Energy Institute thrives in inaugural year

HOUSTON -- This time last year, eighth-grader Kaleigh Davis planned to follow her friends to Bellaire High School.

Somehow her mom convinced her to consider Houston ISD's just-announced Energy Institute, the first high school in the nation to focus on careers in oil, gas and other energy sources and technologies.

Even though the decision to join the 200 freshmen in the magnet school's inaugural class forced Davis to reinvent her social life, polish her math skills and spend 90 minutes on a bus every day, the 14-year-old knows she made the right call.

"I wanted to try something new, not to be a doctor or lawyer like everyone else. That's boring," said Davis, who will speak about the Energy Institute at Wednesday's State of the Schools address in downtown Houston.

HISD leaders are confident the Energy Institute will join the ranks of the city's elite high schools — including the DeBakey High School for Health Professions and Carnegie Vanguard, a school for gifted and talented students — and will fill a crucial gap in training Houston's energy workforce, the Houston Chronicle (http://bit.ly/1hwD56H) reported.

Plans for the school were announced a year ago, and it opened its doors to students about seven months later. Despite the quick turnaround, Superintendent Terry Grier said the campus is already a success.

About 650 students applied for next year's freshman class, three times the number of open seats. Students are chosen through a lottery.

"It was well-planned out, well-thought out," Grier said. "The people in Houston, when they decide something is the right thing to do, they do it. They don't lollygag around."

In an economy with a shortage of qualified math, science and technology workers, these HISD freshmen are already receiving college brochures and will likely be heavily recruited by employers. Women are particularly in demand in these fields, and girls represent just 25 percent of the Energy Institute's enrollment.

The Energy Institute opened in August at the former Holden Elementary in northwest Houston. Even though it's just a temporary home, workers replaced some of the traditional walls of the classrooms with glass and replaced desks with tables to mimic a corporate setting. Each student has a laptop and each classroom is equipped with a 70-inch Internet-enabled TV.

Students take an engineering class each year and choose to specialize in offshore technology, geosciences or alternative energies. They are expected to take advanced math classes, and energy topics are infused into every subject. Career possibilities include engineering, smart welding, robotics and many others.

Davis and the other freshmen have lunched with ExxonMobil executives, toured energy corporations and learned to use state-of-the-art technology like 3-D printers.

"There's all kind of things we can do with that school," Grier said, "We're just scratching the surface."

Unlike on other campuses, students are allowed to use their smart phones and even listen to music when it doesn't disrupt learning.

The school features project-based learning rather than traditional lectures and pencil-and-paper tests. Students work in groups to complete complicated assignments and then present their findings. The projects help students develop skills like problem solving, working on teams and public speaking, educators said.

Because energy is Houston's bread-and-butter, educators said they've been flooded with help from local corporations. Area professionals serve on an advisory committee and also as tutors, mentors and guest speakers. When the students near graduation, the companies will provide internship opportunities.

"We really try to find these unusual opportunities that give them glimpses into the professional world," said Noelle MacGregor, dean of students.

While the opening has been fast, educators said they are thrilled with the first year.

"We made something from nothing," said Principal Lori Lambropoulos, who added that her goals include recruiting more female students. "It's been a very exciting journey."

The biggest question remains the permanent location of the campus. Grier said HISD will likely build a state-of-the-art campus on district-owned land, but officials haven't selected a site. The school probably will move to another temporary site next year to accommodate the growing enrollment - a grade level will be added each year until seniors graduate.

Davis, who was drawn to the school because she loves technology and enjoys building things, said she's glad HISD's magnet system gave her a choice.

"Education is your choice," she said. "You have to think about it long-term."

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Information from: Houston Chronicle, http://bit.ly/NIjdEf

Eds: This is an AP Member Exchange shared by the Houston Chronicle.

PARIS FASHION: Gaultier takes Rihanna into space

PARIS -- The host of an eccentric Jean Paul Gaultier show promised guests a trip into outer space with catwalk attendee Rihanna at Paris Fashion Week. Though guests' hopes were eventually dashed when the superstar left on foot through the emergency exit, this was surely the highlight of Saturday's ready-to-wear shows.

But Vivienne Westwood, who hosted hers in an incense-filled church, and showed exposed breasts while branding the altar with a dazzling "W," came a close second.

Here are details from the day of fall-winter collections.

THE UNITED COLORS OF FASHION

From older, silver-haired model Catherine Loewe to children who also trod his catwalk, fashion egalitarian Jean Paul Gaultier clearly likes to represent all colors of the rainbow.

Just take the show's front row: Singer Rihanna applauded with a black and white Gaultier fur wrap alongside plus-size lesbian Beth Ditto, the singer from band Gossip.

It was reassuring in an industry that showcases mainly thin and young white girls.

"The casting was amazing to do like that, having people very different to one another," said Gaultier, after the show.

"They're different types of beauty," he added.

Ditto, meanwhile, said. "I enjoy the fashion industry more than the music industry, as there are more eccentrics. Gaultier comes from the heart. It's body beautiful, just like this is," she said, and the star did a body roll.

JEAN PAUL GAULTIER GETS LOST IN SPACE

Jean Paul Gaultier needs to take his foot off the warp drive.

In terms of spectacle, the credentials of the galactic fall-winter show cannot be denied, inside an Oscar Niemeyer futurist building, with Star-Trek-style automatic doors. Then there was the host, who asked guests to fasten seatbelts and promised an interstellar vacation with Rihanna. Who could ask for more?

But mixing space age with the Union Jack?

The iconic French couturier left people confounded in a show which did produce some beautiful looks.

In the space-age first half, with models sporting vertical bobs like antennae, there was some cool piping-styles and a great pair of sheer green PVC pants.

Then came a punk section, several infant models with a mother, and a grand finale that produced some fairly unoriginal but fastidiously executed garments featuring the British flag.

It felt a little lost in space.

FASHION SACRILEGE

British fashion icon Vivienne Westwood looked to her inner Christian and hosted her fall-winter show in a functioning church.

Was Westwood trying to launch her own denomination by branding the altar with a huge dazzling "W" ?

Incense wafted through the strobe lights up to the gothic windows, and several guests were tucked away behind pews looking almost ready for mass.

One guest commented: "Front row will be last, and last row will be first."

VIVIENNE WESTWOOD MIXES COUTURE AND TRIBAL

An Encyclopedia Britannica should be standard issue with any Westwood show.

Fall-winter was no exception, seeing the eccentric British designer mix up Peruvian ethnic face paints, jewelry and robes with the style of Charles Worth, the 19th century British fashion genius and founder of haute couture.

Mad blond afros merged into wide brimmed black-feathered hats, while Pervurian prints on long dresses were proceeded by a series of stylish-looking Scottish tartans.

The signature Regency blazer and peaked shoulder cropped up, but it was the Worth-inspired couture that stole the day.

VIKTOR & ROLF GET THEIR GROOVE BACK

The show was based on abstract interpretations of the gray knit V-neck sweater.

If that sounds like an uninspiring muse, somehow in the hands of Dutch design duo Viktor & Rolf it became thought-provoking poetry.

Huge curved metal lampposts lined the catwalk, and the show played on trompe l'oeil artworks referencing blown-up knit cables.

Some of the visual tricks, like a 2-D printed bow that played on dimensionality, were too heavy handed.

But the musings with wool were fun, featuring it in patches on a great striped coat, or elsewhere mimicking fur.

After several disappointing seasons, Viktor & Rolf clearly have gained creative momentum from the recent relaunch of their couture designs.

Bill to legalize scalping splits venues, brokers

LANSING, Mich. -- Repealing Michigan's rarely enforced ban against scalping tickets is, on its face, an effort to help out the average customer looking to sell a few unused tickets to a game or concert.

But it's also a high-stakes financial tussle — one between venue owners such as pro sports teams and public universities and brokers who buy and resell their tickets, mostly on the Internet.

So far, the brokers are winning in Lansing, where the Republican-led state House on Thursday voted 66-42 to legalize ticket scalping. Entertainment venues are hoping to block the bill in the Senate, despite its GOP supermajority that may be swayed that ticket holders should have no barriers in a free market.

The legislation's sponsor, Republican Rep. Tim Kelly of Saginaw Township, said "Uncle Joe" shouldn't be collared as a criminal while online brokers resell tickets with impunity — even if scalpers are rarely subject to arrest and prosecution.

"It occurs to me you either enforce the law evenly across the board or you decriminalize it across the board," he said. "The law is fuzzy, and I'm just trying to remove the fuzziness."

Scalping, or selling a ticket above face value, is a misdemeanor that can lead to a maximum 90 days in jail or a $500 fine.

Kelly shepherded his bill through the House despite opposition from some big players in Michigan's sports and entertainment industry — Palace Sports & Entertainment, Detroit's four major professional sports teams, Kid Rock, Michigan International Speedway and other venues.

They say the measure would do away with the only legal prohibition that keeps brokers honest and prevents them from gobbling up the bulk of tickets with high-tech online software and gouging customers.

Richard Haddad, vice president and general counsel for Palace Sports & Entertainment and the Detroit Pistons, said proponents of the legislation are misleading legislators to think regular fans who scalp tickets are at risk even though enforcement is uncommon.

"The law currently provides us with very valuable tools we're only going to use under very extenuating circumstances," he said.

The Palace has no interest in suing to shut down online brokers such as StubHub, because it understands there's a resale market for tickets, Haddad said.

"But there certainly isn't any need to drag the Legislature and government into this ... to make it easier for StubHub to tilt their profits," he said.

The debate in essence is about control.

Stadium, arena and concert hall officials say the more control they have and the fewer tickets there are in the resale market, the better it is for patrons. Brokers counter that it's often teams or concert promoters themselves ripping people off — withholding good seats until later, artificially creating pent-up demand and reaching their own resale deals with StubHub or Ticketmaster.

"We're not buying up all the tickets," said Joel Schwartz, owner of Big Time Worldwide, a national ticker brokerage based in Southfield.

He said brokers buy 1 to 3 percent of tickets to an event, in some cases 5 to 10 percent. Forty-two percent of the tickets he resells go for less than face value, he said.

"These promoters, teams and everybody — they're just wanting to have control over everything ... so they can keep jacking up the price. I'm the last bastion of free capitalism standing between the consumer and the promoter or team," Schwartz said, adding that teams and promoters already are scalping their own tickets. "People will be able to openly and freely sell tickets. That will result in a lower price to the consumer."

Michigan State University is among opponents lining up against the bill.

David Bertram, assistance vice president for state affairs, said the school is concerned about deleting a provision that allows scalping if ticket holders receive written permission from venues such as Spartan Stadium and the Wharton Center. That would discourage brokers from signing deals with the university, he said. The school now can enter into contracts in an attempt to prevent all tickets from being bought within minutes of going on sale and to put terms on how much tickets can be sold above market value.

"We believe the average fan is hurt. It will likely cause prices to go up in the secondary market," Bertram said of the legislation.

Those supporting the bill include the conservative Americans for Prosperity group, police officers, eBay and Michigan Citizen Action, a liberal watchdog organization that points out ticket buyers pay exorbitant processing fees and can only legally recoup the ticket's face value.

Lawmakers aren't splitting solely along partisan lines. Of the 62 House members who voted for the measure, 46 are Republicans, 19 are Democrats and one is an independent. Twenty-nine Democrats and 13 Republicans opposed it.

The Senate is expected to refer the bill to a committee on Tuesday.

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Online:

House Bill 5108: http://1.usa.gov/1hsISvk

Odd couple at center of Russian helicopter inquiry

WASHINGTON -- The ties between a former Army colonel and a Russian entrepreneur are at the heart of a criminal investigation into a program that supplies American allies with Russian helicopters.

Federal agents are examining why an obscure Defense Department acquisition office in Alabama that was run by Col. Bert Vergez repeatedly championed Yuri Borisov's companies despite their dismal record on a prior contract to refurbish Mi-17 choppers, according to interviews and documents obtained by The Associated Press.

When Borisov insisted on being paid millions of dollars extra for overhaul work his companies were late on, Vergez supported him.

When Borisov sought a new multimillion helicopter overhaul contract, it was Vergez's office that approved the deal.

When auditors from the Pentagon inspector general's office were uncovering signs of illegal activity, it was Vergez who pitched a plan to install new engines on Mi-17s bound for Afghanistan — an arrangement that promised millions of dollars in revenue for Borisov.

Borisov's companies, AviaBaltika Aviation and Saint Petersburg Aircraft Repair Company, are still technically eligible to receive federal contracts. The inspector general's audit recommended that the Army take steps to debar or suspend them, but no such action has been taken more than a year later.

The FBI and Defense Criminal Investigative Service are leading the inquiry. Representatives for both agencies declined to comment.

Neither Vergez, who retired from the military in November 2012, nor Borisov returned phone calls seeking comment for this story.

It is not clear when the two men first met.

Vergez, 48, spent 25 years in uniform before retiring from military service. In 2001, he was assigned to the Army command in Huntsville, Ala., that manages the service's aviation budget.

Born in 1956, Borisov served in the Soviet military for 10 years and launched his aviation companies in the early 1990s. AviaBaltika is based in Kaunas, Lithuania. Saint Petersburg Aircraft Repair Company, better known as SPARC, is headquartered in Russia.

In Lithuania, Borisov is well known for his flamboyant lifestyle and a scandal that led to the impeachment in 2004 of Lithuania's president, Rolandas Paksas. Paksas was unseated after Borisov, his campaign's top financial backer, was linked to the Russian mob.

No charges were ever filed against Borisov, but the U.S. embassy in Vilnius, Lithuania's capital, kept a close eye on him and his businesses. Tom Kelly, then the embassy's deputy chief of mission, called AviaBaltika "infamous" in a cable published by the Wikileaks website.

Nevertheless, concerns about Borisov's companies slipped through the cracks. By 2008, AviaBaltika and SPARC were part of a large defense contract held by Northrop Grumman to support U.S. counterterrorism activities.

AviaBaltika and SPARC were tasked with overhauling 10 Mi-17 helicopters, part of the U.S. strategy to defeat al-Qaida and other extremist groups. The Pentagon has acquired dozens of new and used Mi-17s to give to Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and other countries in the fight against terrorism.

But Borisov's companies ran into trouble. A $38 million job to refurbish the 10 Mi-17s ballooned to more than $64 million and helicopter delivery dates were badly missed, according to the Pentagon inspector general's audit.

Government contracting officers kept paying the bills for what auditors described as unquestioned and unnecessary costs. AviaBaltika and SPARC charged exorbitant rates for helicopter replacement parts. For example, a storage battery cost just over $13,000, more than 500 percent above the price from other companies.

Jonas Bazaras, AviaBaltika's commercial director, said in an email that the audit's findings "are not consistent with the reality," but declined to comment further.

Quality control inspectors from the U.S. government and Northrop Grumman were repeatedly refused access to SPARC's facilities in Russia. A Northrop Grumman executive wrote in a February 2010 memo that the denial "clearly demonstrates that AviaBaltika and SPARC are totally unfit to be entrusted with business that can flow down to them on behalf of the U.S. government."

In early 2011, U.S. government management of the overhaul work by AviaBaltika and SPARC's shifted to an Army acquisition office in Huntsville headed by Vergez.

Vergez supported AviaBaltika and SPARC's bid for $11 million in additional compensation, even though the auditors found no evidence a required cost analysis had ever been completed. The companies argued that the delays in overhauling the helicopters were not their fault, but caused by another contractor's failure to supply replacement parts. As a result, AviaBaltika and SPARC said they incurred expenses they should not have had to absorb, the records show.

Ultimately, AviaBaltika and SPARC received $1.2 million. The money stopped flowing after Pentagon officials in Washington instructed Vergez's office to make no further payments, according to a person familiar with the transaction but not authorized to be identified as the source of the information.

Despite their past performance, in April 2011, AviaBaltika and SPARC won another contract to overhaul five more Mi-17s, the records state. Nearly $14 million has been spent on the new contract even though the helicopter overhauls have not been completed, according to an Army budget document.

Just a few months before Vergez retired from the Army, he pitched a plan through which Science and Engineering Services, a government contractor in Huntsville, would acquire new Ukranian-built engines for Mi-17s the U.S. was buying for Afghanistan. AviaBaltika was the licensed distributor for the Motor Sich engines in the U.S. and stood to earn millions of dollars.

But the plan stalled after Vergez retired. Only two engines have been acquired so far.

--

Associated Press writers Liudas Dapkus in Vilnius, Lithuania, Gary Peach in Riga, Latvia, and Associated Press researchers Judith Ausuebel and Rhonda Shafner in New York contributed to this report.

Blue Frog Books sees opportunity in Genoa Township

GENOA TOWNSHIP, Mich. -- A new chapter has begun for book lovers in Livingston County.

And it's being written by Penny Coleman and Robert Vedro.

Disappointed by a lack of bookstores in the area and eager to fill that void, Coleman and Vedro last month opened Blue Frog Books in the Grand River Plaza in Genoa Township, according to the Livingston County Daily Press & Argus (http://bit.ly/1oStyMy ).

Coleman said she was emboldened after the closures in the past few years of brick-and-mortar bookstores such as Aria Booksellers in Howell and Borders Books in Brighton.

"It's a risk; it absolutely is," Coleman said of opening a bookstore. "But it's a risk I'm more than willing to take to try to get that bookstore back in the community so people can have a place to go and find a book rather than just (buying it online). There's so much more to the book-buying process than just clicking 'buy.' "

Coleman, a pharmacist by trade and a book lover who counts Diana Gabaldon as her favorite author, said opening Blue Frog Books is a dream come true.

"People who dream, they usually dream about doing something and it goes away," she said. "But this dream wasn't going away."

When Borders in Brighton closed in 2011, Coleman and Vedro purchased dozens of bookcases in the liquidation sale in the hopes that someday they would actually open their store. Two years ago, Coleman attended an American Booksellers Association training school in Florida for people who want to open an independent bookstore.

"There was a surprising number of people there from all around the country. Like-minded people who realize the value of a book and what a bookstore can do for a community," she said.

Vedro, who is Coleman's brother-in-law, said he still needed to be convinced.

"Me being a numbers guy, I made her take me to New York to a book convention, and I was just amazed with the passion book readers have for their stories, for their authors," he said. "So I really think there is a need here, and we just want to fill that need."

Coleman estimates Blue Frog has at least 15,000 books available, and titles that are not in stock can be ordered and usually shipped to the store the next day from its wholesale supplier's Indiana warehouse.

The store stocks titles for kids and adults in all of the popular genres, from mystery and nonfiction to religion and history to classics and how-to.

Among the new releases is the children's book "Daisy & Josephine," written by Howell's famous new resident, actress Melissa Gilbert.

"We tried to come up with a general all-around bookstore with something for everyone," said Vedro, a fan of instructional books and classics such as J.D. Salinger's "Catcher in the Rye."

Blue Frog Books is also a place to go to have photos scanned, enlarged, restored or mounted. Vedro has many years of experience in the photo industry and said combining his skills with Coleman's passion for books made sense.

"Photos are kind of like a books, since each one has its own story," he said. "And there really is no place to do photos anymore either. So we kind of melded our two things. We decided that the two could come together, and we could really create one business that could thrive."

Some of Vedro's large prints are displayed on the walls at Blue Frog.

At the rear of the store is an area with tables and chairs where shoppers or groups can read or talk over a cup of complimentary coffee.

Coleman said there is one drawback to owning her dream business.

"You open a bookstore and all of a sudden, you don't have time to read," she said with a laugh. "When I'm unboxing books, it's taking twice as long as it should because I'm reading the jackets and saying, 'Oh, I wish I could read this one.' But I don't have time."

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Information from: Livingston County Daily Press & Argus, http://bit.ly/1hR36Ob

This is an AP Member Exchange shared by the Livingston County Daily Press & Argus (Howell).

Judge sides with Rams in age discrimination suit

ST. LOUIS -- A federal jury in St. Louis has found in favor of the St. Louis Rams in a lawsuit filed by a woman who claimed she was forced out because of her age.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch (http://bit.ly/1fR7b6e) reports Lory Fabian was 56 when she sued the Rams in 2012, claiming she was one of a number of older employees who lost their jobs to younger workers.

Rams attorney Bradley Winters argued Friday that Fabian simply was not rehired when her contract ended in 2011. He said performance issues and the way she dealt with co-workers led to that decision.

Fabian's lawyer said older employees were replaced with interns, and that Fabian had performed her job well.

A judge tossed out a sexual harassment claim before the trial, which ended Friday.

Information from: St. Louis Post-Dispatch, http://bit.ly/1kFiuie

Obama to push minimum wage Wednesday in Conn.

WASHINGTON -- Striving to show momentum on a top legislative priority, President Barack Obama is appearing next week with Northeastern governors who back his push to raise the federal minimum wage to $10.10 an hour and will pledge to lift the earnings of the lowest-paid workers in their states to at least the same level.

Obama planned an appearance Wednesday at Central Connecticut State University in New Britain with Democratic Govs. Dannel Malloy of Connecticut, Deval Patrick of Massachusetts, Peter Shumlin of Vermont and Rhode Island Gov. Lincoln Chafee.

A higher minimum wage and an overhaul of immigration laws are Obama priorities, but it remains doubtful whether lawmakers will send him either piece of legislation this year, particularly when the entire House and one-third of the Senate are up for re-election.

A Senate-passed immigration bill is stalled in the House, while Republicans oppose raising the federal minimum wage from $7.25 an hour, arguing that jobs will be eliminated, unemployment will rise and the economy will suffer if the government forces businesses to cut bigger paychecks for their workers.

The White House believes momentum for a higher minimum wage is building, however, and wants to keep the pressure on Congress, in part to help draw distinctions between the political parties for November's voters.

"It is time to give America a raise or elect more Democrats who will do it," Obama told Democrats at the party's winter meeting Friday in Washington.

Officials note that California, Connecticut, Delaware, New York, New Jersey and Rhode Island have raised the minimum wage since early 2013, when Obama first called on Congress to increase it. Obama recently used his executive power to enact a $10.10 minimum wage for the few hundred thousand people who work on federal contracts. Gap Inc., the clothing chain, recently announced plans to raise voluntarily the minimum hourly wage for its U.S. employees to $10 next year, a move Obama applauded.

The Northeastern governors are joining Obama's campaign, which is part of the president's 2014 strategy to act on his own to help the middle class when he thinks Congress isn't doing what it should.

Obama says a higher wage will help lift hard-working people out of poverty, giving them more money to spend and businesses more customers and higher profits.

"It is a virtuous cycle that we can create," he said Friday.

In Connecticut, the minimum wage is scheduled to increase to $9 an hour, from $8.70, effective Jan. 1, 2015, under legislation Malloy signed last June. After Obama called for a $10.10 minimum wage in his State of the Union address, Malloy called on state lawmakers to raise Connecticut's minimum wage to $10.10 by 2017.

Malloy, who has become an outspoken advocate for raising the minimum wage, said widening income inequality is hurting middle-class families and the economy.

"Part of tackling that critically important challenge is making sure that we recognize that a decent wage is good for workers and for business," he said Saturday.

Rhode Island's minimum wage increased by 25 cents to $8 on Jan. 1, 2014. Pending legislation would boost it even higher.

States can set their minimum wage above the federal minimum but not below it.

In Massachusetts, Patrick recently called for an increase in the state's $8-per-hour minimum wage. The state Senate recently passed a bill to raise it to $11 per hour by 2016; the House has indicated it will take up the measure by mid-April. Separately, advocates are pushing a ballot question for a $10.50 per hour wage.

"Raising the federal minimum wage will bring financial relief to millions of workers and their families, many of whom do jobs we could not live without," Patrick said Saturday.

In Vermont, the minimum is $8.73 an hour.

"Given the lack of progress shown by this Congress on this critical economic issue, I encourage governors across the country to take the lead and work to raise the minimum wage in their own states, as many of us are doing here in New England," Shumlin said Saturday. "We cannot stand idly by while hardworking Americans continue to struggle."

The Democratic-controlled U.S. Senate last week again delayed debate on a bill by retiring Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, to gradually increase the federal minimum wage to $10.10 by 2016 and adjust it annually after that to reflect inflation. Debate on the measure now is not expected until late March, at the earliest, after lawmakers return from a break.

Retiring Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., introduced a similar measure in the Republican-controlled House that has gone nowhere.

Buffett speaks: Highlights from his annual letter

OMAHA, Neb. -- Investors eagerly await Warren Buffett's letter to Berkshire Hathaway Inc. shareholders each year for its plain-spoken insight into the billionaire's financial strategy and economic predictions. Buffett had plenty of good news to discuss Saturday as he recounted the performance of his Omaha, Neb., based company with humor and wit. He also dispensed some investing advice.

Here's some of what Buffett had to say:

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SWING BOTH WAYS WHEN IT COMES TO INVESTING

Buffett said Berkshire likes to buy businesses outright, but also will invest large sums in stock or partial ownership of a company, to increase its profit opportunities.

"Woody Allen stated the general idea when he said: 'The advantage of being bisexual is that it doubles your chances for a date on Saturday night.' Similarly, our appetite for either operating businesses or passive investments doubles our chances of finding sensible uses for our endless gusher of cash."

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KNOW YOUR LIMITATIONS

"You don't need to be an expert in order to achieve satisfactory investment returns. But if you aren't, you must recognize your limitations and follow a course certain to work reasonably well. Keep things simple and don't swing for the fences. When promised quick profits, respond with a quick 'no.'"

For investors who don't have the skills or time to estimate the value of investing, Buffett recommends making regular purchases of a low-cost stock index fund and resisting the urge to actively trade.

"So ignore the chatter, keep your costs minimal, and invest in stocks as you would in a farm."

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LONGEVITY

The 83-year-old Buffett devoted a section of his letter to praising Rose Blumkin and her Nebraska Furniture Mart home furnishings store, which Berkshire bought in 1983.

"Though the company's financial statements were unaudited, I had no worries. Mrs. B simply told me what was what, and her word was good enough for me," Buffett said. "Mrs. B was 89 at the time and worked until 103 — definitely my kind of woman."

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PENSION PROBLEMS

Buffett predicts that many cities and states will experience financial problems in the years ahead because they promised too much in their pension plans.

"Citizens and public officials typically underappreciated the gigantic financial tapeworm that was born when promises were made that conflicted with a willingness to fund them. Unfortunately, pension mathematics today remain a mystery to most Americans." He added that investment policies play an important role in these problems, as well.

Buffett has been predicting pension problems since 1975 when he wrote a memo to The Washington Post's publisher after Berkshire invested in that newspaper.

"During the next decade, you will read a lot of news — bad news — about public pension plans."

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BUFFETT'S RECORD

When reviewing the performance of Berkshire's manufacturing, service and retail businesses, Buffett acknowledged making mistakes in the past. Buffett said some of Berkshire's businesses deliver very poor returns.

"I was not misled: I simply was wrong in my evaluation of the economic dynamics of the company or the industry in which it operated," he said.

"Fortunately, my blunders usually involved relatively small acquisitions. Our large buys have generally worked out well and, in a few cases, more than well. I have not, however, made my last mistake in purchasing either businesses or stocks. Not everything works out as planned."

Public pensions cast long shadow over Pa. budget

HARRISBURG, Pa. -- A major challenge facing Gov. Tom Corbett as he tries to get a state budget approved is figuring out what changes can pass the Legislature for the two large public-sector pension plans that cover state government and public school employees.

The Corbett administration wants to avoid hundreds of millions in pension contributions over the next few years while directing future hires into some sort of new plan. It looks increasingly likely their proposal will combine aspects of a traditional defined-benefit plan with elements more like a 401(k).

Corbett pursued pension changes during last summer's budget talks, but was ultimately stymied.

Democrats say a 2010 pension reform law needs time to work, and they're skeptical that any short-term reductions in pension payments will be fully countered by long-term savings.

Mark Scolforo covers state government for The Associated Press in Harrisburg. Contact him at mscolforo@ap.org or follow him on Twitter: @houseofbuddy.

Child with cancer leads school Mardi Gras parade

BILOXI, Miss. -- A 5-year-old boy with cancer was able to lead a Mardi Gras procession in his hometown on the Mississippi Gulf Coast.

Ryan Wilson rode on the back of a Corvette while serving as parade marshal Friday at North Bay Elementary School in Biloxi. The Sun Herald reported that (http://bit.ly/ONmBPx) that the youngster smiled as he tossed beads and trinkets to students. His brother, Matthew, is a third-grader at the school.

Ryan was supposed to start kindergarten at North Bay last fall, but he was diagnosed with cancer in July and started chemotherapy in August. His parents say he has a type of kidney cancer called Wilm's tumor that has spread to his lungs. He has to limit exposure to germs by wearing a paper mask indoors and avoiding contact with other people.

"It's a life-changing experience," said his father, Chris Wilson. "You take for granted everyday stuff like being able to go to the grocery store."

Wilson said Ryan has two more treatments before a re-evaluation in April. The last CAT scan showed the lung tumors were clearing.

Children at the school sold links for a paper chain for 25 cents each, and raised $3,000 for St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, Tenn.

Trisha Gainey, a first-grade teacher, said the school has been raising money for the charity for several years but the connection to Ryan made a difference this year.

"I had several kids that brought their piggy bank money," she said. Parents matched their children's donations and gave more money of their own.

Cox Communications moving jobs from Oklahoma City

OKLAHOMA CITY -- Cox Communications says it is moving call center jobs from Oklahoma City to another state, but it won't say how many.

The Atlanta-based company said Friday that it is undergoing an organizational shift and that it will move the technical support jobs elsewhere.

The Oklahoman reports (http://is.gd/Wtjqiy ) that Cox plans to add 300 sales positions in Oklahoma, which would increase the net number of employees. A spokesman says Cox has 2,000 Oklahoma employees.

The technical support workers were given 60 days' notice and will receive up to $15,000 in relocation assistance if they go to new centers.

BizJet signs on to Oklahoma employment program

TULSA, Okla. -- An airline's support division has signed up for Oklahoma's tax credit program for job creation and could add as many as 250 workers to its Tulsa location.

BizJet International Sales & Support, a subsidiary of Germany-based Lufthansa, has about 350 employees at its headquarters at Tulsa's airport. On Thursday, BizJet acknowledged its entry into the Oklahoma Quality Jobs program.

Bizjet hasn't announced how many jobs it plans to add at its aircraft repair, maintenance and interiors facility.

BizJet chief financial officer Sven Duve told the Tulsa World (http://is.gd/Ej5LMr ) the company plans to grow and will make an expansion announcement later.

BizJet overhauls Rolls Royce aircraft engines, which it has done since opening in Tulsa in 1986. Five years ago, the company began installing VIP cabin systems in small jets.

OK Foods names new CEO for Fort Smith company

FORT SMITH, Ark. -- Fort Smith-based OK Foods has named a new chief executive officer.

Trent Goins, son of former OK Foods CEO Randy Goins was named as the new leader of the company.

The Southwest Times Record reports (http://is.gd/lZOtUg ) that departing CEO Paul Fox announced his resignation during the week.

Trent Goins started with the poultry producer as a management trainee in January 2003. Prior to joining OK Foods, he worked for then-U.S. Rep. Marion Berry as assistant for agriculture and trade policy.

Celaya, Mexico-based Industrias Bachoco acquired OK Foods in 2011 for $93.4 million, creating the third-largest chicken producer in North America.

The company, now with more than 3,000 U.S. workers, was founded in the 1930s to supply poultry and livestock feed in southern Arkansas and eastern Oklahoma.

NYC eyes plans to prod taxis to take it slower

NEW YORK -- Perpetually rushed New Yorkers have been telling cabbies to "step on it" for as long as there have been taxis, but the city wants to brake that hurry-up habit, in part by attacking the financial incentive to speed.

Cabs could be outfitted with black-box-style data recorders and devices that would sound warnings — or even pause the fare meter — for going too fast, even as speed limits on most city streets would drop from 30 to 25 mph.

Mayor Bill de Blasio, who made the proposals as part of his broader safe-streets plan, says drivers of New York's signature yellow cabs rightly should play a particular role in his push to curb traffic crashes.

"They set the tone on our streets," de Blasio said.

While traffic advocates applaud the ideas, they are getting a bumpy reception at taxi stands. Cabbies fear friction with passengers and feel they're being scapegoated, and riders say they're torn between the drive for safety and the need for speed.

"When I'm in a rush, anything is appreciated," New Yorker Emily Baltimore said as she waited in a cab line outside Penn Station this week.

New York's Taxi and Limousine Commission says it is still exploring the ideas, which would require a range of approvals. The traffic safety plan also includes more taxi-rule enforcers, stiffer penalties for cabbies' driving violations and many provisions aimed at all cars, not just taxis.

Deadly auto wrecks have dropped sharply in the nation's biggest city, from 701 in 1990 to an all-time low of 249 in 2011, as officials redesigned dangerous intersections and made other changes. But recent pedestrian deaths have pushed the issue to the forefront.

Nine-year-old Cooper Stock was in a Manhattan crosswalk, holding his father's hand, when a left-turning taxi hit them Jan. 10.

Cooper was killed. The driver was ticketed but hasn't been criminally charged, though authorities are still investigating. Under current rules, the accident wasn't grounds to suspend his otherwise clean license.

Cooper's mother says cabbies need to be held accountable for making streets safer.

"They should be the best drivers in the city. They are professional drivers," said Dana Lerner, a psychotherapist. While her main goal is tougher consequences for taxi crashes, she feels black boxes and other technology could deter bad driving.

The results would ripple through traffic, as cabbies' driving "dictates behavioral norms to other drivers," said Paul Steely White, who runs Transportation Alternatives, a group backing de Blasio's plan.

While New York's more than 50,000 cabbies may have a hard-driving image, they note they have eight hours a day worth of reasons to be careful.

Just about 4 percent of the roughly 200,000 vehicles involved in accidents citywide last year were yellow cabs, according to an Associated Press analysis of police statistics.

A 2004 study showed taxis had a below-average crash rate, on a per-mile-driven basis, though a 2010 city report suggests they play a bigger role in collisions that kill or seriously injure pedestrians. Taxi and car-service cabs were involved in 13 percent of those crashes, though they account for only about 2 percent of the cars on the road, the Transportation Department report showed.

Cabbies feel de Blasio's traffic safety plan unduly singles them out for scrutiny, a sentiment hardly lessened when a news camera caught the mayor's official, police-driven vehicle speeding two days after he unveiled the plan. And taxi drivers and owners fear slowing down could mean losing business.

"People want to go, hurry, because they don't have a lot of time. They spend money to save the time," says Jawad Habib, a cabbie for 21 years who says he makes sure to know traffic rules. He fears a lower speed limit could lengthen taxi trips enough that "who's going to want to sit in the cab? ... They'll go to the bus."

The drivers' union, the Taxi Workers Alliance, and the Metropolitan Taxicab Board of Trade owners' group raised some red flags at a City Council hearing, though the owners' organization supports the lower speed limit and some other ideas.

Some limousine and car-service fleets around the country have seen accidents drop by 50 percent or more after installing data recorders, said Matthew Daus, a former New York taxi commissioner who's now president of the International Association of Transportation Regulators. But the devices can be unpopular with drivers and can bump up against legal questions in an industry in which many drivers are independent contractors, not employees.

It's unclear whether anyone has developed devices linking speed and fare meters, but experts say it's feasible.

Vehicle security-camera company VerifEye Technologies Inc., for example, recently started offering a feature that can send a cab company a message if a car breaks the speed limit, discerned by a combination of GPS and speed-zone maps, Vice President Terry Walker said. The Markham, Ontario-based company has mapped Toronto, Chicago and a handful of other cities so far.

The system could be adapted to pause a meter if regulators allowed it, Walker said.

Meanwhile, cabbie Yick Li relies on his own anti-speeding system: himself.

After 32 years behind a taxi wheel, he simply says no if a passenger urges him to speed or break other rules. Some riders gripe, he said, but many understand.

"They sit back, relax, let us do the driving."

---

Associated Press Writer Jake Pearson contributed to this report.

Reach Jennifer Peltz on Twitter @jennpeltz.

NYC eyes plans to prod taxis to take it slower

NEW YORK -- Perpetually rushed New Yorkers have been telling cabbies to "step on it" for as long as there have been taxis, but the city wants to brake that hurry-up habit, in part by attacking the financial incentive to speed.

Cabs could be outfitted with black-box-style data recorders and devices that would sound warnings — or even pause the fare meter — for going too fast, even as speed limits on most city streets would drop from 30 to 25 mph.

Mayor Bill de Blasio, who made the proposals as part of his broader safe-streets plan, says drivers of New York's signature yellow cabs rightly should play a particular role in his push to curb traffic crashes.

"They set the tone on our streets," de Blasio said.

While traffic advocates applaud the ideas, they are getting a bumpy reception at taxi stands. Cabbies fear friction with passengers and feel they're being scapegoated, and riders say they're torn between the drive for safety and the need for speed.

"When I'm in a rush, anything is appreciated," New Yorker Emily Baltimore said as she waited in a cab line outside Penn Station this week.

New York's Taxi and Limousine Commission says it is still exploring the ideas, which would require a range of approvals. The traffic safety plan also includes more taxi-rule enforcers, stiffer penalties for cabbies' driving violations and many provisions aimed at all cars, not just taxis.

Deadly auto wrecks have dropped sharply in the nation's biggest city, from 701 in 1990 to an all-time low of 249 in 2011, as officials redesigned dangerous intersections and made other changes. But recent pedestrian deaths have pushed the issue to the forefront.

Nine-year-old Cooper Stock was in a Manhattan crosswalk, holding his father's hand, when a left-turning taxi hit them Jan. 10.

Cooper was killed. The driver was ticketed but hasn't been criminally charged, though authorities are still investigating. Under current rules, the accident wasn't grounds to suspend his otherwise clean license.

Cooper's mother says cabbies need to be held accountable for making streets safer.

"They should be the best drivers in the city. They are professional drivers," said Dana Lerner, a psychotherapist. While her main goal is tougher consequences for taxi crashes, she feels black boxes and other technology could deter bad driving.

The results would ripple through traffic, as cabbies' driving "dictates behavioral norms to other drivers," said Paul Steely White, who runs Transportation Alternatives, a group backing de Blasio's plan.

While New York's more than 50,000 cabbies may have a hard-driving image, they note they have eight hours a day worth of reasons to be careful.

Just about 4 percent of the roughly 200,000 vehicles involved in accidents citywide last year were yellow cabs, according to an Associated Press analysis of police statistics.

A 2004 study showed taxis had a below-average crash rate, on a per-mile-driven basis, though a 2010 city report suggests they play a bigger role in collisions that kill or seriously injure pedestrians. Taxi and car-service cabs were involved in 13 percent of those crashes, though they account for only about 2 percent of the cars on the road, the Transportation Department report showed.

Cabbies feel de Blasio's traffic safety plan unduly singles them out for scrutiny, a sentiment hardly lessened when a news camera caught the mayor's official, police-driven vehicle speeding two days after he unveiled the plan. And taxi drivers and owners fear slowing down could mean losing business.

"People want to go, hurry, because they don't have a lot of time. They spend money to save the time," says Jawad Habib, a cabbie for 21 years who says he makes sure to know traffic rules. He fears a lower speed limit could lengthen taxi trips enough that "who's going to want to sit in the cab? ... They'll go to the bus."

The drivers' union, the Taxi Workers Alliance, and the Metropolitan Taxicab Board of Trade owners' group raised some red flags at a City Council hearing, though the owners' organization supports the lower speed limit and some other ideas.

Some limousine and car-service fleets around the country have seen accidents drop by 50 percent or more after installing data recorders, said Matthew Daus, a former New York taxi commissioner who's now president of the International Association of Transportation Regulators. But the devices can be unpopular with drivers and can bump up against legal questions in an industry in which many drivers are independent contractors, not employees.

It's unclear whether anyone has developed devices linking speed and fare meters, but experts say it's feasible.

Vehicle security-camera company VerifEye Technologies Inc., for example, recently started offering a feature that can send a cab company a message if a car breaks the speed limit, discerned by a combination of GPS and speed-zone maps, Vice President Terry Walker said. The Markham, Ontario-based company has mapped Toronto, Chicago and a handful of other cities so far.

The system could be adapted to pause a meter if regulators allowed it, Walker said.

Meanwhile, cabbie Yick Li relies on his own anti-speeding system: himself.

After 32 years behind a taxi wheel, he simply says no if a passenger urges him to speed or break other rules. Some riders gripe, he said, but many understand.

"They sit back, relax, let us do the driving."

---

Associated Press Writer Jake Pearson contributed to this report.

Reach Jennifer Peltz on Twitter @jennpeltz.

Manda sells Baker meat plant

BAKER, La. -- Manda Fine Meats says it has sold its idle Baker facility for $200,000 to a pair of investors who plan to develop an industrial manufacturing incubator in the building.

The plant at 13111 Plank Road was shut down in April 2013 over concerns products made there may have been contaminated with the Listeria monocytogenes bacterium, The Advocate reports (http://bit.ly/1kvmDVS).

Baton Rouge-based Manda sold the plant in a deal that closed earlier this week, according to records filed with the East Baton Rouge Parish clerk of court's office. The sale included a 15,000-square-foot building, a separate 6,000-square-foot warehouse and 11 acres of surrounding land. The buyer was Lincoln Park LLC.

William Manhein, a principal of Lincoln Park, says food processing equipment at the Manda building has been sold to other businesses.

Mass. awards urban farming grants

BOSTON -- Massachusetts has launched a new $200,000 pilot project to encourage the farming in cities across the state.

Grants have been awarded this week to food-growing projects in Boston, Everett, Lawrence, Lowell, Somerville, Springfield and Worcester.

The program is designed to increase access to fresh, nutritious food for people in cities and to come up with farming methods that other cities can copy and benefit from.

Municipalities, nonprofit organizations and other government entities are eligible to apply for grants ranging from $5,000 to $40,000. Preference goes to projects that have multiple partners and additional funding sources.

The project hopes to find solutions for problems such as finding suitable land, and working limited space, sunlight, and nutrient-poor soils. It also will try to help solve high startup costs, restrictive zoning issues and the farmers' lack of agricultural and business experience.

RI lawmaker pitches tax cut for new businesses

PROVIDENCE, R.I. -- A state lawmaker has a proposal to give broad seven-year tax exemptions to businesses relocating to Rhode Island.

The bill from Republican state Rep. Anthony Giarrusso of East Greenwich would also extend the seven-year tax exemption to new startup businesses.

Giarrusso says his proposal will send a bold message that Rhode Island is serious about turning its economy around.

The legislation would also give a seven-year exemption from personal income taxes to employees hired by the new businesses within 180 days of their arrival in the state. The companies would be exempted from sales taxes and franchise taxes.

The exemption wouldn't apply to certain businesses, including restaurants, real estate brokers, medical practices or accounting or business consulting firms

The bill hasn't been scheduled for a vote.

Conn. tax department offering free services

HARTFORD, Conn. -- Connecticut is offering taxpayers access to free state tax preparation and filing services.

Department of Revenue Services Commissioner Kevin Sullivan says the agency's online Taxpayer Service Center provides free electronic filing and a range of free and reliable community services for state income tax preparation. That includes the Volunteer Income Tax Assistance, the Free Alliance, AARP Tax Counseling and others.

Sullivan says he's been surprised to hear about taxpayers who use free software to file their federal income taxes but pay for a service to file their state return. Sullivan said more than 70 percent of Connecticut taxpayers qualify for free income tax filing assistance.

Taxpayers can learn more about free Connecticut income tax filing by visiting the DRS website at www.ct.gov/DRS and clicking on 2013 Income Season.

Agriculture agent appointed in Pike County

MCCOMB, Miss. -- Lamar Adams has been named Extension Service agent for Pike County.

The Enterprise-Journal reported (http://bit.ly/1jDC92n) Pike County supervisors named Adams to the agriculture post vacated in 2013 by the retirement of Mike Tynes.

Adams has been with the Extension Service for 26 years.

He served as Walthall County Extension Service director from 1990 to 2009.

For the past five years he has worked as state dairy specialist at Mississippi State University.

"Mr. Adams is very involved with the 4-H Livestock Program and will bring a wealth of knowledge and expertise in agriculture to Pike County," Sherry Bell Surette, head of the Central Mississippi Research and Extension Center, wrote in a letter of recommendation to supervisors.

"This area's just in Lamar's heart," she told supervisors after introducing Adams.

Adams said he is familiar with agriculture issues in southwest Mississippi after his service in Walthall County.

"I was your neighbor next door for 19 years," he said.

Pakistani Taliban Promise Cease-Fire To Resume Peace Talks

i i

hide captionShahidullah Shahid (right), spokesman of banned Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan sits with a local commander Azam Tariq as they speak to journalists at an undisclosed location near the Afghan border last month.

Saood Rehman/EPA/Landov

Shahidullah Shahid (right), spokesman of banned Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan sits with a local commander Azam Tariq as they speak to journalists at an undisclosed location near the Afghan border last month.

Saood Rehman/EPA/Landov

The Pakistani Taliban said Saturday it will observe a month-long cease-fire to revive failed peace talks with Islamabad.

"The senior leadership of the Taliban advises all subgroups to respect the Taliban's call for a ceasefire and abide by it and completely refrain from all jihadi activities in this time period," the militant group said in a statement.

"Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan has initiated talks with the [Pakistani] government with sincerity and for good purpose," spokesman Shahidullah Shahid said, referring to the group by its formal name.

The BBC says that Shahid "requested the Pakistani government to fulfil the group's demands, which include an end to U.S. drone strikes and the introduction of sharia law."

The Associated Press reports:

"The announcement comes as Pakistan jets and helicopters struck militant hideouts in the northwest in recent weeks after previous efforts at negotiations broke down when a militant faction announced it had killed 23 Pakistani troops."

"The Pakistani Taliban has been trying to overthrow the government and establish its own hard-line form of Islam across Pakistan for years. Tens of thousands of people have died in militant attacks."

Irfan Siddiqui, an adviser to the Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, said that he had so far not received any information regarding a ceasefire, but added that it would be a "positive development," according to the BBC.

Sleiman chairs meeting ahead of Paris conference

BEIRUT: President Michel Sleiman Saturday chaired a preparatory meeting ahead of the March 5 International Support Group for Lebanon in Paris.

Sleiman met with his accompanying delegation: Deputy Prime Minister and Defense Minister Samir Moqbel, Foreign Minister Gebran Basil, and Social Affairs Minister Rashid Derbas, as well as a number of consultants.

During the meeting at Baabda Palace, Sleiman and the ministers reviewed the proposals the Lebanese delegation will present to the conference.

This is the second high-level meeting of the International Support Group for Lebanon which was inaugurated in New York in September on the sidelines of the 68th United Nations General Assembly session.

The group’s goal is to mobilize support for Lebanon and the country’s state institutions as well as to help the country address the overwhelming number of Syrian refugees.

The two-day conference in Paris will be aimed at translating international support to Lebanon into aid.

Nasrallah holds talks with visiting Iranian official

BEIRUT: Hezbollah Chief Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah held talks with Alaeddine Boroujerdi, who heads the Iranian parliamentary committee on national security and foreign affairs, the party’s media office said Saturday.

Nasrallah and Boroujerdi discussed a range of issues concerning the region.

Boroujerdi left from Rafik Hariri Airport Saturday morning.

The Iranian official arrived Thursday for a two-day visit to Lebanon, where he met with Lebanese President Michel Sleiman and Speaker Nabih Berri among other officials.

During his visit, which followed his trip to Damascus, Boroujerdi said Iran would never negotiate on its support for the resistance, referring to Hezbollah, Tehran's ally in Lebanon.

Beirut gas centers to shut down amidst fears of attack

BEIRUT: Two centers for filling gas canisters in the southern Beirut suburb of Bir Hasan have been ordered to shut down after security forces received information they could be targeted by terrorist attacks, a security source told The Daily Star.

Bir Hasan has been rocked by suicide car bombings targeting Iranian interests on two separate occasions, killing scores of people.

The Nov. 19 and the Feb. 19 attacks were claimed by the Al-Qaeda-linked Abdullah Azzam Brigades, citing Iran and Hezbollah's role in the Syrian crisis as well as the continued detention of young Muslim men in Lebanese prisons.

Media reports said Interior Minister Nouhad Machnouq was behind the decision to shut down the gas centers.

Lebanon police arrest kidnapper

BEIRUT: Lebanon police has arrested a wanted man who confessed to abducting 10 people for a ransom and being part of a network of Lebanese and Syrian kidnappers.

Internal Security Forces Information Branch arrested a man identified by his initials, Z.K., 35, also known as Ziyad al-Nahr, who was wanted on suspicion of kidnapping people in a "sensitive border area," according to an ISF statement.

The suspect was wanted for a number of other judicial warrants as well.

During interrogation, he confessed to kidnapping around 10 Syrians after luring them from Syrian territory, Beirut and Mount Lebanon to the northern city of Tripoli using a man or woman as bait.

Upon arriving to Tripoli, the victims would then be transferred to a northern border area where the kidnapper would hold them until their relatives paid a ransom.

He also told investigators that there were a number of Lebanese and Syrian groups that carry out similar abductions.

The police are in pursuit of the group members.

Sleiman: Border attacks aim to draw Lebanon into Syria crisis

BEIRUT: President Michel Sleiman described Saturday a series of attacks against Lebanese border villages as an attempt to draw Lebanon into the Syrian crisis, urging Syrians to refrain from targeting the country “under any pretext.”

“The rocket attack on the border town of Brital and the air raids on Arsal are additional ways to entice Lebanon and the Lebanese to get involved [in the Syrian crisis],” Sleiman said, according to his office.

The president also said “it was not permissible or acceptable for innocent Lebanese in various areas to pay the price with their lives and properties.”

He also called on rival factions in Syria to refrain from targeting Lebanon under any pretext, and asked the Lebanese not to get involved in the crisis “based on the Baabda Declaration and disassociating Lebanon from the conflicts of others.”

Friday's rocket attack from Syria hit several buildings in Brital while Syrian air strikes kill a child and a teenager on the outskirts in the northeastern town of Arsal near a refugee center.

Brital is associated with Hezbollah while Arsal residents have welcomed thousands of Syrian refugees and are known to be staunch supporters of the opposition.

The Brital attack was claimed by the Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria, which declared the target was a “Hezbollah’s stronghold.”

Sleiman also expressed hope that the Cabinet’s policy statement would soon be drafted so that the government could fulfill its duties towards the public and secure needed aid for the Lebanese Army from the international community.

Ministers have so far failed to draft the ministerial statement which the Cabinet needs before it can be voted on in Parliament.

The president also met with the Secretary General of the Lebanese-Syrian High council, Nasri Khoury, who briefed him on the work of the council and events in Syria.

LF, Future emphasize unity despite difference over Cabinet

BEIRUT: Lebanese Forces MP Antoine Zahra Saturday criticized the Future Movement for taking part in a government with Hezbollah, but emphasized that the alliance between the two parties remained strong.

Meanwhile, Future Movement Secretary General Ahmad Hariri also reiterated the unity of the March 14 Coalition.

"It is true that differences surfaced among the March 14 forces with regards to participating in the government ... but the coalition remained intact.”

Speaking to a group of Lebanese in Victoria State during a short trip to Australia, Hariri said March 14 was made up of “independent figures who have their own opinions.”

“We are united in our principles, which we will never abandon,” he added.

Prime Minister Tammam Salam formed an all-embracing government last month after former Prime Minister Saad Hariri and the Hezbollah-lead March 8 coalition reached a deal mediated by MP Walid Jumblatt after10 months of political deadlock.

Hariri has said rising Sunni-Shiite tensions and deteriorating security in Lebanon were behind his decision to take part in a new government with the aim of safeguarding the country.

The LF refrained from taking part in the government, demanding Hezbollah commit to the Baabda Declaration, an agreement signed by rival groups in 2012 to distance Lebanon from regional turmoil, particularly the Syrian crisis.

The March 14 coalition has been critical of Hezbollah's role in Syria, blaming the resistance group for the series of car bombings mostly targeting predominantly-Shiite areas associated with Hezbollah.

Media reports have said the dispute over the government has tainted ties between the head of the LF, Samir Geagea, and Hariri.

During a radio interview, Zahra was critical of his allies in the Future Movement and said most of the Hariri’s reasons for joining the government were not convincing.

“The difference between us and our allies in March 14 is that we asked for a written commitment from Hezbollah to accept the Baabda Declaration as part of the policy statement,” he said, referring to ongoing discussion about the Cabinet’s ministerial statement.

He said the LF was not pleased with the Future Movement’s decision but that the two parties remained in contact.

Zahra said he understood reasons behind his allies’ participation in the government, saying: "Hariri has the right to think about the sectarian tensions but the other reasons for participating are not convincing.”

“We don't think we made a mistake by abstaining from participating in the government because we have a certain strategy based on nation building,” he said.

Zahra also spoke about a recent meeting between Hariri and March 14's rival, MP Michel Aoun, saying: “We would have preferred to have found out about the Harir-Aoun meeting from them [the Future Movement] rather than from the media.”

“If the meeting was innocent, as Aoun claimed, why was it kept a secret?” he asked.

Zahra defended the March 14 coalition and said differences between parties were only normal.

“What unites the March 14 coalition is the belief in a state and its institutions, and this alliance was decided by the people rather than political elites ... the alliance is very difficult to break,” he said.

Iraq official says oil exports jump in February

BAGHDAD -- A senior Iraqi official says oil exports have shot up in February to 2.8 million barrels per day from nearly 2.3 million in the previous month, thanks to a small group of international oil companies developing oil fields and export infrastructure.

Iraq's Deputy Prime Minister for energy, Hussain al-Shahristani, also said Saturday in the southern oil-rich city of Basra that average production, including the exports, exceeded 3.5 million barrels per day last month. Al-Shahristani described the figures as "unprecedented."

Iraq's daily oil production and exports have climbed steadily since 2011, nearly two years after Iraq awarded rights to develop its major oil fields to international oil companies. It holds the world's fourth largest oil reserves, some 143.1 billion barrels, and oil revenues make up nearly 95 percent of its budget.

Push begins for liquor vote in Amory

AMORY, Miss. -- A group backing a referendum on possible wine, beer and liquor sales plans to mail out thousands of letters asking residents to back the call for an election to decide the matter.

WTVA reports (http://bit.ly/1cpwZSl ) each of the mailouts from the group Let's Grow Amory contains a letter and petitions. The group wants voters to decide whether Amory should permit the sale of alcoholic beverages as an economic development issue.

An election would be possible only if the group receives signatures from 20 percent of registered voters in Amory.

The issue is expected to meet opposition in the longtime dry county.

But if the petition drive is successful, organizers hope to have the referendum on the August ballot.

Berkshire Hathaway's 4Q profit up 10 percent

OMAHA, Neb. -- Warren Buffett's company says its fourth-quarter profit improved 10 percent as its insurance companies improved.

Berkshire Hathaway Inc.'s fourth-quarter results and Buffett's annual letter to shareholders were released Saturday.

Berkshire reported fourth-quarter net income of $4.99 billion, or $3,035 per Class A share, on revenue of $47 billion. That's up from $4.55 billion, or $2,757 per Class A share, on revenue of $44.72 billion last year.

Berkshire's insurance companies, which include Geico and General Reinsurance, reported a $394 million operating profit in the fourth quarter, compared to last year's $19 million loss.

Berkshire's operating earnings, which exclude investments and derivatives, grew to $3.78 billion, or $2,297 per Class A share.

The three analysts surveyed by financial data company FactSet expected quarterly operating earnings of $2,495.42 per Class A share.

Weekly Address: Investing in Technology and Infrastructure to Create Jobs

In his weekly address, President Obama said he took action this week to launch new manufacturing hubs and expand a competition to fund transformative infrastructure projects. Both are policies aimed at expanding economic opportunity for all by creating jobs and ensuring the long-term strength of the American economy. Congress can boost this effort by passing a bipartisan proposal to create a nationwide network of high-tech manufacturing hubs and taking steps to invest in our nation’s infrastructure – rebuilding our transportation system, creating new construction jobs, and better connecting Americans to economic opportunities.

Transcript | mp4 | mp3

Obama challenges Congress to help create jobs

WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama is challenging Congress to help him create jobs and rebuild the nation's infrastructure.

In his weekly radio and Internet address, Obama points to the launch of two new high-tech manufacturing hubs and a competition to rebuild the nation's roads, bridges, mass transit, ports and railroads. Obama says Congress can help in both areas.

He says a bill now before Congress would create a network of high-tech manufacturing hubs all across the country. And he says he'll send Congress a budget next week that would rebuild transportation systems and support millions of jobs.

In the Republican address, Rep. Ann Wagner of Missouri is asking the president to explain government reports that up to 11 million workers will pay higher insurance premiums because of the new health care law.

---

Online:

Obama's address: http://1.usa.gov/1fxQMoK

Republican address: http://bit.ly/1eKnHjK

Tax collections shine in Corinth

CORINTH, Miss. -- Sales and tourism tax collections were at near-record levels for mid-February deposits, reflecting sales activity at local businesses in December.

The Daily Corinthian reports (http://bit.ly/1exdlDD ) the city's share of sales tax was $585,937, an increase of about $20,000, or 3.6 percent, in year-to-year comparisons.

It was the third consecutive monthly increase. The fiscal year total year-to-date was $1.847 million, a 4.7 percent increase from the same period in the previous fiscal year.

The 2 percent tourism tax on prepared food and lodging had its second-best month to date, generating $108,653, an increase of about $16,000, or 17 percent, from a year earlier.

Information from: The Daily Corinthian.

Fewer Atlanta homeowners with troubled mortgages

ATLANTA -- Rising home prices in the Atlanta metro area are helping homeowners who have owned more on their mortgages than their homes were worth.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution (http://bit.ly/1d3b9HJ ) reports that a new study from the online real estate service Zillow shows 35 percent of metro Atlanta homeowners with outstanding loans owed more on the homes than they were worth. The study was for the fourth quarter. The 35 percent was down significantly from 54 percent a year ago.

The study says Atlanta, Orlando and Las Vegas remain the top three areas for homeowners dealing with negative equity.

S&P Case-Shiller reports that home prices in the metro Atlanta area rose more than 18 percent in 2013.

Bill to legalize scalping splits venues, brokers

LANSING, Mich. -- Repealing Michigan's rarely enforced ban against scalping tickets is, on its face, an effort to help out the average customer looking to sell a few unused tickets to a game or concert.

But it's also a high-stakes financial tussle — one between venue owners like pro sports teams and brokers who resell their tickets on the Internet. So far, the brokers are winning in Lansing.

The Republican-led House voted this week to legalize ticket scalping. Entertainment venues are hoping to block the bill in the GOP-controlled Senate.

Selling a ticket above face value is a misdemeanor that can lead to jail time and a fine.

Supporters say letting people buy and resell tickets freely would help consumers. Opponents say the legislation would lead to higher prices in the resale market.

From Riyadh to Beirut, fear of Syria blowback

BISARIYEH, Lebanon: The once-tranquil, religiously mixed village of Bisariyeh is seething: Two of its young men who fought alongside the rebels in Syria recently returned home radicalized and staged suicide bombings in Lebanon.

The phenomenon is being watched anxiously across the Mideast, particularly in Saudi Arabia, where authorities are moving decisively to prevent citizens from going off to fight in Syria.

The developments illustrate how the Syrian war is sending dangerous ripples across a highly combustible region and sparking fears that jihadis will come home with dangerous ideas and turn their weapons against their own countries.

In Lebanon, where longstanding tensions between Sunnis and Shiites have been heightened by the conflict next door, the fear of blowback has very much turned into reality.

The social fabric of towns and villages across the country is being torn by conflicting loyalties and a wave of bombings carried out by Sunni extremists in retaliation for the Iranian-backed Shiite group Hezbollah's military support of Syrian President Bashar Assad.

In the past few months, at least five Sunni men have disappeared from Bisariyeh, an impoverished, predominantly Shiite village in south Lebanon, and are believed to have gone to fight in Syria.

Two of them - Nidal Mughayar and Adan al-Mohammad - returned and blew themselves up outside Iranian targets in Beirut. The blasts, by Mughayar on Feb. 19 and al-Mohammad on Nov. 18, killed scores.

"He was a good man with a good heart, but it seems that people who have no conscience brainwashed him," Hisham al-Mughayar said of his 20-year-old son.

As news spread in the village that Nidal was one of the bombers, angry Shiite residents marched to his parents' home and set it on fire along with the family's grocery and four vehicles.

"He destroyed himself and destroyed us with him," said the father, as he took an Associated Press reporter on a tour of his torched, two-story house, much of its furniture reduced to ashes.

Concern about such radicalization has sent Mideast governments scrambling into action.

After years of often turning a blind eye to jihadists taking up arms abroad, Saudi Arabia is enacting new laws and backing a campaign to stop its citizens from joining Syria's civil war. The intention is to send a clear message that those who defy the law are to fight to the death and are not welcome back.

The move, in part, reflects pressure from Saudi ally the U.S., which wants to see the overthrow of Assad but is alarmed by the rising influence of hard-line foreign jihadists - many of them linked to al-Qaida - among the rebels.

Many Saudis have been easy recruitment targets for jihadist organizations. Osama bin Laden and 15 of the 19 hijackers on 9/11 were Saudi. The oil-rich kingdom was among several nations that backed the anti-communist mujahedeen forces fighting the Soviets in Afghanistan in the 1980s, and Saudi fighters have traveled to other Muslim hotspots around the world since then.

More recently, at the urging of Saudi preachers and even judges, thousands of fighters from Saudi Arabia - home to a strict, puritanical strain of Sunni Islam - have joined the 3-year-old uprising against Assad, whose government is dominated by members of his Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shiite Islam.

Saudi officials said fewer than 3,000 Saudis are believed to be fighting in Syria, but analysts and other estimates put the figure as high as 15,000.

While Saudi Arabia continues to support opposition groups in Syria with weapons and other aid, King Abdullah issued a decree in the past month: Any citizen who fights abroad faces three to 20 years in prison. And anyone who incites people to join foreign wars can get five to 30 years.

"The Saudis are very much concerned about a repeat of the 2004 jihadist insurgency inside the kingdom, led at the time by Osama Bin Laden," said analyst Bilal Saab, referring to a wave of militant attacks inside the country.

"It took time and a considerable amount of resources to counter the insurgency then. If it were to happen again in today's regional environment where radicalization is on the increase, Saudi counterterrorism efforts will face even more formidable challenges," added Saab, a senior fellow at the Brent Scowcroft Center on International Security at the Atlantic Council.

History is rife with examples of militants returning home from wars with radical intentions.

Thousands of Muslims worldwide who went off to Afghanistan during the 10-year Soviet occupation returned home fired with the fervor of jihad and sought to overthrow their own, sometimes secular-leaning governments. Many established radical groups in Indonesia, Pakistan, the Philippines, the Caucuses and elsewhere.

The shift to criminalize fighting abroad is gaining traction in the Middle East and North Africa. Egypt's military leadership has taken a stricter stand, and Bahrain is drawing up legislation. Tunisia said it has prevented 8,000 from going to Syria and is putting together a database to monitor hundreds of fighters who have returned.

Tens of thousands of foreign fighters have flocked to Syria to take part in the war to topple Assad. Thousands of Shiites, including Hezbollah fighters from Lebanon, have rushed to Assad's defense.

A perpetually troubled country with a weak central government, Lebanon has been a prime victim of the spillover violence.

In Bisariyeh, Hisham al-Mughayar has moved in with his parents. His daughters have stopped going to school, and his other son is no longer going to work for fear of more reprisals.

"Had I known where my son was, I would have gone and got him. We are innocent of all he did," he said. "This is a catastrophe that struck us, although we have nothing to do with it."