Article:
[+] Enlarge Frederick Breedon/Getty Images Brek Shea and the U.S. took a one-goal lead into stoppage time. But El Salvador equalized to end the match at 3-3, eliminating the Americans from Olympic qualifying.

 Despite being a heavy favorite to emerge from the CONCACAF qualifying tournament with a ticket to the 2012 Olympics in London this summer in hand, the U.S. Under-23 national team was eliminated in a 3-3 tie to El Salvador Monday night.

 Needing a win to advance from Group A after suffering a 2-0 upset to Canada on Saturday, the U.S. went ahead before a minute was up, surrendered its lead, went behind, equalized, went ahead again and allowed the game-tying goal in the very last minute of extra time.

 A first-minute goal got the U.S. off to a flying start. Brek Shea broke through on the left and sent a cross into Terrence Boyd, who volleyed the ball into the net from close range.

 But the Americans had trouble establishing their usual possession-dominating rhythm in the first half, discovering quickly that they were facing the strongest opponent in the tournament thus far. El Salvador competed for the ball and clogged the spaces well. This forced the U.S. to lump long balls to Shea and Boyd. And although Boyd did his best to be a handful in the box -- winning the ball in the 11th and putting himself through on goal before giving up possession -- this tactic was largely ineffective.

 Crucially, keeper Bill Hamid tweaked his left ankle in the 31st minute. Within six minutes, El Salvador would twice punish his refusal to come off, or coach Caleb Porter's failure to substitute him. Undoubtedly, this will be picked apart in the coming weeks. In the 35th minute, Hamid failed to impose himself, or even move, on a corner to his near post. Lester Blanco rose over Kofi Sarkodi and headed in to equalize. In the 37th, Perry Kitchen and Jorge Villafana stood and watched as a low, straightforward cross into the box rolled toward the post, where Andres Flores beat the stumbling Hamid to the ball and slipped it underneath him and into the net. Shell-shocked and panicked, the U.S. barreled forward for the remainder of the half but produced little of consequence.

 In the second half, El Salvador set about running down the clock, nibbling away the minutes with a series of time-wasting tactics. Mostly, El Salvador frustrated the U.S. by inviting the Americans into its own half before crashing the spaces and clearing the ball to send its opponent back to square one. Throughout the game, the U.S.'s midfield trio failed to secure enough of the ball to settle into a rhythm and provide service to the forwards. All the U.S. could muster, then, for 20 minutes, was a dangerous shot by Freddy Adu.

 In the 64th minute, a flagging El Salvadoran defense slipped up. Boyd brought down a long punt from Sean Johnson (who had replaced the injured Hamid), whereupon Adu slipped Boyd a ball through the back line. Boyd finished cleanly, making it 2-2. Four minutes later, Joe Corona, anonymous throughout the game, found himself on the end of a rare dangerous cross from Adu at the second post and was allowed to head in the liberating goal. With the deficit overturned, the U.S. was seemingly on its way to the decisive semifinal game.

 It had now fallen to the U.S. to ride out the game. But it fell into the same trap as El Salvador had. The Americans allowed themselves to be put under pressure and cede the initiative to their irked opponents, who grew increasingly aggressive. The Yanks appeared to be getting away with it, too. But in the fourth and final minute of extra time, Amobi Okugo lost track of playmaker Jaime Alas, who ran through the center of the U.S.'s defense and hit a bouncing shot that skipped awkwardly. Johnson punched the ball skyward, only to see it skip into the U.S. goal.

 The U.S. had been unable to stamp its authority on a second consecutive game, allowing El Salvador entry points into the game time and again by failing to maintain possession. Brimming with talent, this U.S. team's failure to qualify for the Summer Games will be remembered as both a stain on a federation that failed to send a U-20 team to the 2011 World Cup and a blight on the resume of coaching prodigy Porter.

 But given its performances, it's hard to argue that the U.S. deserved much better. Here are our player grades (10=best)

 GK -- Bill Hamid, 3: Was convincing in the early going but should have indicated that he was in no condition to proceed after taking a knock in the 30th minute. El Salvador's first two goals could have been avoided by prompter interventions from Hamid (or the coach) before he came off in the 39th minute.

 D -- Kofi Sarkodie, 4.5: Simply beaten in the air on the 1-1, Sarkodie was once again better going forward than he was defensively.

 D -- Ike Opara, 4: Looked sharper than he had against Canada, but he failed to step out on Alas on the dooming 3-3.

 D -- Perry Kitchen, 4: Kitchen was steady enough throughout the game, but he should have been more alert as the eventual 2-1 rolled past him.

 D -- Jorge Villafana, 4.5: Impressive early on, Villafana just let Flores run by him undisturbed to make it 2-1.

 M -- Amobi Okugo, 5.5: A seventh-minute yellow card took the sting out of his game but he nevertheless had a strong night plugging holes and shielding the defense. And then he let Alas run away from him to score the 3-3.

 M -- Mix Diskerud, 5: Not a banner night for him, but not his worst either. He tried his best to distribute but was sometimes sloppy and didn't find enough of the ball to go around.

 M -- Joe Corona, 4.5: Scored the goal that should have sent the U.S. through but was otherwise invisible. Like he had against Canada, Corona appeared completely lost.

 F -- Freddy Adu, 7: Played out on the right again, a position where he never looked comfortable, Adu was most effective on set pieces and when he drifted inside. His two assists were incisive, however, and should have made the difference.

 F -- Terrence Boyd, 7: Active and mobile, Boyd replaced Agudelo capably by providing a good target and getting teammates involved. He converted two of four big chances and should have been the hero of the night.

 F -- Brek Shea, 6: Did good work disturbing the back line and picked up an assist. But his crossing often let him down.

 Subs:

 GK -- Sean Johnson, 4.5: Confidently stepped in for Hamid in the 39th minute and made a handful of crucial saves. But that bouncing shot that sent the U.S. crashing out may haunt him for years, as he probably should have dealt with it.

 M -- Michael Stephens, Incomplete: An 88th minute substitute for Corona, Stephens had little impact.

 F -- Joe Gyau, Incomplete: A 93rd minute time-wasting substitution.

 Leander Schaerlaeckens is a soccer writer for ESPN.com. He can be reached at leander.espn@gmail.com. Follow him on Twitter @LeanderESPN. ||||| The Americans had only a handful of seconds left to run out the clock and advance a step closer to the Olympics. With the pressure building with each tick, the victory slipped right through their hands.

 El Salvador's Lester Blanco (17) celebrates with Andres Flores (20) after Blanco scored a goal against the United States in the first half of a CONCACAF Olympic qualifying soccer match on Monday, March... (Associated Press)

 El Salvador's Lester Blanco (17) slides on the grass to his teammates after scoring a goal against the United States in the first half of a CONCACAF Olympic qualifying soccer match on Monday, March 26,... (Associated Press)

 El Salvador's Richard Menjivar (16) chases down the ball with United State's Mix Diskerud (8) in the first half of a CONCACAF Olympic qualifying soccer match on Monday, March 26, 2012, in Nashville, Tenn.... (Associated Press)

 El Salvador's Jaime Alas (10) falls as he chases the ball with United States' Freddy Adu (7) nd Kofi Sarkodie, right, in the first half of a CONCACAF Olympic qualifying soccer match on Monday, March 26,... (Associated Press)

 The United States, known for producing top goalkeepers such as Brad Friedel, Kasey Keller and Tim Howard, found itself done in Monday night when substitute Sean Johnson couldn't handle a long shot from Jaime Alas of El Salvador in stoppage time.

 The ball bounced off his hands, up over him and into the net, and El Salvador ousted the United States from Olympic qualifying with a 3-3 tie.

 The stunned Americans missed the Olympics for the second time since 1976 and second time in three games.

 "This is probably the worst feeling I've ever felt in my life so far as a pro athlete," U.S. captain Freddy Adu said. "This is going to be hard to get over. But at the end of the day things like this happen. For me, I never want to feel this way again, and I'm going to do whatever it takes to never feel this way again."

 The Americans had to win to reach Saturday's semifinals in Kansas City, Kan., and they led 3-2 on Joe Corona's goal in the 68th minute. Officials added 4 minutes of stoppage time onto the game, and U.S. coach Caleb Porter said they were "seconds away" from closing out the win and taking the top spot in Group A. A television clock showed the ball going in 4 minutes, 14 seconds into stoppage time.

 What happened is something U.S. midfielder Mix Diskerud said no one wants to experience in life, something he couldn't believe.

 "The last 20 minutes after our third goal, all those minutes felt like very, very long hours. But I thought we were going to make it. Everybody thought we were going to make it.," Diskerud said.

 "One shot."

 Several Americans dropped to the field in exhaustion and disbelief after Alas' score, and Porter had to rally them back to their feet for one last gasp chance that didn't materialize. Porter said he hugged Johnson after the game. The 6-foot-4 keeper did not speak with reporters.

 "He feels like he's let everybody down, let his teammates down, and I told him he didn't," Porter said.

 El Salvador reached the semifinals, putting it a win away from its first Olympic berth since 1968. Canada, which tied Cuba 1-1 earlier, finished second. Lester Blanco and Andres Flores also scored for El Salvador, a team coach Mauricio Alfaro pointed out had less than two weeks to prepare for this tournament and didn't have the whole roster together until late.

 "It was just incredible," Alfaro said of the win, speaking through an interpreter.

 But Alfaro also said he had told his players to shoot more in the second half to try to pressure Johnson and the El Salvador coach said he did feel Johnson made a mistake on Alas' kick.

 "The shot didn't have much power," Alfaro said.

 Terrence Boyd scored twice for the U.S., and Johnson replaced keeper Bill Hamid in the 39th minute.

 After a 2-0 loss to Canada in the second of this three-game, round-robin tournament, the Americans needed to win to advance.

 So did El Salvador, and the crowd of 7,889 was about evenly split between the countries keeping the U.S. from a true home-field advantage at LP Field, home of the NFL's Tennessee Titans. El Salvador survived a physical game with plenty of yellow cards on each side.

 Boyd went to the sideline with blood on the front of his shirt late in the game. Diskerud said both he and Adu were bitten and showed reporters marks as proof.

 "Part of the game, I guess," Diskerud said.

 The U.S. had a little bit of time left to try and go ahead but couldn't get anything going before the game ended. The result leaves the Americans adding 2012 to 2004 and 1976 as years they failed to qualify for the Olympics, missing out on a 15th appearance overall.

 Boyd got his first start in this round-robin tournament with Juan Agudelo recovering from surgery in New York to fix torn cartilage in his left knee, and Boyd gave the Americans the scoring boost they missed against Canada on Saturday night. The Americans attacked from the start, Boyd scored 61 seconds into the game. Brek Shea dribbled out of three defenders and sent a cross over to Boyd who scored off a left-footed volley.

 And Boyd nearly scored twice more. His header went over the crossbar in the 10th minute, and he had a breakaway chance in the 11th only to see keeper Yimy Cuellar come out to break up the play.

 Hamid rolled covering up a ball and appeared to hurt his ankle midway through the first half.

 El Salvador took advantage by scoring two goals in two minutes to grab the lead and the momentum. Blanco scored on a header off a corner kick over Hamid's hands in the 35th minute, and Flores beat Hamid in the 37th minute off what had been a weak shot by Alas that turned into a cross. Porter pulled Hamid in the 39th minute, putting in 6-4 Johnson for his first appearance in the tournament.

 Boyd tied it up with his second goal off a pass from Adu in the 65th minute. Corona, whose mother is a native of El Salvador, scored off a header just inside the left post off a pass from Adu.

 Johnson smothered one strong kick from Isidro Gutierrez, but couldn't stop the ball when it mattered at the end. |||||Summary:

– The US won't be competing in men's soccer at the Olympics, thanks to a heartbreaking goal that came literally at the last minute. El Salvador battled the US to a 3-3 draw last night, the AP reports; the US, which had been heavily favored to win its group in CONCACAF qualifying, needed a win after being upset by Canada 2-0. It was a back-and-forth affair, with the US scoring in the first minute, then falling behind, and finally coming back to lead 3-2. But in stoppage time El Salvador's Jaime Alas bounced a ball off the hands of substitute keeper Sean Johnson and into the net. Starting keeper Bill Hamid had been injured in the 31st minute, but, in a move ESPN suspects will be much-criticized, he wasn't pulled out immediately. El Salvador scored two goals against him in six minutes.“This is probably the worst feeling I've ever felt in my life,” says captain Freddy Adu. “This is going to be hard to get over.”


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The Black Widow of competitive eating has narrowly defended her title.

 New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg looks to see how many puns he made while making a speech during the official weigh-in for the Nathan's Fourth of July hot dog eating contest, Wednesday, July 3, 2013... (Associated Press)

 Joey Chestnut laughs as he stands on the scale during the official weigh-in for the Nathan's Fourth of July hot dog eating contest, Wednesday, July 3, 2013 at City Hall park in New York. (AP Photo/Mary... (Associated Press)

 New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg eats a hot dog during the official weigh-in for the Nathan's Fourth of July hot dog eating contest, Wednesday, July 3, 2013 at City Hall park in New York. (AP Photo/Mary... (Associated Press)

 Sonya Thomas smiles as she stands on the scale during the official weigh-in for the Nathan's Fourth of July hot dog eating contest, Wednesday, July 3, 2013 at City Hall park in New York. (AP Photo/Mary... (Associated Press)

 New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, center, watches and Joey Chestnut, left, and Sonya Thomas face off while eating a hot dog after the official weigh-in for the Nathan's Fourth of July hot dog eating... (Associated Press)

 Nathan's employees help the mascot get into his costume before the official weigh-in for the Nathan's Fourth of July hot dog eating contest, Wednesday, July 3, 2013 at City Hall park in New York. (AP... (Associated Press)

 Hot dogs are on display during the official weigh-in for the Nathan's Fourth of July hot dog eating contest, Wednesday, July 3, 2013 at City Hall park in New York. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer) (Associated Press)

 Sonya Thomas, of Alexandria, Va., devoured 36 and three-quarters hot dogs and buns in 10 minutes to win the women's competition at the annual Fourth of July Coney Island event.

 The 100-pound Thomas went toe-to-toe with Juliet Lee with a second to spare. Lee ate 36 dogs.

 The count was much lower than last year, when Thomas broke her own record by eating 45 hot dogs and buns.

 The Nathan's Famous Fourth of July International Hot Dog Eating Contest has been a city tradition for 97 years.

 Joey Chestnut is vying for his seventh straight title in the men's competition. His personal best and the record is 68 hot dogs and buns.

 THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.

 It's a dogfight, a roast, a frank encounter, a contest to win in the wurst way. In short, it's an event that devours puns. With relish.

 The annual Fourth of July hot dog eating contest was set to, well, roll Thursday in Coney Island, with chomp champs Joey Chestnut and Sonya Thomas defending their respective men's and women's titles.

 Chestnut, 29, is a six-time winner who set the record _ 68 weiners and buns in 10 minutes _ in 2009 and tied it last year. Thomas, 45, powered through 45 dogs to take the women's championship last year and also won in 2011, the first year women competed separately.

 They likely will be tough to beat. But this competition can never rule out an upset _ stomach, at least.

 "Tomorrow's strategy: just find my rhythm really quickly," Chestnut, the 210-pounder nicknamed "Jaws" from San Jose, Calif., said after the ceremonial weigh-in near City Hall on Wednesday as he munched on a frank, the only thing he'd eaten that day amid a preparatory fast.

 Chestnut said his pace has been uneven in the past, but "this year I'm trying to eat a little more gracefully, conserve my energy."

 Thomas, a 100-pound dynamo known as the "Black Widow" of competitive eating, says the challenge of shoveling down dozens of franks is actually "more mental than physical."

 "I have to fight with myself, so I'm going to try to really focus," said Thomas, of Alexandria, Va., where she manages a fast-food restaurant. And no, it doesn't serve hot dogs.

 Mayor Michael Bloomberg, speaking at the weigh-in for his 12th and final year in office, aimed to set a record of his own by stuffing more than a dozen hot-dog-related puns into an elaborate sentence that started with "let's be frank" and ended by looking forward to congratulating the "weiner of the contest."

 Now in its 98th year, the Nathan's Famous Fourth of July International Hot Dog Eating Contest generally draws a crowd of thousands to marvel at contestants cramming frankfurters down their throats.

 The chow down showdown is on this year despite concerns about a swaying, shuttered observation tower that spurred the closure of parts of the nearby amusement park this week. The shutdown didn't affect Nathan's. ||||| The 2013 Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest took place at high noon on the Fourth of July and, as per usual, Joey Chestnut entered as a huge favorite to have the most hot dogs (and buns!) eaten when the results were tallied. The American eater didn't disappoint his fans, either, as he consumed 69 hot dogs in 10 minutes to conquer the event for the seventh consecutive year.

 Chestnut's win broke the record he held with Takeru Kobayashi, as each had six total championships heading into Thursday's event. He also broke his record of 68 hot dogs, too, after most recently resetting it at last year's competition. The fact that he was able to reach 69 dogs was a surprise, too, as the odds had Chestnut eating 63.5 HDB (hot dogs + buns, for those not familiar with the sport's technical terms).

 Chestnut's closest competition was Matt Stonie with 51 hot dogs, though the competition in general has had a bit of a drop off behind Chestnut ever since Kobayashi stopped participating due to a contract dispute with Major League Eating. Tim Janus, better known as Eater X, finished third with 50 hot dogs.

 Chestnut entered the contest as the top-ranked eater in the world, according to MLE's rankings, whereas Stonie was ranked fourth. The 21-year-old Stonie's claims to fame include eating 5.5 pounds of birthday cake in 8 minutes and 59 seconds as well as eating 30 "slugburgers" at something called "The World Slugburger Eating Championship" last July.

 Sonja Thomas, better known as the Black Widow, was able to hold off upstart "The Lovely" Juliet Lee in the women's competition that was held earlier in the day. Thomas ate just shy of 37 hot dogs compared to Lee's even 36, securing herself as the only women's champion since the event was divided into separate divisions in 2011.

 Sonya Thomas won by a quarter of a hot dog!! #myfoxny pic.twitter.com/XtiLGkD4pp — LidiaCuranaj (@LidiaFox5NY) July 4, 2013

 The result of the women's competition was a bit disappointing, though, as Thomas set a record with 45 hot dogs last year -- over nine more than she was able to chow down on this year.

 Now that everyone is done watching hot dogs, quickly read Spencer Hall's guide to enjoying fireworks like an American, watch Dan Rubenstein describe why the Fourth of July is the best (below) and then go out and enjoy the holiday with friends, family and festivities! |||||

– Can no one stop the sausage-consuming juggernauts that are Joey Chestnut and Sonja Thomas? Chestnut not only won his seventh-consecutive title today at the Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest, he set a new world record by scarfing down 69 hot dogs and buns during the ten minutes allotted, SB Nation reports. The total tops his own personal best of 68, a record he shared with absent archrival Kobayashi. Doubting oddsmakers had set his over/under at just 63.5 dogs. Thomas—aka "the Black Widow"—also kept her crown for another year, but just barely. Thomas managed just 36 and three-quarters dogs, narrowly edging out Juliet Lee, who devoured 36 even, the AP reports. Thomas, who has won every year since Nathan began holding a separate women's competition in 2011, ate a record 45 dogs last year.


– The Telegraph reported yesterday on a crazy court case in the UK: After a pregnant Italian woman, in town for business, had a panic attack, social service workers in Essex got a court order allowing the woman to be forcibly sedated and undergo a C-section so they could take her baby. Fifteen months later, the little girl is still with social service workers, who won't return her to her mother. The case is now "an international legal row," the Telegraph says, and the anonymous woman's lawyers call it "unprecedented." The woman was in Britain in July 2012 for an airline training course, and called police when she suffered the panic attack. They arrived while she was on the phone with her mother, who told police the woman suffered from bipolar disorder and was off her medication, according to a Telegraph columnist. Police took her to a psychiatric facility, and restrained her under the Mental Health Act when she said she wanted to go back to her hotel. She underwent the C-section after having been there five weeks. The case is ongoing; the mother says she has made a full recovery, but a judge nonetheless ruled that her daughter should be put up for adoption. More on the case here and here.

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Focused crawls are collections of frequently-updated webcrawl data from narrow (as opposed to broad or wide) web crawls, often focused on a single domain or subdomain. ||||| These crawls are part of an effort to archive pages as they are created and archive the pages that they refer to. That way, as the pages that are referenced are changed or taken from the web, a link to the version that was live when the page was written will be preserved.Then the Internet Archive hopes that references to these archived pages will be put in place of a link that would be otherwise be broken, or a companion link to allow people to see what was originally intended by a page's authors.The goal is to fix all broken links on the web . Crawls of supported "No More 404" sites. |||||


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Obamacare is getting more popular with voters even as President Donald Trump moves to get rid of the landmark health-care law.

 A total of 45 percent of registered voters say they approve of Obamacare, compared to 45 percent who oppose the law, a new Politico/Morning Consult poll finds.

 Since early January — weeks before Trump moved into the White House — there has been a drop of seven percentage points among voters opposed to Obamacare.

 At the same time, there has been increase of four percentage points among voters who approve of the law, according to the poll.

 "As the threat of the Affordable Care Act's repeal has moved from notional to concrete, our weekly polling has shown an uptick in the law's popularity, and fewer voters support repealing the law," Kyle Dropp, Morning Consult's co-founder and chief research officer, told Politico for an article on the findings.

 The poll, which questioned 2,013 registered voters over three days late last week, has a margin of error of 2 percentage points.

 Trump and fellow Republicans who hold control of Congress have said they want to repeal the ACA and replace it with new health-care legislation. The GOP says that Obamacare is a failed program that has led to increasing premiums and onerous out-of-pocket charges to many Americans.

 Obamacare supporters retort that the law has expanded coverage to 20 million Americans, many of whom could not afford insurance previously, and that the law should be improved, not thrown out.

 In recent weeks, Republican repeal-and-replace plans have been met with vocal opposition at congressional town halls, and concerns among insurers about the potential loss of millions of customers of individual plans sold on and off of Obamacare marketplaces.

 The Politico/Morning Consult poll revealed that voters are split — widely — when they were asked, in general terms, what they would like to see done with Obamacare.

 But the poll also revealed, with one glaring exception, that more voters tended to support keeping key provisions of Obamacare than favored repealing them.

 The findings indicate that a slight majority of voters would approve of either wholesale repeal or the law, or partial repeal.

 A total of 24 percent of voters said they want to see Obamacare completely repealed. Another 27 percent want to see it "repealed in part," according to the poll.

 Only 12 percent said they want to see the law "kept as is." Another 26 percent said they want to see Obamacare expanded.

 Ten percent said they didn't know, or had no opinion.

 However, when voters were asked about nine separate provisions in the ACA, they wanted to keep eight of them.

 The only provision that voters want to get rid of is Obamacare's individual mandate, which requires nearly all Americans to have some form of health coverage or face a possible tax penalty.

 A total of 57 percent of voters say they want that mandate repealed. Just 28 percent of voters say they want it left as is.

 If the mandate were to be repealed, many insurers would be likely to stop selling Obamacare plans, because they would be left with fewer healthier customers buying coverage, and with a disproportionate number of less-healthy customers.

 On the other hand, 65 percent of voters said the ACA provision that bars insurers from denying coverage to people with pre-existing health conditions should be left as is, with just 22 percent wanting it repealed.

 Another 61 percent favored keeping the provision that gives low-income people subsidies to help pay for health insurance, and slightly more voters favored providing funding to states that expand Medicaid to cover low-income people.

 Almost 60 percent of voters favored requiring employers with 50 or more full-time workers to offer them health coverage. A total of 55 percent favor requiring insurers to cover prescription birth control.

 And 63 percent of voters said they want to keep the ACA provision that allows people under age 26 to be covered by their parents' health plans.

 Support was less strong for — but still greater than opposition to — ACA provisions that tax medical device manufacturers, and that remove lifetime and annual limits on how much money insurers can pay out for an individual's care. ||||| (CNN) Congressional Republicans struggling over how to repeal Obamacare are stuck on a key problem: what to do with the millions of people in 31 states covered under the dramatic expansion of Medicaid the law enabled.

 So they have privately turned to a handful of governors to help resolve the issue -- including Wisconsin's Scott Walker and Ohio's John Kasich, according to several sources involved in the talks. The hope, according to congressional sources, is to let the governors cut a deal on an issue that directly impacts their states and let the White House and Republican leaders endorse the plan that eventually emerges.

 The discussions underscore another key point: While President Donald Trump promises to soon unveil his own health care plan, lawmakers on Capitol Hill are drafting the bill -- while the Republican governors are likely to be the driving force behind the major entitlement reform over Medicaid coverage.

 The stakes for Republicans are already high. At town halls this week, GOP lawmakers are getting earfuls from voters unhappy with possible rollbacks to Obamacare, and at times struggling to defend a replacement bill that doesn't yet exist.

 At the center of the talks are four governors who have taken different approaches to Medicaid: Walker and Gov. Bill Haslam of Tennessee, whose states did not expand Medicaid under the law; and two governors from states that did: Kasich and Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval. The discussions are likely to continue at the National Governors Association meeting in Washington this week, and as Kasich privately meets later this week with Trump at the White House.

 "There are 700,000 Ohioans who now get care who didn't have it before," Kasich told CNN's Jim Sciutto on Sunday's "State of the Union," defending his state's Medicaid expansion. "And to turn our back on them makes no sense."

 The thinking is that if these four can cut a deal, it will help resolve an issue that GOP leaders say is currently the biggest hurdle in putting together a plan to repeal President Barack Obama's Affordable Care Act. But they have a monumental task: resolving concerns from conservatives who want to turn Medicaid into a block grant program and alleviate fears from politicians who hail from states that accepted federal dollars to expand coverage for low-income adults under Obamacare.

 "We're going to have to find a solution that accommodates those concerns," House Speaker Paul Ryan said last week.

 Republicans are hoping to unveil a plan in March that could be voted on within the next several weeks. They are under a time constraint because they are using fast-track budget rules that will allow them to avoid a filibuster in the Senate and pass a repeal bill on a party-line vote.

 The party is still divided over key issues -- including how far to take the repeal bill. Conservatives in the House Freedom Caucus want to pass a full-blown repeal bill that mirrors a plan that Congress approved in 2015 -- and Obama vetoed -- which would also repeal the Medicaid expansion.

 Yet top Senate Republicans privately say that such an approach would not pass their chamber.

 Tax credits and health savings accounts

 Moreover, a number of Republicans are demanding that the repeal bill also include some new provisions to help replace the law. As part of that approach, Republicans want to include in the repeal bill tax credits to help people purchase health insurance and reforms to Health Savings Accounts that would allow families to put more money into the accounts.

 Yet, Senate budget rules limit how much of the health care law can be replaced through the process known as "reconciliation," meaning that the GOP will have to rely on skeptical Democrats to pass other health care bills and on Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price to take executive action on other fronts.

 But several people involved in the discussions say the biggest challenge right now is how to resolve the Medicaid dilemma. The fear among many Republicans is that gutting the program could leave many low-income individuals in their states without health care coverage if there's no viable alternative to replace it. Republicans are considering a plan -- advocated by Ryan -- where states would receive federal funding based on a formula created by a state's per capita Medicaid population.

 While it's uncertain where they'll come down, Walker's support is seen as critical since he could presumably help sell the deal to conservatives who want to gut the entitlement program altogether.

 "Gov. Walker and other governors around the country are on the front lines of this effort," said Tom Evenson, a Walker spokesman. "And they want to partner with the federal government to provide affordable and accessible health care."

 The talks on the Hill over health care are being driven by five key Republicans: Ryan, Senate Finance Chairman Orrin Hatch, Senate Health Chairman Lamar Alexander, House Energy and Commerce Chairman Greg Walden and Ways and Means Chairman Kevin Brady.

 And the Energy and Commerce Committee met in January with more than a dozen GOP governors from states that expanded Medicaid and those that did not, and discussions are continuing between the governors and the lawmakers, a committee aide said.

 How the four GOP governors go along with the plan also could influence key senators from those states -- including Nevada Sen. Dean Heller, who is up for re-election in 2018 and whose governor is involved in the talks. And if Kasich cuts a deal, it could influence key Ohio Republicans in both chambers. |||||

– John Boehner could only laugh when he heard Republicans talking about quickly repealing and replacing the Affordable Care Act. “Republicans never ever agree on health care," Politico quotes the former house speaker as saying Thursday. Despite President Trump saying to expect a plan to repeal and replace ObamaCare by mid-March, Boehner says an ACA repeal is only "happy talk" and definitely "not going to happen." He says Republicans will eventually settle on only slight changes to ObamaCare and that "most of the framework" will remain in place. Republican lawmakers are currently being beset at town halls with constituents worried about losing their health insurance. CNBC reports a new poll found an even 45% split between voters who approve of ObamaCare and those who oppose it. That's a 4-point increase for the approve side and a 7-point decrease for the oppose side just since early January. The poll found only 24% of voters want the ACA completely repealed; 26% want to see it expanded. Republicans in Congress are now turning to a handful of Republican governors—John Kasich and Scott Walker, among others—to help them figure this mess out, sources tell CNN. Lawmakers apparently want the governors to figure out what to do about the millions of people who received coverage with the expansion of Medicaid under ObamaCare.


RICE: U.S. 2014/15 total rice supplies are projected at 282.6 million cwt, up 2.8 million from last month on higher production. USDA's first survey-based forecast of the U.S. 2014/15 rice crop is 228.8 million cwt, up nearly 21 percent from the previous year. Average all rice yield is forecast at 7,560 pounds per acre, up 91 pounds per acre from last month’s projection, but down nearly 2 percent from last year’s record. Area harvested is unchanged at 3.03 million acres. Long-grain production is forecast at 169.3 million cwt and combined medium- and short-grain production at 59.5 million, up 0.3 million and 2.5 million from a month ago, respectively. The all rice import projection is 21.0 million cwt, down 9 percent from last year.

 U.S. 2014/15 total rice use is projected at 243.0 million cwt, 3.0 million above last month, and 12 percent above the previous year. Total domestic and residual use and exports are forecast at 134.0 million cwt and 109.0 million, up 1.0 million and 2.0 million, respectively. Long-grain and combined medium- and short-grain exports are projected at 75.0 million and 34.0 million, respectively. U.S. all rice ending stocks for 2014/15 are projected at 39.6 million cwt, down 0.2 million from last month, but 21 percent above the previous year.

 The 2014/15 U.S. long-grain rice season-average farm price is projected at $12.00 to $13.00 per cwt, unchanged from last month. The 2014/15 combined medium- and short-grain price is projected at $17.50 to $18.50 per cwt, up 50 cents per cwt from a month ago. The 2014/15 all rice price is projected at $13.80 to $14.80 per cwt, up 30 cents per cwt on each end of the range from last month.

 The projected decrease in global 2014/15 total supply is greater than the drop in total use resulting in a decrease in world ending stocks. Global production is lowered 2.1 million tons to 477.3 million, still a record, due primarily to forecast reductions for Bangladesh, Brazil, Indonesia, and India, offset partially by an increase in the United States. India’s 2014/15 rice crop is lowered 1.0 million tons to 103.0 million, attributed mostly to a slower rate of planting of the kharif rice crop due to the late start of the monsoon and below normal precipitation in some rice growing areas. Global beginning stocks for 2014/15 are lowered 1.4 million tons due mostly to a 1.3-million-ton reduction for Indonesia—where the 2013/14 crop is lowered to 36.0 million tons. World 2014/15 consumption is reduced 0.3 million tons to 482.1 million, still a record. Global trade is lowered 0.3 million tons due mostly to a reduction in exports from India, partially offset by an increase in the United States. Global 2014/15 ending stocks are projected at 105.4 million tons, down 3.2 million from last month, and a decline of 4.7 million from the previous year. The largest stocks reductions from a month ago are in Bangladesh, Brazil, Indonesia, and India.

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  ||||| Sushi eaters could face sticker shock the next time they order a California roll or check the box for another round of yellowtail nigiri.

 Thanks to the historic drought in California, prices may spike for the specialty rice used in the popular Japanese dish. Production of the rice, which is grown primarily in the Golden State, is expected to drop by 25 percent this year.

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 California — and the Sacramento Valley in particular — is the nation’s primary source for the high-quality short- and medium-grain rice used in sushi and is a major supplier of the rice for other countries, too. But the state’s 2,500 rice growers this year planted just 420,000 acres, about a quarter fewer than usual, because farmers weren’t allowed to use water for more, according to the California Rice Commission.

 California farmers are beholden to a patchwork of local, state and federal water sources that distribute their annual water supply. More and more farmers are getting less or even no water allocations as the drought drags through its third year.

 (Also on POLITICO: Drought, disease and bacon cheeseburgers)

 “The biggest challenge is simply not enough rain and snowfall for multiple years, coupled with all of the demand from the most urban and top [farming] state in the U.S.,” California Rice Commission spokesman Jim Morris said. “Being in charge of the water allocations is a tough job right now: precious little water and many areas of need in our state.”

 The drought has taken its toll on the vast majority of farmers in the country’s largest agriculture state. About a half-million acres that would normally be producing fruits and vegetables this year won’t be planted, according to the California Farm Bureau Federation.

 A huge chunk of the state, including its largest produce regions, continues to experience what government meteorologists consider “exceptional drought” conditions — the worst possible category that can be assigned by the USDA’s National Drought Mitigation Center. Most of the rest of the state is considered to be in either “extreme drought” or “severe drought.”

 Congressional staffers are reportedly working behind the scenes to reach a compromise on House and Senate bills aimed at providing relief from California’s drought.

 (Also on POLITICO: Climate change isn’t for the birds)

 But any changes will be too late to affect the 2014 rice market. As the harvest is set to finish in October, production could be down by more than a billion pounds, Morris said.

 Growers in the Yuba City-based California Rice Marketers cooperative — a group of six rice farms that normally plant on 2,000 acres — may not feel too much pain. They planted less this year but hope to see their prices go up from the roughly $20 per hundredweight they received in 2013 to as much as $24, General Manager Kevin Keeley said.

 And California Heritage Mills, a Colusa County rice mill owned by 15 farmers, can expect something of a windfall. The three-year old co-op planted all its acres this year and also hopes to get a better price, said Guy Gomes, the company’s sales and marketing director.

 The real pain will be felt at sushi restaurants. They will continue to serve their usual fare of spicy tuna rolls, California rolls and yellowtail rolls, but soon they’ll have to make a decision about whether to pass on the expected added cost of their product or see a reduction in profit margins, said California Restaurant Association spokeswoman Angie Pappas.

 Nobody knows yet how much those costs, and the price of rice for consumers in general, will rise.

 (Also on POLITICO: Jerry Brown: Fires related to climate change)

 “There’s only a harvest once a year and the majority of [sushi rice] comes from California,” Pappas said. “Everyone’s still in a wait-and-see mode to see how much the prices go up, but then you’re going to definitely see some price-tweaking.”

 Daniel Sumner, director of the University of California’s Agricultural Issues Center, said that so far he expects only small price increases on Japanese restaurant menus.

 Overall, the sharp reduction in California rice planting “is going to show up in higher prices,” he said. “There’s no question about it.”

 Hissho Sushi, a Charlotte, N.C., company that trains chefs for sushi bars throughout the U.S., is bracing for the higher prices, too.

 Spokeswoman Andrea Lee said the company’s California supplier “is already factoring in price increases due to the drought situation during the past several months. … It’s a huge challenge to anticipate and plan ahead for the unforeseen. Over 50 percent of our sushi rice is directly impacted by this drought, as are the ensuing price changes and supply.”

 While California rice may be in short supply, rice growers in other parts of the country are expecting a bumper crop. In fact, overall rice production in the U.S. is expected to increase by as much as 21 percent this year, according to the latest Department of Agriculture forecast.

 Farmers in Arkansas, Louisiana and elsewhere in the South have historically grown long-grain rice, but these states have begun ramping up production of medium-grain in recent years.

 However, sushi chefs are prejudiced in favor of the California variety, said Morris. Farmers there grow special varieties of Japonica rice that make the state the only source for Japanese importers, he said. It’s perceived as tasting better and having a better mouth feel.

 There are certainly some export customers that may be willing to take Southern medium-grain rice in lieu of the California product, said Chuck Wilson, director of the University of Arkansas’ Rice Research and Extension Center, but he doubts sushi restaurants in the U.S. are ready to make the switch.

 And that’s what has rice grower Keeley most concerned.

 “What I’m worried about is: How high does the price go, and does that start driving demand away? If the price gets too high, does the end user start going to substitute products or maybe an inferior rice?” |||||
What is a one-paragraph summary of the above article?

– Extreme drought conditions in California have caused residents to face government fines, paint their lawns, and stress about their beloved giant sequoias. Now the whole country might be joining in the state's water woes: Production of the special rice used in sushi, grown mainly in California, is set to decline by 25% in 2014 because farmers were limited to how many acres they could adequately water, Politico reports. Translation for the rest of us—sushi restaurants are going to have to decide whether to take the financial hit themselves or ask customers to pay higher prices for their tempura, tuna, and Tijuana rolls, according to a California Restaurant Association spokeswoman. Most of the state is high and dry, categorized as being in "exceptional," "extreme," or "severe" drought conditions, the United States Drought Monitor indicates. A California Rice Commission spokesman says rice production could be down by more than a billion pounds, as per Politico, affecting restaurants and even schools that train sushi chefs. Rice is thriving in other parts of the country—overall rice production will be up 21% this year, according to AGWeb.com—but chefs are partial to the short-grain Japonica rice typically used in sushi dishes. Still, one general manager of a California rice co-operative worries, via Politico: "If the price gets too high, does the end user start going to substitute products or maybe an inferior rice?"


Summarize this article:

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 This feature is not available right now. Please try again later. ||||| Vickey Vanderford, a security guard at the Amarillo Terminal Airport, came across a baby girl around 11 p.m. on Sept. 27, 1977, sitting between the airport’s sliding glass doors. The blonde, brown-eyed baby was swimming in an oversized T-shirt and grasping a bottle of soured juice.

 A fresh diaper was fashioned from a janitorial cloth, a search for her parents began and when the last flight of the day had cleared out, Vanderford said she realized the little girl had been abandoned.

 Vanderford guessed the child was between 16 and 18 months old. After the abandonment was reported, the baby was taken to Northwest Texas Hospital for observation. She seemed healthy aside from some faded bruises on her face and body and a dark purple bruise inside her ear.

 Amarillo police opened an investigation and the baby was placed into the custody of Potter-Randall County Child Welfare.

 This child became known as Jane Doe 927. Her real identity is still the subject of debate 40 years later.

 One month after her abandonment, Jane Doe 927 was thriving in her foster home, according to Globe-News files. She was described as “sharp” and was not too bashful to say “hello” to every new person she met. Hamburgers became her favorite food.

 “Blonde and frequently described as pretty, the baby girl has caught the attention of media and many citizens of Amarillo,” said a Globe-News article in December 1977. “About two weeks after her plight was published, more than 100 persons had filed with child welfare authorities to adopt her.”

 The investigation faded that month after a hopeful New Mexico couple decided Jane Doe 927 was not actually their missing daughter. Parental rights were terminated in January 1978 and the adoption process followed.

 A ‘perfect match’?

 Four years later and a thousand miles west of Amarillo, Rosalee Webster arrived back in her Long Beach, Calif., home. She — along with her daughter, Bonnie — had left her husband, Charles Webster, in 1977 to go to a wedding in Idaho.

 Rosalee came back after the mysterious yearslong absence, but Bonnie did not. Upon her arrival back on the West Coast, Rosalee began telling her family varied stories about what happened to her daughter.

 She said the child had died and was buried in the mountains of Idaho; she also said Child Protective Services had taken Bonnie away from her.

 “I didn’t know what to believe,” Charles Webster recently told the Globe-News.

 Rosalee said she had traveled between Idaho and Texas. She called her family once during her absence, saying she had succumbed to substance abuse and couldn’t remember what happened to Bonnie.

 Rosalee also told a story about her live-in boyfriend who allegedly threatened to kill Bonnie, and her decision to leave Bonnie at a bus terminal or an airport in Nampa, Idaho.

 Rosalee never allowed the family to push any further into the story. She said she couldn’t remember and refused to speak of it. A missing person report was never filed.

 “That was the end of it as far as we knew,” Webster said. “I had released my concern for Bonnie into God’s hands because I didn’t have the wherewithal to look for her.”

 Rosalee was disowned by her side of the family, and every May 19 — Bonnie’s birthday — she grew extra quiet until her death in 2008.

 In 1998, Pattie Whitaker, Rosalee’s sister, posted on a genealogy forum searching for anyone who had information on Bonnie’s whereabouts.

 “I am looking for a person, who is alive, she is my niece, born May 1976, in Long Beach, Calif.,” the post said. “Was abandoned in a bus terminal in Nampa, Idaho, at the age of 18 mos (months) birth name ‘Bonnie Lee Webster’ anyone out there has info please contact me, she is 23 now and I have been searching for years and will not give up.”

 Ronda Randall, a genealogist and blogger in New Hampshire, stumbled across the post years later while she was sifting through missing persons posts.

 Whitaker’s post made Randall pause because she was researching New Hampshire serial killer Robert Evans, who had lived in Idaho and Texas.

 So Randall began helping Whitaker in her search. They couldn’t find any news articles regarding an abandonment in Nampa, but they did find the Amarillo Globe-News file that matched the time and description Rosalee had spoken about in her stories.

 Then they saw the photo of Jane Doe 927, taken by John Ebling, a staff photographer with the Globe-News at the time.

 “As time passed and I’ve heard more about the circumstances of the abandonment from the family, then it’s hard not to look at the pictures and think, ‘Wow that child really could be that child in a year,’” said Randall. “Until I saw the picture, I assumed Bonnie was dead.”

 When Webster saw the two photos side by side, he said, it looked nearly like a “perfect match.”

 Doe’s new name

 If there’s a link between these two stories, the first step is administering a DNA test with the woman who claims to be Jane Doe 927: Shelley Schooley.

 “I identify as a born and bred Texan, and I always will,” Schooley told the Globe-News.

 The 41-year-old is currently “raising two young men to become gentlemen,” and enjoys attending high school football games. Schooley blogs about parenting and life after divorce, and sometimes crochets.

 She also proudly identifies as a Schooley — her “forever name.” The child who was deserted at such a young age now has a large extended family and a strong mother-daughter bond.

 “My mom truly is my best friend,” she said.

 Schooley always knew of her abandonment. Her family told her as early as she could understand, and even collected a stack of yellowed Amarillo Globe-News clippings.

 “We have them all; that’s my first baby picture,” said Schooley, referencing Ebling’s photo.

 Schooley’s adoptive parents were living in Odessa at the time. They had adopted their son a few years prior and the same social worker contacted them about Jane Doe 927.

 After spending a weekend with the little girl, the Schooleys finalized the adoption, chose the name “Shelley” and gave her a birthdate of June 22, 1976.

 Along with the newspaper clippings, there’s a stack of adoption documents detailing those pivotal months at the end of 1977.

 “There’s a lot of the story we have pieced together from psychological evaluations when I was going through the adoption phase,” said Schooley.

 These evaluations, explained in Schooley’s Adoption Summary, indicate her biological family used adult language with Shelley, trained her to sleep in the back seat of a car and read to her a lot.

 “She will pick up a book, even one without pictures, and sit down and start ‘reading’ it to herself,” the document describes.

 Social workers also recorded a fear of men in the young girl, describing her cries when she met new men.

 Unlike other adopted children, Schooley said she never had a desire to search for her “missing link.”

 “The only thing I was concerned about was medical — what if I’m a carrier of something? What if there’s something I’m going to pass on to my kids?” she said.

 While her relationship with her adoptive parents is stable and secure, Schooley said she has always battled a feeling of not being “good enough.”

 “How do you raise a child for that long and then be able to separate from them? Those are the questions I have that nobody’s going to be able to answer,” she added.

 Schooley said she’s come to peace with the circumstances of her abandonment, remaining hopeful that her biological parents had her best interest in mind. High above it all, she said she shapes her life around gratitude.

 “Back in the ’70s, unwanted babies were thrown away and I wasn’t,” Schooley said. “I wasn’t bounced around from foster home to foster home like my brother was. I was never put into group homes. I was never bounced around. I was welcomed into a loving family and that never changed, even to this day.”

 Last month, Randall found Schooley through the friend of a Facebook friend, living in Newfoundland. After multiple social media and blog posts searching for clues of Jane Doe, Randall was sent the link to a YouTube video posted by Listen to Your Mother, a celebration of Mother’s Day through live readings by various authors.

 “My first baby picture appeared in the Amarillo Globe-Times on Sept. 28, 1977,” Schooley said in the video, standing at a podium.

 And the story was relayed, once again, not in a newspaper platform, but from the lips of the woman who was raised hearing about her early days sitting alone between airport sliding-glass doors.

 “Especially that part about the spoiled juice, it was just heartwrenching,” Randall said. “That line just got me.”

 Since discovering the video, Schooley and the Websters have connected and conversed about the “what ifs” in each of their stories. But with proms and college in the near future for Schooley’s two sons, she cannot justify spending the money on a DNA test to determine whether she is Bonnie Lee Webster or not.

 “I would go through with that if it provided closure to somebody who has been looking for their lost relative for 40 years,” Schooley said, “but that would be the only thing I feel I have to offer.” |||||

– The toddler in the extra-large T-shirt was sitting between sliding glass doors at Amarillo Airport when a security guard found her late one night in September 1977, clasping a bottle of spoiled juice. Faded bruises signaled a troubled past, one from which the blonde, brown-eyed girl, aged 16 to 18 months, had been abandoned. Dubbed Jane Doe 927, the toddler was adopted by a loving family and rechristened Shelley Schooley. Her past would remain a mystery for four decades. Now the Amarillo Globe-News reports a DNA test could unlock those secrets. That is, if the mother of two decides to take it. Until now, Schooley says, she never wanted to pursue her "missing link." In a 2015 YouTube video, Schooley explains, "It's never mattered to me. I have my family and I wouldn't trade them for anything." Meanwhile in 1998, a woman named Pattie Whitaker posted on a genealogy forum that she "will not give up" searching for her niece, Bonnie Lee Webster, who disappeared in 1977. The 18-month-old was apparently abandoned by Whitaker's late sister, who never explained what happened to the child. Genealogy sleuth Rona Randall saw the post and found an old newspaper photo of Jane Doe 927—a "perfect match" to baby Bonnie. Last month, Randall found Schooley and put her in touch with Whitaker. Schooley tells the Globe-News she can't justify the expense of the DNA test with two sons to raise. But, she adds, she may do it if the truth provides "closure" for Whitaker, her probable aunt. "That would be the only thing I feel I have to offer," she says. (Parents held out hope their missing daughter was still alive. She wasn't.)


– Swaddling is by all accounts on the rise among new parents, but a pediatric orthopedic surgeon thinks it's a bad trend, reports the BBC. Wrapping a baby tightly with blankets restricts the infant's hips from moving freely and raises the risk that they won't develop properly, the UK doctor writes in the Archives of Disease in Childhood. "In order to allow for healthy hip development, legs should be able to bend up and out at the hips." In other words, "the babies' legs should not be tightly wrapped in extension and pressed together." Swaddling is thought to work because it mimics the feel of the womb and thus calms the baby. Great, writes James Norton at the Christian Science Monitor, this is yet more conflicting advice for confused parents. Controversy over swaddling isn't new, he adds, and his blog post provides a link to techniques that he says avoid most or all of the risk to infants.

Expand this summary.

Parents are risking their babies' health because of a surge in the popularity of swaddling, according to an orthopaedic surgeon.

 The technique involves binding the arms and legs with blankets and is used to help calm a baby and prevent crying.

 But Prof Nicholas Clarke, of Southampton University Hospital, said swaddling was damaging developing hips.

 The Royal College of Midwives and other experts advised parents to avoid tightly swaddling a child.

 Restricts movement

 Swaddling has been widely used in many cultures globally. It is thought the blanket wrapping can simulate the feelings of being in the womb and calm the child.

 But the technique holds the legs out straight and restricts movement, which can alter the development of the hip joint.

 Swaddling should not be employed in my view as there is no health benefit but a risk for adverse consequences of the growing and often immature hips Andreas Roposch, Great Ormond Street Hospital

 Writing in the journal Archives of Disease in Childhood, Prof Clarke argued: "There has been a recent resurgence of swaddling because of its perceived palliative effect on excessive crying, colic and promoting sleep.

 "In order to allow for healthy hip development, legs should be able to bend up and out at the hips. This position allows for natural development of the hip joints.

 "The babies' legs should not be tightly wrapped in extension and pressed together."

 Jane Munro, of the Royal College of Midwives, said it was a "seemingly innocuous" thing to do, but it posed "significant problems" for the baby.

 She said there was also the risk of the baby overheating and a raised risk of cot death.

 She added: "We advise parents to avoid swaddling, but it is also crucial that we take into account each mother's cultural background, and to provide individualised advice to ensure she knows how to keep her baby safe, able to move and not get overheated."

 Video guidance

 Andreas Roposch, a consultant orthopaedic surgeon at Great Ormond Street Hospital, said: "Similar effects may be seen in all devices or manoeuvres that place the legs in a purely straight position for prolonged periods in this critical age of early infancy.

 "Swaddling should not be employed in my view, as there is no health benefit but a risk for adverse consequences of the growing and often immature hips."

 Rosemary Dodds, of parenting charity the NCT, advised against tight swaddling.

 "It is helpful to raise awareness of hip dysplasia in relation to swaddling. Some parents and babies seem to like swaddling, but it is important that babies do not overheat and their legs are not restricted.

 "Videos are available on the NCT website showing parents who want to swaddle their baby how to do so safely." ||||| This article discusses swaddling - how to do it as well as the arguments for and against.

 This article covers:

 Swaddling describes the practice of wrapping babies, from the neck downwards, entirely in a cloth or thin blanket, with the aim of pacifying or calming them.

 Why swaddle your baby?

 Although not everyone agrees with swaddling babies, many cultures have used this practice throughout history, as it is thought that the feeling of being ‘contained’ or held within the blanket can help babies to feel settled or less fretful and can also help them to sleep. It is thought to have this effect because it in some way ‘recreates’ the restricted space of the womb and therefore stops the baby making its startle (Moro) reflex; however, it is not known what the long-term effects of swaddling a baby are.

 If the purpose of swaddling your baby is simply to stop them thrashing around, then it may be best to use a muslin (particularly indoors), as it is important that your baby does not overheat.

 How to swaddle a baby

 Place a large cot blanket on the floor, and lay it in a diamond shape, folding the top point over to create a flat edge for your baby’s shoulders to lie among. Bring one top corner across to tuck under her bottom, and bring the bottom point up to tuck into this wrap. You can wrap the other top corner around her and tuck the corner in to secure in the material at her neck (this section has been copied from ‘Babycalming’ by Caroline Deacon, by agreement). The baby's legs should be able to move into a ‘frog position’, rather than being held straight (see Natural Positioning below).

 Arguments against swaddling

 Recently, some experts have reviewed studies on swaddled infants, and it has been suggested that swaddling could have implications for:

 increased risk of cot death,

 reduced breastfeeding at birth and/or

 increased early weight loss

 Additional concerns raised regarding swaddling have included increased incidences of developmental hip dysplasia, acute respiratory infections and overheating; however these may be circumvented by modifying the swaddling style used (see video above) and by avoiding extra bedding.

 Natural positioning

 Heavily swaddling a baby in order to breastfeed may feel easier, but allowing your baby freedom of movement with their hands leads to a more natural latch - babies naturally explore with their hands when breastfeeding. Your baby may also get very warm while breastfeeding, so it's safer not to have constrictive blankets.

 An infant's natural hip position is 'frog' style – with legs drawn up and thighs roughly at right angles to the body. This helps the ball and socket joint develop properly in the hip. There is some evidence that excessive swaddling with legs 'straight down' prevents this joint developing properly (hip dysplasia or DDH). Babies’ legs need to be able to move in a more natural 'frog' position.

 Keeping safe when swaddling

 The Lullaby Trust (formerly FSID) makes the following recommendations:

 Parents should be aware of the potential risks of swaddling their infant, particularly of the use of heavy materials for swaddling.

 Don't cover a baby's head, and only use thin materials for swaddling.

 Infants must NEVER be placed on their stomach when swaddled.

 Other carers, such as grandparents, should also be made aware of your baby’s usual sleeping environment and practices.

 Further information

 NCT's helpline offers practical and emotional support in all areas of pregnancy, birth and early parenthood: 0300 330 0700.

 You might find attending one of NCT's Early Days groups helpful as they give you the opportunity to explore different approaches to important parenting issues with a qualified group leader and other new parents in your area.

 The Lullaby Trust (formerly FSID) has information on swaddling. ||||| Historically infant swaddling was almost a universal practice. It involved binding or bundling babies in blankets with the arms restrained and the lower limbs extended. It remains common in the Middle East1 and in some ethnic groups with or without a board or cradle.2 There has been a recent resurgence of swaddling because of its perceived palliative effect on excessive crying, colic and promoting sleep. Approximately 90% of infants in North America are swaddled in the first few months of life.3

 A recent systemic review4 concluded that in general swaddled infants do arouse less and sleep longer. Preterm infants showed improved neuromuscular development.

 In the UK a recent Drug and Theraputics Bulletin review of the management of infant colic5 concluded that the current evidence base does not support the use of swaddling in its management. This review and the systematic review however noted the association of swaddling with developmental dysplasia of the hip (DDH), the latter concluding ‘attention to this adverse effect is of utmost importance’. DDH is one of … ||||| Swaddling babies is on the rise: Add it to the long list of mixed messages new parents get about infant care. It helps fussy babies calm down, but given some health concerns, your swaddling technique (and frequency) should be checked out.

 One of the first things many new parents learn these days is the craft of swaddling their infant children. I, for one, remember with a feeling almost approaching fondness the moment during parenting class when I had to demonstrate for all assembled how to swaddle a doll in a theoretically sound manner. (I did it, more or less, a rare personal triumph over my own lack of spatial relations skills.)

 Swaddling is great. It has a way of transforming a wildly flailing, highly annoyed noise-emitting little vortex of fuss into a sweet, restful, convenient-to-carry bundle of joy – the kind you'd always anticipated bringing into your lives, and have been somewhat disappointed to see only intermittently among all the diaper changes and random meltdowns.

 But – like basically anything baby related – the practice has a recently renewed sheen of controversy. Via BBC:

 Writing in the journal Archives of Disease in Childhood, Prof [Nicholas] Clarke [of Southhampton University Hospital] argued: "There has been a recent resurgence of swaddling because of its perceived palliative effect on excessive crying, colic and promoting sleep.

 "In order to allow for healthy hip development, legs should be able to bend up and out at the hips. This position allows for natural development of the hip joints.

 "The babies' legs should not be tightly wrapped in extension and pressed together."

 Fear of hip damage runs side-by-side with other concerns about infants overheating (ah, the often grandma-instigated temptation of adding that second ... and third ... and fourth blanket) and a raised risk of crib death. Granted that the concerns largely focus on improperly restrictive swaddling (and/or parents who place swaddled infants to sleep on their faces, who are hopefully a small-to-nonexistent percentage of the population) but it's still scary stuff.

 So: fantastic. Swaddling is the best way to help your infant sleep and make your lives as parents feel manageable, and it's also, of course, dangerous. Throw it on the pile of stresses of being a new parent, along with exclusive-to-the-point-of-exhaustion breast-feeding, controversy over co-sleeping, and the ambitious and almost certainly overstated diaper-free fad that seemed to be sweeping one small, extremely well-documented part of Brooklyn earlier this year.

 The controversy over the safety of swaddling isn't, of course, new – the practice has gone into and out of vogue many times over the years. Early this year, Huffington Post noted a back-and-forth over the practice taking place in day cares, where a pitched battle was and still is being fought about the balance between absolute child safety (fears over hip problems or swaddled babies struggling with loose blankets or ending up on their faces) and child happiness (getting adequate sleep).

 All that written, there is, thankfully, some agreement on methods of swaddling that avoid some or all of the risk: If you're a parent of an infant well-and-truly freaked out by all the back and forth there is a nicely written resource on the website of Britain's National Childbirth Trust that provides an overview of the practice, the risks, and (most helpfully) how to do it right, including a video called "How to Hip-Healthy Swaddle your Baby." |||||


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– Evgeniy Mikhailovich Bogachev, once described by a cybersecurity expert as the "most prolific bank robber in the world," ended up on a different list altogether in December: as one of the individuals noted in then-President Obama's sanctions against Russia for trying to influence the election. As Garrett M. Graff explains in his Wired piece, Bogachev is an FBI "most wanted" poster boy who developed a malware "masterpiece" under the screen name "Slavik," known for pulling off extensive financial transgressions around the globe. Now, however, Bogachev has become known as his homeland's "most notorious hacker," and he's still on the loose, despite the US government's multi-year battle to flush him out and haul him in. Graff's article details how Bogachev was constantly able to elude authorities where others couldn't, from the early days of the malware and ransomware projects he ran to the present. It also reveals the FBI's unceasing efforts to take down the botnet-driven schemes, a probe that eventually uncovered Slavik's real identity (Bogachev) and that he'd moved on from banks to government "espionage commands." The FBI finally launched Bogachev's day of reckoning: May 30, 2014, when the feds would take down his whole operation. It was an "amazing" day of "cyber-hand-to-hand combat," one witness, a Pittsburgh US attorney, says of the attack, which was a success. Bogachev, however—named on Obama's sanctions list not for election hacking (the US government doesn't think he was) but to pressure Russia to turn him over in "good faith"—may never be caught. "Bogachev and other Russian cybercriminals lie pretty far beyond America's reach," Graff laments. More on this thrilling cybercrime story at Wired. (A Hollywood hospital paid a computer ransom to hackers.)

Craig’s first major break in the case came in September 2009. With the help of some industry experts, he identified a New York–based server that seemed to play some sort of role in the Zeus network. He obtained a search warrant, and an FBI forensics team copied the server’s data onto a hard drive, then overnighted it to Nebraska. When an engineer in Omaha examined the results, he sat in awe for a moment. The hard drive contained tens of thousands of lines of instant message chat logs in Russian and Ukrainian. Looking over at Craig, the engineer said: “You have their Jabber server.”

 This was the gang’s whole digital operation—a road map to the entire case. The cybersecurity firm Mandiant dispatched an engineer to Omaha for months just to help untangle the Jabber Zeus code, while the FBI began cycling in agents from other regions on 30- or 90-day assignments. Linguists across the country pitched in to decipher the logs. “The slang was a challenge,” Craig says.

 One woman explained that she’d become a money mule after a job at a grocery store fell through, telling an agent: “I could strip, or I could do this.”

 The messages contained references to hundreds of victims, their stolen credentials scattered in English throughout the files. Craig and other agents started cold-calling institutions, telling them they had been hit by cyberfraud. He found that several businesses had terminated employees they suspected of the thefts—not realizing that the individuals’ computers had been infected by malware and their logins stolen.

 The case also expanded beyond the virtual world. In New York one day in 2009, three young women from Kazakhstan walked into the FBI field office there with a strange story. The women had come to the States to look for work and found themselves participating in a curious scheme: A man would drive them to a local bank and tell them to go inside and open a new account. They were to explain to the teller that they were students visiting for the summer. A few days later, the man had them return to the bank and withdraw all of the money in the account; they kept a small cut and passed the rest on to him. Agents pieced together that the women were “money mules”: Their job was to cash out the funds that Slavik and his comrades had siphoned from legitimate accounts.

 By the summer of 2010, New York investigators had put banks across the region on alert for suspicious cash-outs and told them to summon FBI agents as they occurred. The alert turned up dozens of mules withdrawing tens of thousands of dollars. Most were students or newly arrived immigrants in Brighton Beach. One woman explained that she’d become a mule after a job at a grocery store fell through, telling an agent: “I could strip, or I could do this.” Another man explained that he’d be picked up at 9 am, do cash-out runs until 3 pm, and then spend the rest of the day at the beach. Most cash-outs ran around $9,000, just enough to stay under federal reporting limits. The mule would receive 5 to 10 percent of the total, with another cut going to the recruiter. The rest of the money would be sent overseas.

 “The amount of organization these kids—they’re in their twenties—were able to pull together would’ve impressed any Fortune 100 company,” the FBI’s James Craig says.

 The United States, moreover, was just one market in what investigators soon realized was a multinational reign of fraud. Officials traced similar mule routes in Romania, the Czech Republic, the United Kingdom, Ukraine, and Russia. All told, investigators could attribute around $70 million to $80 million in thefts to the group—but they suspected the total was far more than that.

 Banks howled at the FBI to shut the fraud down and stanch the losses. Over the summer, New York agents began to close in on high-ranking recruiters and the scheme’s masterminds in the US. Two Moldovans were arrested at a Milwaukee hotel at 11 pm following a tip; one suspect in Boston tried to flee a raid on his girlfriend’s apartment and had to be rescued from the fire escape.

 Meanwhile, Craig’s case in Omaha advanced against the broader Jabber Zeus gang. The FBI and the Justice Department had zeroed in on an area in eastern Ukraine around the city of Donetsk, where several of the Jabber Zeus leaders seemed to live. Alexey Bron, known online as “thehead,” specialized in moving the gang’s money around the world. Ivan Viktorvich Klepikov, who went by the moniker “petr0vich,” ran the group’s IT management, web hosting, and domain names. And Vyacheslav Igorevich Penchukov, a well-known local DJ who went by the nickname “tank,” managed the whole scheme, putting him second in command to Slavik. “The amount of organization these kids—they’re in their twenties—were able to pull together would’ve impressed any Fortune 100 company,” Craig says. The gang poured their huge profits into expensive cars (Penchukov had a penchant for high-end BMWs and Porsches, while Klepikov preferred Subaru WRX sports sedans), and the chat logs were filled with discussions of fancy vacations across Turkey, Crimea, and the United Arab Emirates.

 By the fall of 2010, the FBI was ready to take down the network. As officials in Washington called a high-profile press conference, Craig found himself on a rickety 12-hour train ride across Ukraine to Donetsk, where he met up with agents from the country’s security service to raid tank’s and petr0vich’s homes. Standing in petr0vich’s living room, a Ukrainian agent told Craig to flash his FBI badge. “Show him it’s not just us,” he urged. Craig was stunned by the scene: The hacker, wearing a purple velvet smoking jacket, seemed unperturbed as agents searched his messy apartment in a Soviet-style concrete building; his wife held their baby in the kitchen, laughing with investigators. “This is the gang I’ve been chasing?” Craig thought. The raids lasted well into the night, and Craig didn’t return to his hotel until 3 am. He took nearly 20 terabytes of seized data back to Omaha.

 With 39 arrests around the world—stretching across four nations—investigators managed to disrupt the network. But crucial players slipped away. One top mule recruiter in the US fled west, staying a step ahead of investigators in Las Vegas and Los Angeles before finally escaping the country inside a shipping container. More important, Slavik, the mastermind himself, remained almost a complete cipher. Investigators assumed he was based in Russia. And once, in an online chat, they saw him reference that he was married. Other than that, they had nothing. The formal indictment referred to the creator of the Zeus malware using his online pseudonym. Craig didn’t even know what his prime suspect looked like. “We have thousands of photos from tank, petr0vich—not once did we see Slavik’s mug,” Craig says. Soon even the criminal’s online traces vanished. Slavik, whoever he was, went dark. And after seven years of chasing Jabber Zeus, James Craig moved on to other cases. ||||| Bogachev was last known to reside in Anapa, Russia. He is known to enjoy boating and may travel to locations along the Black Sea in his boat. He also owns property in Krasnodar, Russia.

 Caution:

 Evgeniy Mikhailovich Bogachev, using the online monikers “lucky12345” and “slavik”, is wanted for his alleged involvement in a wide-ranging racketeering enterprise and scheme that installed, without authorization, malicious software known as “Zeus” on victims’ computers. The software was used to capture bank account numbers, passwords, personal identification numbers, and other information necessary to log into online banking accounts. While Bogachev knowingly acted in a role as an administrator, others involved in the scheme conspired to distribute spam and phishing emails, which contained links to compromised web sites. Victims who visited these web sites were infected with the malware, which Bogachev and others utilized to steal money from the victims’ bank accounts. This online account takeover fraud has been investigated by the FBI since the summer of 2009.

 Starting in September of 2011, the FBI began investigating a modified version of the Zeus Trojan, known as GameOver Zeus (GOZ). It is believed GOZ is responsible for more than one million computer infections, resulting in financial losses of more than $100 million.

 On August 22, 2012, Bogachev was indicted under the nickname “lucky12345” by a federal grand jury in the District of Nebraska on charges of Conspiracy to Participate in Racketeering Activity; Bank Fraud; Conspiracy to Violate the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act; Conspiracy to Violate the Identity Theft and Assumption Deterrence Act; and Aggravated Identity Theft. On May 19, 2014, Bogachev was indicted in his true name by a federal grand jury in the Western District of Pennsylvania on charges of Conspiracy; Computer Fraud; Wire Fraud; Bank Fraud; and Money Laundering. On May 30, 2014, a criminal complaint was issued in the District of Nebraska that ties the previously indicted nickname of "lucky12345" to Bogachev and charges him with Conspiracy to Commit Bank Fraud. |||||