NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks hit a five-year high at the open on Thursday after better-than-expected results from online marketplace eBay
The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> gained 31.80 points, or 0.24 percent, to 13,543.03. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> gained 3.67 points, or 0.25 percent, to 1,476.30. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> gained 12.66 points, or 0.41 percent, to 3,130.20.
(Reporting by Chuck Mikolajczak; Editing by Nick Zieminski)
SOUTH BEND, Ind. (AP) — Not long before Notre Dame played Michigan State last fall, word spread that Fighting Irish linebacker Manti Te'o had lost his grandmother and girlfriend within hours of each other.
Te'o never missed a practice and made a season-high 12 tackles, two pass breakups and a fumble recovery in a 20-3 victory against the Spartans. His inspired play became a stirring story line for the Fighting Irish as they made a run to the national championship game behind their humble, charismatic star.
Te'o's grandmother did indeed die. His girlfriend, Lennay Kekua, never existed.
In a shocking announcement Wednesday night, Notre Dame said Te'o was duped into an online relationship with a woman whose "death" from leukemia was faked by perpetrators of an elaborate hoax. The goal of the scam wasn't clear, though Notre Dame said it used an investigative firm to dig into the details after Te'o disclosed them three weeks ago.
The hoax was disclosed hours after Deadspin.com posted a lengthy story, saying it could find no record that Kekua ever existed. The story suggests a friend of Te'o may have carried out the hoax and that the football player may have been in on it — a stunning claim against a widely admired All-American who led the most famed program in college football back to the championship game for the first time since 1988.
"This is incredibly embarrassing to talk about, but over an extended period of time, I developed an emotional relationship with a woman I met online," Te'o said in a statement. "We maintained what I thought to be an authentic relationship by communicating frequently online and on the phone, and I grew to care deeply about her. "
However, he stopped short of saying he had ever met her in person or correcting reports that said he had, though he did on numerous occasions talk about how special the relationship was to him.
"To realize that I was the victim of what was apparently someone's sick joke and constant lies was, and is, painful and humiliating," he said. "In retrospect, I obviously should have been much more cautious. If anything good comes of this, I hope it is that others will be far more guarded when they engage with people online than I was."
Word of the hoax spread quickly and raised questions about whether the school somehow played a role in pushing the tale.
Notre Dame athletic director Jack Swarbrick said at a news conference that Te'o told coaches on Dec. 26 that he had received a call from Kekua's phone number while at an awards ceremony during the first week of December.
"When he answered it, it was a person whose voice sounded like the same person he had talked to, who told him that she was, in fact, not dead. Manti was very unnerved by that, as you might imagine," Swarbrick said.
Swarbrick said the school hired investigators and their report indicated those behind the hoax were in contact with each other, discussing what they were doing.
The investigators "were able to discover online chatter among the perpetrators that was certainly the ultimate proof of this, the joy they were taking," Swarbrick said. "The casualness among themselves they were talking about what they accomplished."
Swarbrick said for Te'o "the pain was real."
"The grief was real. The affection was real," he said. "That's the nature of this sad, cruel game."
Swarbrick added: "Nothing about what I have learned has shaken my faith in Manti Te'o one iota."
Swarbrick said Notre Dame did not take the matter to the police, saying that the school left it up to Te'o and his family to do so. He added that Notre Dame did not plan to release the findings of its investigation.
"We had no idea of motive, and that was really significant to us. ... Was somebody trying to create an NCAA violation at the core of this? Was there somebody trying to impact the outcome of football games by manipulating the emotions of a key player? Was there an extortion request coming? When you match the lack of sort of detail we lacked until we got some help investigating it with the risk involved, it was clear to me until we knew more we had to just to continue to work to try to gather the facts," Swarbrick said.
The Deadspin report changed all that.
Friends and relatives of Ronaiah Tuiasosopo told Deadspin they believe he created Kekua. The website said Te'o and Tuiasosopo knew each other. Attempts by The Associated Press to reach Tuiasosopo by telephone were unsuccessful.
As for Kekua, Deadspin said she does not have a death certificate. Stanford, where she reportedly went to school, has no record of anybody by that name, the website said. Deadspin said a record search produced no obituary or funeral announcement. There is no record of her birth in the news.
There are a few Twitter and Instagram accounts registered to Lennay Kekua, but the website reported that photographs identified as Kekua online and in TV news reports are pictures from the social-media accounts of a 22-year-old California woman who is not named Lennay Kekua.
Te'o talked freely about their relationship after her supposed death and how much she meant to him.
In a story that appeared in The South Bend Tribune on Oct. 12, Manti's father, Brian, recounted an anecdote about how his son and Kekua met after Notre Dame had played at Stanford in 2009. Brian Te'o also told the newspaper that Kekua had visited Hawaii and met with his son. Brian Te'o told the AP in an interview in October that he and his wife had never met Manti's girlfriend but they had hoped to at the Wake Forest game in November. The father said he believed the relationship was just beginning to get serious when she died.
The Tribune released a statement saying: "At the Tribune, we are as stunned by these revelations as everyone else. Indeed, this season we reported the story of this fake girlfriend and her death as details were given to us by Te'o, members of his family and his coaches at Notre Dame."
The week before Notre Dame played Michigan State on Sept. 15, coach Brian Kelly told reporters when asked that Te'o's grandmother and a friend had died. He said Kekua had told Te'o not to miss a game if she died. The linebacker turned in one of his best performances of the season and his playing through heartache became a prominent theme during the Irish's undefeated regular season. He finished second in Heisman voting.
"It further pains me that the grief I felt and the sympathies expressed to me at the time of my grandmother's death in September were in any way deepened by what I believed to be another significant loss in my life," Te'o said in his statement.
"I am enormously grateful for the support of my family, friends and Notre Dame fans throughout this year. To think that I shared with them my happiness about my relationship and details that I thought to be true about her just makes me sick. I hope that people can understand how trying and confusing this whole experience has been."
Te'o and the Irish lost the title game to Alabama, 42-14 on Jan. 7. He has graduated and was set to begin preparing for the NFL combine and draft at the IMG Academy in Bradenton, Fla., this week.
"Fortunately, I have many wonderful things in my life," he said in his statement, "and I'm looking forward to putting this painful experience behind me as I focus on preparing for the NFL draft."
Even small changes in solar activity can impact Earth’s climate in significant and surprisingly complex ways, researchers say.
The sun is a constant star when compared with many others in the galaxy. Some stars pulsate dramatically, varying wildly in size and brightness and even exploding. In comparison, the sun varies in the amount of light it emits by only 0.1 percent over the course of a relatively stable 11-year-long pattern known as the solar cycle.
Still, “the light reaching the top of the Earth’s atmosphere provides about 2,500 times as much energy as the total of all other sources combined,” solar physicist Greg Kopp at the University of Colorado told SPACE.com. As such, even 0.1 percent of the amount of light the sun emits exceeds all other energy sources the Earth’s atmosphere sees combined, such as the radioactivity naturally emitted from Earth‘s core, Kopp explained.
To learn more about how such tiny variations in solar energy might impact terrestrial climate, the National Research Council (NRC) convened dozens of experts in many fields, such as plasma physics, solar activity, atmospheric chemistry, fluid dynamics and energetic particle physics.
Sun’s role in Earth’s climate
Many of the ways the scientists proposed these fluctuations in solar activity could influence Earth were complicated in nature. For instance, solar energetic particles and cosmic rays could reduce ozone levels in the stratosphere. This in turn alters the behavior of the atmosphere below it, perhaps even pushing storms on the surface off course. [Sun's Wrath: Worst Solar Storms Ever]
“In the lower stratosphere, the presence of ozone causes a local warming because of the breakup of ozone molecules by ultraviolet light,” climate scientist Jerry North at Texas A&M University told SPACE.com.
When the ozone is removed, “the stratosphere there becomes cooler, increasing the temperature contrast between the tropics and the polar region. The contrast in temperatures in the stratosphere and the upper troposphere leads to instabilities in the atmospheric flow west to east. The instabilities make for eddies or irregular motions.”
These eddies feed the strength of jet streams, ultimately altering flows in the upper troposphere, the layer of atmosphere closest to Earth’s surface. “The geographical positioning of the jets aloft can alter the distribution of storms over the middle latitudes,” North said. “So the sun might have a role to play in this kind of process. I would have to say this would be a very difficult mechanism to prove in climate models. That does not mean it may not exist — just hard to prove.”
In addition, climate scientist Gerald Meehl at the National Center for Atmospheric Research and his colleagues suggest that solar variability is leaving a definite imprint on climate, especially in the Pacific Ocean.
When researchers look at sea surface temperature data during sunspot peak years, the tropical Pacific showed a pattern very much like that expected with La Niña, a cyclical cooling of the Pacific Ocean that regularly affects climate worldwide, with sunspot peak years leading to a cooling of almost 1 degree Celsius (1.8 degrees Fahrenheit) in the equatorial eastern Pacific. In addition, peaks in the sunspot cycle were linked with increased precipitation in a number of areas across the globe, as well as above-normal sea-level pressure in the mid-latitude North and South Pacific.
“The Pacific is particularly sensitive to small variations in the trade winds,” Meehl said. Solar activity may influence processes linked with trade wind strength.
Sun’s impact on history
Scientists have also often speculated whether the Maunder Minimum, a 70-year dearth of sunspots in the late 17th to early 18th century, was linked with the coldest part of the Little Ice Age, during which Europe and North America experienced bitterly cold winters. This regional cooling might be linked with a drop in the sun’s extreme ultraviolet radiation. In fact, the sun could currently be on the cusp of a miniature version of the Maunder Minimum, since the current solar cycle is the weakest in more than 50 years.
“If the sun really is entering an unfamiliar phase of the solar cycle, then we must redouble our efforts to understand the sun-climate link,” said researcher Lika Guhathakurta at NASA’s Living with a Star Program, which helped fund the NRC study.
Although the sun is the main source of heat for Earth, the researchers note that solar variability may have more of a regional effect than a global one. As such, solar variability is not the cause of the global warming seen in recent times.
“While the sun is by far the dominant energy source powering our climate system, do not assume that it is causing much of recent climate changes. It’s pretty stable,” Kopp said. “Think of it as an 800-pound gorilla in climate — it has the weight to cause enormous changes, but luckily for us, it’s pretty placidly lazy. While solar changes have historically caused climate changes, the sun is mostly likely responsible for less than 15 percent of the global temperature increases we’ve seen over the last century, during which human-caused changes such as increased greenhouse gases caused the majority of warming.”
Tracking the sun
In the future, researchers suggested that to better understand how solar variability might affect the Earth, a future space observatory might include a radiometric imager. Such a device could essentially map the surface of the sun and reveal the contributions of each of its surface features to the sun’s luminosity.
The solar disk is dotted by dark sunspots and bright magnetic areas known as faculae. Sunspots tend to vanish during low points in the solar cycle, and a radiometric imager could help reveal the links between prolonged spotlessness on the sun and Earth’s climate.
Ancient signals of climate such as tree rings and ice cores might also help shed light on the link between the sun and climate. Since variations in Earth’s magnetic field and atmospheric circulation might disrupt this evidence on Earth, a better long-term record of solar radiation might lie in the rocks and sediments of the moon or Mars, researchers added.
The scientists detailed their findings Jan. 8 in a report, “The Effects of Solar Variability on Earth’s Climate,” issued by the National Research Council.
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Space and Astronomy News Headlines – Yahoo! News
The Church of Scientology is also at fault for thinking the advertorial would survive The Atlantic readers' scrutiny, Ian Schafer says.
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
Editor's note: Ian Schafer is the founder and CEO of a digital advertising agency, Deep Focus, and the alter ego of @invisibleobama. You can read his rants on his blog at ianschafer.com.
(CNN) -- "The Atlantic is America's leading destination for brave thinking and bold ideas that matter. The Atlantic engages its print, online, and live audiences with breakthrough insights into the worlds of politics, business, the arts, and culture. With exceptional talent deployed against the world's most important and intriguing topics, The Atlantic is the source of opinion, commentary, and analysis for America's most influential individuals who wish to be challenged, informed, and entertained." -- The Atlantic 2013 media kit for advertisers
On Monday, The Atlantic published -- and then pulled -- a story titled "David Miscavige Leads Scientology to Milestone Year." This "story" went on to feature the growth of Scientology in 2012.
Ian Schafer
Any regular reader of The Atlantic's content would immediately do a double-take upon seeing that kind of headline, much less the heavy-handed text below it, shamelessly plugging how well Scientology's "ecclesiastical leader" Miscavige has done in "leading a renaissance for the religion."
This "story" is one of several "advertorials" (a portmanteau of "advertising" and "editorials") that The Atlantic has published online, clearly designated as "Sponsor Content." In other words, "stories" like these aren't real stories. They are ads with a lot of words, which advertisers have paid publications to run on their behalf for decades. You may have seen them in magazines and newspapers as "special advertising sections."
The hope is that because you are already reading the publication, hey, maybe you'll read what the advertiser has to say, too -- instead of the "traditional" ad that they may have otherwise placed on the page that you probably won't remember, or worse, will ignore.
There's nothing wrong with this tactic, ethically, when clearly labeled as "sponsored" or "advertising." But many took umbrage with The Atlantic in this particular case; so many, that The Atlantic responded by pulling the story from its site -- which was the right thing to do -- and by apologizing.
At face value, The Atlantic did the right thing for its business model, which depends upon advertising sales. It sold what they call a "native" ad to a paying advertiser, clearly labeled it as such, without the intention of misleading readers into thinking this was a piece of journalism.
But it still failed on several levels.
The Atlantic defines its readers as "America's most influential individuals who wish to be challenged, informed, and entertained." By that very definition, it is selling "advertorials" to people who are the least likely to take them seriously, especially when heavy-handed. There is a fine line between advertorial and outright advertising copywriting, and this piece crossed it. The Church of Scientology is just as much at fault for thinking this piece would survive The Atlantic readers' intellectual scrutiny. But this isn't even the real issue.
Bad advertising is all around us. And readers' intellectual scrutiny would surely have let the advertorial piece slide without complaints (though snark would be inevitable), as they have in the past, or yes, even possibly ignored it. But here's where The Atlantic crossed another line -- it seemed clear it was moderating the comments beneath the advertorial.
As The Washington Post reported, The Atlantic marketing team was carefully pruning the comments, ensuring that they were predominantly positive, even though many readers were leaving negative comments. So while The Atlantic was publishing clearly labeled advertiser-written content, it was also un-publishing content created by its readers -- the very folks it exists to serve.
It's understandable that The Atlantic would inevitably touch a third rail with any "new" ad format. But what it calls "native advertising" is actually "advertorial." It's not new at all. Touching the third rail in this case is unacceptable.
So what should The Atlantic have done in this situation before it became a situation? For starters, it should have worked more closely with the Church of Scientology to help create a piece of content that wasn't so clearly written as an ad. If the Church of Scientology was not willing to compromise its advertising to be better content, then The Atlantic should not have accepted the advertising. But this is a quality-control issue.
The real failure here was that comments should never have been enabled beneath this sponsored content unless the advertiser was prepared to let them be there, regardless of sentiment.
It's not like Scientology has avoided controversy in the past. The sheer, obvious reason for this advertorial in the first place was to dispel beliefs that Scientology wasn't a recognized religion (hence "ecclesiastical").
Whether The Atlantic felt it was acting in its advertiser's best interest, or the advertiser specifically asked for this to happen, letting it happen at all was a huge mistake, and a betrayal of an implicit contract that should exist between a publication of The Atlantic's stature and its readership.
No matter how laughably "sales-y" a piece of sponsored content might be, the censoring of readership should be the true "third rail," never to be touched.
Going forward, The Atlantic (and any other publication that chooses to run sponsored content) should adopt and clearly communicate an explicit ethics statement regarding advertorials and their corresponding comments. This statement should guide the decisions it makes when working with advertisers, and serve as a filter for the sponsored content it chooses to publish, and what it recommends advertisers submit. It should also prevent readers from being silenced if given a platform at all.
As an advertising professional, I sincerely hope this doesn't spook The Atlantic or any other publication from experimenting with ways to make money. But as a reader, I hope it leads to better ads that reward me for paying attention, rather than muzzle my voice should I choose to interact with the content.
After all, what more could a publication or advertiser ask for than for content to be so interesting that someone actually would want to comment on (or better, share) it?
(Correction: An earlier version of this article incorrectly said native advertising accounts for 59% of the Atlantic's ad revenue. Digital advertising, of which native advertising is a part, accounts for 59% of The Atlantic's overall revenue, according to the company.)
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The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Ian Schafer.
The Simeon and Morgan Park High School basketball teams ended their game at Chicago State University with a melee between players on the court. (Nuccio DiNuzzo/Chicago Tribune)
A 17-year-old boy was shot and killed after a fight broke out at the end of a high school basketball game at Chicago State University.
Tyrone Lawson was shot around 9:20 p.m. outside the gymnasium near 95th Street and King Drive, according to Police News Affairs Officer Daniel O’Brien.
Shortly before the shooting, an argument had broken out in a handshake line after the game between Simeon Career Academy and Morgan Park High School, police said. The argument spilled into the parking lot and someone pulled out a gun and shot Lawson, officials said.
Each team was held in the locker rooms longer than normal after the game as tensions ran high in the gym, witnesses said.
University police issued a message to officers, asking them to watch for a Jeep. It was pulled over east of the school and two people were taken into custody, officials said. Police said they found a gun inside the Jeep.
It was unclear what the fight was about. Nothing outside ordinary bumps and physical contact appeared to have happened during the game between the two school, which are located on Vincennes Avenue about 30 blocks apart.
An aunt told WGN-TV that Lawson was an honor student at Morgan Park High School and was six weeks away from his 18th birthday.
His mother had dropped Lawson off at the game and was waiting for him to call her back, she said.
The university released a statement Thursday morning saying it was "deeply saddened by the tragic shooting death."
“(Chicago Public Schools) periodically uses the university’s athletic facility to provide a neutral setting for student sporting events. This is the first such incident to occur on the campus of Chicago State University where CPS students have played many times over the last three years," the statement said.
"Additional security is provided by the university and all external partners during high school sporting events. Arrests have been made and university officials are awaiting the outcome of a full investigation to learn details about the shooting incident.”
Lawson, of the 11600 block of South Peoria Street, was pronounced dead at 9:59 p.m., according to the Cook County medical examiner's office.
Contributor Mike Helfgot and Tribune reporters Peter Nickeas, Rosemary Regina Sobol and Jeremy Gorner contributed to this story.
chicagobreaking@tribune.com
Twitter: @chicagobreaking
ALGIERS (Reuters) - Four foreign hostages were freed on Thursday by Algeria's armed forces, the official APS news agency said, giving no further details.
A local source has told Reuters six hostages were killed when a vehicle was fired upon by the military. A separate source, in the security services, said earlier that 25 foreigners had escaped. Gunmen said they were initially holding 41 foreign hostages after they stormed a gas plant in the remote Algerian desert on Wednesday morning. (Reporting by Lamine Chikhi; editing by Philippa Fletcher)
NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. stocks fell off five-year highs on Wednesday as concerns about global economic growth offset strong bank results and shares of Boeing
Goldman Sachs
JPMorgan shares were last down 0.8 percent at $46 and Goldman added 2 percent to $138.26.
Concern about global economic growth was weighing on the markets, said Peter Jankovskis, co-chief investment officer at OakBrook Investments in Lisle, Illinois.
A slow economic recovery in developed nations is holding back the global economy, the World Bank said on Tuesday, as it sharply scaled back its forecast for world growth in 2013 to 2.4 percent from an earlier forecast of 3.0 percent.
Shares of Dow component Boeing fell 3.5 percent to $74.25 on concerns about the safety of its new Dreamliner passenger jets. Japan's two leading airlines grounded their fleets of 787s after an emergency landing, adding to safety concerns triggered by a ream of recent incidents.
"It's certainly going to pull averages down, given Boeing's large market cap, but I don't see it as having broader market implications," Jankovskis said.
The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> fell 61.79 points or 0.46 percent, to 13,473.1, the S&P 500 <.spx> lost 4.39 points or 0.3 percent, to 1,467.95 and the Nasdaq Composite <.ixic> dropped 2.72 points or 0.09 percent, to 3,108.06.
Losses on Nasdaq were limited by gains in Apple shares, which were up 2 percent at $495.75.
Talks to take Dell Inc
U.S. consumer prices were flat in December, pointing to muted inflation pressures that should give the Federal Reserve room to prop up the economy by staying on its ultra-easy monetary policy path.
(Editing by Bernadette Baum)
Lance Armstrong may not be done confessing.
His interview with Oprah Winfrey hasn't aired yet, but already some people want to hear more — under oath — before Armstrong is allowed to compete in elite triathlons, a sport he returned to after retiring from cycling in 2011. In addition to stripping him of all seven of his Tour de France titles last year, anti-doping officials banned Armstrong for life from sanctioned events.
"He's got to follow a certain course," David Howman, director general of World Anti-Doping Agency, told the AP. "That is not talking to a talk show host."
Armstrong already has had conversations with U.S. Anti-Doping Agency officials, touching off speculation that the team leader who demanded loyalty from others soon may face some very tough choices himself: whether to cooperate and name those who aided, knew about or helped cover up a sophisticated doping ring that Armstrong ran on his tour-winning U.S. Postal Service squads. Former teammate Frankie Andreu, one of several riders Armstrong cast aside on his ride to the top of the sport, said no one could provide a better blueprint for cleaning up the sport.
"Lance knows everything that happened," Andreu told The Associated Press. "He's the one who knows who did what because he was the ringleader. It's up to him how much he wants to expose."
World Anti-Doping Agency officials said nothing short of "a full confession under oath" would even cause them to reconsider the ban. Although Armstrong admitted to Winfrey on Monday that he used performance-enhancing drugs, Howman said that is "hardly the same as giving evidence to a relevant authority." The International Cycling Union also urged Armstrong to tell his story to an independent commission it has set up to examine claims that the sport's governing body hid suspicious samples, accepted financial donations, and helped Armstrong avoid detection in doping tests.
Winfrey wouldn't detail what Armstrong said during their interview at a downtown Austin hotel. In an appearance on "CBS This Morning," she said she was "mesmerized and riveted by some of his answers." What had been planned as a 90-minute broadcast will be shown as a two-part special, Thursday and Friday, on Winfrey's OWN network.
The lifetime ban was imposed after a 1,000-page report by USADA last year outlined a complex, long-running doping program led by Armstrong. The cyclist also lost nearly all of his endorsements and was forced to cut ties with the Livestrong cancer charity he founded in 1997. The damage to Armstrong's reputation was just as severe.
The report portrayed him as well-versed in the use of a wide range of performance-enhancers, including steroids and blood boosters such as EPO, and willing to exploit them to dominate. Nearly a dozen teammates provided testimony about that drug regimen, among them Andreu and his wife, Betsy.
"A lot of it was news and shocking to me," Andreu said. "I am sure it's shocking to the world. There's been signs leading up to this moment for a long time. For my wife and I, we've been attacked and ripped apart by Lance and all of his people, and all his supporters repeatedly for a long time. I just wish they wouldn't have been so blind and opened up their eyes earlier to all the signs that indicated there was deception there, so that we wouldn't have had to suffer as much.
"And it's not only us," he added, "he's ruined a lot of people's lives."
Armstrong was believed to have left for Hawaii. The street outside his Spanish-style villa on Austin's west side was quiet the day after international TV crews gathered there hoping to catch a glimpse of him. Meanwhile, members of his legal team mapped out a strategy on how to handle at least two pending lawsuits against Armstrong, and possibly a third.
Former teammate Floyd Landis, who was stripped of the 2006 Tour de France title for doping, alleges in one of the lawsuits that Armstrong defrauded the U.S. government by repeatedly denying he used performance-enhancing drugs. The False Claims Act lawsuit could require Armstrong to return substantial sponsorship fees and pay a hefty fine. The AP reported earlier Tuesday that Justice Department officials were likely to join the whistleblower lawsuit before a Thursday deadline.
___
Jim Litke reported from Chicago, Jim Vertuno from Austin, Texas. Stephen Wilson in London and John L. Mone in Dearborn, Mich., also contributed to this report.
NEW YORK (AP) — Shares of energy services company EnerNOC Inc. jumped sharply on Tuesday after federal regulators issued final environmental rules that many shareholders see as helping the company.
THE SPARK: The Environmental Protection Agency has been drafting rules that will limit how long diesel generators can run without special environmental safeguards. The EPA had been widely expected to limit them to 15 hours per year, which would have hurt EnerNOC‘s business, Wedbush analyst Craig Irwin said on Tuesday. Instead, the EPA rule signed on Monday stuck with earlier language that allows the generators to run for 100 hours per year.
THE BIG PICTURE: Irwin said he expects the new rule to be challenged in court, so EnerNOC’s ability to avoid tighter regulations may turn out to be short-lived. The new EPA rule has gotten close attention in the power-generation industry. It regulates things such as how often the oil and belts must be changed on power generators, how long they can run each year. The EPA rule says the allowance to run the generators 100 hours per year is aimed at allowing sufficient testing of the generators to make sure they’re available to prevent blackouts.
SHARE ACTION: Up $ 2.64, or 21 percent, to $ 15.20 in afternoon trading after rising as high as $ 15.61 earlier. That was its highest level since August 2011. The shares were trading around $ 11.50 as recently as Friday morning, before beginning to rise later that day.
Energy News Headlines – Yahoo! News
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
(CNN) -- CNN asked for views on whether disgraced cyclist Lance Armstrong deserves another chance in light of his apologies to his charity, Livestrong, and his soon-to-be-aired interview with Oprah Winfrey, in which it's widely reported he admitted he used performance-enhancing drugs. Armstrong is banned from professional cycling for life and was stripped of his seven Tour de France titles.
Mike Downey: No sympathy for the dope "pedaler"
I was at the Champs-Elysees finish line on July 27, 1986, when the bike of Greg LeMond whizzed by, making him the first American to win the Tour de France. It was a monumental achievement: 210 cyclists, 23 grueling days, long and winding roads, treacherously steep hills.
Mike Downey
Equally hard had to be the abuse LeMond endured in retirement after publicly decrying the sport's hypocrisies and daring to suggest that seven-time winner Lance Armstrong, the All-American boy himself, had not been on the up-and-up. Vilified and disdained, LeMond was treated like a tobacco company's insider who blew the whistle on the industry's methods or like Carl Lewis speculating that his rival Ben Johnson had not won foot races fairly and squarely. As if he had an ax to grind.
I haven't a smidgen of sympathy for Armstrong now that he is exposed for the dope-pedaler -- that's pedal, not peddle -- he truly was. He played the Jean Valjean part of the persecuted man for every franc that it was worth. Let us resist the magnanimous gesture to forgive, forget and give Lance a second (eighth?) chance. He was caught, unlike certain baseball players who have been merely suspected or accused, and has, evidently, confessed. Seven strikes and you're out.
Professional athletes do exist who 'fess up, serve a suspension, then are welcomed back. They, as with the ballplayers, did disgrace their life's work, yet none single-handedly won their sport's championship with their chicanery. None stood apart as Armstrong did and hogged credit for being a champion, a hero. None won a championship by compelling teammates to also cheat, at risk of being shunned, smeared or dropped from the team.
I say we say goodbye for good to Monsieur Armstrong, farewell, adieu. Off to Elba and exile with you, you rogue. Vive LeMond.
Mike Downey is a former columnist for The Los Angeles Times and Chicago Tribune.
To Armstrong's critics, doping admission would be sweet
Randy Cohen: All big-time cyclists who doped should confess
The important ethical question isn't whether Lance deserves a second chance. Chance to do what? Cheat in seven more Tours? Lie about it seven more times? Bully seven more teammates into doping? He behaved badly and is rightly censured.
Randy Cohen
But that should be the beginning, not the end, of this disheartening story. There's a lot more blame to go around. Cycling's governing bodies also have an ethical duty, and that's to provide a setting in which honest athletes can participate.
If many cycling fans are right, most of the top riders engaged in doping. You simply can't compete against them without doing the same. What was Lance to do? Quit the sport? And who inherits his Tour titles? Some other cheat?
It would be thrilling if one by one, they declined in a Spartacus moment -- an honest, I-am-drugged-Spartacus moment. This is a community problem; it demands community solutions. Unless those who run big-time cycling institute real reforms, Lance's fall will be merely a celebrity scandal, and there's little good in that.
Randy Cohen wrote The Ethicist column in The New York Times Magazine till 2011, and he is a former writer for "Late Night With David Letterman." His latest book is "Be Good: How to Navigate the Ethics of Everything."
Jeff Pearlman: He's almost 42, forget about it
Back when I was 8 or 9, my parents took me to my first trip to Disney World. I remember Space Mountain, and I remember Mickey Mouse's enormous head. For some reason, though, what I remember most is a sign posted within the borders of Epcot. It read: If you can dream it, you can do it.
"Dad," I said, "I dream of being 8-feet tall. But that'll never happen ..."
"Well, son ..."
Jeff Pearlman
"And, Dad, I dream of being able to fly just like Superman. But that'll never happen ..."
"Son, the thing is ..."
"And Dad, I'd really like to win an Olympic gold medal for my Joanie Cunningham impersonation, but ..."
"Son," my father said, "It's a sign. It's just a damn sign."
Sigh.
Throughout Lance Armstrong's recent fight to prove he hadn't cheated, and throughout the plights of Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens and Mark McGwire and the alleged PED abuses of dozens upon dozens of others, I've often thought about that day at Disney and, specifically, of that sign.
As a boy, it spoke to me as a kid longing for greatness. Maybe, just maybe, I can accomplish anything. Maybe ...
As a sportswriter who has chronicled much of the past two decades, however, it strikes me as foolish nonsense. As Armstrong's recent admission shows, the words must be altered to -- if you can dream it, you can do it -- as long as you leave your ethics at the door and cheat your ass off and don't mind throwing your supporters under a bus.
Lance Armstrong over the years
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That, now, is the sad, pathetic legacy of men such as Armstrong and Bonds. Once upon a time, they dreamed of doing wonderful things: Of hitting baseballs 500 miles; of speeding down the largest mountains; of being special. Then, however, they learned (as we all do) that we are bound by the confines of humanity. Within the rules and regulations, there is only so strong. There is only so fast. There is only so big. Hence, one can either accept his lot in life and put out the best possible effort, or he can cheat and lie and enjoy the temporary fruits while trying to avoid the inevitable plummet.
Do I think he should be allowed to race again? No. Lance Armstrong racing again is not truly an option anyway -- he's almost 42.
Just the same, I am thrilled that he has -- at long last -- begun to come clean. There are lessons to be learned here, beyond those pertaining to cycling. And day's end, when the cheering has stopped, there is something to be said for trying your best, even if your best doesn't result in triumph.
There is empowerment in knowing you gave your all. There is satisfaction in achieving your own PR. There is the sense of community and camaraderie that comes in the aftermath of a sporting event. Cold beers, casual conversation, sore muscles -- bliss.
Armstrong and Bonds forgot that long ago. For them, it was all -- and only --about winning. They got lost in a corrupt world of enhancers and boosters and had their heads turned by the fame and accolades and money.
Now, though, they are outcasts. They are the tombstones of long-ago dreams.
Jeff Pearlman is the author of "Sweetness: The Enigmatic Life of Walter Payton." He blogs at jeffpearlman.com. Follow him on Twitter.
Oprah interview won't reduce sanctions against Armstrong, officials say
Wayne Norman: Like a convenience store robbery that goes wrong
Lance knows that a quick mea culpa is not enough -- otherwise, he would have admitted to doping long ago. Instead, he made a calculated gamble that he could preserve his reputation and brand by lying, defrauding corporate sponsors, impugning the authorities pursuing him and actively slandering and suing honest whistle-blowers who stood in his way.
Wayne Norman
That bet has not paid off.
Like a convenience store robbery that goes wrong and leads to a hostage-taking and a high-speed chase, Lance's doping is by far the least of his transgressions. A highly calculated confession about the doping still looks like Lance gambling to advance his interests. Former fans will need contrition and a sense that he genuinely regrets the gamble. Those he slandered and defrauded should demand even more.
Lance cannot get another chance as an athlete at this point. That would make a mockery of all sporting rules and their enforcement. When you've been that blatantly dishonest, it won't be easy to convince people to trust you again.
Wayne Norman is the Mike & Ruth Mackowski professor of ethics at Duke University.
John Eustice: Armstrong can make a deal and get leeway
What Lance has, the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency wants, and Lance is not going to give it to them unless he gets his (athletic) life back. USADA knows that Lance stands at the nexus of two distinct cultures, two completely different mindsets: The ideals and dreams of Olympic sport and the harsh, ratings-driven business of the professional game.
John Eustice
They view this conquest of Lance as their great chance to have the Olympic vision triumph over the cynicism of the pros. But they need his cooperation to win.
Despite the admitting of pros into the Olympic Games, in truth, the two cultures do not mesh. Pro sports are businesses where talent, ratings and the subsequent cash flows from them, must be protected just as in any other entertainment business.
USADA needs to understand how the professional mentality has "infected" the Olympic movement, and Lance is the key. Was he protected by the International Cycling Union? Was the Tour de France involved? Did it go even higher that that?
USADA makes deals. If Lance can provide them with information on the underground system that fuels athletes worldwide, and explain, for example, how of the 6,000 drugs tests given at the London Games, only one came back positive, allowing him to participate in some triathlons seems a very small price to pay.
Cycling analyst John Eustice was one of the pioneer Americans to break into the world of European pro cycling. He co-founded and captained the first American team to race in the Tour of Italy, and is a two-time United States Professional Champion.
John Hoberman: Is it possible to acquire a conscience overnight?
The report that Lance Armstrong choked up during his apology to Livestrong Foundation employees earlier this week would seem to mark an abrupt departure from the cold, calculating and manipulative personality he has displayed throughout his celebrated athletic career.
Having closely followed the Armstrong saga as a doping researcher, I have come to doubt whether this is man is capable of genuine contrition. One can only imagine the apologetic telephone calls he has been making to the former teammates and other victims he persecuted, threatened, bullied and slandered over so many years.
John Hoberman
Is it really possible to acquire a conscience overnight? Can a person who has long-demonstrated reckless self-assertion, a lack of empathy, coldheartedness, egocentricity, superficial charm and irresponsibility suddenly repent after months of hostile intransigence?
One is tempted to say no, since this ensemble of traits bears a disturbing similarity to the psychopathic personality. Let us hope that Armstrong is capable of leaving his old self behind and building a healthier personal identity.
Any lifting of his lifetime ban from officially recognized competitions should be made contingent on his absolute and total cooperation with the United States Anti-Doping Agency and the World Anti-Doping Agency. Armstrong must demonstrate some good faith by revealing everything he knows about the illicit trade in doping drugs as well as the cynical and opportunistic doctors who have profited from these corrupt arrangements.
John Hoberman teaches at the University of Texas at Austin and is the author of "Mortal Engines: The Science of Performance and the Dehumanization of Sport." He was a consultant in 2005 for the SCA Promotions of Dallas, the insurance company demanding that Lance Armstrong repay a total of $7.5 million it paid to him in Tour de France bonuses.
Shawn Klein: If he cooperates, maybe the lifetime ban could be reduced
After years of adamant denials and protestations of his innocence, Lance Armstrong has reportedly come forward to admit his use of prohibited performance enhancing drugs. If Armstrong is sincerely contrite and forthright in his apology, most people, including myself, will forgive him for his use of prohibited drugs.
Shawn Klein
He cheated in a sport known for its widespread cheating; that doesn't justify his use but it does put his actions into an understandable context that makes it easier to excuse the use. Further, if Armstrong cooperates with the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency, his lifetime ban from cycling ought to be reduced to something more reasonable.
The more troubling aspects of the Armstrong case are the allegations that he harassed and intimidated team members and potential whistle-blowers. Violating the arbitrary rules of a sport shows a character flaw and poor judgment, but it is hard to see who else is truly harmed by such actions. But to threaten, intimidate and coerce others (either to use performance enhancing drugs themselves or to cover up his team's use) causes real harm.
Even if only some of these reports are accurate, Armstrong will have to do more than sit on Oprah's couch to earn forgiveness.
Shawn Klein teaches at the Department of Philosophy and Center for Ethics and Entrepreneurship at Rockford College in Illinois and writes the Sportsethicist blog.
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The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the authors.
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