Toyota unplugs electric car hype

Toyota decides to scale back its electric minicar plans and scraps plans for a second electric vehicle.?

By Phil LeBeau,?CNBC correspondent / September 24, 2012

A participant to a press event by Toyota Motor Corp. puts a quick-charger plug into the newly developed compact electric vehicle 'eQ' during a test drive at a press event in Tokyo Monday, Sept. 24, 2012. Toyota is boosting its green vehicle lineup, but it is scaling back plans for all-electric vehicles.

Koji Sasahara/AP

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What does Toyota know that GM and Nissan don?t?

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Or is this a case of Toyota learning from the struggles their competitors have gone through in ramping up production of electric vehicles.

Whatever the reason, Toyota has decided to cool off its once ambitious plans for developing electric cars. In fact, the company announced in Tokyo that it is scaling back plans for selling its all-electric minicar, the eQ. Even more telling is Toyota also saying that it no longer plans to develop a second electric vehicle.

Why?

Toyota?s Vice Chairman told reporters the company sees many difficulties developing electric vehicles, especially given the limited market for electric cars. The current capabilities of electric vehicles do not meet society needs, whether it may be the distance the cars can run, or the costs, or how it takes a long time to charge,? Toyota?s Vice Chairman Takeshis Uchiyamada told Reuters in Japan.

Uchiyamada?s comments will fuel critics of the Chevy Volt, Nissan LEAF and other pure or extended-range electric vehicles. This is not someone standing in an oil patch who wants to protect the century long relationship between oil and cars. No, Uchiyamada is the man who helped lead development of the Prius hybrid in ?90?s. So when he says the world is not quite ready to embrace electric cars it carries some weight. (Read More:?GM's Volt: The Ugly Math of Low Sales, High Costs)

Let?s be clear, Toyota?s decision is also about the company playing to its strength in gas-electric hybrid cars. The Prius dominates hybrid sales and using that as a base Toyota says it expects to have 21 hybrid models by 2015, with 2/3 of them being all-new models.

But even in the hybrid market, Toyota is scaling-back plans. Look at plug-in hybrid sales in Japan. Toyota originally targeted sales of 35,000 plug-in hybrids in Japan this year. Eight months into this year it has sold fewer than 9,000. (Read More:?Best Cars for Commuting)

Will Toyota?s decision about EVs change things with GM and Nissan? No. Both companies have already invested heavily developing their electric cars ($1.2 Billion at GM) and they believe the Volt and LEAF will eventually pay off. So far, the sales have been underwhelming.

??

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Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/fBlCJZmKSiA/Toyota-unplugs-electric-car-hype

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'True Blood,' 'Horror Story' star set to adopt son

FilmMagic file

Denis O'Hare and Hugo Redwood.

By Marc Malkin and Tierney Bricker, E! Online

Another "True Blood" star is expanding his brood!?We just caught up with "True Blood" and "American Horror Story" actor Denis O'Hare on the 2012 Emmys red carpet, where he shared some good news exclusively with E! News: he and his husband, Hugo Redwood, are close to adopting an infant!?

Check out the best quotes from the 2012 Emmys Red Carpet

O'Hare, who was nominated for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Miniseries or Movie for his work as Larry on FX's "American Horror Story," and Redwood are working to gain full legal guardianship of their foster son.?

The boy, who is currently 17 months old, has been living with the couple since he was two weeks old.?

See Hollywood's biggest celebs as they arrive at the 2012 Emmy Awards

O'Hare and Redwood married last summer in New York.?

The "True Blood" nursery is well stocked these days: O'Hare's costars Anna Paquin and Stephen Moyer recently welcomed twins.

Related content:

Source: http://todayentertainment.today.com/_news/2012/09/24/14064736-true-blood-star-denis-ohare-husband-set-to-adopt-foster-son?lite

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Japan Leader Warns China on Dispute

BY TOKO SEKIGUCHI AND GEORGE NISHIYAMA

TOKYO?Japan's prime minister warned China that its inflammatory reaction to a territorial dispute?from violent protests to apparent informal trade sanctions?could further weaken China's already-fragile economy by scaring away foreign investors. The comments showed the risks that the diplomatic standoff could broaden into a damaging commercial tit-for-tat between the world's second- and third-largest economies.

"China should be developing through the various foreign investments it receives," Yoshihiko Noda told The Wall Street Journal following a tense week filled with news of Japanese factories torched and cars overturned, and Chinese patrol boats hovering in and around territorial waters controlled by Japan. "I hope ...

Source: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390444813104578014020227775866.html?mod=rss_asia_whats_news

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FOOTBALL FRIDAY | Spartan rewind - Bainbridge versus Black Hills Wolves

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Source: http://feeds.soundpublishing.com/~r/birsports/~3/uvbInMxJ1Xs/170717646.html

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Libyan security aide quits, deepening void after Benghazi attack

BENGHAZI, Libya (Reuters) - The head of a committee tasked with finding posts for militia fighters in the police in eastern Libya said on Thursday he had quit, becoming the third senior security figure sidelined a week after a deadly attack on the U.S. consulate In Benghazi.

Fozi al-Gaddafi, who is not related to ousted dictator Muammar Gaddafi, told Reuters he had resigned as eastern Libya head of the Security Committee in protest because recruits were not being adequately paid or supplied.

His deputy was acting in the post, he said.

Rows over top security posts have created a leadership vacuum in Benghazi at a time when U.S. officials are demanding Libya act against those who attacked the consulate on September 11, killing the U.S. ambassador and three other Americans.

A residential villa being used by the U.S. consulate was stormed after a violent street protest against a film made in America that insults the Prophet Mohammad.

The government in Tripoli announced this week that it was sacking the deputy interior minister for the east and the police chief of Benghazi, but both men have refused to step aside.

The man named to take on both jobs, Salah Doghman, told Reuters on Wednesday he asked the government to send troops if necessary to install him in his new job.

Libya's security institutions have been weak and armed militia have remained powerful since Muammar Gaddafi was overthrown last year in a NATO-backed revolution.

Benghazi, 1,000 km (600 miles) from Tripoli across largely empty desert, is under the thumb of various armed groups, including some comprised of Islamist militants who openly proclaim their hostility to democratic government and the West.

Some of these have been identified by local people as being among those who were at the consulate protest last week. U.S. officials have described the violence as a "terrorist attack".

(Reporting by Peter Graff; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/libyan-security-aide-quits-deepening-void-benghazi-attack-135416362.html

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Romney releasing 2011 tax return, paid IRS 14.1 percent

Mitt Romney arrives in Las Vegas, Nevada September 21, 2012. (Brian Snyder/Reuters)

Looking to blunt relentless Democratic attacks, Mitt Romney is to release on Friday his 2011 tax return, a summary of his effective tax rates for the past two decades and, for good measure, two doctors' notes attesting to the good physical health of the candidate and his running mate, Paul Ryan.

The tax return was to be released at 3 p.m. Eastern time on the website www.mittromney.com/disclosure. Ahead of the release, the former Massachusetts governor's campaign released a blog post summarizing the document.

Releasing information on a Friday afternoon is traditionally a way to reduce the amount of media exposure.

The move fulfills a promise Romney made earlier in the 2012 presidential campaign. But it was unlikely to quiet Democratic criticisms that Romney has failed to live up to a standard set by his father, former Michigan Governor George Romney, who released 12 years of tax returns when he ran for president in 1968.

The Romneys paid $1,935,708 in taxes on $13,696,951 of mostly investment income for an effective tax rate of 14.1 percent. (The Obamas paid an effective tax rate of 20.5 percent in 2011, a lower rate than the president's secretary, according to the White House.) ?

Romney, who is thought to have a personal fortune in the neighborhood of $250 million, gave $4,020,772 to charity, 30 percent of their income. (The Obamas gave 21.8 percent of their income to charities).

The blog post, written by the manager of Romney's blind trust since 2003, R. Bradford Malt, said the Romneys had filed their 2011 tax return with the IRS Friday morning. It also indicated that the Romneys' tax preparer, PricewaterhouseCoopers, would provide a letter summarizing the tax rates that the Romneys paid from 1990 to 2009.

The Romneys paid an average annual effective federal tax rate of 20.2 percent, with the lowest rate coming in at 13.66 percent. Over that same stretch of time, they gave an average of 13.45 percent of their adjusted gross income to charity.

"During the 20-year period covered by the PWC letter, Gov. and Mrs. Romney paid 100 percent of the taxes that they owed," the blog post read.

Democrats led by the Obama campaign have repeatedly hit Romney over his refusal to disclose his tax returns?a fight that has helped to keep Romney's vast wealth in the media spotlight at a time when the president is trying to paint him as an out-of-touch millionaire bent on helping the wealthy.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/romney-release-2011-tax-return-paid-irs-14-181125301--election.html

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Emails detail dangerous hazing at Binghamton University

(Binghamton University)

Officials at Binghamton University are more than likely recoiling from a report published on page A1 of the New York Times on Wednesday that details complaints stemming from last spring's hazing scandal that forced the university to temporarily halt pledging all of the school's fraternities and sororities. (Three fraternities currently are banned from recruiting new members, say officials, and a sorority is on probation.)

The paper published numerous emails sent by students and parents to the school pleading with it to crack down on what they described as dangerous hazing rituals.

One student wrote:?"I was hosed, waterboarded, force-fed disgusting mixtures of food, went through physical exercises until I passed out, and crawled around outside in my boxers to the point where my stomach, elbows, thighs and knees are filled with cuts, scrapes and bruises."

Others said they were thrown into a freezing shower, blindfolded, driven miles from campus and relieved of their phones, and forced to walk barefoot in the snow, resulting in frostbite. One pledge? said she was "forced to eat concoctions meant to make pledges vomit on one another" and to hold hot coals in her hands.

"My entire tenure from start to finish, I was scared to death that someone was going to die," said Sunni Solomon, the former assistant director of Greek life at Binghamton, in an email to the Times.

No one died at Binghamton, but at least six deaths relating to hazing?including Robert Champion, the Florida A&M drum major who died following a ritual beating by other band members?were reported at other U.S. schools in the last two years.

According to Hank Nuwer, who chronicles hazing deaths among U.S. college students, there have been 137 deaths resulting from hazing initiations since 1940?and 70 since 1990.

In 2011, a 19-year-old sophomore died after a night of heavy drinking at a Cornell frat house. His mother filed a wrongful death suit against the school, alleging "he was kidnapped in the early morning of Feb. 25 by fraternity pledges who bound his wrists and ankles with zip ties and duct tape, then forced him to drink until he passed out."

An autopsy showed he had a blood-alcohol level of 0.409 percent, five times the legal limit. Cornell subsequently launched an independent task force to study the hazing problem.

"Greek Life at Cornell, after 144 years, is at a tipping point," the task force wrote in a preliminary report. "The Greek Community has a choice: We can recognize and respond to threats like dangerous hazing and high risk drinking or we can cease to exist."

The task force recommended an "end to pledging as we know it," and the development of an initiation process "free of degradation, humiliation or any other form of hazing."

Among other solutions still being mulled: "Make Cornell a dry campus and/or a dry Greek system"; "eliminate all Greek residences, convert to social clubs"; "establish faculty in residence in every house"; and lower the drinking age to 18 (making off-campus bars accessible). All would effectively emasculate fraternities and sororities.

Just 10 percent of Binghamton's students are members of fraternities and sororities, according to Student Life data. But 39 percent of its 11,861 undergraduates live off campus?meaning there's plenty of partying going on away from the school. (The first of Binghamton's "Ten Commandments," the student newspaper recently joked, would be "Thou shalt not vomit in a cab.")

The Times report on Binghamton's hazing complaints comes just days before the start of National Hazing Prevention Week, Sept. 24-28.

Some commenters on the N.Y Times story, though, were not so sympathetic.

"I don't understand these complaints," one wrote. "Is someone forcing these people to join these archaic institutions?"

"Every time a parent complains about how his or her child is being hazed, the university should respond, 'If your little snowflake doesn't want to get waterboarded, then maybe he/she shouldn't choose to hang out with people who want to waterboard them.'"

"If you don't want to get hazed then don't pledge, it is really that simple," wrote another.

"Having gone to SUNY Binghamton years ago, I can say it's not that simple," an apparent alumni countered. "There is no real college town there. There's very little for students to do except drink and study. And then drink some more. There is no social scene except drinking."

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/hazing-binghamton-164724256.html

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