Hillary campaign boss: Obama voters are on board

Hillary Clinton is finding broad support on the 2016 presidential campaign trail not just among older Democratic voters, but with the young Americans who were instrumental in electing President Barack Obama, the Democratic candidate's campaign manager said Wednesday.
"That coalition of voters that was so strong for Obama, including young people, we're seeing in the polling and as Hillary is out campaigning, they're on board," Robby Mook told CNBC's "Squawk Box."

Voters are looking for a president who will be a champion for everyday people, Mook said. For young voters, that means creating the conditions that will allow them to get a college education without taking on debt and find employment after graduation, he added.

For seniors, it means standing up for Social Security and Medicare, two entitlement programs Clinton has a track record of protecting, Mook said.

http://www.cnbc.com/id/102652944

Surveillance planes spotted in the sky for days after West Baltimore rioting

Source: Washington Post

As Benjamin Shayne settled into his back yard to listen to the Orioles game on the radio Saturday night, he noticed a small plane looping low and tight over West Baltimore — almost exactly above where rioting had erupted several days earlier, in the aftermath of the death of a black man, Freddie Gray, in police custody.

The plane appeared to be a small Cessna, but little else was clear. The sun had already set, making traditional visual surveillance difficult. So, perplexed, Shayne tweeted: “Anyone know who has been flying the light plane in circles above the city for the last few nights?”

That was 9:14 p.m. Seven minutes later came a startling reply. One of Shayne’s nearly 600 followers tweeted back a screen shot of the Cessna 182T’s exact flight path and also the registered owner of the plane: NG Research, based in Bristow, Va.

“The Internet,” Shayne, 39, told his wife, “is an amazing thing.”


Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/technology/surveillance-planes-spotted-in-the-sky-for-days-after-west-baltimore-rioting/2015/05/05/c57c53b6-f352-11e4-84a6-6d7c67c50db0_story.html

Hoping to highlight good works, Clintons find controversy instead

Source: Washington Post

Bill and Chelsea Clinton are convening foreign leaders here at a lush golf resort set in a palm grove this week to showcase their foundation’s charitable work. But the conference also highlights new controversies engulfing the Clinton family’s vast philanthropic enterprises as Hillary Rodham Clinton begins her presidential campaign.

A liberal human rights organization and several Republican lawmakers, for instance, are criticizing the Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation for accepting donations from a Moroccan government-owned mining company, whose seven-figure sponsorship of this week’s gathering came amid growing scrutiny of foreign-government donations.

Meanwhile, some blue-chip companies that have long provided large donations to the Clinton Foundation are pulling back or reassessing their support.

An Exxon Mobil spokesman said this week that the company has decided not to be involved in the Clinton Global Initiative this year. The oil company said its decision was unrelated to recent scrutiny of the foundation, but this is the first year it has not been a sponsor since 2009. Other sponsors, including Monsanto, are reevaluating their partnerships.


Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/hoping-to-highlight-good-works-clintons-find-controversy-instead/2015/05/05/5c0a7728-f32f-11e4-b2f3-af5479e6bbdd_story.html

Between two ferns - President Obama interview

Traditional retirement possibly becoming a thing of the past

It may be time to redefine retirement.

A new survey of American workers from the Transamerica Center for Retirement Studies found that 82% of the respondents age 60 and older either are, or expect to keep working past the age of 65. Among all workers, regardless of age, 20% expect to keep on working as long as possible in their current job or a similar one.

"The days of the gold-watch retirement where we have an office party and maybe some punch and cookies and never work again are more mythical than a reality,'' said Catherine Collinson, president of the retirement studies center. "Very few workers actually envision that type of retirement and many plan to keep on working part-time even after they retire.

"It even raises the question is retirement the right word."

The new retirement horizon should encourage employers to reconsider the way they view their staffing.

"It's a call to action ... to really revisit basic workforce management principles,'' Collinson says, "The reality is that as a society we have workers who are looking to work much longer than 20 or 30 years. They're also an important part of the economy because they're consumers as well. ''

http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2015/05/05/many-older-americans-plan-to-work-past-age-65-and-maybe-never-retire/26876287/

Engineers design synthetic gel that changes shape and moves via its own internal energy

Source: PHYS ORG

For decades, robots have advanced the efficiency of human activity. Typically, however, robots are formed from bulky, stiff materials and require connections to external power sources; these features limit their dexterity and mobility. But what if a new material would allow for development of a "soft robot" that could reconfigure its own shape and move using its own internally generated power?

By developing a new computational model, researchers at the University of Pittsburgh's Swanson School of Engineering have designed a synthetic polymer gel that can utilize internally generated chemical energy to undergo shape-shifting and self-sustained propulsion. Their research, " Designing Dual-functionalized Gels for Self-reconfiguration and Autonomous Motion ", was published April 30th in the journal Scientific Reports, published by Nature.

The authors are Anna C. Balazs, PhD, the Swanson School's Distinguished Professor of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering and the Robert v. d. Luft Professor; and Olga Kuksenok, PhD, Research Associate Professor.

"Movement is a fundamental biological behavior, exhibited by the simplest cell to human beings. It allows organisms to forage for food or flee from prey. But synthetic materials typically don't have the capability for spontaneous mechanical action or the ability to store and use their own energy, factors that enable directed motion" Dr. Balazs said. "Moreover in biology, directed movement involves some form of shape changes, such as the expansion and contraction of muscles. So we asked whether we could mimic these basic interconnected functions in a synthetic system so that it could simultaneously change its shape and move."


Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2015-05-squishier-robot-synthetic-gel-internal.html#jCp

Read more: http://phys.org/news/2015-05-squishier-robot-synthetic-gel-internal.html

The mobile-home trap: How a Warren Buffett empire preys on the poor

After years of living in a 1963 travel trailer, Kirk and Patricia Ackley found a permanent house with enough space to host grandkids and care for her aging father suffering from dementia.

So, as the pilot cars prepared to guide the factory-built home up from Oregon in May 2006, the Ackleys were elated to finalize paperwork waiting for them at their loan broker’s kitchen table.

But the closing documents he set before them held a surprise: The promised 7 percent interest rate was now 12.5 percent, with monthly payments of $1,100, up from $700.

The terms were too extreme for the Ackleys. But they’d already spent $11,000, at the dealer’s urging, for a concrete foundation to accommodate this specific home. They could look for other financing but desperately needed a space to care for her father.

http://www.seattletimes.com/business/real-estate/the-mobile-home-trap-how-a-warren-buffett-empire-preys-on-the-poor/

Panera CEO on Push to Banish Artificial Ingredients

Source: ABC News

Panera Bread is the latest company to tout the removal of artificial ingredients, adding fuel to the debate over whether that improves food quality or is just a marketing tool.

By the end of the next year, the chain says the dozens of ingredients on its "No No List" will be banished from its menu. Some of the ingredients are already gone, while others are in the process of being expunged.

Panera isn't alone. A range of food companies have announced they would remove various ingredients in response to customer feedback. Some high-profile examples from just last month: PepsiCo said it was dropping the artificial sweetener aspartame from Diet Pepsi, and Kraft said it would remove artificial dyes from its mac and cheese. Chipotle also declared its menu to be free of genetically modified ingredients.

The trend has also sparked a backlash. Some say food activists such as Vani Hari, known as the Food Babe, ignore science and stoke fears about ingredients that pose no harm.


Read more: http://abcnews.go.com/Health/wireStory/panera-ceo-push-banish-artificial-ingredients-30813624

Councilman Forgets to Turn His Mic Off

Actor LeVar Burton Explains His Ritual To Prevent Being Shot by Police