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NEW YORK — With less than two weeks before the election, Bill de Blasio has surged into a significant lead in the city’s Democratic mayoral primary, according to a new poll. ((snip)) That’s a 15-point lead over Christine Quinn, the City Council speaker who had been considered the front-runner to replace outgoing Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Quinn, with 21 percent support, is now statistically tied for second place with former Comptroller Bill Thompson, who registered at 20 percent in the poll. The other contenders were trailing in single digits, including former Rep. Anthony Weiner (8 percent),

A train carrying crude oil derailed in the town of Lac-Megantic, Que., early Saturday morning, sending giant flames into the air and prompting a mass evacuation. At least 1,000 residents have been evacuated from their homes in Lac-Megantic, which is located about 250 kilometres east of Montreal. A number of the train’s 73 cars exploded, causing a fire that spread to several of buildings in the community.

Honolulu (HawaiiNewsNow) - A military jury has found a Schofield Barracks officer guilty of illegally possessing and passing classified national defense information. Military prosecutors say Army Maj. Seivirak Inson, 43, attempted to hand over a number of military secrets to members connected to the Cambodian government between 2009 and 2012. Prosecutors say that Inson -- who is of Cambodian ancestry -- took classified U.S. intelligence reports about the Cambodian military and gave it to unauthorized personnel. The military jury on Friday evening sentenced Maj. Inson to 10 years in prison, forfeiture of pay and dismissal from the Army. The jury...

Presented with little comment but perhaps it is time to rethink that $100,000 loan and the extended MBA program...  Petroleum Engineering: $93,500Computer Engineering: $71,700Chemical Engineering: $67,600Computer Science: $64,800Aerospace/Aeronautical/Astronautical Engineering: $64,400Mechanical Engineering: $64,000Electrical/Electronics and Communications Engineering: $63,400Management Information Systems/Business: $63,100Engineering Technology: $62,200Finance: $57,400  Via WSJ

The intelligent punter's guide to the 2013 US Masters golf How to spot a winner - or at least a top five finisher - in the 93-strong field about to tee off at Augusta BY Neil Clark LAST UPDATED AT 11:26 ON Thu 11 Apr 2013 IF YOU thought last weekend's Grand National with 40 runners was a baffling enough puzzle to solve, then what about the US Masters, with a field of 93 golfers?The first golfing major of the year, which starts soon after midday (UK time) in Augusta, Georgia today and finishes on Sunday night, has proved a...

Economists usually talk about the college premium, but the college premium heavily depends on your major.  At the same time, though, stronger students typically choose harder - and more lucrative - majors.  Thus, the college premium is doubly infected by ability bias: People who would have made more money anyway are more likely to go to college, and college graduates who would have made more money anyway are more likely to select demanding majors.  To weigh whether a particular major is better than skipping college entirely, you need to adjust for all these factors, then see whether the adjusted...

Brisbane company Linc Energy says independent studies have confirmed a major shale oil source in South Australia's far north, which officials have estimated could be worth $20 trillion. The company says US-consultants have carried out drilling and geological and seismic surveys around Coober Pedy. Linc Energy holds rights over more than 65,000 square kilometres of land in the Arckaringa Basin and started explorations in 2008. In a statement to the Stock Exchange, the company said reports from US-based consultants indicate underlying rock formations "are rich in oil and gas-prone kerogen". The company says up to 233 billion barrels of oil...

Supplies of a type of BCG used to treat bladder cancer have been completely halted due to a flood at a factory in Canada. The bacterium, which stimulates the immune system to fight cancer, is used on about 6,000 patients a year. In more than half of them it can stop cancer spreading almost indefinitely. But Sanofi Pastuer, which makes the most widely-used product, called Immunocyst, does not expect production to restart before late 2013, according to a letter to doctors from Professor Sir Mike Richards, the NHS cancer ‘csar’. He warned it was now “almost inevitable” that patients would...

A forest fire broke out in Givat Nili on Wednesday evening. Firefighters have been deployed from surrounding regions...

DIVIDE, COLO. -- Republican Presidential hopefuls are busy campaigning for their party's nomination, but in one small Colorado city, the campaigning is being done for mayor - and the candidates aren't exactly human. Nine animal candidates are running for mayor of Divide, a small city on the west side of Pikes Peak. The election is actually a fundraiser for the Teller County Regional Animal Shelter. Each vote costs $1, with all proceeds going toward renovations and expansion for the shelter. . . .

NEW YORK (AP) — Exxon Mobil Corp. and the federal government are fighting over one of the largest oil discoveries in the Gulf of Mexico that could yield billions of dollars of crude in coming years, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal. The Julia oil field, about 250 miles southwest of New Orleans, may hold more than 700 million barrels of oil and gas equivalent. Exxon, which announced the discovery in June, wants to tap that field. But the Interior Department says Exxon's leases have expired and the company hasn't met requirements for an extension. Exxon and...

A major scandal amoung influential Democrats just broke, and so far it appears to be flying under the radar. Stephen Losey at Federal Times has the scoop. bilde.jpg In a nutshell: Alan Kessler, the former finance vice chair of the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton's finance chair during her 2008 campaign, resigned suddenly from his position on the USPS' Board of Governors last month. Turns out, he was pressuring postal officials to back off of a land deal that would have cost his friend, Douglas Band -- who is Bill Clinton's lawyer, helps run the Clinton Foundation and helped...

Straight talk from Sgt. Maj. of the Marine Corps: “How dare we, then, exclude a group of people who want to do the same thing you do right now, something that is honorable and noble?” “Get over it,” he said. “We’re magnificent, we’re going to continue to be. Let’s just move on, treat everybody with firmness, fairness, dignity, compassion and respect. Let’s be Marines.” bit.ly The Command Sergeant Major of the Marine Corps addressed a group of Marines at a base in South Korea several key topics, including the repeal of the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy...

The U.S. informed Arab governments Friday that it will support a U.N. Security Council statement reaffirming that the 15-nation body "does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlement activity," a move aimed at avoiding the prospect of having to veto a stronger Palestinian resolution calling the settlements illegal. But the Palestinian's rejected the American offer following a meeting late Wednesdy of Arab representativs and said it is planning to press for a vote on its resolution Friday, according officials familar with the issue. The decision to reject the American offer raised the prospects that the Obama adminstration may cast...

UPDATE: The full text of the referenced Dallas Morning News item, courtesy of Rich Noyes at the Media Research Center, is here (posted for fair use and discussion purposes). While looking for something else, I accidentally stumbled across a 2007 item in my blog's archives that makes the current soft media treatment of the Muslim Brotherhood even more outrageous than it already appears. In September of that year, the Dallas Morning News, covering the Holy Land Foundation terrorist funding trial, directly described what had been learned about the Muslim Brotherhood and its goals -- not in Egypt, but the in...

<p>Major Dick Winters made famous by the HBO mini-Series Band of Brothers has died after a long illnes.</p>

NASA has set the interwebs a-tremble with a teasing announcement to the global media that a news conference will be held in Washington DC on Thursday "to discuss an astrobiology finding that will impact the search for evidence of extraterrestrial life". The space agency's routine ploy of trailing major briefings in advance has caused trouble before. In 2008, "revelations" that the White House had been informed of a NASA announcement's content before the media caused fevered speculation ahead of a briefing on data from the "Phoenix" polar Mars lander.

There is a lot of debate these days on the cost and value of a college education. Maybe along with this debate, we ought to be rethinking how colleges are training students to compete in the global economy. Two blogs I have read recently have highlighted college education. Glenn Reynolds at Instapundit.com has highlighted several articles about college costs. From reading his links, one could conclude that the cost of college has risen substantially because of two economic factors. First, because of the increased wealth of the world, and the increased realization that economic returns to a college educated person...

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Thursday signed seven major health care-reform bills, including legislation establishing a Web-based insurance exchange that will allow consumers to comparison-shop for coverage. The governor's action makes California the first state to implement an oversight board for insurance exchange marketplaces since the new federal health care law was enacted earlier this year. Massachusetts implemented its exchange prior to reform. "For national reform to succeed, it will be up to the states to make it work, and California is moving forward on reforms that will provide affordable and quality health care insurance," Schwarzenegger said in a statement.

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