MOORE, Oklahoma (Reuters) - At least 91 people, including 20 children, were feared killed when a 2 mile wide tornado tore through an Oklahoma City suburb, trapping victims beneath the rubble as one elementary school took a direct hit and another was destroyed.
President Barack Obama declared a major disaster area in Oklahoma, ordering federal aid to supplement state and local efforts in Moore after the deadliest U.S. tornado since one killed 161 people in Joplin, Missouri, two years ago.
Emergency crews were desperately searching the wreckage of Plaza Towers Elementary School that took a direct hit from the tornado on Monday afternoon, Oklahoma Lieutenant Governor Todd Lamb told CNN.
There was an outpouring of grief on the school's Facebook page, with messages from around the country including one pleading simply: "Please find those little children."
Another elementary school, homes and a hospital were among the buildings leveled, leaving residents of the town of about 50,000 people stunned at the devastation and loss of life.
The Oklahoma medical examiner said 20 of the 91 expected to have been killed were children. The office had already confirmed 51 dead and had been told by emergency services to expect 40 more bodies found in the debris, but had not yet received them.
At least 60 of the 240 people injured were children, area hospitals said.
"We thought we died because we were inside the cellar door ... It ripped open the door and just glass and debris started slamming on us and we thought we were dead to be honest," Ricky Stover said while surveying the devastated remains of his home.
Moore was devastated with debris everywhere, street signs gone, lights out, houses destroyed and vehicles tossed about as if they were toys.
Rescuers were searching for survivors throughout the swath of devastation into the early hours of Tuesday, while the dangerous storm system threatened several southern Plains states with more twisters. Severe weather was expected through the night from the Great Lakes south to Texas.
STORM ALERTS
Speaking outside Norman Regional Hospital Ninia Lay, 48, said she huddled in a closet through two storm alerts and the tornado hit on the third.
"I was hiding in the closet and I heard something like a train coming," she said under skies still flashing with lightning. The house was flattened and Lay was buried in the rubble for two hours until her husband Kevin, 50, and rescuers dug her out.
"I thank God for my cell phone, I called me husband for help."
Her daughter Catherine, seven, a first-grader at Plaza Towers Elementary School, took shelter with classmates and teachers in a bathroom when the tornado hit and destroyed the school. She escaped with scrapes and cuts.
The National Weather Service assigned the twister a preliminary ranking of EF4 on the Enhanced Fujita Scale, meaning the second most powerful category of tornado with winds up to 200 mph.
Witnesses said Monday's tornado appeared more fierce than the giant twister that was among the dozens that tore up the area on May 3, 1999, killing more than 40 people and destroying thousands of homes. That tornado ranked as an EF5, meaning it had winds over 200 mph.
The 1999 event in Oklahoma ranks as the third-costliest tornado in U.S. history, having caused more than $1 billion in damage at the time, or more than $1.3 billion in today's dollars. Only the devastating Joplin and Tuscaloosa tornadoes in 2011 were more costly.
SCHOOL DESTROYED
The National Weather Service Storm Prediction Center provided the town with a warning 16 minutes before the tornado touched down at 3:01 p.m. (4.01 p.m. EDT), which is greater than the average eight to 10 minutes of warning, said Keli Pirtle, a spokeswoman for the center in Norman, Oklahoma.
The notice was upgraded to emergency warning with "heightened language" at 2:56 p.m., or five minutes before the tornado touched down, Pirtle said.
Television media measured the tornado at more than 2 miles wide, with images showing entire neighborhoods flattened.
The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) imposed a temporary flight restriction that allowed only relief aircraft in the area, saying it was at the request of police who needed quiet to search for buried survivors.
Oklahoma activated the National Guard, and the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency activated teams to support recovery operations and coordinate responses for multiple agencies.
Briarwood Elementary School, which also stood in the storm's path, was all but destroyed. On the first floor, sections of walls had been peeled away, giving clear views into the building; while in other areas, cars hurled by the storm winds were lodged in the walls.
Across the street, people picked through the remains of their homes.
The number of injured as reported by several hospitals rose rapidly throughout the afternoon.
Oklahoma University Medical Center alone was treating 65 patients, 45 of them children, though it was no longer expecting a further mass influx of casualties, spokesman Scott Coppenbarger said.
Moore Medical Center itself sustained significant damage.
"The whole city looks like a debris field," Glenn Lewis, the mayor of Moore, told NBC.
"It looks like we have lost our hospital. I drove by there a while ago and it's pretty much destroyed," Lewis said.
The massive twister struck at the height of tornado season, and more were forecast. On Sunday, tornadoes killed two people and injured 39 in Oklahoma.
(Additional reporting by Lindsay Morris, Carey Gillam, Nick Carey, Brendan O'Brien and Greg McCune; Writing by Daniel Trotta and Nick Carey; Editing by Alison Williams)
Christine Ribbecke tries out a Citi Bike model bicycle at Bike Expo, an exposition for cyclists, May 3, 2013, in New York. New Yorkers prepare for the launch of the?Citi Bike bike-sharing program, which will involve thousands of bicycles at hundreds of locations around the city tol be available to rent.
Photo by Stan Honda/AFP/Getty Images
Following in the footsteps of Amsterdam; Portland, Ore.; and Washington, D.C., among other cities, New York is set to launch its bike-share program, Citi Bike, on Memorial Day. New Yorkers have met the impending influx of bikes with both excitement and dread. The mixed reactions are unsurprising: Antagonism has long simmered between pedestrians and cyclists in New York. As bicycle commuting has increased, so have eruptions of hostility between the two factions: These days, no intersection is immune to shouted insults and raised middle fingers. Then there are the daily incursions onto enemy turf: Loiterers defiantly lolling in bike lanes; bike-mounted scoundrels barreling down sidewalks. With 5,500 new bicycles about to hit the streets of New York, the situation is liable to escalate to all-out warfare.
Which is why we at Slate decided to convene a summit between a representative cyclist and a representative pedestrian to see if we could defuse tensions a bit. One of us, Aisha, is a daily subway rider and pedestrian. The other, Laura, bikes most places she goes in Brooklyn and Lower Manhattan, including to and from work. We agreed going into negotiations that cyclists and pedestrians should be natural allies in a city of rogue cabbies and oblivious Mack truck drivers. We figured we could probably agree on five rules for pedestrians and five rules for cyclists that would make both sides less likely to resent the other.
Compromises were hard won. At one point, Aisha banged a sensible walking shoe against her desk to protest one of Laura?s proposals; Laura responded by drowning out Aisha?s next suggestion with a loud ding-ding-ding of the bell on her handlebars. Actually, that?s completely untrue: We proposed our rules to each other via email, and, there being no serious objections on either side, we ironed out the details of the armistice with a short G-chat session. Though we had different pet peeves, it turns out we both had more or less the same idea of what?s reasonable (in theory). Most of our rules boil down to this: Pay attention, yield when appropriate, and don?t be a jerk. If the 10 resolutions below sound reasonable to you, we hope you?ll share our (Facebook-friendly!) armistice agreement and join our nascent peace movement.
Five Rules for Pedestrians
1.Don?t stand in the bike lane when you?re waiting to cross the street. This is huge. New Yorkers hate standing on the sidewalk; it sometimes feels like everyone is playing a version of hot lava in which the street is the only refuge. But as you position yourself to get a head start before the light changes, take care not to plant yourself in the middle of a bike lane (or, if there?s no bike lane, on the edge of the lane where cyclists often ride). This goes double if you wear music-blaring headphones that make it impossible for cyclists to alert you to their approach.
2.Look before you open your cab door, and get out of the way quickly after exiting your cab. Would you open a cab door into a traffic lane without checking first to see if a car was coming? Then don?t open a cab door into a bike lane without checking first to see if a bike is coming. Would you take your sweet time lingering in the middle of a heavily trafficked street after exiting a cab? Then get out of the way as soon as possible after stepping into a bike lane.
3.Don?t walk or run in the bike lane. If you absolutely must walk or run in the bike lane because, oh, a flash mob has broken into dance and taken over the entire sidewalk, be sure to walk against traffic so you can get out of the way when a cyclist approaches.
4.Jaywalk with caution. Jaywalking is a long, proud New York tradition, one that we would never dream of asking anyone to give up. On the whole, New York pedestrians are very good at looking into traffic, gauging how fast those distant cars are going, and timing their illicit walking to avoid getting hit by a car. Now you need to do the same to avoid getting hit by bicycles. Every time you think of crossing even though the orange hand is illuminated?or when you think of crossing outside the bounds of a crosswalk?make a point of looking for approaching cyclists. If your visibility is limited, don?t cross.
5.Don?t get offended or angry when cyclists ring their bells at you or yell at you. Most cyclists aren?t being smug sadists; they?re just trying to keep you safe by preventing a collision. (And if you follow the above rules, cyclists probably won?t ring their bells at you very often.)
Yahoo has now officially confirmed that it is buying Tumblr for $1.1 billion, confirming speculation that started last week. It says it will keep it as an independent company, with founder David Karp at the helm as CEO. "The product, service and brand will continue to be defined and developed separately with the same Tumblr irreverence, wit, and commitment to empower creators," it writes.
Army Ground Combat Systems adopts Sandia tool for choosing future warfighting vehiclesPublic release date: 21-May-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Heather Clark hclark@sandia.gov 505-844-3511 DOE/Sandia National Laboratories
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. Imagine trying to solve this complex problem: You have to modernize a fleet of combat vehicles, such as tanks, tracked howitzers and infantry fighting vehicles, choosing from among more than 50 ways to update them to meet future threats. Each modernization option can be configured differently to meet a variety of missions around the globe. You are constrained by schedule milestones and the costs for research and development and maintenance and operations, and your budget can change without warning. A shift in the socio-political status of any country or the environment could have consequences that would require you to re-think your decision and, by the way, you're planning 30 years into the future.
Are you scratching your head yet? This is the daunting task faced by analysts working for the U.S. Army's Program Executive Office Ground Combat Systems (PEO GCS), who help the nation's top generals decide which Army vehicles to modernize for future wars.
Sandia National Laboratories, working closely with the Army and other contractors, has developed key components of a software tool to help the PEO GCS analyze countless what-if scenarios that can be manipulated as technology advances and the global environment, the federal budget or other factors change. Sandia calls this advanced combination of modeling, simulation and optimization decision support software the Capability Portfolio Analysis Tool (CPAT).
Award-winning tool
CPAT won the 2012 Military Operations Research Society's Richard H. Barchi Prize, and its Sandia developers say senior Army leaders are expanding the use of the 2-year-old tool across a number of Army modernization programs.
The Sandia researchers envision adapting CPAT to help make a variety of complex decisions easier throughout the military and elsewhere.
"This has really revolutionized the way the Army thinks about things. It's been a big shift in paradigm for how they do analysis," said Liliana Shelton, a Sandia computer scientist and CPAT's technical lead. "About a year after we started from a blank sheet of paper, it started getting used by people once they saw the capability and the questions we could answer."
Alan Nanco, Sandia's CPAT capability manager, said the tool that supports PEO GCS answers questions about ground combat vehicle modernization by combining optimization mathematical formulas, software language and a user interface that clarifies results with a large number of choices that helps the Army leadership narrow millions of choices into a handful of options that best balance its goals while staying within budget, schedule or other constraints.
"The beauty of the tool that we have developed in collaboration with the Army is it's better to evaluate how you're going to pick among such a huge array of options if you have tools that will walk your equipment and your people through a scenario," Nanco said.
Growing partnership with Army leads to CPAT
The analytic support CPAT provides grew out of a partnership between Sandia and the Army that started more than a decade ago. Sandia had been using computer modeling and simulation and system-of-systems engineering to support decisions for upgrading and modernizing nuclear weapons systems by making choices associated with reliability, safety and security, Nanco said. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and the Army wanted to use that systems engineering and analysis expertise to support complex decisions for modernizing the Army's combat systems to create "modular brigade combat teams," Nanco said.
For CPAT, Sandia worked closely with the Army to develop the structure of the models, the algorithms, the mathematical formulation for the optimization tool and the software that makes CPAT user-friendly and displays the results so analysts can use them to brief decision-makers, Shelton said. Other contractors are responsible for data collection feeding in and assumptions made by the software.
Craig Lawton, the lead for Sandia's PEO GCS projects, said other contractors input specific requirements for each vehicle's capabilities. Then, those capabilities are matched to each mission, and CPAT takes into account operating, maintenance and research and development costs.
Shelton added: "These are all the decisions you have to balance when you do an optimization run."
When PEO GCS calls Sandia, Shelton said she can get answers in days a process that used to take weeks. The results are a variety of data and graphs that help analysts quickly compare what-if scenarios or choose the best path to modernize a vehicle or see where different choices fall in meeting the military's long-term goals. Eventually, Sandia envisions training Army systems analysts to use CPAT themselves.
In the real world, most choices are trade-offs, Shelton said.
"You look at different levels of modernization because at different budgets, you might not be able to afford the gold-plated solution. There's something in between, like a happy medium, that they can afford, so they can still improve the capability without breaking the bank," she said.
As a situation changes over time, Sandia and its partners can input new information into the underlying assumptions to show how various changes have an impact on the entire system, she said.
In its two-plus years of existence, CPAT already has shown its value by correcting a misconception as to whether two certain military vehicles could be modernized at the same time.
"The tool reported differently and bucked conventional wisdom, leading to its success," Lawton said.
'Sky's the limit' for CPAT applications
CPAT has been so successful that the assistant secretary of the Army for Acquisition, Logistics and Technology asked that it be briefed to other Army PEOs. As a result, Sandia is working with other Army PEOs, such as Enterprise Information Systems, to apply it to their complex decision-making processes. Sandia has taken action to meet anticipated demand for the tool, Lawton said.
Eventually, CPAT could be adapted to other military branches or applied to entirely different, complex decision-making processes in other large organizations.
"The challenge is each organization has different things that they are managing. Conceptually you are making decisions about how you invest your money, but the details of what goes into it are very, very different," Lawton said. He added, "The sky's the limit."
###
Sandia National Laboratories is a multi-program laboratory operated by Sandia Corporation, a wholly owned subsidiary of Lockheed Martin company, for the U.S. Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration. With main facilities in Albuquerque, N.M., and Livermore, Calif., Sandia has major R&D responsibilities in national security, energy and environmental technologies and economic competitiveness.
Sandia news media contact: Heather Clark
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Army Ground Combat Systems adopts Sandia tool for choosing future warfighting vehiclesPublic release date: 21-May-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Heather Clark hclark@sandia.gov 505-844-3511 DOE/Sandia National Laboratories
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. Imagine trying to solve this complex problem: You have to modernize a fleet of combat vehicles, such as tanks, tracked howitzers and infantry fighting vehicles, choosing from among more than 50 ways to update them to meet future threats. Each modernization option can be configured differently to meet a variety of missions around the globe. You are constrained by schedule milestones and the costs for research and development and maintenance and operations, and your budget can change without warning. A shift in the socio-political status of any country or the environment could have consequences that would require you to re-think your decision and, by the way, you're planning 30 years into the future.
Are you scratching your head yet? This is the daunting task faced by analysts working for the U.S. Army's Program Executive Office Ground Combat Systems (PEO GCS), who help the nation's top generals decide which Army vehicles to modernize for future wars.
Sandia National Laboratories, working closely with the Army and other contractors, has developed key components of a software tool to help the PEO GCS analyze countless what-if scenarios that can be manipulated as technology advances and the global environment, the federal budget or other factors change. Sandia calls this advanced combination of modeling, simulation and optimization decision support software the Capability Portfolio Analysis Tool (CPAT).
Award-winning tool
CPAT won the 2012 Military Operations Research Society's Richard H. Barchi Prize, and its Sandia developers say senior Army leaders are expanding the use of the 2-year-old tool across a number of Army modernization programs.
The Sandia researchers envision adapting CPAT to help make a variety of complex decisions easier throughout the military and elsewhere.
"This has really revolutionized the way the Army thinks about things. It's been a big shift in paradigm for how they do analysis," said Liliana Shelton, a Sandia computer scientist and CPAT's technical lead. "About a year after we started from a blank sheet of paper, it started getting used by people once they saw the capability and the questions we could answer."
Alan Nanco, Sandia's CPAT capability manager, said the tool that supports PEO GCS answers questions about ground combat vehicle modernization by combining optimization mathematical formulas, software language and a user interface that clarifies results with a large number of choices that helps the Army leadership narrow millions of choices into a handful of options that best balance its goals while staying within budget, schedule or other constraints.
"The beauty of the tool that we have developed in collaboration with the Army is it's better to evaluate how you're going to pick among such a huge array of options if you have tools that will walk your equipment and your people through a scenario," Nanco said.
Growing partnership with Army leads to CPAT
The analytic support CPAT provides grew out of a partnership between Sandia and the Army that started more than a decade ago. Sandia had been using computer modeling and simulation and system-of-systems engineering to support decisions for upgrading and modernizing nuclear weapons systems by making choices associated with reliability, safety and security, Nanco said. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and the Army wanted to use that systems engineering and analysis expertise to support complex decisions for modernizing the Army's combat systems to create "modular brigade combat teams," Nanco said.
For CPAT, Sandia worked closely with the Army to develop the structure of the models, the algorithms, the mathematical formulation for the optimization tool and the software that makes CPAT user-friendly and displays the results so analysts can use them to brief decision-makers, Shelton said. Other contractors are responsible for data collection feeding in and assumptions made by the software.
Craig Lawton, the lead for Sandia's PEO GCS projects, said other contractors input specific requirements for each vehicle's capabilities. Then, those capabilities are matched to each mission, and CPAT takes into account operating, maintenance and research and development costs.
Shelton added: "These are all the decisions you have to balance when you do an optimization run."
When PEO GCS calls Sandia, Shelton said she can get answers in days a process that used to take weeks. The results are a variety of data and graphs that help analysts quickly compare what-if scenarios or choose the best path to modernize a vehicle or see where different choices fall in meeting the military's long-term goals. Eventually, Sandia envisions training Army systems analysts to use CPAT themselves.
In the real world, most choices are trade-offs, Shelton said.
"You look at different levels of modernization because at different budgets, you might not be able to afford the gold-plated solution. There's something in between, like a happy medium, that they can afford, so they can still improve the capability without breaking the bank," she said.
As a situation changes over time, Sandia and its partners can input new information into the underlying assumptions to show how various changes have an impact on the entire system, she said.
In its two-plus years of existence, CPAT already has shown its value by correcting a misconception as to whether two certain military vehicles could be modernized at the same time.
"The tool reported differently and bucked conventional wisdom, leading to its success," Lawton said.
'Sky's the limit' for CPAT applications
CPAT has been so successful that the assistant secretary of the Army for Acquisition, Logistics and Technology asked that it be briefed to other Army PEOs. As a result, Sandia is working with other Army PEOs, such as Enterprise Information Systems, to apply it to their complex decision-making processes. Sandia has taken action to meet anticipated demand for the tool, Lawton said.
Eventually, CPAT could be adapted to other military branches or applied to entirely different, complex decision-making processes in other large organizations.
"The challenge is each organization has different things that they are managing. Conceptually you are making decisions about how you invest your money, but the details of what goes into it are very, very different," Lawton said. He added, "The sky's the limit."
###
Sandia National Laboratories is a multi-program laboratory operated by Sandia Corporation, a wholly owned subsidiary of Lockheed Martin company, for the U.S. Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration. With main facilities in Albuquerque, N.M., and Livermore, Calif., Sandia has major R&D responsibilities in national security, energy and environmental technologies and economic competitiveness.
Sandia news media contact: Heather Clark
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
A tornado touches down southwest of Wichita, Kan. near the town of Viola on Sunday, May 19, 2013. The tornado was part of a line of storms that past through the central plains on Sunday. (AP Photo/The Wichita Eagle, Travis Heying)
A tornado touches down southwest of Wichita, Kan. near the town of Viola on Sunday, May 19, 2013. The tornado was part of a line of storms that past through the central plains on Sunday. (AP Photo/The Wichita Eagle, Travis Heying)
EDMOND, Okla. (AP) ? A powerful storm system rumbled through the Plains and upper Midwest on Sunday, spawning tornadoes that damaged homes and buildings near Oklahoma City and put the Tulsa area on high-alert.
There were no immediate reports of injuries caused by any of the tornadoes that touched down in Oklahoma and Kansas, including one that hit the Oklahoma City suburb of Edmond before moving northeast toward Tulsa, 90 miles to the northeast.
For days, forecasters had been warning about the possibility of tornadoes from a weekend storm, and emergency responders as far north as Minnesota and as far south as Texas were keeping a close eye on the powerful system pushing eastward and northward through the nation's breadbasket.
"I knew it was coming," said Randy Grau, who huddled with his wife and two young boys in their Edmond's home's safe room when the tornado hit. He said he peered out his window as the weather worsened and believed he saw a flock of birds heading down the street.
"Then I realized it was swirling debris. That's when we shut the door of the safe room, said Grau, adding that they sheltered in the room for 10 minutes.
In Wichita, Kan., a tornado touched down near Mid-Content Airport on the city's southwest side shortly before 4 p.m., knocking out power to 7,500 homes and businesses but bypassing the most populated areas of Kansas' biggest city.
"At this point, there are very few reports of damage and no reports of fatalities or injuries, and we're very grateful for that," said Sedgwick County Emergency Management Director Randy Duncan.
In Oklahoma, aerial television news footage showed homes that appeared to have suffered significant damage northeast of Oklahoma City. Some outbuildings appeared to have been leveled, and some homes' roofs or walls had been knocked down.
"When I first drove into the neighborhood, I didn't see any major damage until I pulled into the front of my house," said Csabe Mathe, of Edmond, who found a part of his neighbor's fence in his swimming pool. "My reaction was: I hope insurance pays for the cleaning."
"I typically have two trash cans, and now I have five in my driveway."
The Storm Prediction Center had been warning about severe weather in the region since Wednesday, and on Friday, it zeroed in on Sunday as the day the storm system would likely pass through.
"They've been calling for this all day," Edmond resident Anita Wright said after riding out the twister in an underground shelter. She and her husband Ed emerged from their hiding place to find uprooted trees, downed limbs and damaged gutters in their home.
In Katie Leathers' backyard, the family's trampoline was tossed through a section of fence and a giant tree uprooted.
"I saw all the trees waving, and that's when I grabbed everyone and got into two closets," Leathers said. "All these trees just snapped."
___
Associated Press writer Heather Hollingsworth in Kansas City, Mo., contributed to this report.
MINEOLA, N.Y. (AP) -- Selling an island where scientists have experimented with infectious animal diseases since the dawn of the Cold War was going to be difficult enough. But it now appears any prospective buyer won't be able to do much with Plum Island anyway.
As the federal government proceeds with plans to sell the island 100 miles east of New York City to defray the cost of moving animal disease research to a new billion-dollar laboratory in Kansas, Long Island officials are taking steps to prevent resorts or condos or any other development, even before the bidding begins.
The initiative has the support of environmentalists, who say the 843-acre island is a haven for several endangered bird species. But one prominent Hamptons real estate executive says not allowing development of Plum Island could affect the selling price by tens of millions of dollars.
"I know I would pay at least $100 million for that property," says Alan Schnurman, who has developed properties in Southampton and elsewhere on eastern Long Island. He predicted someone could build as many as 300 2-acre lots on Plum Island if it were open to development. The homes could sell for between $1.5 million and $2 million, he said.
"The value of that property is enormous, absolutely enormous," Schnurman said, noting many of the homes on the island would have spectacular waterfront views.
But some local officials doubt such claims.
"What is the marketability of an island that Hannibal Lecter turned down, anyway?" says Scott Russell, the supervisor of the town of Southold in a reference to the fictional character from the film "The Silence of the Lambs." Russell maintains Lecter had no interest in living at Plum Island and predicts developers will share that opinion. In fact, he says he has not heard of any developer expressing interest in the island.
The town, which will have jurisdiction over zoning once the property is sold, wants to create a 600-acre conservation zone on Plum Island. The move would keep the eastern part of the island ? once used as a U.S. Army post during the Spanish American War ? as a nature preserve. Some environmentalists envision allowing bird-watchers and others to visit the island under such a scenario.
The remainder, where animal disease research has been done since the 1950s, would be zoned for a research facility. The town's actions would preclude an ambitious developer from trying to build residential housing, or even some sort of exclusive resort, but would leave open the possibility that a university or other entity could utilize the existing lab.
A vote is expected in June; until now, there were no zoning requirements for the federally-owned property.
"It doesn't make fiscal sense," Russell said of development. "You're talking about an isolated island where you have to travel a two-lane country road to get to a ferry that has limited service. Realistically, it's not practical."
Besides the mention in "Silence of the Lambs," author Nelson De Mille wrote a 1997 book "Plum Island," featuring a fictional detective investigating the murders of island biologists. Plum Island scientists research pathogens like foot-and-mouth disease, which is highly contagious to livestock and could cause catastrophic economic losses and imperil the nation's food supply.
Security on the island consists of armed patrols, checkpoints, cameras, radar, locks and fences; it is operated under the auspices of the Department of Homeland Security, which is expected to remain there until the property is sold.
Congress voted in 2009 to close the aging lab and move operations to Kansas State University. Although a scientific study has questioned the wisdom of moving animal disease research to the so-called Beef Belt, President Barack Obama's latest budget includes $714 million for the project. Kansas officials also are selling bonds to pay for the new lab.
The General Services Administration, which is overseeing the sale, has not done any studies to determine what effect the proposed zoning would have on the purchase price, a spokesman said this week. The GSA anticipates a formal sale date will be announced once a construction schedule for the Kansas lab is finalized. The latest estimate has the Kansas facility opening is 2018, although the project has been fraught with delays.
A final environmental impact statement, required for the Plum Island sale, is expected from the GSA within 60 days. Environmental groups in both New York and Connecticut have lobbied for several years to keep the island as a nature preserve should it be sold. They are ecstatic over the Southold town's plans to restrict development.
"Plum Island is one of the last great coastal places of our region, replete with miles of beaches, hundreds of acres of open space, endangered animal species and rare plant life," said Leah Schmalz, director of legislative and legal affairs for New Haven, Conn.-based Save the Sound.
"By protecting a research/commercial use in the lab's current footprint and by preserving the vast majority of the island as a wildlife sanctuary of some type, we all benefit from the special resources of this island for generations to come," added Bill Toedter, president of the North Fork Environmental Council.
Despite speculation about what goes on there, scientists insist the island is safe. In recent years, hundreds of tons of medical waste, contaminated soil and other refuse has been shipped off the island. Other island sites have been cleaned in compliance with federal regulations. And the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers determined in 2006 that no munitions or ordnance remain from the Army base. As late as 2007, New York government inspection reports said there is no environmental threat on the island.
In recent years, lab operators have been more open about what they do, and have held tours and informational meetings there for journalists and community groups.
HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) ? Traffic in southwest Connecticut could be a mess for as much as a week until service is restored to the commuter rail line affected by a derailment that injured scores of passengers, Gov. Dannel P. Malloy warned Sunday.
Malloy used dire language to describe traffic troubles for the work week ahead in an area that even in normal times is a pain for motorists. And the governor warned that the weather will not cooperate as rainy weather forecast will make driving a bit more treacherous.
Malloy even urged commuters to stay out of the state if possible.
"Tomorrow's commute will be extremely challenging," he said at a brief news conference in Hartford. "Residents should plan for a week's worth of disruptions."
If all 30,000 affected commuters took to the highways to get to work, "we would literally have a parking lot," the governor said. If a substantial number of affected consumers hit the roads, traffic will be "greatly slowed," he said.
The state will dispatch more state troopers and tow trucks to respond to car accidents that could come with crowded roads and slipper conditions, he said.
"If you are going to New York and you get to New York or you're transporting yourself to New York you may decide that perhaps you should stay there for the duration of this disturbance," Malloy said.
Crews will spend days rebuilding 2,000 feet of track, overhead wires and signals following the collision between two trains Friday evening that injured 72 people. Nine remained hospitalized, with one critically.
"This amounts to the wholesale reconstruction of a two-track electrified railroad," he said.
Several days of around-the-clock work will be required, including inspections and testing of the newly rebuilt system, Metro-North President Howard Permut said. The damaged rail cars were removed from the tracks on Sunday, the first step toward making the repairs.
Amtrak service between New York and New Haven was also suspended and there was no estimate on service restoration. Limited service was available between New Haven and Boston.
Jim Cameron, chairman of the Connecticut Rail Commuter Council, said he's asked officials in numerous towns to suspend parking rules to accommodate what could be tens of thousands of motorists driving to unaffected train stations. Twelve stations are affected by the shutdown.
Shuttle buses and trains will be used as alternatives. But Cameron said he doubts many commuters will use three modes of transportation to get to work: driving their cars to catch a bus to get to a train station for the final leg.
He suggested that local and regional officials post highway signs directing motorists to available parking so motorists "don't get off the highway and drive in circles looking for where to dump their cars."
About 700 people were on board the trains Friday evening when one heading east from New York City's Grand Central Terminal to New Haven derailed just outside Bridgeport. It was hit by a train heading west from New Haven.
Dan Solomon, a trauma surgeon who lives in Westport and was headed to work at Yale-New Haven Hospital in New Haven, was on the train that derailed. He said he treated several injured passengers, including a woman with severely broken ankles.
He said he was in a front car that was not as badly affected as cars in the rear of the train.
"I hardly lost my iced tea," Solomon said in an interview.
Solomon said walls were torn off both trains and he quickly checked injured passengers to separate the most badly injured from others.
"When the EMS arrived, I was covered in everyone's blood," he said.
Investigators are looking at a broken section of rail to see if it is connected to the derailment and collision. Officials said it wasn't clear if the rail was broken in the crash or earlier.
NTSB investigators arrived Saturday and are expected to be on site for seven to 10 days. They will look at the brakes and performance of the trains, the condition of the tracks, crew performance and train signal information, among other things.
The MTA operates the Metro-North Railroad, the second-largest commuter railroad in the nation. The Metro-North main lines - the Hudson, Harlem, and New Haven - run northward from New York City's Grand Central Terminal into suburban New York and Connecticut.
The last significant train collision involving Metro-North occurred in 1988 when a train engineer was killed in Mount Vernon, N.Y., when one train empty of passengers rear-ended another, railroad officials said.
In this photo copied from the 2010 Sleepy Hollow High School yearbook, high school student Andrea Rubello is shown. Police said Rubello, a junior at Hofstra University in Hempstead, N.Y., was shot and killed Friday, May 17, 2013, during a break-in near the college campus. (AP Photo/Sleepy Hollow High School)
In this photo copied from the 2010 Sleepy Hollow High School yearbook, high school student Andrea Rubello is shown. Police said Rubello, a junior at Hofstra University in Hempstead, N.Y., was shot and killed Friday, May 17, 2013, during a break-in near the college campus. (AP Photo/Sleepy Hollow High School)
This undated photo provided by the Nassau County Police Department shows Dalton Smith of Hempstead, N.Y. On Saturday, May 18, 2013, police identified Smith the alleged home invader involved in the fatal slaying of a New York college student early Friday morning. Police say that Smith, who was currently on parole for robbery in the first degree, was the person attempting to rob the off-campus home where Andrea Rebello was shot and killed. (AP Photo/Nassau County Police Department)
The Tarrytown, N.Y., home of the family of Hofstra University student Andrea Rubello is seen on Friday, May 17, 2013. Police say Rubello was shot and killed Friday, May 17, 2013, during a break-in near the college campus in Uniondale, N.Y. (AP Photo/Jim Fitzgerald)
Hofstra University students gather near the house where another student and an armed intruder were killed during an overnight house break-in next to the campus, Friday, May 17, 2013, in Uniondale, N.Y. (AP Photo/ Louis Lanzano)
Officers continue working the scene at the house, left, where a Hofstra University student and an armed intruder were killed during an overnight break-in next to the campus, Friday, May 17, 2013, in Uniondale, N.Y. (AP Photo/ Louis Lanzano)
NEW YORK (AP) ? The police officer who accidentally killed a Long Island college student along with an armed intruder faced perhaps the most harrowing decision in law enforcement: choosing the split-second moment when the risk is so high that you must pull the trigger.
That's the moment authorities say a Nassau County police officer experienced early Friday morning when a masked man holding 21-year-old Andrea Rebello in a headlock pointed a loaded handgun at him.
"The big question is, how do you know, when someone's pointing a gun at you, whether you should keep talking to them, or shoot?" said Michele Galietta, a professor of psychology at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice who helps train police officers. "That's what makes the job of an officer amazingly difficult."
She spoke Sunday as Hofstra University students honored Rebello, a popular public relations major, by wearing white ribbons at their graduation ceremony.
On Saturday evening, flags on the Hempstead campus were at half-staff and students held a silent outdoor vigil in front of a photo of the young woman. Surrounded by candles and flowers, they sang "Ave Maria."
Rebello's funeral is scheduled for Wednesday in Sleepy Hollow, in Westchester County, north of New York City.
Her life ended in the seconds that forced the veteran police officer to make a fatal decision, but the questions surrounding the student's death are just beginning, along with an internal investigation by the Nassau County Police Department.
The bare facts are simple. Rebello and the intruder, Dalton Smith, died early Friday when the officer fired eight shots, hitting him seven times, with one bullet striking Rebello once in the head, according to county homicide squad Lt. John Azzata.
With a gun pointed at her, Smith "kept saying, 'I'm going to kill her,' and then he pointed the gun at the police officer," according to Azzata.
The officer acted quickly, saying later that he believed his and Rebello's life were in danger, according to authorities.
No doubt, he was acting to try to save lives ? his own and that of the young woman, Galietta said.
"What we're asking the cop to anticipate is, 'What is going on in the suspect's mind at the moment?'" she said. "We're always trying to de-escalate, to contain a situation, but the issue of safety comes in first, and that's the evaluation the officer has to make."
Eugene O'Donnell, a former New York City police officer and professor of law and police studies at John Jay College, said the crucial issue may be whether or not police had deemed it a hostage situation. If so, he said, there are protocols police follow to buy time, slow down, isolate and assess.
But O'Donnell said the officers may have had few options because of "an eyeball to eyeball confrontation between the officer and the offender."
"It may have been too fluid to deteriorate for the officers to do anything else," O'Donnell said. "It underscores that there's no two of these that are exactly alike."
Police tactical manuals are meant to assist officers in making the best decision possible, but in the end, "they're not 100 percent foolproof," Galietta said. "In a situation like that, you can follow procedure, and it doesn't mean it comes out perfectly."
The officer who fired the shots is an eight-year NYPD veteran and has been with Nassau County police for 12 years.
He is now out on sick leave, Azzata said.
Procedurally, the Nassau County district attorney's office would determine whether an officer's use of deadly force was justified. O'Donnell said. A spokesman for the district attorney's office did not respond to a request for comment Saturday night.
There are some rules governing the use of force for New York police officers. A subsection of Article 35 of New York Penal Law prohibits against recklessly endangering innocent people.
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Associated Press writers Frank Eltman in Mineola, N.Y., and Jake Pearson contributed to this report.
Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield performed and recorded the David Bowie classic 'Space Oddity' aboard the International Space Station, eliciting praise from Major Tom himself.
By Pete Spotts,?Staff writer / May 13, 2013
Chris Hadfield records the first music video from space on Sunday. The song was his cover version of David Bowie's 'Space Oddity.' Hadfield and astronaut Thomas Marshburn are scheduled to return to earth on Monday.
NASA/AP
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Forget the Hollywood Bowl or Lincoln Center. The space age has opened a new venue for rock music, jazz, even a brief rumble or two from a homemade didgeridoo ? the International Space Station, whirring vent fans and all.
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And you thought it was just an orbiting national lab!
Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield is the latest in a line of astronauts dating back to the NASA's Gemini program in the 1960s to display considerable musical talent in space.
On the eve of his departure from the station Monday, the lanky, guitar-plucking Canadian unveiled a slick rendition of David Bowie's "Space Oddity," Major Tom's launch and farewell to Earth ? the first rock-music video sung and shot in space.
Wally Schirra and Tom Stafford would be proud.
Back in December 1965, the duo treated ground controllers to a rendition of Jingle Bells as their Gemini 6A capsule orbited Earth. Schirra played a tiny, eight-holed harmonica, and Stafford had the sleigh bells ? both instruments cosmic contraband at the time because space was so tight in the two-seat capsule. The Smithsonian Institution has dubbed the event the first live-music performance in space.
These days, the ISS boasts an electronic keyboard, and crew members are free to have small instruments sent up ? from guitars and flutes to saxophones. It's all in the name of crew morale. Crew members spend six-month stints on the station. With down time from about midday Saturdays through Sundays, the crew has time to keep honed whatever musical skills they bring along.
And if you don't have an instrument? Cobble one together. During his most recent tour on the ISS, which ended July 1, 2012, NASA astronaut Don Pettit needed a didgeridoo as part of a science demonstration involving sound waves and water droplets.
No 'doo? No worries. He commandeered a length of hose from the station's vacuum-cleaner system. Nothing, if not inventive, he. Dr. Pettit also is credited with inventing a stabilizer that takes the station's jitters out of photos the astronauts take from the station. He also crafted the first coffee cup the crew could use in microgravity that didn't require a straw.
Other noteworthy performances include NASA astronaut Cady Coleman's duet with Jethro Tull's Ian Anderson in February 2011 to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin's historic mission as the first human to orbit the Earth. Dr. Coleman led off in zero G with Mr. Anderson performing his intricate riffs in 1 G.
But for sheer productivity and production values, Commander Hadfield is hard to beat. In "Space Oddity," he teams up with Emm Gryner, who was a member of Bowie's band for a couple of years. In her blog, she describes how the effort came about.
Nor is this the first time the crooning commander has collaborated with earthbound musicians. In February, he released a video complete with a youth chorus and musicians from the group Barenaked Ladies performing "I.S.S. (Is Somebody Singing)," a tune he and co-writer Ed Robertson began collaborating on while Hadfield was still training for the mission he leaves today.
But for raw impact, "Space Oddity" is hard to beat.
Just ask Mr. Bowie. After Hadfield's video appeared on the web, Bowie posted to his Facebook Page: "It?s possibly the most poignant version of the song ever created...."
MOSCOW (AP) ? A Russian capsule carrying mice, lizards and other small animals returned to Earth on Sunday after spending a month in space for what scientists said was the longest experiment of its kind.
Fewer than half of the 53 mice and other rodents who blasted off on April 19 from the Baikonur Cosmodrome survived the flight, Russian news agencies reported, quoting Vladimir Sychov, deputy director of the Institute of Medical and Biological Problems and the lead researcher.
Sychov said this was to be expected and the surviving mice were sufficient to complete the study, which was designed to show the effects of weightlessness and other factors of space flight on cell structure. All 15 of the lizards survived, he said. The capsule also carried small crayfish and fish.
The capsule's orbit reached 575 kilometers (345 miles) above Earth, according to the news agencies, which said this was far higher than the orbit of the International Space Station.
Russian state television showed the round Bion-M capsule and some of the surviving mice after it landed slightly off course but safely in a planted field near Orenburg, about 1,200 kilometers (750 miles) southeast of Moscow.
"This is the first time that animals have flown in space for so long on their own," Sychov said in the television broadcast from the landing site. The last research craft to carry animals into space spent 12 days in orbit in 2007.
The mice and other animals were to be flown back to Moscow to undergo a series of tests at Sychov's institute, which is part of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
By Samantha-Rae Tuthill, AccuWeather.com Staff Writer
May 17, 2013; 12:10 PM
This week has seen the most active solar flares in this sun cycle, which began in 2008 and will last until 2019. Four high-strength flares occurred May 13 into May 14.
"Basically, this is as busy as the Sun has been in a 24-36 hour period since 2004," said AccuWeather.com Astronomer Mark Paquette. Paquette used information researched by Daniel Vogler, co-director of the AccuWeather Astronomy Facebook page.
Using data dating back to 1992, Paquette found only one other instance with as much sunspot activity in such a short amount of time.
"Sunspot AR649, July 15-17, 2004, unleashed five X[-strength] flares," he said. "So what we are witnessing with sunspot AR1748 is pretty rare."
Solar flares are measured on a scale of intensity ranging from A, B, M, C to X. The X-strength flares, the level the recent solar activity has been categorized as, are the highest strength.
A sunspot from February 2013. Image captured by NASA.
AccuWeather astronomer Hunter Outten said that these impressive flares have been responsible for disrupting a variety of satellite communications, even causing some blackouts that have lasted from nine to 25 minutes. Cell phones, radios and GPS devices can all be affected by solar flare radiation.
The flares earlier this week have not been Earth directed, so only fringe affects have been making their way to the planet. When a solar flare occurs, radiation effects can be felt on Earth in as little as an hour with disruptions to communication technology. Earth-directed flares can cause charged particles in the atmosphere that can create auroras 24 to 36 hours after the blast.
Outten said that as the Earth revolves around the Sun it could move into a better position to face the sun spot. If a flare directed at Earth occurs while the planet is in the right path, "one heck of an aurora" could be seen.
Billions of protons have slammed into the planet as a result of the solar storms. A mid-range flare with a long duration occurred the morning of May 17, adding to the impacts on Earth from the activity. Outten is still going through data to see what kind of impact this could have on Earth.
Paquette said that the Sun could be increasingly active throughout the summer, as the peak of this sun cycle is likely nearing. While it may not be as active as the peaks of previous sun cycles, it will certainly be an increase in the activity that has occurred over the past few years.
725.35 meters. A whoppumental 2,379.75 feet. That's how big the new super-sized Enterprise is. Here you can see it compared against the Galactica, the good old Enterprise, the Blockade Runner, and the ISS.
When JJ Abrams said that he wanted to put some Star Wars into Star Trek, apparently it also applied to the scale of spaceships. And while the new Enterprise doesn't even reach half of the 1,600 meters?that's a mile long?of an Imperial Star Destroyer, it's still amazingly big compared to the 288 meters of the old Enterprise. Maybe now you would be able to take down an Star Destroyer with a couple of these.
How much would it cost to build this thing today? This much.
?Work and home is what One Nation is about ? family life, how people live everyday life.?
That?s what Jon Cruddas ? the man who will in all likelihood write Labour?s next manifesto ? told the Guardian the party?s policy review is focused on. And it sounds so simple ? doesn?t it? Critics will say it?s too simplistic a definition (and they?d be right ? I?m cherry picking here), but it?s also a brilliant example of the distance between most politicians and the everyday lives of their constituents. People talk about work and home all of the time, but how often do politicians?
If you ask your friends, your colleagues, your parents, what they want from life ? and what matters to them ? a few trends are likely to emerge. People will say that they want to spend more time with their families and want somewhere affordable to live that they can call their own. They might say that they want to be paid better at a time when the cost of living is rising and wages are squeezed, or if they aren?t working, they might want help finding secure, permenant work ? and if possible, a career not a McJob. They might talk about a safe environment for their children, or worry about why their adult children can?t find work. They might talk about the insecurity of life for older people on low pensions or in social care. Or they might ask why in one of the world?s richest economies, millions will have to wait until they?re 40 before they can buy their own home ? if they can ever afford to at all. As Blur said ? twenty years ago ? modern life is rubbish. It?s still rubbish now, for all too many.
Your friends and colleagues are unlikely to cite either a referendum on Europe or public service reform as what they really desire in life ? unless they?re a policy wonk or a complete and utter political anorak.
Work and home are the two places where every single person in Britain spend the vast majority of their lives, but remarkably little time is spent in the rarified atmosphere of Westminster talking about how the quality of those two experiences can be improved. Often politicians of all stripes have?preferred?to stay out of the workplace for fear of stifling business and out of the home for fear of being accused of nanny-statism. But that simply means that politics has left the battlefield, allowing globalisation, neoliberalism and the other trappings of modern life to trample home-life and work-life in their wake.
A Labour Party that returned to first principles ? back to basics if you will ? would focus on the reality of modern life. Insecure, exhausting and constrained. My generation, for example, those following in the wake of the baby boomers (and who will have to clean up after them) no longer have jobs for life or the guarantee of a home (social or private) to call our own. Instead, many of those I went to school with are stuck in call centres, or working zero hours contracts in supermarkets. They will struggle to ever have a home of their own. Where is the promise of a safe and secure home and work life for them. We are some way from work-life balance here?
Yet it?s not all doom and gloom. The early whispers from the policy review suggest that ?work and home? isn?t just a phrase, it?s the grounding on which Labour?s policy is being built ? fair pay through a living wage, a jobs guarantee, significant levels of home building and a?refocusing?on the role of the family in care.
But if Labour is to offer something to the public in 2015 that truly resonates, work and home will have to be absolutely at the heart of everything we do. No exceptions.
MAIDUGURI, Nigeria (AP) ? Mobile phone service was cut off Thursday in areas of northeast Nigeria as jet fighters streaked through the sky and more soldiers were deployed to fight Islamic extremists waging a brutal insurgency.
Witnesses saw low-flying Nigerian jet fighters over Yola, the capital of Adamawa state, which President Goodluck Jonathan placed under emergency rule on Tuesday along with Borno and Yobe states. However, soldiers have met "no resistance" yet from extremists who have taken over villages and small towns in this region approaching the Sahara Desert, a military spokesman said.
An Associated Press journalist in Maiduguri, the capital of Borno state, found cell-phone services unavailable since early Thursday morning on all of the country's major mobile phone carriers. Mobile phone numbers belonging to government officials and military officials there and in neighboring Yobe state could not be reached.
Mobile phones have become the only real communication device in Nigeria for both voice calls and the Internet, as the state-run telephone company collapsed years ago. By cutting off service at towers, the military could stop extremists from receiving warnings or intelligence ahead of their operations. Authorities said they had no information about the service cutoff or refused to comment.
Nigeria's military and security forces have tracked fighters by their mobile phone signals in the past as well, prompting extremists from the radical Islamic network known as Boko Haram to attack mobile phone towers in the region.
Under the president's directive, soldiers have ultimate control over security matters in the three states, though his order allows civilian governments to remain in place. Over the last few days, witnesses and AP journalists have seen convoys of soldiers in trucks and buses moving through the region, as well as trucks carrying armored personnel carriers.
Nigeria's military has promised a "massive deployment of men and resources" but has declined to specify the numbers involved.
Brig. Gen. Chris Olukolade, a military spokesman based in Nigeria's capital, Abuja, said more soldiers were en route to the region Thursday. Any assaults by ground forces also could be backed up by attack helicopters and jet fighter bombings, Olukolade said, though soldiers have yet to have a serious firefight with insurgents.
"The progress has been met with no resistance," Olukolade told The Associated Press.
This new military campaign comes on top of a previous massive deployment of soldiers and police to the region. That deployment failed to stop violence by Islamic extremists, who have killed more than 1,600 people since 2010, according to an AP count.
Nigeria's military has said Islamic fighters now use anti-aircraft guns mounted on trucks to fight the nation's soldiers, raising the possibility that the country's already overstretched security forces are becoming outgunned. With some soldiers sent to assist in the French-led anti-jihadist operation in Mali, and others serving elsewhere in Nigeria dealing with other security challenges, the 76,000-man force is creaking under the pressure, said former U.S. Ambassador to Nigeria John Campbell.
"While the Islamist insurgents do not offer a viable political alternative and remain divided among themselves, the threat they pose to Nigeria's political and economic future are significant, as Jonathan's state of emergency recognizes," Campbell wrote in an analysis published Wednesday by the Council on Foreign Relations.
Soldiers will now try to control an arid region of some 155,000 square kilometers (60,000 square miles), with powers to arrest anyone and take over any building.
That also has led to worries about the military abusing and potentially killing civilians, which has happened repeatedly in the past and during the country's current struggle with the Islamic insurgents. Asked about what soldiers would do to prevent the death of civilians, Olukolade said the troops had been "fully briefed" on the rules of engagement, without offering any other details.
In Adamawa state on Thursday, the military announced a 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. curfew across the entire state. Life otherwise was calm, though heavily armed soldiers had taken over for police officers on the streets of the state capital, searching vehicles and questioning drivers.
But mobile phones remained without service for some in the region as Thursday night fell. Olukolade said that extremists might have sabotaged the lines. When asked whether the military or government could have ordered the lines to be turned off, the general said he "wasn't aware of that."
Reuben Mouka, a spokesman for the Nigerian Communications Commission, which oversees mobile phone carriers in Africa's most populous nation, said he did not know about the services being cut off.
Funmilayo Omogbenigun, a spokeswoman for Nigeria's dominant carrier, South Africa's MTN Group Ltd., would only say "no comment" when asked if the government told her company to turn off service in the area. And Emeka Oparah, a spokesman for Bharti Airtel Ltd.'s operation in Nigeria, said he had no immediate information about the service cut.
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Associated Press writer Ibrahim Abdul in Yola, Nigeria, contributed to this report.
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Jon Gambrell reported from Lagos, Nigeria, and can be reached at www.twitter.com/jongambrellAP .
WASHINGTON (AP) ? The House and Senate Agriculture Committees have laid the groundwork this week for reducing the size of the federal food stamp program, approving farm bills that would shrink the food aid and alter the way people qualify for it.
The two chambers are far apart on how much the $80 billion-a-year program should be cut, however ? reflecting a deep ideological and at times emotional divide on the role of government in helping the poor.
Resolving those differences will be key to passage of the massive five-year farm bill that lawmakers are attempting to push through for the third year in a row. The far-reaching bill costs almost $100 billion annually over five years and would set policy for farm subsidies, rural programs and food aid.
Legislation approved by the House Agriculture Committee late Wednesday would cut about $2.5 billion a year ? or a little more than 3 percent ? from the food stamp program, which is used by 1 in 7 Americans. A Senate Agriculture Committee bill approved a day earlier would cut less than a fifth of that amount.
At both committee meetings, debate over the food stamp cuts was heated, with defenders of the program saying the bills would take food out of the mouths of children and the elderly. In the House, the discussion turned to the Bible.
Rep. Juan Vargas, D-Calif., quoted the book of Matthew in opposing the cuts: "When I was hungry you gave me food. When I was thirsty, you gave me drink."
In response, several Republicans talked about their Christianity and said the Bible encourages people to help each other but doesn't dictate what the federal government should do. "We should be doing this as individuals, helping the poor," said Rep. Doug LaMalfa, R-Calif.
Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass., offered an amendment to do away with the cuts that was rejected by the panel. "Christians, Jews, Muslims, whatever ? we're failing our brothers and sisters here," McGovern said.
In the Senate committee meeting, Sen. Kristen Gillibrand, D-N.Y., called votes for the program a moral statement.
Such deeply-held beliefs are likely to be on display when the full Senate takes up the bill next week and in the House later this summer. House Agriculture Committee Chairman Frank Lucas, R-Okla., has acknowledged he will have to appease all sides as he tries to get the bill passed, balancing calls from House conservatives to cut the program further with Senate Democrats who are reluctant to touch it.
"I expect it to come from all directions," Lucas said of the food stamp debate.
The food stamp issue tripped up the bill last year after House conservatives called for deeper cuts and House leaders never brought the bill up for consideration. This year, GOP leaders have said the full House will consider the bill this summer.
The House legislation would achieve the cuts partly by eliminating an eligibility category that requires automatic food stamp benefits when people sign up for certain other programs. It also would save dollars by targeting states that give people who don't have heating bills very small amounts of heating assistance so they can automatically qualify for higher food stamp benefits.
Republicans argued that the cut is small relative to the size of the program, now known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, and that people who qualify for the aid could still sign up for it; they just wouldn't be automatically enrolled.
The Senate bill saves money in the food stamp program only by targeting the heating assistance dollars.
Last year more than 47 million people used the SNAP program with the cost more than doubling since 2008. The rolls rose rapidly because of the economic downturn, rising food prices and expanded eligibility under President Barack Obama's 2009 economic stimulus law.
Republicans criticized Obama in last year's presidential campaign for his expansion of the program, and many House conservatives have refused to consider a farm bill without cuts to food stamps, which make up about 80 percent of the bill's cost.
The House bill would cut around $4 billion a year from food aid and farm spending, while the Senate bill would trim roughly $2.4 billion. Those reductions include more than $600 million in yearly savings from across-the-board cuts that took effect earlier this year.
Much of the savings in the House and Senate bills comes from eliminating annual direct payments, a subsidy frequently criticized because it isn't tied to production or crop prices. Part of that savings would go toward deficit reduction, but the rest of the money would create new programs and raise subsidies for some crops while business is booming in the agricultural sector.
The Senate bill would eliminate direct payments immediately, while the House bill would phase out payments to cotton farmers, who rely on the program, over the next two years.
Like the Senate bill, the House measure also includes concessions to Southern rice and peanut growers who also depend on direct payments. The bills would lower the threshold for rice and peanut subsidies to kick in when prices drop.
There are protections for other crops as well. Both bills would boost federally subsidized crop insurance and create a new program that covers smaller losses on planted crops before crop insurance kicks in, favoring Midwestern corn and soybean farmers, who use crop insurance most often.
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Follow Mary Clare Jalonick at http://twitter.com/mcjalonick
Christine Ribbecke tries out a Citi Bike model bicycle at Bike Expo, an exposition for cyclists, May 3, 2013, in New York. New Yorkers prepare for the launch of the?Citi Bike bike-sharing program, which will involve thousands of bicycles at hundreds of locations around the city tol be available to rent. 
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