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Videogamers no better at talking while driving

ScienceDaily (June 13, 2012) ? No matter how much time you've spent training your brain to multitask by playing "Call of Duty," you're probably no better at talking on the phone while driving than anybody else.

A study by the Visual Cognition Laboratory at Duke University wanted to see whether gamers who have spent hours in front of a screen simultaneously watching the map, scanning doorways for bad guys and listening to the chatter of their fellow gamers could answer questions and drive at the same time. The finding: not so much.

"It doesn't matter how much you've trained your brain, we just aren't set up to do this," said Stephen Mitroff, associate professor of psychology and neuroscience and member of the Duke Institute for Brain Sciences.

The lab study measured the performance of 60 undergraduate students on three visual tasks, and then repeated each task while the subject answered Trivial Pursuit questions over a speakerphone. "This was meant to mostly mimic a cell phone conversation," Mitroff says without a trace of irony.

The tasks were the video driving game "TrackMania," a standard multiple-object tracking test that is something like a video version of a shell game, and a timed paper-and-pencil administration of hidden pictures puzzles from Highlights Magazine.

The gamers, all men who regularly played first-person shooter games, were significantly better at driving TrackMania with a steering wheel and pedals than the non-gamers, beating them by about 10 seconds on average. The non-gamers, 19 men and seven women, did just as well as the gamers on the multiple moving objects test and the Highlights puzzles.

It was difficult, acknowledges lead author Sarah Donahue who recently completed her Ph.D. at Duke, to find non-gaming men and gaming women on a college campus.

Performance on the driving test was most harmed by talking on the phone, though it also declined on the other two tests. The gamers drove the racetrack about 2 seconds slower while multitasking, dropping from a mean of 101.7 seconds to 103 seconds. The non-gamers were 10 seconds slower, dropping from 112.9 seconds to 122.5.

In multiple-object tracking and the image search puzzle, both gamers and non-gamers saw similar declines in performance while multi-tasking.

So for most people, Mitroff says, multitasking is probably a bad idea. But there is one small exception. A 2010 study by University of Utah psychologists Jason Watson and David Strayer found five people among 200 undergraduates who truly could multitask without a loss of performance, whom they dubbed "supertaskers."

But the other 97.5 percent of humanity presumably includes the erratic guy you were commuting behind this morning, and you, for that matter.

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Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Duke University. The original article was written by Karl Leif Bates.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.


Journal Reference:

  1. Sarah E. Donohue, Brittany James, Andrea N. Eslick, Stephen R. Mitroff. Cognitive pitfall! Videogame players are not immune to dual-task costs. Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics, 2012; DOI: 10.3758/s13414-012-0323-y

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

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Through The Fire: An Ex-Spouse Is Just a Friend You Haven't Met ...

Y?all, this is a very special edition of Through The Fire, because the author is a friend and one of my favorite writers on the internet ? Jen from The Trephine???and also because her post is one I truly and honestly want *everyone* to read: married, divorced, or otherwise. I think it?s just that important and awesome. Please to enjoy.

*

Through The Fire is a series of reader submissions. It offers people a safe, anonymous place to tell their personal stories of separation and divorce, with the intention of fostering empathy and compassion around the shared experience of having a marriage fail. If you would like to submit an original, unpublished story to this series,?click here. Today?s guest post is by Jennifer Gilbert.

through the fire Through The Fire: An Ex Spouse Is Just a Friend You Havent Met Yet

The day I got divorced, my soon-to-be ex-husband and I rode to the courthouse together. In his car, Jeff and I were amiable enough, if a bit nervous about what getting really, truly, officially divorced would feel like.

I stood in front of the judge, next to my much wealthier ex, and reassured His Honor that no, I didn?t want any money, and yes, I was sure.

With that, our divorce was declared final, and as we turned and headed out the door, Jeff strode briskly away from me and called over his shoulder, ?You should have asked the judge for cab fare, BITCH,? as he left me at the courthouse to fend for myself.

I trotted after him in the hallway to catch back up, and then we laughed and went to lunch. We did that because Jeff and I are those people ? we are your dinner-party anecdote. We are your proof that it can be done. We are the little divorced couple that could.

****

After we separated, we lived on opposite sides of the country for a number of years, but these days, as a result of sheer coincidence and Jeff?s nomadic lifestyle, he lives an eight-minute walk from me. I have keys to his apartment and often let myself in to take care of his rabbit (our rabbit, actually, adopted years before we split up) while he?s away. Yes, it is strange to routinely open his door and walk into his empty home and see some of our old things living their new lives, to open cabinets with my dishes stacked in them and to sit on my old couch. No, I haven?t unscrewed all of his lightbulbs or replaced any of his shoes with a smaller but otherwise identical pair. I haven?t even dipped his toothbrush in anything at all, much less anything deeply unsavory or conducive to hepatitis.

I did once paw through all of his possessions while peering through the splayed fingers of my other hand, but I was experiencing a dire need for duct tape and it couldn?t be helped.

We trade our old possessions back and forth; he needed my snowboard so often that I eventually just gave it to him. He borrowed my car for a road trip last year and returned it to me detailed and with a full tank of gas. We have dinner now and again, though not particularly often, as we?re both quite busy and both cognizant of the fact that boundaries are healthy. We did go to Spain together once, in an opportunity too good to turn down. (We tried to sleep on our respective twin beds, but had to swap in order to be on the right ?side.?) When we do visit now, we often sound like cousins or fraternity brothers: Above all else, I simply want to know how everyone is doing. I encourage him to date nice girls, and he always makes it clear that my boyfriend is invited to dinner.

Jeff is not the first person I would call in a crisis, nor should he be. But I know that if I really and truly needed him, he would do what he could to help ? if not as a nod to me, as a nod to my family, to my father and mother, to all of the people who once watched us promise to take care of one another.

****

We are inspiring to some and quite controversial to others. People tell us that our relationship is unnatural, though I?m not sure how. I guess mortal enemies are ?natural? in the same way that picking lice off one another or gnawing your way through your newborn?s umbilical cord is natural, but I would hope that modern society would be better at grasping the logical disconnect between ?She was my favorite person in the world? and ?I hate her guts and never want to see her again.?

I think a lot of people decide that we must simply not have had very severe issues as a married couple, the same way that your ego forces you to assume that anyone skinnier or richer or happier than you are is also luckier than you are. Sometimes those people really are luckier, and sometimes they?re not. All I can tell you is that we had our own very serious problems, that our decision to divorce was an emotionally devastating one for both of us, and that diplomacy was incredibly challenging in those first few months. You can believe me, or not, but the gory details are no one?s business, and we agreed long ago to keep them out of the public eye in the name of preserving each other?s reputations and keeping our mutual friends and family members from feeling as if they have to choose sides.

The societal and personal benefits of peace ? not peace as some kindly Jesuslike selfless gesture but as something we pursue for our own sakes, for our own well-being and health ? are not undocumented. Even back when humans were still hacking at one another with hatchets, we could see the appeal, which is why we literally buried those weapons in a ceremonial truce every once in a while, though admittedly not as often as we could have.

Even if it?s difficult to imagine yourself in my situation, it is worth your while to try. The divorce rate is ? well, everyone knows what it is.

I haven?t witnessed much of a cultural response to that notorious statistic beyond a lot of pearl-clutching and insisting that you guys, we all like, REALLY need to start staying married. These people repeatedly remind us that marriage requires a lot of hard work and commitment, in case we?re all imbeciles who have foolishly assumed it?s cool to treat our marriages with the same lax approach we took toward the goldfish we won at the carnival when we were six. The movement toward the preservation of marriage is as vehement and generally ineffective as ever ? though I?d argue it does sometimes keep really vulnerable men and women in abusive relationships. Meanwhile, the movement toward friendly divorce is generally seen as blasphemous and culturally reckless, just like those hellbound liberals who keep offering free condoms to teenagers, which of course only encourages them. One look at that prophylactic tube being rolled down the shaft of a banana is all it takes to erode the otherwise steadfast willpower of teenagers, driving them past the point of no return and into a lustful frenzy that will consume our nation. Everyone knows that.

I wish the movement toward learning to live with divorce were louder. I wish it could compete with the ?divorce is not an option? folks, who seem not only painfully unfamiliar with the legal system (where divorce is, I assure you, absolutely an option), but also blissfully unaware that sometimes, people leave their spouses, and those left behind get no say in the matter, and it would be lovely if society would stop traumatizing them even further by judging the everloving shit out of them.

The expectation for, pressure toward, and societal support for amicable divorce needs to get stronger. I would argue that few issues are so culturally pressing for our generation?s children ? not to mention our generation?s poor friends who are caught in the middle and unsure of which of us they?re supposed to invite to dinner parties ? as our society?s profound need to figure out how to get over ourselves and get the fuck along, for all our sakes.

This isn?t just some hippie notion that I cobbled together out of idealism, naivete, and unicorns. I have personally seen how ill-equipped we are as a society to cope with divorce and how damaging that is. I worked as a legal assistant and spent my days watching people do horrible things each other. Divorcing someone who hates your guts can cost you thousands and thousands of dollars. It can trap you geographically. It can consume your schedule. It can drain you in every way possible.

I once read that litigation is like making love to an 800-pound gorilla: you are not finished until it is finished. I have it on good authority that this is true.

I managed expensive, tearful mediation sessions over Tupperware. TUPPERWARE. Between two grown adults who were unwilling even to speak to one another. All because we as a society are not very good at coping with, if you will excuse my crass way of putting it, epic romantic butthurt.

I happened to hold this job while in the thick of my own separation. Let me tell you, it puts things in perspective. When you walk down the street to the courthouse every day to file piles and piles of dead trees dedicated to other people?s bitter diatribes, you realize how exhausting and expensive it is to have enemies. You spend your days on the phone listening to the rants of people who are eaten up by it, who can?t stop railing against what this person has DONE to them and is DOING to them and it?s not FAIR, and you see so clearly that no one wins except the lawyers. You realize how ridiculous it really is to find someone else?s existence so intolerable that you are willing to sacrifice your very happiness just to punish them ? or to become so entitled to your own customized universe that you think it?s perfectly reasonable to expect that person to get off your lawn, stay away from your Internet, waive all claims to your friends, give up their children, and maintain a 100-yard distance at all times or face the legal consequences, just in case anyone had any doubt of the depth of your disappointment in them.

Like it or not, divorcing people, you are part of a community that, thanks to technological advances like Facebook, gets more intimate every day. Like it or not, you are going to have to learn to share that community with someone who not only let you down, but also proceeded to have the audacity to continue being alive. Some people have all the nerve, seriously.

****

If you want your hypothetical or your very real divorce to be as healthy as something like this can be, you have to do a few things, and a few of them have to happen very early on.

If it?s too late for you, tell your friends, okay?

REFUSE TO WED THE BITTER
Marry a man (or woman) who has a healthy, mature attitude toward exes, someone who is capable of not taking even the most devastating romantic wounds too personally. Marry a guy who accepts that if another person didn?t want to be with him, it was probably for the best that everyone went their separate ways. If his every ex is described as a sack of crap who betrayed him by callously breaking his heart, you need to RUN, okay? I cannot put enough syllables in that directive: RU-HUH-HUH-UN. It absolutely takes two.

I cannot tell you how often someone tells me they wish they had my divorce, but the other person simply will not speak to them (or worse).

So if you want a chance at a good divorce, prevention is everything. Marry the guy who will still write a professional letter of recommendation for an ex trying to get back on her feet. Marry the woman who mailed him his favorite sweatshirt when she found it hidden in the back of the closet, months later. Marry THOSE people all you want. Marry them ten times! The worst you will suffer is a couple hundred dollars in court costs. Well, that, and the emotionally flaying loss of your innocence as you arrive at the demoralizing realization that white dresses and really nice centerpieces, no matter how carefully you chose them on Pinterest, do not actually conjure a magical spell that will protect your relationship from much of anything ? nor was your relationship really all that special in the first place, bee tee dubs.

But that soul-crushing denouement only happens in the first divorce. I hope.

ARRIVE AT A PRE-PARENTING AGREEMENT
If you have children, have them with someone who is going to put those children first ? someone who understands that children deserve a team of parents who are willing to give them not only a loving atmosphere, but a united, consistent approach to raising them. Someone who understands that, unless you are an actual toothless, bank-robbing crack whore who poses a very real danger to your offspring, you have rights to your children that no amount of romantic devastation should be able to dissolve.

Nothing complicates a divorce like children. Have them with someone who is intellectually and emotionally capable of enduring that complexity with a relative amount of grace. Talk about custody. Talk about what would be important to you if you were raising a child with someone you were no longer in love with ? religion? Location?

I have no idea why pre-parenting agreements aren?t a legal standard ? I?ve watched parents spend their life savings and compromise their own children?s futures in order to arrive at an accord that they could have laid out in advance much more easily. No one likes thinking about divorce before their children even exist, but it?s even less fun to think about when the time comes and you?re too irritated with each other to agree on anything.

JUST SHUT UP ABOUT IT ALREADY
Table the topics that don?t matter anymore. The time to lay your hurts and objections at the other person?s feet have passed. You?re breaking up. If you couldn?t solve it when you were striving to save your marriage, you certainly aren?t going to solve it now ? not only that, but now that you no longer share a hamper, it?s irrelevant which of you did all the laundry and which of you was a lazy good-for-nothing who only ever had clean underwear because of you, AHEM.

It?s nice if everyone can apologize sort of generically in the name of friendship, but the two of you do not have the same version of events. You are not historians, and perfect accord is not a requirement. You?re 100%?right, and he or she is 100% wrong, and you were horrifically maligned?despite your flawless performance as a spouse, OBVIOUSLY, but other?people are surprisingly unreceptive to testimonials that make them sound like assholes. Yeah, I don?t get it either.

Even perfect people like us are chronically misunderstood sometimes. Give it up. Be misunderstood. It won?t kill you, and the truth doesn?t matter much now to anyone but you, not in any practical way.

RECOGNIZE WHAT YOUR ARGUMENT IS REALLY ABOUT
I mean, it could be about Tupperware. It could be. Maybe you just really love Tupperware. It could also be about the fact that he cheated on you with your whore of a Pilates instructor, though.

When you are experiencing loss, you will cling to anything, including ?priceless? mementos that you hadn?t so much as thought about in years. If you can?t acknowledge what you?re really angry about and remind yourself that profound loss is an inherent part of this experience, you?ll camp out on any battleground you can find whether it?s really going to make you feel better or not. Don?t do that, okay? It?s expensive. New Tupperware is much cheaper.

ACCEPT THE AWKWARD
Don?t just accept the awkward. EMBRACE the awkward, because oh man, this is going to be so fucking awkward. Remember that time you dropped your box of condoms while standing in the grocery-store aisle, and someone picked them up for you, and that someone turned out to be your boyfriend?s dad? That?s nothing. You haven?t dragged a solitary index finger across the SURFACE of awkward until you decide to reshape your marriage into a functional post-divorce relationship that society is
willing to accept.

Ever enjoyed a friendly get-together in order to split up your wedding pictures? How about extending an olive branch by inviting your ex to the family Christmas even after you?ve separated and are both dating someone else, so you can watch everyone stammer and stare at the tablecloth as they try to adjust to this new reality? How about bring up this unconventional relationship to dates and explaining that your baggage comes with the deal?

If you think that the first time I saw my ex leaning on my fence and my boyfriend standing in our yard talking to him, my brain didn?t absolutely sneeze itself out my ears in a gray mist, you are overestimating how zen I could possibly ever manage to be.

But awkwardness is necessary, and awkwardness will not actually catch you on fire despite your firm belief to the contrary, and awkwardness is STILL vastly preferable to mediated Tupperware fights. Trust me.

****

We did as much of the negotiating as we could ourselves before we called the professionals. By the time we arrived at the lawyer?s office, we had officially divided everything that could be considered mutual property. Retirement accounts had been split in half, I had taken over the title on the car, and so on. We had worked on our relationship and navigated some very terse moments and arrived at a good place. It had taken two years, but we had set ourselves up for the easiest divorce that is legally possible.

We entertained our lawyer with the slapstick routine we produce together when we?re nervous, and we asked whether we could get divorced on our eighth anniversary ? you know, just for a nice neat ending. She was flabbergasted by our dynamic, but she did seem to enjoy the whole thing, even serving as our divorce photographer. We had originally joked that we would get official divorce pictures ? images of us sitting at opposite ends of a beautiful park bench with our arms crossed and our chins jutting out, perhaps ? but we never made the time.

She did snap this picture of us, though, right under the Domestic Relations Court sign:

Jens wedding day Through The Fire: An Ex Spouse Is Just a Friend You Havent Met Yet

Plenty of people were getting married at the courthouse that day; apparently they do those right before they do all the divorces, because apparently the court enjoys delivering a little poignancy with its decrees. It was easy to tell which was which, of course. The soon-to-be-newlyweds were nervous and clingy and giggly, and the divorcing people were slouched in chairs on opposite sides of the hallway, not speaking to anyone, staring at the floor.

?I feel like I?m at a middle-school dance,? I whispered to Jeff, gesturing to the two rows of gender-segregated wallflowers.

?Speak for yourself,? he muttered back. ?This is a great place to find single chicks on the rebound.?

When it was our turn in line, our elderly, sweet bailiff initially mistook us for one of the marrying couples until he saw that we already had the same name. We reassured him for a moment or two that there was nothing to be depressed about, explaining our overall philosophy and telling him we were proud to be different, that we had worked hard to be different.

?It?s too bad you two couldn?t have made it,? he said, with that touch of sadness we always see in people when we talk to them about our experiences, even when everyone is trying to keep the mood light. I?ve accepted that sadness, especially in myself, and it?s all right.

?Well ? maybe we did,? I said. ?Maybe you just have to redefine making it.?

I really do believe that we can.

*

If you would like to submit an original, unpublished story to this series,?click here ? the submission form is completely anonymous.

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U.S. Postal Service going way of Greece, chief says

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air conditioning repair, ac filter - What Makes the Best Filter?

We all have air conditioning systems in our homes to keep us cool when the weather is too hot. These devices are very useful especially in the summer but one of the most important parts of the air conditioner is the ac filter because it is something that keeps pollutants and allergens from entering your home. It needs to be replaced at least once a month even when you do not use it because dirt can rest on it and it will spread throughout your home when you turn on your air conditioner. When you change your AC filter, make sure that you are changing it with something that filters most of the pollutants so you only get clean air.

The standard ac filter that comes with most air conditioning products does not do that good of a job. It only filters the bigger particles in the air which means that the tiny pollutants are still able to pass through it and enter your home. After a month of use, you should change your filter to something that is more capable when it comes to filtering.

An electrostatic filter is much similar to an electronic filter and they trap a huge percentage of the pollutants that are in the air. It uses electrical charges to draw in the pollutants so that it does not get through the filter. Because of its electric properties, it does not have to be changed as often as the standard filter but getting one cost more money.

The HEPA filter is the best filter out there which is also known as the High Efficiency Particulate Arresting filter. This type of filter removes almost all particles in the air that is more than 0.3 micrometers. This is very small already and no other filter can do a better job than the HEPA filter.

During hot summer months, people may pay high electricity bills in an attempt to cool off. However, introduction of solar air conditioning has come with a series of benefits that people should explore. As a result, the application can be widely applied to reduce electricity costs, especially in deserts or houses located in arid areas. Prior to investing in a solar air conditioning system, people should do comparisons to choose the best cooling appliances.

A heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) system is among the major energy consumers in a modern home. For instance, over 50 percent of a household's energy expenditure is associated with HVAC systems. Therefore, people should take a number of steps to reduce this expenditure while promoting a healthier living environment. This is where a solar hvac system can come in handy. These can be active or passive solar air conditioning systems.

After purchasing the air conditioning systems that will cater for all their needs, individuals can then enjoy a series of benefits associated with these technological innovations.

People will spend less money on electricity. This technological innovation provides an unmatched energy-saving avenue.

The invention of solar air conditioning came with a myriad of advantages. Therefore, this is a must appliance for people who live in deserts or warm arid areas.

Hi, I am Cathy. Air Conditioning Repair Weston is a licensed and insured A.C repair company, serving the Weston area since 1990. Visit us at duct cleaning in Palmetto Estates?fl

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US coal use falling fast; utilities switch to gas

NEW YORK (AP) ? America is shoveling coal to the sidelines.

The fuel that powered the U.S. from the industrial revolution into the iPhone era is being pushed aside as utilities switch to cleaner and cheaper alternatives.

The share of U.S. electricity that comes from coal is forecast to fall below 40 percent for the year, its lowest level since World War II. Four years ago, it was 50 percent. By the end of this decade, it is likely to be near 30 percent.

"The peak has passed," says Jone-Lin Wang, head of Global Power for the energy research firm IHS CERA.

Utilities are aggressively ditching coal in favor of natural gas, which has become cheaper as supplies grow. Natural gas has other advantages over coal: It produces far fewer emissions of toxic chemicals and gases that contribute to climate change, key attributes as tougher environmental rules go into effect.

Natural gas will be used to produce 30 percent of the country's electricity this year, up from 20 percent in 2008. Nuclear accounts for 20 percent. Hydroelectric, wind, solar and other renewables make up the rest.

The shift from coal is reverberating across Appalachia, where mining companies are laying off workers and cutting production. Utilities across the country are grappling with how to store growing piles of unused coal. And legal disputes are breaking out as they try to cancel contracts and defer deliveries.

? Mining company Alpha Natural Resources of Bristol, Va., plans to produce 11.5 million fewer tons of coal this year, a decline of 11 percent, because so many customers have requested deferrals. The company has announced that 12 mining operations in Kentucky and West Virginia will be idled or slowed, and 353 jobs cut.

? Patriot Coal, a mining company based in St. Louis, closed a mine in Kentucky, idled several others in Kentucky and West Virginia, and has cut 1,000 jobs. The company's stock has fallen below $2, down from nearly $25 a year ago, and the company's CEO, Richard Whiting, was replaced at the end of May.

? GenOn, a wholesale power producer based in Houston, has invoked a legal clause typically used after natural disasters to try to stop suppliers from delivering more coal to already overloaded plants. "We just can't physically take it right now," says GenOn CEO Edward Muller.

Coal has dominated the U.S. power industry for so long because it's a cheap and abundant domestic resource. The U.S. is the world's second-largest coal producer after China, and it has the world's biggest reserves ? enough to last more than 200 years.

Coal has also enjoyed strong political support because of the jobs it provides in mining and transportation. That helped coal thrive even as environmental concerns over mining practices and air quality grew.

Just five years ago, coal was flourishing in the U.S. With electricity demand and the price of natural gas both rising, coal was viewed as essential to keeping power costs under control. Utilities drew up plans to build dozens of coal-fired plants.

But around the same time, a revolution was under way in the natural gas industry. Drillers figured how to tap enormous deposits of previously inaccessible reserves. As supplies grew and the price of natural gas plummeted, the ground shifted under the electric-power industry.

Now coal is being beaten at its own game. Natural gas has become a cheap and abundant domestic resource, too. And it is more environmentally friendly.

Power plants that burn coal produce more than 90 times as much sulfur dioxide, five times as much nitrogen oxide and twice as much carbon dioxide as those that run on natural gas, according to the Government Accountability Office, the regulatory arm of Congress. Sulfur dioxide causes acid rain; nitrogen oxides cause smog; and carbon dioxide is a so-called greenhouse gas that traps heat in the atmosphere.

A pair of clean air rules enacted by the Environmental Protection Agency over the past year tightens limits on power-plant emissions of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen dioxide, and place new limits on mercury, a poison found in coal. This will force between 32 and 68 of the dirtiest and oldest coal plants in the country to close over the next three years as the rules go into effect, according to an AP survey of power plant operators conducted late last year.

Coal was hit with a potentially bigger environmental blow in March when the EPA issued guidelines that could limit greenhouse gas emissions from new power plants as early as 2013. Once the guidelines go into effect, no coal plants will be built unless utilities can develop a cost-effective way to capture carbon dioxide, analysts say. That technology has been slow to develop and is very expensive.

"Even without the EPA rules, coal is not really competitive," Wang says.

Coal executives are hardly giving up. Nick DeIuliis, President of Consol Energy, a coal and natural gas producer based in Canonsburg, Pa., doubts the EPA's restrictions on greenhouse gases will survive long term because of the economic harm he says they will inflict.

Consol and other U.S. coal companies hope to be able to keep mines active by exporting more of the country's huge reserves. Last year U.S. coal exports hit a record 107 million short tons. High grade coal that is used to make steel is in particular demand in developing countries such as China, India and Brazil.

DeIuliis says the price of natural gas will rebound over time and that coal will once again account for half the nation's electricity. "This is a cycle," he says.

The futures price of natural gas hit a 10-year low of $1.91 per thousand cubic feet in April. It closed Monday at $2.22 but would have to more than double from there to convince utilities that have a choice of fuels to return to coal whenever possible.

Utilities are forecast to burn 796 million tons of coal this year, a 14 percent decline from last year and the fewest tons since 1992, according to Energy Department data.

Demand for coal has fallen even faster than the environmentalists who have been lobbying against coal had anticipated.

Bruce Nilles, director of the Sierra Club's Beyond Coal campaign, says the shift was accelerated by the low price of natural gas. That, along with tougher environmental rules and alternatives such as wind and solar will keep the pressure on coal. "We won't go backwards," he says.

Jonathan Fahey can be reached at http://twitter.com/JonathanFahey .

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Burger King bets on bacon sundae for summertime

This undated product image provided by Burger King shows a bacon sundae. Burger King, the world?s second-biggest hamburger chain is introducing a bacon sundae as part of its new menu items for the summer on Thursday, June 14, 2012. The sundae has 510 calories, 18 grams of fat and 61 grams of sugar.(AP Photo/Burger King, Noel Barnhurst)

This undated product image provided by Burger King shows a bacon sundae. Burger King, the world?s second-biggest hamburger chain is introducing a bacon sundae as part of its new menu items for the summer on Thursday, June 14, 2012. The sundae has 510 calories, 18 grams of fat and 61 grams of sugar.(AP Photo/Burger King, Noel Barnhurst)

NEW YORK (AP) ? Burger King wants to lure customers this summer with a barbecue party ? and a bacon sundae.

The world's second biggest hamburger chain on Thursday is launching several pork, beef and chicken sandwiches as limited time offers. And for a sweet ending, the company is also offering a bacon sundae ? vanilla soft serve with fudge, caramel, bacon crumbles and a piece of bacon ? that started in Nashville, Tenn. earlier this year.

The salty-sweet dessert clocks in at 510 calories, 18 grams of fat and 61 grams of sugar.

The limited-time items are Burger King's latest push to win back customers with a revived menu and reverse sliding market share, an effort that started soon after the company was taken private by the private equity firm 3G Capital in late 2010.

Earlier this year, Burger King launched its biggest-ever menu expansion including fruit smoothies, snack wraps and new salads. The items were intended to go after a broader audience of moms and families, a shift from the chain's previous strategy of courting young men with calorie bombs.

Core menu items, such as French fries and the Whopper, have also been tweaked as part of the company's efforts to improve food quality. Burger King is trying to underscore its own focus on ingredients with a new tag line, "Taste Is King," which replaces "Have It Your Way." A new ad has been celebrating summer barbecues to highlight the chain's emphasis on fire-grilling burgers. The new summer items will be featured in ads starting Thursday.

This month, 3G plans to take Burger King public on the New York Stock Exchange.

Wendy's is also revamping its menu to improve ingredients and recast itself as a higher-end burger chain. The makeovers by the hamburger giants come at a time when the traditional fast-food chains are seeing more competition from smaller players such as Five Guys Burgers and Smashburger that offer higher-quality food and alternatives such as Subway.

Burger King isn't the only fast-food chain that's trying to draw attention with unusual offerings. Taco Bell earlier this year introduced its tacos with Doritos shells and a "nacho burrito" that includes corn chips.

The rest of Burger King's summer menu includes:

?Memphis Pulled Pork BBQ Sandwich.

?Carolina BBQ Whopper or Chicken Sandwich.

?Texas BBQ Whopper or Chicken Sandwich.

?Sweet potato fries.

?Frozen Lemonade.

The items will be available through the summer or while supplies last.

Associated Press

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Egypt Justice Ministry authorizes civilian arrests by military

The decision, published in the official gazette, would remain in effect until a new?constitution?is in place, but the process of writing a?constitution?has hit snags.

By Maggie Michael,?Associated Press / June 13, 2012

A boy holds bread as he passes a poster of presidential candidate Ahmed Shafiq in Cairo on June 13. The Brotherhood's Mohamed Mursi will face Shafiq, the last prime minister of ousted leader Hosni Mubarak, in a presidential run-off on June 16 and 17, the climax of Egypt's first free leadership contest after 16 months of military rule.

Suhaib Salem/Reuters

Enlarge

Egypt's?Justice Ministry on Wednesday gave the country's military police and intelligence agents the right to arrest civilians over wide range of suspected crimes, including "resisting authorities," sparking charges that the country's military rulers want to extend their grip on power even after handing over to civilians.

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The decision comes during heightened tensions in?Egypt, three days before a highly polarized presidential runoff election and a day before rulings by the country's highest court that could dissolve the Islamist-dominated parliament and even cancel the Saturday-Sunday presidential vote.

The decision, published in the official gazette, would remain in effect until a new?constitution?is in place. The process of writing a?constitution?has hit snags. On Tuesday the Islamist-dominated parliament voted on an assembly to draft the document, but liberals boycotted the session. An earlier attempt to name the body collapsed because of opposition from liberals. Both times they charged that Islamists were unfairly dominating the procedure.

QUIZ: How well do you know Middle East geography?

Military analysts said the military arrest powers were a temporary measure intended to fill a security vacuum resulting from last year's uprising, when the police force collapsed and disappeared from the streets during the first days of the mass protests.

"The police force has not recovered completely, and security is not back," said Sayyed Hashim, a former military prosecutor, in a TV interview.

Rights activists warned the new decision creates a reproduction of notorious emergency laws that expired recently and said that it also could extend the rule of the generals, even if they transfer power to civilians on time by the end of the month.

"This is a declaration of martial law, as if we are living in banana republic," said Gamal Eid, a prominent rights lawyer.

Egypt's?notorious emergency law, which expired on May 31, gave broad powers to detain and arrest for the police, who were accused of abusing their far-reaching authority.

For three decades under President Hosni Mubarak, abuses were rarely punished. At one point, human rights groups said there were more than 10,000 people in detention.

Even after the emergency laws lapsed, the generals who took power after Mubarak was deposed in last year's uprising have rounded up protesters, referring them to military tribunals known for swift and harsh rulings.

The military has pledged to turn power over to a civilian government once a new president is named. The runoff election for a new president is set for Saturday and Sunday. Even then, the military is intent on protecting its powerful position, including widespread economic interests.

Court appeals could upset the timetable.?Egypt's?highest court could rule this week on a challenge to the presidential election and another seeking to overturn the parliamentary election, which put Islamists in a commanding position.

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