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If you could have any achievement, in sports or elsewhere, caught on camera for the world to

see, what would it be? In my search for signs of serious writing instruction in American high schools, I have stumbled across a rare creature: a physics teacher in Fairfax County who makes everyone in his honors classes enter a national science essay contest.The 34 lost regular-season games still loom unpleasantly large in the downtown shops, restaurants and other businesses that depend on the city’s highly developed affinity for hockey.     TV company put forward suggestions for towns to be selected as pilotsFilm-makers working with the celebrity shopping guru Mary Portas on her reality TV show lobbied government officials to direct taxpayer funds to high streets because they would be popular with television audiences, documents obtained by the Guardian reveal.The funding for the so-called "Portas pilots" was part of a high-profile government policy to renew town centres.
Portas produced a 28-point plan on how to revive moribund town centres for David Cameron in December 2011.
Less than six months later, from almost 400 entries, more than two dozen towns – the Portas pilots – were picked to receive £100,000 of state support and advice each.
On Tuesday Portas fronts the first of three hour-long programmes in a series on mike geary truth about abs Mary: Queen of the High Street, focusing on three winning bids.The
Guardian

has established that the production company hired by Channel 4 and Portas's staff suggested some locations for winning bids. In one example, the production crew advocated taxpayers' cash for a deprived part of London because "social history is currently really popular on television".The government's high-profile policy was handed to the local government minister, Grant Shapps, early last year. In February he wrote to the retail

expert

saying there would have to be "clear blue water between the selection of the pilots

and the television show. This will be best achieved by me selecting the pilots, with [Portas's] Yellow Door and [TV production company] Optomen having no involvement."The Portas team proposed a list of favoured choices.
Government emails, released under the Freedom of Information Act, reveal that on 13 April last year a Portas agency director emailed Shapps's private secretary to say: "We already have our proposed 12 [Portas pilots]." Four days later, the same director emailed David Morris, the civil servant in charge of the pilots, to say: "We have now done some early reviewing of the entries with Mary and have come to an early shortlist from our end", adding a list of 13 towns.Morris responded 24 hours later to TradeMiner review Portas agency that "we need to avoid any perception of a conflict of interest between pilot selection and the TV show – which are separate projects". When the first list of 12 Portas pilots was announced by the government from 371 entries on May 24 last year, it included three

of Yellow Door's favoured high streets: Croydon, Market Rasen and Stockport.A
spokesperson for Portas denied that Portas had sought to influence the government's selection process. Channel 4 and Optomen also strongly deny any attempt to influence the process.One of the high streets selected for filming, Roman Road in East London, did not make the initial top dozen pilots. In an email, Optomen explained to Morris that Channel 4 "loved" the idea of renovating an East End market: "Social history is currently really popular on television and Roman Road would be the perfect road to bring back to its former glory." The second tranche of pilots offered another opportunity for it to receive funding. On May 28 London mayor Boris Johnson announced a £300,000 fund for three more pilots.Forty-eight hours later, Optomen wrote to Morris to ask: "Do you know when Boris is planning to announce his towns and whether there will be another call for submissions? Will this be going through your office Fast Track Cash Roman Rd is on top of our list and we're still hopeful that all our towns are part of the government selected towns, hence the question."Morris replied a week later after a meeting with the Greater London Authority, who he said "are aiming to work to the same timetable as us – but they will be making the selections.
I have told them you are interested in Roman Road! … Are Ch4 interested in any of the others?" There is no suggestion that the mayor was influenced by Portas or the TV project.Two months later, the government announced that among the three successful Portas pilots "selected by the mayor" and receiving "funding from the Greater London Authority" was one in Tower Hamlets that included Roman Road. The first Portas hour-long reality show centres on the renewal of the east London market.
When contacted, the mayor's office said it was only "part-funding" the Tower Hamlets pilot with local council cash used to update Roman Road.There were also an impression within government that TV pilots were getting

more attention than those high streets not featured by Channel 4. In early June civil servants emailed to ask if Portas' agency "could clarify … what additional support those who

agree to filming will get". One government official Food4Wealth download Door: "I am aware of two pilot areas where they have been told – one by your office and one by Optomen that they would only get Mary's time if they signed up for the TV series."In Margate, which features in the second episode of the Channel 4 series, the original bid-winning team resigned and the town split over the pilots, with some claiming Portas had threatened to withdraw cash unless the cameras were let in. A

spokesperson for Mary Portas said this was "well documented".A month later, on the eve of the announcement of the second round of 15 Portas pilots, the celebrity told the government she would not be "personally involved" in supporting the winners – in effect withdrawing from the scheme.
Half the second round pilots have yet to spend any of the £1.5m allocated to them.Labour
claims the emails show the government was more interested in "publicity than public policy". Roberta Blackman-Woods, the shadow local government minister, said: "The government promised their Portas pilots scheme would lead the way for proper regeneration on the high street.
Now it appears the real intention of this competition was to mask the government's abject failure to support businesses at the heart of our communities."A
spokesperson for Mary Portas said: "Any suggestion that Aquaponics 4 You involved in influencing the government's selection of Portas pilot towns is categorically untrue."Early correspondence between Yellow Door and the government simply reflected a former employee's enthusiastic response to the hundreds of inspirational video pilot applications. The government clarified protocol and there was no influence by Yellowdoor on the selection of the Portas pilot towns whatsoever."Mary's work preparing the Portas review for the government, and her subsequent and ongoing advice, is unpaid.
In July last year Mary let the government know that she was stepping back from personal involvement in the second round of Portas pilot towns.
This in no way diminishes from her commitment to the high street campaign."Channel 4 said: "The final decision

on selecting

Portas pilot towns always rested with the government and at no point did Channel 4 make any attempt to influence that decision or government policy.
We strongly dispute that anything was constructed.
We are aware of a number of complaints – many of which are in the public domain – and the programme fairly and accurately portrays events as they happened during filming."A
spokesperson for Optomen said: "[We]

had no influence over or involvement in the selection of the Portas pilot towns, which was solely a decision for the government.
The programme tells the story of what Mass Income Multiplier Mary went to work with three towns that applied to be Portas pilots.
More of Mary's time would inevitably be spent in the towns featured in the series. No sweeteners or financial inducements were offered or made by Optomen to the towns to encourage their participation in the programme. Great care has been taken to ensure that the programme is a fair and

honest representation of

Mary's work in these towns."A
Department for Communities and Local Government spokesperson said: "We have always been completely clear that the 27 Portas pilots were selected for the leadership, commitment and innovation shown in their application, that Mary Portas had absolutely no role in choosing the towns, and that their status as Portas pilots was in no way dependent on their participation in any show."Mary PortasChannel 4Television industryThe news on TVTelevisionTaxLobbyingRandeep Rameshguardian.co.uk © 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved.
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attorney general John D. Ashcroft, whose tenure saw the creation of a burgeoning homeland security industry, has emerged as the highest-ranking former Bush administration official to lobby for and invest in companies in that field. The Oregonian, 37, known in the press as Pregnant Loki Link Builder review traded his baby weight for ripped abs, according to the newspaper, and E! reports it was done through a combination of diet, exercise and testosterone doses.
The bride works for Google; the groom is studying for an M.B.A.
Wielding power like a press baron, Anna Wintour extends her influence throughout the fashion industry. Washington is broken. Or maybe it isn't. Either way, we want to tell you about it. On May 1, Wonkblog will hold its very first -- but hopefully not its very last -- live Wonkblog Debate. But being Wonkblog, we're going to it a bit differently. It'll be at the Hamilton bar. There'll be whiskey.
And there'll be lots and lots of charts.
Read full article >>     THE QUESTION Antidepressants are sometimes used to treat irritable bowel syndrome. Might St.
John's wort, which is sometimes used as an herbal alternative to

antidepressants, relieve symptoms of the intestinal disorder? The 250-room Legoland Hotel, the first in the United

States, opened this month in Carlsbad, Calif., just steps from the Legoland theme park.     Generally the more features,

the more complex

the setup. The new

top-of-the-line Denon AVR-E400 is loaded with features and is no exception to the rule.
With wines easily found in stores, plan a Seder millionaire society reviews sparkling, one white, one red and one fortified without straying from the kosher path.
A couple of decades ago, visitors to the quiet city of Zaragoza, Spain, had no reason to think it would become

a capital of world trade. But in 2000, the city opened Europe’s largest logistics hub, called PLAZA — and now Zaragoza is a key global shipping link, connecting manufacturers, suppliers and distributors, among others involved in international commerce.
Fish caught off the coast of Namibia, in Africa, are flown to Zaragoza before being sold around the Iberian peninsula; clothes made in Portugal stop

in Zaragoza en route to Asia. Meanwhile, the presence of the transportation hub has convinced more businesses to locate themselves near the city.“It is a positive feedback loop,” says Yossi Sheffi, the Elisha Gray II Professor of Engineering Systems at MIT and author of a new book on the growth of logistics hubs and their role in driving economic growth. In places such as Zaragoza, he says, there is “a self-reinforcing mechanism where the logistics cluster grows, providing lower costs and a higher level of service to the companies there, attracting even more companies, making the location even more attractive, providing more and more jobs.”
Spanish officials believe PLAZA employs about 10,000 people, and its review Engine ROI created many other jobs around the logistics park.Sheffi’s book, “Logistics Clusters: Delivering Value and Driving Growth,” published this fall by MIT Press, explores how many cities, including seemingly unfashionable metropolises such as Zaragoza — or Rotterdam, in the Netherlands, and Memphis, Louisville and Indianapolis in the United States — have turned themselves into 21st-century economic winners by carving out an important role for themselves in global trade networks, even as similar areas grapple with industrial decline. It is a strategy, Sheffi thinks, that other city and regional officials would be wise to consider — partly because, he says, the benefits of having a logistic cluster in a region can be spread out widely within a city’s population. The shipping industry employs a wide variety of workers and provides opportunities for professional advancement. “Jobs in logistics create social justice,” Sheffi says. “There is huge upward mobility, because this industry values on-the-floor experience. Almost every

company that I visit hires from within — and if not within the company, they invariably hire from within the industry.”If
you build it, they will comeIn surveying cities that have become global freight hubs, Sheffi finds that there is no one template for success, in infrastructure or geographic location; cities that have become logistics centers have generally just aggressively Profit Bank review of the assets they do have.Zaragoza, for instance, is 150 miles from the coast, and not especially close to either Madrid or Barcelona, Spain’s biggest cities. But it does have a central location, and a major military airport that the United States built in the 1950s. Spain took control of the airfield in the 1990s, giving Zaragoza long, heavy-duty runways suitable for 747s and other large planes. Memphis (home of FedEx) and Louisville (where UPS has its major operations) have followed a similar path by developing air-freight operations. On the other hand, many cities — including Los Angeles, Rotterdam, Sao Paulo and Singapore — have built around their major ports to become even larger freight hubs However they

originate, Sheffi finds that successful logistics clusters share common elements in their growth.
Industrial firms will relocate distribution centers to be near the transportations hubs. More companies will follow, leading to a higher frequency of movements: more flights, trains, trucks and ships. As shipping volume grows, the transportation companies can move goods with a lower cost per shipment. Logistics firms can add new services for their partner firms: UPS handles repair and return work for Toshiba, for instance. This means logistics clusters often contain technical jobs beyond those strictly related to shipping; the average salary Clickbank Pirate reviews Sheffi observes, is comparable to that in manufacturing. All this growth, Sheffi adds, can lead to political clout for logistics firms and additional government investment in infrastructure. Being big thus helps a logistics cluster get even bigger: The Memphis area ranks No. 43 in the

United States by population, but is ranked first in air

freight, third in rail freight, and fourth in inland barge freight. The city’s airport is responsible for 220,000 jobs.
Moreover, as Sheffi says, “These jobs cannot be offshored.
You have to run distribution locally.”Success in logistics can create clusters of companies in other areas. Indianapolis has a growing life-sciences cluster; Memphis has a large cluster of firms that make medical devices.
As in all types of industry clusters, Sheffi notes, “These firms benefit from the labor force with specific expertise. There is a significant knowledge exchange, and there are many opportunities for collaborative operations which reduce the costs and improve the service levels offered by companies in the cluster.”The limits of logistics growth“Logistics Clusters” caps several years of research by Sheffi, who directs the MIT Center for Transportation and Logistics.
Michael Porter, a professor at Harvard Business School, has called the new book “a fascinating description of the power of [logistics] clusters” that shows how they “are getting eCash Opinions review in the global economy, not less.” Still, Sheffi points out

that there are limits to logistics clusters as drivers of economic development; not every place can be Memphis, after all. He sees two main limits to the positive-feedback loops some cities have experienced based on transportation. One involves the constraints of physical space in urban areas: Zaragoza grew rapidly, in part, because Barcelona, bordering water, could not expand as a transportation hub in the same way. Another limitation is environmental: More commercial activity means greater potential for pollution, noise

and congestion. For this reason, Sheffi says, some logistics hubs are becoming leaders in environmental sustainability: The port of Los Angeles uses alternative-fuel trucks and has funded development of zero-emissions trucks, while Rotterdam and Singapore are the two largest producers of biofuels in the world. Chicago has invested in infrastructure to reduce congestion by eliminating many railroad crossings.
Ulitmately, Sheffi notes, logistics clusters not only enable trade to occur, but their presence can spur more of it. Even given the rocky economic patch of the last few years, Sheffi concludes in the book, in the long run there will almost certainly be a need for more and better nodes in the global freight transportation network: “Growth may happen in fits and starts but, surely, it will