NEW YORK ? The Fitch ratings agency will likely lower its outlook for debts linked to the U.S. government to negative, including debt of government-controlled mortgage buyers Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
Fitch, one of the three major ratings agencies, said Tuesday it expects to announce the revised outlooks over the next several days.
The announcement comes a day after the agency downgraded its outlook on U.S. debt to negative. The agency kept its rating for long-term U.S. debt at the top AAA level but said it has less confidence in the federal government's ability to rein in the deficit.
Ratings are based on the likelihood of default. The AAA rating is the highest available and signifies an extremely low likelihood of default.
A special congressional panel failed last week to reach an agreement on $1.2 trillion in deficit cuts over the next decade. The impasse triggered automatic cuts of the same amount, which are scheduled kick in beginning in 2013.
The U.S. government rescued Fannie and Freddie in September 2008 and has funded them since the financial crisis. The two mortgage giants own or guarantee about half of all U.S. home loans and nearly all new mortgages. So if the U.S. government can't pay its bills, neither can Fannie and Freddie.
However, the Federal Housing Finance Agency, the government regulator that oversees Fannie and Freddie, has said the entities will meet their financial obligations because the government will continue to fund them.
An array of bonds and securities and the 12 Federal Home Loan Banks also have credit ratings that are directly tied to the credit rating of U.S. debt.
In August, Standard & Poor's Ratings Services downgraded the credit ratings of Fannie and Freddie from AAA to AA-plus, reflecting the same downgrade S&P made of long-term U.S. government debt a few days before. It was the first time the agency had lowered the nation's AAA rating since granting it in 1917.
If Fitch were to downgrade U.S. debt in the next two years, Fannie and Freddie would certainly see its ratings fall too. Fitch said there is slightly greater than a 50 percent chance it would downgrade U.S. debt by 2013.
CAIRO (Reuters) ? Egyptians voted for a second day on Tuesday in a parliamentary election that Islamists hope will sweep them closer to power, even though the army generals who took over from Hosni Mubarak have yet to step aside.
The poll, the first since a revolt ousted Mubarak on February 11, has unfolded without the mayhem many had feared after last week's riots against army rule in which 42 people were killed.
The United States and its European allies are watching Egypt's vote torn between hopes that democracy will take root in the most populous Arab nation and worries that Islamists hostile to Israel and the West will ride to power on the ballot box.
They have faulted the generals for using excessive force on protesters and urged them to give way swiftly to civilian rule.
The well-organized Muslim Brotherhood, banned but semi-tolerated under Mubarak, said its political wing, the Freedom and Justice Party (FJP), had done well in the voting so far.
"The Brotherhood party hopes to win 30 percent of parliament," senior FJP figure Mohamed El-Beltagy told Reuters.
The leader of the ultra-conservative Salafi Islamist al-Nour Party, which hopes to siphon votes from the Brotherhood, said organizational failings meant the party had under-performed.
"We were not dispersed across constituencies, nor were we as close as needed to the voter. Other parties with more experience rallied supporters more effectively," Emad Abdel Ghafour said in the coastal city of Alexandria, seen as a Salafi stronghold.
But he told Reuters the party still expected to win up to half of Alexandria's 24 seats in parliament and 70 to 75 nationwide out of the assembly's 498 elected seats.
Abou Elela Mady, head of the moderate Islamist Wasat Party, made no predictions, but said the party would accept the result despite electoral violations. "The big turnout was the main gain, regardless of the result," he told Reuters.
No official turnout figures have been issued, but judges supervising individual polling stations in Cairo and other cities gave estimates varying from 30 to 60 percent of the 17 million people eligible to vote in the first round.
Les Campbell, of the Washington-based National Democratic Institute, one of many groups monitoring the election, said it was "a fair guess" that turnout would exceed 50 percent.
In one school-turned-polling station in Cairo, women in Islamic headscarves and others in Western clothes, queued with their children and grandchildren to vote, with banners overhead and posters of candidates on walls. Soldiers welcomed them and judges kept a good-natured eye on proceedings.
ISLAMIST VOTE-GETTERS
Islamists did not instigate the Arab uprisings that have shaken Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Syria and Yemen, but in the last two months, Islamist parties have come out top in parliamentary elections in Morocco and post-revolutionary Tunisia.
Egyptian Islamists want to emulate those triumphs, but it is unclear how much influence the previously toothless parliament in Cairo can wield while the generals remain in power.
If the election process goes smoothly, the new assembly will enjoy a popular legitimacy the generals lack and may assert itself after rubber-stamping Mubarak's decisions for 30 years.
"Real politics will be in the hands of the parliament," said Diaa Rashwan, an Egyptian political analyst.
One member of the ruling army council has said parliament will have no power to remove a military-appointed government tasked with running Egypt's day-to-day affairs until a promised presidential election leads to civilian rule by July.
Another council member, General Ismail Atman, said the start of the election showed the irrelevance of protesters demanding an end to army rule in Cairo's Tahrir Square and elsewhere.
"This proves the demonstrations in Tahrir Square ... had no effect on building the first elected state institution since the revolution, especially since only a tiny few are in Tahrir," Al-Shorouk daily quoted him as saying at a Cairo polling station.
The army council assumed Mubarak's formidable presidential powers when it eased him from office on February 11. Many Egyptians praised the army's initial role, but some have grown angry at what they see as its attempts to retain its perks and power.
Many Egyptians had feared election violence after last week's bloodshed when frustration against army rule boiled over into the worst bloodshed since the anti-Mubarak uprising.
"I wasn't sure whether to vote yesterday for fear of violence that marred past elections. But the impressive order and security have encouraged me to venture out," said Fathi Mohammed, 56, a port employee in Alexandria.
ELECTORAL VIOLATIONS
The election is taking place in three regional stages, plus run-off votes, in a complex system that requires voters to choose individual candidates as well as party lists. Full results will be announced after voting ends on January 11.
Election monitors have reported logistical hiccups and campaign violations but no serious violence.
"To a great extent we did not violate election rules. There was no use of religious slogans on our part," the Nour Party's Abdel Ghafour said, noting that Salafis were new to politics.
Armed with laptops and leaflets, party workers of the Muslim Brotherhood's political wing and its Islamist rivals have approached muddled voters to guide them through the balloting system and nudge them toward their candidates.
In the Nile Delta town of Kafr el-Sheikh, Muslim Brotherhood workers were selling cut-price food in a tent where they also distributed flyers naming the FJP candidates in the area.
Some Egyptians yearn for a return to stability, uneasy about the impact of political turmoil on an economy heading toward a crisis sure to worsen the hardship of impoverished millions.
Smooth polling helped Egypt's benchmark share index to jump more than five percent.
Others worry that resurgent Islamist parties may dominate political life, mold Egypt's next constitution and threaten social freedoms in what is already a deeply conservative nation of 80 million people whose 10 percent Coptic Christian minority complains of discrimination from the Muslim majority.
As voting resumed in the chilly, rain-swept coastal town of Damietta, Sayed Ibrahim, 30, said he backed the liberal Wafd Party over its main local rival, the Islamist Salafi Nour Party.
"I'm voting for Wafd because I don't want an ultra-religious party that excludes other views," he said, in jeans and a cap.
(Additional reporting by Marwa Awad in Alexandria, Shaimaa Fayed in Damietta and Tom Pfeiffer, Patrick Werr, Peter Millership and Edmund Blair in Cairo.; Writing by Alistair Lyon, editing by Peter Millership)
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By: Jane Stafford
Differential diagnosis is the systematic comparison between several causes of illness that produce similar symptoms. Through differential diagnosis, physicians form a hypothesis that can be tested with relevant medical examination and testing. The results may either confirm or rule out the hypothesis, bringing the physicians one step closer to a diagnosis. The differential diagnostic process is crucial when it comes to caring for patients.
Medical negligence is when the healthcare provider deviates from the reasonable standard of medical care and as a result of the deviation, the patient is injured or dies. Should this be the case, the healthcare provider may be held liable for medical malpractice.
Should the healthcare provider be working for a federal hospital or clinic, the Federal Tort Claims Act may apply. A typical early step for lawyers working on a potential military medical malpractice case is to examine the facts of the case and evaluate whether the healthcare provider properly used the method of differential diagnosis.
Proving a Misdiagnosis
With differential diagnosis, the physician typically rules out the most severe causes first and then goes down other likely causes by their probabilities and further testing. Inadequate follow-through of each possibility may lead to the wrong diagnosis, or misdiagnosis.
Negligence and Military Medical Malpractice Cases
A misdiagnosis does not automatically mean that there are grounds for filing a military medical malpractice case. In order to have the proper basis for a military medical malpractice claim, the healthcare provider must have been negligent and injury must have occurred due to the negligence. In a medical malpractice case based on diagnostic error, the legal team must prove that a prudent healthcare provider in a similar specialty, under similar circumstances, would not have misdiagnosed the condition, showing one of two things:
1.The healthcare provider in question did not include the right diagnosis on the differential diagnosis list, and a skillful and capable doctor under similar circumstances would have. 2.The healthcare provider included the right diagnosis on the differential diagnosis list but did not conduct the appropriate tests in order to make the diagnosis properly.
Author Resource:->??The Law Offices of Archuleta, Alsaffar, & Higginbotham help many military families, veterans, and veterans? families recover damages due to military medical malpractice. The firm has achieved four of the largest judgements and settlements in the 60+ year-history of the Federal Tort Claims Act. Should you feel that you or a loved one suffered because of medical negligence or an incomplete diagnostic process, contact the law firm for a free case evaluation. As a licensed medical doctor and lawyer, Michael Archuleta has the sound experience and expertise in both fields to help.
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2 million dollar grant could make early earthquake warning a reality in the NorthwestPublic release date: 29-Nov-2011 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Vince Stricherz vinces@uw.edu 206-543-2580 University of Washington
When a magnitude 9 earthquake devastated Japan in March some residents got a warning, ranging from a few seconds to a minute or more, that severe shaking was on the way.
Now, with a $2 million grant from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation to the University of Washington, a similar warning system could be operational in the Pacific Northwest in as little as three years.
One-quarter of the grant money will go to placing 24 sensors that combine strong-motion detection and GPS readings along the coast to record the first signals from a major earthquake on the Cascadia subduction zone, which is just off the Pacific Coast from northern California to southern British Columbia.
"The main point is to spot a big earthquake at the time it starts. The main motivation for these stations is Puget Sound," said John Vidale, a UW professor of Earth and space sciences and director of the Pacific Northwest Seismograph Network based at UW.
The cities of Portland, Ore., and Vancouver, B.C., also would benefit from the system, but they are not believed to be as vulnerable as Seattle and the surrounding area, which is closer to the subduction zone. In addition, much of Seattle is built on a softer basin more susceptible to shaking in a huge quake.
The system is designed to provide warning for very large coastal earthquakes. Smaller earthquakes might be more dangerous locally, if they happen for example in the immediate Puget Sound region, but it is more difficult and costlier to provide warning for them.
A warning that strong shaking is coming from a coastal quake could, for example, allow a doctor to halt a surgery. Trains could be stopped before they reach vulnerable bridges and sensitive equipment could be shut down before suffering significant damage.
Inexpensive and very simplified systems that send alarms when shaking is detected such as those that close gates on the Alaskan Way Viaduct in Seattle are currently in operation, but Vidale noted that they provide much less lead time and much less accurate warning.
The San Francisco-based Moore Foundation also is making $2 million grants to the University of California, Berkeley, and the California Institute of Technology to build on a prototype earthquake early warning system already in development in California. The three universities will collaborate with the U.S. Geological Survey on the project.
It is estimated that a comprehensive earthquake early warning system along the West Coast would cost $150 million over five years, about $70 million of that in the Northwest.
The work in the Northwest will build on work already being done in California, Vidale said, though the seismic characteristics of the two regions are different. California already makes warnings available to some emergency managers, a capability still several years away in the Northwest.
The new monitors will send data on strong shaking associated with an earthquake, which will help seismologists determine the size of the quake. But they also will provide GPS data, monitored at Central Washington University, to show how far the ground is moving. That can be a key piece of information in determining quickly whether an earthquake is occurring in the subduction zone, where it could grow to a magnitude 9 and trigger a Pacificwide tsunami. In such a quake, ground can move from several inches to several feet.
Some of the monitors could be placed along the Washington coast, though more likely they will be deployed along the northern California-Oregon coast, Vidale said. There already are some monitors along the Washington coast and there is much less data available farther south.
In the easiest scenario, Vidale said, the system could detect a magnitude 7 or 7.5 earthquake within the first 30 seconds. A quake of that intensity could grow to a magnitude 9 as the rupture spreads along the fault line.
Vidale said geologic evidence indicates that, historically, perhaps half of the Cascadia subduction zone earthquakes that achieved a magnitude of 7 or 7.5 grew to the range of magnitude 9. Scientists have shown that the last major quake on the subduction zone, in January 1700, was likely a magnitude 9 that set off a tsunami across the Pacific and caused land along the Washington coast to drop substantially.
Detecting a magnitude 7 or 7.5 quake at the southern end of the fault, off northern California or southern Oregon, could provide as much as five minutes warning to the Seattle area, he said. A rupture of that magnitude off the Washington coast might provide only 30 seconds of warning to the Seattle area, but Portland and Vancouver would still receive warning.
In the early stages of the system's operation, Vidale said, data will be shared only with a few companies on a test basis because there will not be enough confidence in the information.
"We have to learn what we're doing before we tell the public about it," he said. "I think at the end of three years we could have enough confidence to share the information with the public. But we have to have confidence and we have to have a delivery system."
Implementing delivery will be up to emergency managers in three states and one Canadian province, he noted, and so will require a great deal of coordination and cooperation. The Moore Foundation grant is for three years, so additional funding would be needed after that.
###
For more information, contact Vidale at 310-210-2131 or vidale@uw.edu, or Bill Steele, Pacific Northwest Seismic Network coordinator, at 206-685-2255 or wsteele@uw.edu.
A YouTube video (see http://bit.ly/tdrCPW) shows what one Japan resident experienced from the country's early earthquake warning system during the March disaster.
This news release provides details specific to the Northwest and adds to information contained in a primary news release found at http://usgs.gov/newsroom/article.asp?ID=3041.
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
2 million dollar grant could make early earthquake warning a reality in the NorthwestPublic release date: 29-Nov-2011 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Vince Stricherz vinces@uw.edu 206-543-2580 University of Washington
When a magnitude 9 earthquake devastated Japan in March some residents got a warning, ranging from a few seconds to a minute or more, that severe shaking was on the way.
Now, with a $2 million grant from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation to the University of Washington, a similar warning system could be operational in the Pacific Northwest in as little as three years.
One-quarter of the grant money will go to placing 24 sensors that combine strong-motion detection and GPS readings along the coast to record the first signals from a major earthquake on the Cascadia subduction zone, which is just off the Pacific Coast from northern California to southern British Columbia.
"The main point is to spot a big earthquake at the time it starts. The main motivation for these stations is Puget Sound," said John Vidale, a UW professor of Earth and space sciences and director of the Pacific Northwest Seismograph Network based at UW.
The cities of Portland, Ore., and Vancouver, B.C., also would benefit from the system, but they are not believed to be as vulnerable as Seattle and the surrounding area, which is closer to the subduction zone. In addition, much of Seattle is built on a softer basin more susceptible to shaking in a huge quake.
The system is designed to provide warning for very large coastal earthquakes. Smaller earthquakes might be more dangerous locally, if they happen for example in the immediate Puget Sound region, but it is more difficult and costlier to provide warning for them.
A warning that strong shaking is coming from a coastal quake could, for example, allow a doctor to halt a surgery. Trains could be stopped before they reach vulnerable bridges and sensitive equipment could be shut down before suffering significant damage.
Inexpensive and very simplified systems that send alarms when shaking is detected such as those that close gates on the Alaskan Way Viaduct in Seattle are currently in operation, but Vidale noted that they provide much less lead time and much less accurate warning.
The San Francisco-based Moore Foundation also is making $2 million grants to the University of California, Berkeley, and the California Institute of Technology to build on a prototype earthquake early warning system already in development in California. The three universities will collaborate with the U.S. Geological Survey on the project.
It is estimated that a comprehensive earthquake early warning system along the West Coast would cost $150 million over five years, about $70 million of that in the Northwest.
The work in the Northwest will build on work already being done in California, Vidale said, though the seismic characteristics of the two regions are different. California already makes warnings available to some emergency managers, a capability still several years away in the Northwest.
The new monitors will send data on strong shaking associated with an earthquake, which will help seismologists determine the size of the quake. But they also will provide GPS data, monitored at Central Washington University, to show how far the ground is moving. That can be a key piece of information in determining quickly whether an earthquake is occurring in the subduction zone, where it could grow to a magnitude 9 and trigger a Pacificwide tsunami. In such a quake, ground can move from several inches to several feet.
Some of the monitors could be placed along the Washington coast, though more likely they will be deployed along the northern California-Oregon coast, Vidale said. There already are some monitors along the Washington coast and there is much less data available farther south.
In the easiest scenario, Vidale said, the system could detect a magnitude 7 or 7.5 earthquake within the first 30 seconds. A quake of that intensity could grow to a magnitude 9 as the rupture spreads along the fault line.
Vidale said geologic evidence indicates that, historically, perhaps half of the Cascadia subduction zone earthquakes that achieved a magnitude of 7 or 7.5 grew to the range of magnitude 9. Scientists have shown that the last major quake on the subduction zone, in January 1700, was likely a magnitude 9 that set off a tsunami across the Pacific and caused land along the Washington coast to drop substantially.
Detecting a magnitude 7 or 7.5 quake at the southern end of the fault, off northern California or southern Oregon, could provide as much as five minutes warning to the Seattle area, he said. A rupture of that magnitude off the Washington coast might provide only 30 seconds of warning to the Seattle area, but Portland and Vancouver would still receive warning.
In the early stages of the system's operation, Vidale said, data will be shared only with a few companies on a test basis because there will not be enough confidence in the information.
"We have to learn what we're doing before we tell the public about it," he said. "I think at the end of three years we could have enough confidence to share the information with the public. But we have to have confidence and we have to have a delivery system."
Implementing delivery will be up to emergency managers in three states and one Canadian province, he noted, and so will require a great deal of coordination and cooperation. The Moore Foundation grant is for three years, so additional funding would be needed after that.
###
For more information, contact Vidale at 310-210-2131 or vidale@uw.edu, or Bill Steele, Pacific Northwest Seismic Network coordinator, at 206-685-2255 or wsteele@uw.edu.
A YouTube video (see http://bit.ly/tdrCPW) shows what one Japan resident experienced from the country's early earthquake warning system during the March disaster.
This news release provides details specific to the Northwest and adds to information contained in a primary news release found at http://usgs.gov/newsroom/article.asp?ID=3041.
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Baylor center Brittney Griner (42) shoots in front of Tennessee's Shekinna Stricklen (40) during the first half of an NCAA college basketball game Sunday, Nov. 27, 2011, in Knoxville, Tenn. Baylor won 76-67. (AP Photo/Wade Payne)
Baylor center Brittney Griner (42) shoots in front of Tennessee's Shekinna Stricklen (40) during the first half of an NCAA college basketball game Sunday, Nov. 27, 2011, in Knoxville, Tenn. Baylor won 76-67. (AP Photo/Wade Payne)
Baylor is still the No. 1 team in The Associated Press women's college basketball poll. Delaware, though, joins the Top 25 for the first time.
The Lady Bears received 39 of the 40 first place ballots Monday after beating then-No. 6 Tennessee 76-67 on Sunday. The Lady Bears host Texas Southern on Wednesday.
UConn remained second after beating then-No. 3 Stanford 68-58 last Monday night. The Huskies went on to three easy routs in their own tournament this past weekend.
Notre Dame and Texas A&M followed UConn while Stanford fell to fifth. The Aggies garnered the other first place vote.
Maryland, Duke, Tennessee, Miami and Louisville round out the top 10.
Wisconsin-Green Bay, Delaware and Vanderbilt entered the poll this week in the final three spots. Virginia, UCLA, and LSU all fell out.
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Public release date: 29-Nov-2011
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