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VA officials still see payment challenges ahead if the Restoring GI Bill Fairness Act becomes law this year.
The House approved its version of the bill, HR 1383, in May. The Senate Veterans Affairs Committee endorsed a companion bill, S 277, on June 29. A full Senate vote is expected next.
A few months back, VA officials had opposed the bill.
Keith M. Wilson, director of the VA’s education service, testified that providing relief from a new Post-9/11 GI Bill benefits’ cap to 30,000 students already enrolled in private colleges would require that the VA process those payments manually rather than through a redesigned computer software program.
The administrative burden of doing this would “lead to a significant increase in the average processing time for all claims during the critical fall enrollment period,” Wilson told a House subcommittee.
But VA officials now estimate that fewer than 6000 of the 30,000 students attending private colleges in Arizona, Michigan, New Hampshire, New York, Pennsylvania, South Carolina and Texas will need relief from the benefit cap to avoid a sharp drop in GI Bill payments.
This 80 percent drop in the estimated number of student vets who would benefit from the relief bill, and therefore would need to have their GI Bill payments manually processed, lessens the threat of widespread delays this fall, agreed Joshua P. Taylor, the VA’s press secretary.
But passage of the relief bill still will pose challenges.
“VA has been working with the House and Senate for some time to solve issues created for this group of students at higher-tuition schools in certain states,” Taylor said. “It is important that we make sure any change in law that would provide [cap] relief doesn't have the effect of disrupting administration of the program for the larger group of GI Bill beneficiaries.”
VA officials know what’s in the legislation, Taylor added. But “we cannot implement changes in the system based on potential changes in the law. At this point, the processing of fall enrollments has already begun, which complicates the situation. We would have to process all those claims manually now and until the [relief] legislation expires.”
Wilson first spoke of 30,000 students potentially impacted because he lacked cost data to make a more accurate call, Taylor said. The 30,000 is total number of Post-9/11 GI Bill “trainees” who attended private colleges in the seven states from August 2009 to July 2010.
Rep. Jeff Miller (R-Fla.), chairman of the House Veterans Affairs Committee, introduced the Restoring GI Bill Fairness Act to address a problem created by the Post-9/11 Veterans Educational Assistance Improvements Act enacted last January.
That bill improved the new GI Bill in several ways, all to take effect in fall of 2011. This includes allowing benefits to be used for non-degree education and vocational training, and simplifying a complex payment-setting scheme.
The Post-9/11 GI Bill will continue to cover full tuition and fees at any public college or university. But the wide variance in entitlement for students attending private colleges will end.
Benefit ceilings set in every state, based on tuition and fees at the most expensive state college or university, will be replaced by a single $17,500 annual cap. Starting next year, that cap will be adjusted annually by the percentage rise in education costs nationwide.
But the new cap left private college students in seven states facing hefty unplanned out-of-pocket costs.
Individual schools can address this by participating more deeply in the Post-9/11 GI Bill’s Yellow Ribbon feature. That feature requires VA to match in higher payments any portion of uncovered tuition that a private college or university agrees to waive.
At schools not planning to strengthen Yellow Ribbon participation, the Restoring GI Bill Fairness Act would prevent GI Bill payments from falling for veterans already enrolled until they get their degree or exhaust their benefit.
HEALTH COSTS TARGETED – A new report from the Congressional Budget Office brightens the bull’s eye on military personnel accounts for trimming future defense spending, and it takes special note of rising health costs linked to military retirees.
TRICARE, the military’s triple health care option, is becoming more attractive to beneficiaries every year because of “low out-of-pocket expenses” and the rising cost of health insurance alternatives for working age retirees and their dependents, CBO explains in the report “Long-Term Implications of the 2012 Future Years Defense Program.”
At least in part because of low fees, military beneficiaries use inpatient and outpatient health services far more often than do civilian counterparts.
Department of Defense data cited by CBO shows enrollees in TRICARE Prime, the managed care option, use inpatient services at a rate 84 percent higher than civilians in comparable HMOs or health maintenance organizations. The Prime usage rate for outpatient services was 51 percent higher and for prescription drug services 27 percent higher.
CBO said the data comparisons were adjusted for age and gender. There is no mention of any attempt to adjust usage rates to account for hardships of service life including frequent wartime deployments.
The report explains in a footnote that the proportion of military retirees and their dependents who use employer-provided health insurance alternatives to TRICARE hit 27 percent last year, down from 49 percent in 2001 – evidence of a continuing migration among retirees and their spouses away from employer-sponsored health insurance and into TRICARE.
Before wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the biggest cost driver for the defense budgets usually was weapon modernization, says CBO.
But the primary cause of long-term defense budget growth has shifted with “significant increases” now expected in costs for military and civilian compensation, military health care and operation and maintenance activities.
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The 14 individuals were arrested in Alabama, Arizona, California, Colorado, the District of Columbia, Florida, Massachusetts, Nevada, New Mexico and Ohio on charges contained in an indictment unsealed Tuesday in the Northern District of California in San Jose.
In addition, two individuals were arrested on Tuesday on similar charges in two separate complaints filed in the Middle District of Florida and the District of New Jersey.
Also on Tuesday, FBI agents executed more than 35 search warrants throughout the United States as part of an ongoing investigation into coordinated cyber attacks against major companies and organizations.
Finally, the United Kingdom’s Metropolitan Police Service arrested one person and the Dutch National Police Agency arrested four individuals Tuesday for alleged related cyber crimes.
According to the San Jose indictment, in late November 2010, WikiLeaks released a large amount of classified U.S. State Department cables on its Web site.
Citing violations of the PayPal terms of service, and in response to WikiLeaks’ release of the classified cables, PayPal suspended WikiLeaks’ accounts so that WikiLeaks could no longer receive donations via PayPal.
WikiLeaks’ Web site declared that PayPal’s action “tried to economically strangle WikiLeaks.”
The San Jose indictment alleges that in retribution for PayPal’s termination of WikiLeaks’ donation account, a group calling itself Anonymous coordinated and executed distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks against PayPal’s computer servers using an open source computer program the group makes available for free download on the Internet.
DDoS attacks are attempts to render computers unavailable to users through a variety of means, including saturating the target computers or networks with external communications requests, thereby denying service to legitimate users. According to the indictment, Anonymous referred to the DDoS attacks on PayPal as “Operation Avenge Assange.”
The defendants charged in the San Jose indictment allegedly conspired with others to intentionally damage protected computers at PayPal from Dec. 6, 2010, to Dec. 10, 2010.
The individuals named in the San Jose indictment are: Christopher Wayne Cooper, 23, aka “Anthrophobic;” Joshua John Covelli, 26, aka “Absolem” and “Toxic;” Keith Wilson Downey, 26; Mercedes Renee Haefer, 20, aka “No” and “MMMM;” Donald Husband, 29, aka “Ananon;” Vincent Charles Kershaw, 27, aka “Trivette,” “Triv” and “Reaper;” Ethan Miles, 33; James C. Murphy, 36; Drew Alan Phillips, 26, aka “Drew010;” Jeffrey Puglisi, 28, aka “Jeffer,” “Jefferp” and “Ji;” Daniel Sullivan, 22; Tracy Ann Valenzuela, 42; and Christopher Quang Vo, 22. One individual’s name has been withheld by the court.
The defendants are charged with various counts of conspiracy and intentional damage to a protected computer. They will make initial appearances throughout the day in the districts in which they were arrested.
In addition to the activities in San Jose, Scott Matthew Arciszewski, 21, was arrested Tuesday by FBI agents on charges of intentional damage to a protected computer. Arciszewski is charged in a complaint filed in the Middle District of Florida and made his initial appearance this afternoon in federal court in Orlando, Fla.
According to the complaint, on June 21, 2011, Arciszewski allegedly accessed without authorization the Tampa Bay InfraGard Web site and uploaded three files.
The complaint alleges that Arciszewski then tweeted about the intrusion and directed visitors to a separate Web site containing links with instructions on how to exploit the Tampa InfraGard Web site. InfraGard is a public-private partnership for critical infrastructure protection sponsored by the FBI with chapters in all 50 states.
Also on Tuesday, a related complaint unsealed in the District of New Jersey charges Lance Moore, 21, of Las Cruces, N.M., with allegedly stealing confidential business information stored on AT&T’s servers and posting it on a public file sharing site.
Moore was arrested Tuesday morning at his residence by FBI agents and is expected to make an initial appearance Tuesday afternoon in Las Cruces federal court. Moore is charged in with one count of accessing a protected computer without authorization.
According to the New Jersey complaint, Moore, a customer support contractor, exceeded his authorized access to AT&T’s servers and downloaded thousands of documents, applications and other files that, on the same day, he allegedly posted on a public file-hosting site that promises user anonymity.
According to the complaint, on June 25, 2011, the computer hacking group LulzSec publicized that they had obtained confidential AT&T documents and made them publicly available on the Internet. The documents were the ones Moore had previously uploaded.
The charge of intentional damage to a protected computer carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine. Each count of conspiracy carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
An indictment and a complaint merely contain allegations. Defendants are presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.
To date, more than 75 searches have taken place in the United States as part of the ongoing investigations into these attacks.
These cases are being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys in the U.S. Attorneys’ Offices for the Northern District of California, Middle District of Florida, and the District of New Jersey. The Criminal Division’s Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section also has provided assistance.
Tuesday’s operational activities were done in coordination with the Metropolitan Police Service in the United Kingdom and the Dutch National Police Agency. The FBI thanked the multiple international, federal, and domestic law enforcement agencies who continue to support these operations.
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LAKEPORT, Calif. – The service of three separate search warrants by the Sheriff’s Narcotics Task Force on Friday resulted in a total of five arrests, seizures totaling over an ounce of methamphetamine, narcotics sales and manufacturing paraphernalia, and the seizure of nearly $6,400 in currency for asset forfeiture.
Arrested were Eric Lee Nevarez, 34, of Lakeport; Kathleen Sue Rodello, 49, of Upper Lake; Joyce Sue Adams, 66, of Clearlake; and Kelseyville residents Gert Alexander Rutherford, 55, and 43-year-old Michelle Annette Posner, according to Capt. James Bauman of the Lake County Sheriff's Office.
Bauman said that at 7 a.m. Friday, July 15, narcotics detectives served a search warrant for Nevarez's person, his vehicles and his Soda Bay Road home. Deputies with the Sheriff’s Special Enforcement Detail and officers with the Lakeport Police Department assisted with the warrant service.
Special Enforcement Detail deputies and Lakeport Police officers secured the main residence while task force detectives announced themselves at the door of another detached building on the property, Bauman said.
After getting no response at the door, detectives forced entry into the building and detained Nevarez and Rodello, both of whom were determined to be under the influence of a controlled substance.
During a search of the detached building, narcotics detectives located approximately one-eighth of an ounce of methamphetamine concealed beneath a pile of clothes on a bed. Bauman said the search also revealed several digital scales, packaging materials used for the sales of controlled substances, and other narcotics sales paraphernalia.
He said detectives also seized $300 in currency, the suspected profits of narcotics trafficking, for asset forfeiture.
Nevarez was arrested for possession of a controlled substance, possession of a controlled substance for sales, and being under the influence of a controlled substance, with bail set at $10,000. Rodello was arrested for being under the influence of a controlled substance, with bail set at $3,000. Bauman said both were transported to the Lake County Hill Road Correctional Facility and booked.
At approximately 10 a.m. that day, narcotics detectives served a second search warrant on Adams at her 32nd Street home in Clearlake. Bauman said detectives entered the home and detained Adams without incident.
During a search of the residence, detectives located approximately three-quarters of an ounce of methamphetamine and narcotic medications including Hydrocodone, Oxycodone and morphine, concealed in a computer desk in Adams’ living room, Bauman said.
Digital scales, packaging materials, and other items of narcotics sales paraphernalia were also found in the desk. Bauman said a further search of the home revealed a total of 85 bags of processed marijuana found throughout the home. More than $900 in currency was seized from Adams as the suspected profits of drug trafficking.
Adams was arrested and transported to the Lake County Hill Road Correctional Facility. Bauman said she was booked for possession of a controlled substance for sales, possession of a narcotic controlled substance for sales, and possession of marijuana for sales. Her bail was set at $10,000.
At approximately 11:30 a.m., narcotics detectives served a third search warrant on Rutherford at his Fairway Drive home in Kelseyville. Rutherford was not home at the time of the warrant service and detectives entered the residence through an unlocked door, Bauman said.
A search of the home revealed methamphetamine, a glass “meth” pipe, and other narcotics paraphernalia concealed in a bedroom dresser. Bauman said several digital scales, glassware, acetone and other materials used in the manufacturing and sales of methamphetamine were also found in the home,and $5,174 in currency was also seized for asset forfeiture as the suspected profits of drug trafficking.
At approximately 1:30 pm, narcotics detectives located Rutherford traveling in a 1993 Nissan on Soda Bay Road in Lakeport. Bauman said Rutherford was stopped and arrested for the items found during the search warrant. Posner, riding as a passenger in the vehicle, was determined to be under the influence of a controlled substance and arrested as well.
Rutherford and Posner were both transported to the Lake County Hill Road Correctional Facility. Rutherford was booked for possession of a controlled substance for sales, manufacturing a controlled substance, and possession of narcotics paraphernalia, with bail set at $50,000. Posner was booked for being under the influence of a controlled substance, Bauman said. Her bail was set at $3,000.
Jail records indicated that all five of the suspects later posted bail and were released.
The Sheriff’s Narcotics Task Force can be contacted through its anonymous tip line at 707-263-3663.
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NASA's Dawn spacecraft has returned the first closeup image after beginning its orbit around the giant asteroid Vesta.
On Friday, July 15, Dawn became the first probe to enter orbit around an object in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.
The image taken for navigation purposes shows Vesta in greater detail than ever before.
When Vesta captured Dawn into its orbit, there were approximately 9,900 miles (16,000 kilometers) between the spacecraft and asteroid. Engineers estimate the orbit capture took place at 10 p.m. PDT Friday, July 15 (1 a.m. EDT Saturday, July 16).
Vesta is 330 miles (530 kilometers) in diameter and the second most massive object in the asteroid belt. Ground- and space-based telescopes have obtained images of Vesta for about two centuries, but they have not been able to see much detail on its surface.
“We are beginning the study of arguably the oldest extant primordial surface in the solar system,” said Dawn principal investigator Christopher Russell from the University of California, Los Angeles. “This region of space has been ignored for far too long. So far, the images received to date reveal a complex surface that seems to have preserved some of the earliest events in Vesta's history, as well as logging the onslaught that Vesta has suffered in the intervening eons.”
Vesta is thought to be the source of a large number of meteorites that fall to Earth. Vesta and its new NASA neighbor, Dawn, are currently approximately 117 million miles (188 million kilometers) away from Earth.
The Dawn team will begin gathering science data in August. Observations will provide unprecedented data to help scientists understand the earliest chapter of our solar system. The data also will help pave the way for future human space missions.
After traveling nearly four years and 1.7 billion miles (2.8 billion kilometers), Dawn also accomplished the largest propulsive acceleration of any spacecraft, with a change in velocity of more than 4.2 miles per second (6.7 kilometers per second), due to its ion engines.
The engines expel ions to create thrust and provide higher spacecraft speeds than any other technology currently available.
“Dawn slipped gently into orbit with the same grace it has displayed during its years of ion thrusting through interplanetary space,” said Marc Rayman, Dawn chief engineer and mission manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. “It is fantastically exciting that we will begin providing humankind its first detailed views of one of the last unexplored worlds in the inner solar system.”
Although orbit capture is complete, the approach phase will continue for about three weeks. During approach, the Dawn team will continue a search for possible moons around the asteroid; obtain more images for navigation; observe Vesta's physical properties; and obtain calibration data.
In addition, navigators will measure the strength of Vesta's gravitational tug on the spacecraft to compute the asteroid's mass with much greater accuracy than has been previously available. That will allow them to refine the time of orbit insertion.
Dawn will spend one year orbiting Vesta, then travel to a second destination, the dwarf planet Ceres, arriving in February 2015.
The mission to Vesta and Ceres is managed by JPL for the agency's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. Dawn is a project of the directorate's Discovery Program, which is managed by NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala.
UCLA is responsible for Dawn mission science. Orbital Sciences Corp. of Dulles, Va., designed and built the spacecraft. The German Aerospace Center, the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research, the Italian Space Agency and the Italian National Astrophysical Institute are part of the mission's team.
For more information about Dawn, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/dawn and http://dawn.jpl.nasa.gov. You can also follow Dawn on Twitter at: http://www.twitter.com/NASA_Dawn.
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CLEARLAKE, Calif. – A late afternoon crash on Monday sent three people to hospitals around the region.
The crash occurred at around 4:30 p.m., causing the roadway to be shut down, according to reports from the scene.
Two vehicles – a red Dodge sedan and a white Ford F-150 pickup with a camper shell – hit head-on, according to Clearlake resident Elizabeth Hoskins, who witnessed the crash scene afterward.
Radio reports indicated there were three crash victims, with one – a female driver – not breathing.
One of the vehicles also had reportedly been on fire but Clearlake Police officers arriving on scene put it out.
Air ambulances were summoned with the pilots directed to set down at a landing zone set up at Redbud Park.
A REACH air ambulance was reported to be on the way to Children's Hospital & Research Center of Oakland just before 5 p.m., according to radio reports.
Radio traffic indicated that a Cal Star air ambulance landed just minutes afterward to transport another patient to Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital. Another patient was said to be on the way to St. Helena Hospital Clearlake via ground ambulance.
Lake County Fire Protection District had transported the victims out and terminated its incident command at the scene by 5:15 p.m., according to a radio statement.
Five Clearlake Police units were on the scene, along with two tow trucks, investigating the collision, Hoskins said.
She said the red vehicle was mangled, with the white pickup not sustaining as much damage.
Information on the crash victims – including their names and conditions – was not immediately available, as police were continuing their investigation.
Updates will be posted as new information becomes available.
E-mail Elizabeth Larson at
THIS STORY HAS BEEN UPDATED WITH ADDITIONAL INFORMATION FROM THE CALIFORNIA HIGHWAY PATROL.
CLEARLAKE OAKS, Calif. – Several local and state agencies were called to the scene of an early morning truck crash Monday, where quick action was needed to prevent spilled fuel from going into the nearby watershed.
A Tony's Fine Foods semi truck traveling through the S-curves on Highway 20 one mile east of Highway 53 overturned and blocked both lanes of traffic shortly after 6:30 a.m., according to the California Highway Patrol and Northshore Fire Protection District Deputy Chief Pat Brown.
A Monday afternoon report from CHP Officer Kory Reynolds identified the semi driver as 42-year-old John Harris of Elk Grove.
Reynolds said Harris was driving a 1996 Utility truck towing a 30-foot trailer westbound on Highway 20 at approximately 50 miles per hour while attempting to negotiate a right curve, Reynolds said.
Due to the speed of the vehicle Harris was unable to negotiate the curve, which caused the truck and trailer to roll onto its left side, blocking both lanes of traffic, Reynolds said. Harris was able to get out of the truck on his own.
The semi initially was reported to be on fire, but Brown said it turned out that the freon from the truck's refrigeration unit was venting.
Brown said a Cal Fire engine happened to come upon the scene and reported the crash.
Northshore Fire, CHP and Cal Fire set up a unified command to deal with the crash, Brown said.
The truck had fueled up in Sacramento and is believed to have had about 80 gallons of diesel in its tanks when the crash occurred, according to Brown.
“It was a few minutes of pretty intense flying around, trying to get the fuel to stop,” Brown said.
Brown estimated that about 30 gallons of fuel was spilled, but that firefighters contained it before it got into the storm drains and into the Cache Creek watershed.
Reynolds said Highway 20 was closed for more than an hour and one-way traffic control was in effect for several hours.
Caltrans sent a supervisor and a hazmat team, Brown said, and handled traffic control at the scene. The agency also put up alerts on nearby signs warning of the crash.
Brown said Caltrans was able to route traffic around the crash by using a turnout but only after the diesel was contained, due to concerns that vehicles might go through it and track it into the dirt on the roadside.
Lake County Environmental Health and the California Department of Fish and Game were on scene to observe because of the fuel spill, said Brown.
Other resources sent to the scene included two Cal Fire engines and a battalion chief, a water tender that Lake County Fire Protection District sent under mutual aid, and a Northshore Fire engine, a rescue and a medic unit, Brown said.
The CHP said two wreckers were called to respond to the scene, and arrangements were made to bring out containers to offload the remaining diesel.
Brown said a Northshore Fire ambulance transported Harris to St. Helena Hospital Clearlake, where he was treated for minor injuries.
The collision is under investigation by CHP Officer Brian Engle, Reynolds said.
E-mail Elizabeth Larson at
