of different things.?

?It was in the interest of justice and it was entirely appropriate to do so in the opinion of professional responsibility people and others,? he told the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee. ?I believe the resolution reached in this case was in fact in the interest of justice.?

Democratic senators had kind words for Perez. Sen. Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., introduced him as ?one of Maryland?s favorite sons,? saying ?we believe he is the right man for the job.?

Senator Patty Murray, D-Wash., joined in the praise, adding ?you have a very amazing, impressive, wide range of experience that you are bringing from a number of different agencies?You?re something of a turn-around expert for public sector agencies, so thank you for that.?

When asked what his very top priority would be should he be confirmed as Secretary of Labor, Perez had one answer: ?jobs, jobs, jobs.?

He expanded on his goals and priorities, including reauthorizing the Workforce Investment Act, maintaining pension security, and spending his first 100 days as secretary on a listening tour of America, reaching out to small businesses and workers alike.

?The president has asked all of us to consider three questions in the decisions we make,? Perez said. ?How do we make America a magnet for jobs? How do we equip our people with the skills they need to succeed in those jobs, and how do we ensure that an honest day?s work leads to a decent living??

Perez concluded, ?These questions are at the core of the mission of the Department of Labor, and if confirmed you have my word that I will keep them there.?

The committee is expected to vote on Perez?s nomination on Thursday, April 25.

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Source: http://feeds.abcnews.com/c/35229/f/654827/s/2ae25d82/l/0Labcnews0Bgo0N0Cblogs0Cpolitics0C20A130C0A40Clabor0Esec0Enominee0Efaces0Eharsh0Egop0Escrutiny0C/story01.htm

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Rethinking Email Deliverability - ShoeMoney Internet Marketing Blog

Last thursday in Omaha Nebraska I spoke at the Intersect conference on Email Marketing and Conversion. ?There was a lot business owners in the audience that were doing some form of email marketing.

Email marketing is great but what if all the hard work you have done goes to spam?

Now you can get a Return Path Score or rely on the ?score? that your entry level provider you are using but most of them just use publicly available api?s? and of course these are the same tools that spammers use?

So they are simply not effective.

Another thing people rely on is their open and click through rate. ?This stat is no longer a indication that your emails are getting through.

Mobile devices will fire a open on every email.. ?Some firewalls will open an email. ?Between bots and firewall appliances they will even click links in your emails. ?Again open and click through rates are no longer a proper statistic when looking at your email deliverability.

So how can you tell?

Well with our PAR Program we keep it simple. ?We have direct relationships with providers and also have setup thousands of accounts on every major provider so that we know ? as early as 20 minutes if any of your emails in your account in any sequence or blast are going to spam.

After all isn?t that your goal? ?Not to get in the spam folder?

Here are example report we provide to our Par Program clients:

Click here to see the downloadable PDF (click here to download PDF.)

So before you go registering with some expensive email scoring system or relying on your entry level providers ?Spam Score?

As you can see in the report we not only can see if your email is being delivered to every major email service provider but we also have setup spam appliances in our office as well as ever major desktop environment.

In todays world there are 3 levels of spam detection by users.

• Email Provider
• Email Appliance
• Desktop application.

So just because Gmail might not think its spam and appliance or desktop application can.

This is why we monitor all of these for our clients.

Again click here to see the?downloadable PDF (click here to download PDF.)

And if your company is looking for an Enterprise Level, ?PCI compliant provider then contact us today at the PAR Program.

---

1. Twitter will be as worthless as MySpace shortly
2. How I hacked your Facebook account
3. Perception is Everything (or ?Fake It ?Til You Make It?)

Source: http://www.shoemoney.com/2013/04/15/rethinking-email-deliverability

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Liberty Global's $15.8 billion Virgin Media deal cleared in EU

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - U.S. cable firm Liberty Global won unconditional EU regulatory approval on Monday for its $15.8 billion takeover of Virgin Media, a deal that pits the group against Rupert Murdoch's British satellite TV operation BSkyB.

The European Commission said it did not have any competition concerns regarding the takeover, confirming a Reuters report last week.

The EU antitrust authority said this was because the companies operated cable networks in different EU countries and because of the merged group's limited market position in wholesale TV channels in Britain and Ireland.

The companies valued the deal at $15.8 billion on February 6, the day it was announced.

(Reporting by Foo Yun Chee; editing by Rex Merrifield)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/liberty-globals-15-8-billion-virgin-media-deal-095610276--finance.html

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Guinea: Opposition to protest election date

CONAKRY, Guinea (AP) ? The Guinean opposition on Sunday called for a march to protest President Alpha Conde's announcement that elections will be held on June 30.

Opposition supporters will hold a peaceful demonstration in the capital, Conakry, on April 18 to protest the date of the elections, said Aboubacar Sylla, spokesman for the Guinean opposition.

"We are determinated to bar the way to any attempt of fraud perpetrated by the government. We will walk to express our dissatisfaction on Thursday to deal with this unilateral decision of the authority to set the date while negotiations are ongoing," said Sylla.

The presidential decree was read Saturday evening on national television following months of negotiations over the vote.

The West African country has not had a functioning parliament for four years, and it only held its first democratic presidential election in 2010. Disagreements over the electoral process already have spilled over into violent protests.

Originally the vote was scheduled for May 12, but the opposition said it was pulling out because of concerns over election procedures.

Guinea suffered decades of dictatorship and strongman rule before the 2010 vote. Ethnic tensions, however, have risen in the deeply impoverished country since the landmark election.

Guinea's 10 million people are among the world's poorest, even though the country has resources of diamonds, gold, iron and half the world's reserves of the raw material used to make aluminum.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/guinea-opposition-protest-election-date-165439591.html

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Abuse of students doing anthropological fieldwork

Apr. 13, 2013 ? College athletes are not the only ones who sometimes suffer at the hands of higher ups. A new report brings to light a more hidden and pernicious problem -- the psychological, physical and sexual abuse of students in the field of biological anthropology working in field studies far from home.

The report is based on an online survey and telephone interviews that, in a period of less than two months, elicited accounts of abuse from dozens of women and men working in the field of biological anthropology.

This is a first attempt to systematically document the harassment, abuse or assaults young researchers sometimes face in the course of doing anthropological fieldwork at remote sites, said University of Illinois anthropology professor Kathryn Clancy, one of four researchers to present the new findings at the 2013 meeting of the American Association of Physical Anthropology.

Most students and postdoctoral researchers consider field research a stepping stone to a better career, Clancy said.

"This is something that most biological anthropologists, cultural anthropologists and archeologists see as a fairly necessary experience," she said. "Some people can do an entirely lab-based project or a computer modeling project or a local project, but most of us need to go into the field."

The team recruited subjects through outreach on social media and websites devoted to researchers in biological anthropology. They heard from 122 men and women, more than half of whom had experienced or witnessed sexual harassment, physical abuse or sexual assault at the hands of site managers, project directors or peers living and working at field research sites. The researchers defined sexual assault as "any kind of inappropriate physical contact, unwanted physical touching, assault, all the way up to rape," Clancy said.

"Overwhelmingly, we're seeing junior women being targeted by senior men," Clancy said. "59 percent of respondents have experienced sexual harassment. Women are 3 times more likely to experience harassment than men. And 19 percent of respondents have been sexually assaulted."

The perpetrators of the harassment and assaults were usually men, but some women also abused their students. One female site director, for example, refused to let women leave the work site to urinate.

The researchers did not directly ask the respondents if they had been raped, but some of the respondents volunteered that they had been raped by research leaders or peers at fieldwork sites. Others reported that they had witnessed the systematic targeting of junior members of the research team for harassment or assault.

Such working conditions can have devastating effects on the health and wellbeing of those who are targeted and those who witness the abuse, Clancy said. They also force students to choose between their career goals and their desire to speak up for themselves or others.

Clancy and her colleagues noticed that larger, more organized research sites tended to have fewer incidents of abuse, harassment or assault than smaller, less formal fieldwork sites. Those who worked on teams that included women in leadership positions also reported less harassment and abuse. Some respondents said they noticed an uptick in abusive behavior when female leaders were absent.

"The larger a field site, the more organized you have to be, so you're more likely to actually have ground rules or a code of conduct, or a chain of command that prevents people from feeling they can get away with bad behavior," Clancy said.

The researchers are proposing that funding agencies like the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health require the same kinds of protocols and oversight of researcher safety in the field that are routine in the laboratory.

"If we want to fund a postdoctoral researcher, we have to write a postdoc mentoring plan so that we prove that this postdoc isn't just going to be a lackey for us and that we're actually going to mentor them and train them and help them get a job," Clancy said. "I have to make sure my students have access to certain kinds of vaccines if they're working with blood. We have to go through Institutional Review Boards to protect our research subjects. We have to go through animal protocols to protect our animals. But we don't have to protect our researchers in the field."

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Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, via EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

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Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/top_environment/~3/igtJQFG0ScU/130413094809.htm

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Still an ?Old Lady's? HR Department? | Fistful of Talent

Let?s face it ? HR departments are segmenting into smaller pockets of experts. Which is fine and dandy if for your senior leaders who have daily interaction with an HR business partner? but means about squat to the average employee. All that most employees know is that ?HR? hired them and ?HR? always seems to be around when their cube-mate is fired. Within Human Resources, we know that there is so much more that we do ? but we keep it to ourselves. Instead, our reputation precedes us (picture a cartoon of 75-year-old lady with a gray bun and an outdated, ill-fitting navy suit).

Maybe there was a smidgen of truth to the dreaded HR cartoon, but Human Resources of today and tomorrow needs to be so much more. Our employees are demanding it. It?s not enough to be in the people pleasing business or sitting at the table to add value. HR needs to become more like a marketing department and persuade your employees the difference your people platform makes.

When you are ?marketing,? the goal is to deliver informative and creative information to persuade the customer; change his or her opinion, present an argument, inform, or dazzle ? ultimately to think positively of your unique brand.

When was the last time you thought of HR as a brand in need of marketing? (And no, I don?t mean those ridiculous branding attempts from an external consultant that helped you establish your colors, font, and the look and feel of your HR transformation.)

At the ground level, how are you cultivating your department?s expectations, standards of service and excellence, communication needs and platforms? Are you constantly marketing to your employees, just how awesome you are?

HR emails?are blatantly deleted and ignored because you have sent out three different versions after the first one had a spelling error, the second one was too difficult to understand, and the third one is now beyond redundant. Your benefits are a complete blur even though you required all employees to attend training because your take-away materials contained so much ?HR speak? their eyes glassed over and you were left standing in the front of the room saying, ?Bueller. Bueller. Bueller??

HR as a function needs to incorporate best practices from Marketing to be able to be effective partners within the entire organization ? not just at ?the table.? Your 2013 HR plan needs to incorporate the following additions that will create a large-scale shift of action and perception for your department and your employees. While changing perceptions does take time, it?s easy to get started.

• Partner with your Communications and Marketing departments to determine best practices going forward, particularly around editing and their approval process for external messaging.
• Audit the number of messages HR sent out in 2012 ? be sure to include local and corporate HR messaging, and the many versions.
• Set new standards of how different messages should be delivered (email isn?t your only option).

Make your employees a part of the conversation, not only the message receivers.

Communication is just one facet of marketing your HR brand. It?s time for every HR professional to become a person and a part of the business, not just a face in the department or a desk jockey. Get out of your office; talk to people outside of your direct influence. Get to know what makes your culture tick.

Now don?t get crazy ? you?re not a marketing expert just because you are enacting some best practices, But borrow the right ideas, and you will have a robust communication strategy that will shock your employees into listening to you. What are the best ideas you have borrowed from your Marketing department? What was your experience?

Source: http://fistfuloftalent.com/2013/04/still-an-old-ladys-hr-department.html

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Woods story, predictably, dominates CBS broadcast

CBS announcer Jim Nantz led off the network's Masters coverage Saturday by describing what Tiger Woods did the day before on the 15th hole as an "innocent" and "absent-minded" mistake.

CBS devoted the first 12 minutes of its broadcast from the Masters entirely to Woods, who was given a two-stroke penalty earlier in the day for a bad drop that led to his signing an incorrect scorecard after his second round.

Woods' shot on the 15th hole of the second round hit the flag stick and bounced back into the water. He took his penalty drop 2 yards behind where he hit the original shot, a rules violation.

Woods was tied for 17th when the third-round broadcast started at 3 p.m. EDT, five shots off the lead. His story dominated the early coverage, and CBS didn't mention another player until 3:12 p.m., when it showed the leaderboard for the first time.

"A day of high drama at Augusta National Golf Club before a single shot was struck." was how Nantz described the scene.

The broadcast started with a live shot of Woods at the sixth hole and being applauded by the gallery.

From there, the network displayed the ruling that cost Woods two strokes but allowed him to remain in the tournament. It broke down what his three options were after his shot on the 15th hole on Friday ended up in the water, then aired a lengthy interview by Nantz of Fred Ridley, chairman of the Masters' competition committees.

Augusta National said it was Nantz who alerted Masters officials Friday that Woods' post-rounds comments were causing some doubts, leading to another review.

Woods had said after his round, "I went back to where I played it from, but went two yards further back and I tried to take two yards off the shot of what I felt I hit. And that should land me short of the flag and not have it either hit the flag or skip over the back. I felt that was going to be the right decision to take off four (yards) right there. And I did. It worked out perfectly."

"It was an innocent mistake," Nantz said, referring to Woods' actions.

Once CBS got through the initial wave of Woods coverage, it was largely business-as-usual, with cameras trained on an array of players over roughly the next 35 minutes. Then CBS again revisited the Woods matter, with analyst Nick Faldo ? a three-time Masters champion ? saying the way Friday's events transpired ultimately saved Woods.

Augusta National reviewed the matter Friday even before Woods' second round was complete and found no breach of rules. But when Woods said after the round that he chose to play his drop slightly farther back from where he played his original shot, Augusta National decided to review the matter once again.

"If this had all happened later at night, if somebody had called in late at night and then had gone back and reviewed everything, then in fact Tiger would be disqualified," Faldo said. "He would have signed for the wrong score. In a way, that helped him. They reviewed the situation, they decided from what they saw there was no infringement, but it was only after Tiger then said, 'Hey, I intentionally came back a couple of yards.'"

Faldo said he was surprised Woods did not know the rule, but added that he gave the world's No. 1 player "the benefit of doubt."

Earlier in the day, the Golf Channel's Brandel Chamblee said:

"The integrity of this sport is bigger than the desire to see Tiger Woods play golf today," Chamblee said. "I want to see Tiger Woods play golf. I have never seen anybody play golf like him. I want to see him make a run at Jack Nicklaus' majors record. I want to see that. But I don't want to see it this week; I don't want to see it under these circumstances. The right thing to do here, for Tiger and for the game, is for Tiger to disqualify himself."

Faldo agreed with Chamblee and didn't back down during the CBS broadcast.

"There was absolutely no intention to try to drop that as close to the divot, absolutely none at all," Faldo said. "So, in black and white, and that is the greatest thing about our game, our rules are very much black and white. You know, that's a breach of the rules. Simple as that."

Later in the telecast, Faldo's tone seemed more conciliatory.

Faldo reiterated that in his era, he thought most players ? when presented with a situation like the one Woods was in ? would either be disqualified or withdraw. But he stopped short of calling again for that to happen.

"We're in a new era now under new rules and even if they bring some controversy, Tiger is playing rightly under the new rules," Faldo said. "And myself and some of my old pros, we have to accept that now."

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/woods-story-predictably-dominates-cbs-broadcast-201230101--golf.html

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Rebel Wilson prepares to open MTV Awards with song

CULVER CITY, Calif. (AP) ? Rebel Wilson sings, dances and summons laughs ? and that's just in the opening moments of this weekend's MTV Movie Awards.

The Australian actress is hosting the show, and she's set to start the ceremony by singing solo.

Wilson and her co-stars from "Pitch Perfect" rehearsed a multi-genre opening medley Friday that features Wilson spoofing last year's films and spinning nunchucks.

Brittany Snow, Anna Camp and Skylar Astin, along with a troupe of gymnastic dancers, joined the first-time host at Sony Pictures Studios to run through four songs not featured in the film. MTV insists on keeping the titles a surprise until Sunday's show.

When the group finished rehearsing, Wilson thrust her fist toward the sky and shouted, "'Pitch Perfect' two!"

A sequel to the musical comedy has not been announced.

Wilson will be joined at the MTV Movie Awards by presenters such as Brad Pitt, Melissa McCarthy, Seth Rogen and Kerry Washington and performers including Selena Gomez. Jamie Foxx, Will Ferrell and Emma Watson will receive special awards at the ceremony, which will be broadcast live Sunday on MTV from 9-11 p.m. EDT.

___

Follow AP Entertainment Writer Sandy Cohen on Twitter at www.twitter.com/APSandy.

___

Online:

http://www.mtv.com/ontv/movieawards/2013/

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/rebel-wilson-prepares-open-mtv-awards-song-142313037.html

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Kim Kardashian (And Her Baby Bump!) Coming To MTV Movie Awards

'Keeping Up With the Kardashians' star will introduce Selena Gomez's performance Sunday night.
By Todd Gilchrist

Kim Kardashian
Photo: Getty Images

Source: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1705301/kim-kardashian-2013-movie-awards-presenter.jhtml

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Los Angeles Plan to Turn Pollution Into Drinking Water

[unable to retrieve full-text content]Storm runoff is the primary source of water pollution in Southern California, but cities are being encouraged to capture rainwater to bolster groundwater supplies.

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/08/us/los-angeles-plan-to-turn-pollution-into-drinking-water.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

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How to Take Your Small Business National | ImYourBiz

I know this seems crazy, because I am only a small outfit myself. However, my medium-long term goal is to take stakes in small businesses and increase their online sales dramatically in their local area. I would rinse and repeat, setting up shop and increasing sales in many local areas, until it turns into a national, or at least a multi-state, beast.

It is easier than you think

All you need is an effective online strategy and a small budget. Believe it or not, but more than 60% of all business is generated online, and this figure is growing every single year. That doesn?t even take into account people that came to your website and then decided to pop into your shop. So the true figure is estimated to be at 65%-75% of all consumers.

#1 ? Web design, web design, web design?

The key obviously lies with your website. You website needs to convert visitors into prospects. I would start by redesigning the website so that it has a conversion rate of roughly 20%. Most websites have a conversion rate of less than 3%. That means they need to invest 7 times more into online marketing to get the same result. Now that is why most people give up on SEO or other forms of online marketing. Imagine spending $10,000 per month generating traffic, when you could be spending $2,000? Such a waste!

#2 ? SEO Marketing

Now that the website is generating 7 times more leads than your competitors, I am going to start increasing the local traffic coming to the website through SEO marketing. Link building, blog posts, on-page optimization, correct anchor text distribution, local reviews etc. SEO is such a vast subject and even though I get hugely excited about it, I have to stop there. What and how I do it is in other blog posts.

Basically, I will be doubling the local traffic that comes to the website over the course of 3-4 months, sometimes less. Leads will continue to climb and you will start dominating your local market.

#3 ? Local Reviews

I mentioned this a little number in the ?SEO Marketing? segment above (wow, segment sounds fancy), but it deserves a paragraph of its own. I would gather all the testimonials customers bring to the business, if they don?t have any they should start collecting them, and I will drip feed them into 8-10 different review sites across the internet for that particular store or office. Therefore, if anyone is searching locally, the chances are improved that the person will come across their grateful customers. This gives you instant social proof and increases the odds dramatically of making a sale.

#4 ? Pay Per Click

A lot of business hate PPC, especially small businesses, because it is expensive and doesn?t yield much. However, if you website converts traffic effectively, it becomes an incredible tool. Just think, now your small budget has multiplied itself by 7 by redesigning the website, PPC is 7 times cheaper. Also, by just focusing on customers searching locally, you are spending much less. Each customer = a potential referral + repeat buyer. So even though it costs you $2+ per click, that click is easily worth it.

#5 ? Social Media

Everyone always raves and rants on about Social Media, but to be honest, you don?t really need to spend much on it. It is mostly for brand awareness. However, ensure that you keep updating Twitter, Facebook and Google Plus with your announcements and content. Google and Bing love this, but more importantly, you will invest a lot into it once you are a bigger fish and it helps to have a history.

Rinse & Repeat

Now that you have dominated your local market by, implementing the 5 mediums of online business generation I mentioned, it is time to move on. You will, in all seriousness, be generating more business than you ever have. You might even put a few competitors out of business. Now you need to move on.

Hire some new staff, train them up, then move some of your existing staff to a new office in a new location. For your existing staff, this could be temporary, because relocation is rarely something people want to do. Promise them a nice bonus for helping you set up and train the new regional team.

Once you have your new office you can start doing the same thing as before. Create another address in your review directories as well as your website. Then, simply start the whole process all over again.

Start Small ? End Big

This is an organic growth strategy that doesn?t require any kind of loan from the bank or money raised from the outside. I personally love this approach, because it is easy to keep a handle on the business and it is very low risk. Start by setting up in cities, then large towns, then move on to another State.

• Don?t bother with towns or area of less than 100,000 people. It is way easier to break even in bigger cities.
• Don?t be worried about taking on your competitors. 99% of business don?t do online marketing the right way. Beating them is easy.
• Don?t forget about the important of continued investment in marketing. Most of the big companies got where they were because of effective marketing when they were small businesses.

I will be trying out this exact strategy on a business in the near future. So feel free to call me in 3 years time to ask me how it went.

Source: http://imyourbiz.net/how-to-take-your-small-business-national/

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