Parks open, workers back in office after shutdown

Yosemite Park Ranger Ron Morton takes a payment from a visitor at the front gate after the reopening of Yosemite National Park, Calif., Thursday, Oct. 17, 2013. The park reopened Wednesday night with the end of the 16-day partial government shutdown. (AP Photo/Gary Kazanjian)

Yosemite Park Ranger Ron Morton takes a payment from a visitor at the front gate after the reopening of Yosemite National Park, Calif., Thursday, Oct. 17, 2013. The park reopened Wednesday night with the end of the 16-day partial government shutdown. (AP Photo/Gary Kazanjian)

Visitors at Tunnel View, like Kaori Nishimura and Eriko Kuboi, from Japan, pose in front of Half Dome, center facing, during the reopening of Yosemite National Park, Calif., Thursday, Oct. 17, 2013. Tunnel View is a scenic vista which shows off El Capitan, Half Dome and Bridalveil Fall. The park reopened Wednesday night with the end of the 16-day partial government shutdown. (AP Photo/Gary Kazanjian)

People form a tour group at the Smithsonian's Air and Space Museum in Washington, Thursday, Oct. 17, 2013. Barriers went down at federal memorials, National Park Service sites, as well as the Smithsonian Institution's network of popular museums and thousands of furloughed federal workers returned to work across the country Thursday after 16 days off the job due to the partial government shutdown. (AP Photo/Cliff Owen)

Farmer Kevin Scott unloads a truckload of soybeans Thursday, Oct. 17, 2013, on his land near Valley Springs, S.D. He said most farmers are more focused on harvesting than the government reopening but they are concerned Congress hasn’t passed a new farm bill. (AP Photo/Carson Walker)

White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough, center, greets federal employees at the entrance to the Eisenhower Executive Office Building as he they return to the White House in Washington, Thursday, Oct. 17, 2013. Lawmakers Wednesday voted to avoid a financial default and reopen the government after a 16-day partial shutdown. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)

From the Liberty Bell to Alcatraz, federal landmarks and offices reopened Thursday. Furloughed employees were relieved to get back to work — even if faced with email backlogs — but many worried about another such disruption in a matter of months.

"We'd hate to have to live through this all over again," Richard Marcus, a 29-year employee of the National Archives in Washington, said after the government shutdown finally ended.

Nationwide, from big-city office buildings to wilderness outposts, innumerable federal services and operations shifted back into gear after 16 days.

The U.S. Forest Service started lifting a logging ban on national forests. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services restarted the computerized system used to verify the legal status of workers. Boat trips resumed to Alcatraz, the former federal prison in San Francisco Bay, with 1,600 tickets snapped up by tourists in the first hour of business.

In Alaska, federal officials rushed to get the red king crab fishing season underway. The opening had been delayed because furloughed workers were not around to issue crab-quota permits.

National Park Service Director Jonathan Jarvis said all 401 national park units — from the Golden Gate National Recreation Area in California to Acadia National Park in Maine — were reopening Thursday.

More than 20,000 National Park Service employees had been among the 800,000 federal workers sent home at the peak of the shutdown.

Visitors from around the world flocked to Yosemite National Park to see such famous sites as El Capitan and Half Dome after weeks of closure brought local economies to a near standstill.

At Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks, employees were busy with reopening chores. They returned just in time to begin closing the parks up again for the winter in a couple of weeks.

At Philadelphia's Independence National Historical Park, one couple's long wait to see the Liberty Bell and other attractions finally drew to a close.

Karen and Richard Dodds of Oklahoma City were on a quest to see every national park in the U.S. They arrived in Philadelphia about three weeks ago in their motor home, visiting Valley Forge just before the shutdown. They stayed on in the area, awaiting a settlement.

"They didn't solve anything by this," Katie Dodds said of the temporary agreement in Congress that funds the government only through Jan. 15 and gives it the borrowing authority it needs only through Feb. 7. "The worst part is they'll do it again in January and February."

Among the many sites reopening in Washington were the Smithsonian Institution's museums and the World War II memorial on the National Mall, which had been the scene of protests over the shutdown.

Smithsonian spokeswoman Linda St. Thomas said the museum complex lost about $2.8 million in revenue during the shutdown.

The National Zoo was set to reopen Friday, though its popular panda cam went live Thursday morning, giving fans a view of a cub wriggling about as its mother, Mei Xiang, tucked her paws under her chin and watched.

Federal workers who were furloughed or worked without pay during the shutdown will get back pay in their next paychecks, which for most employees come Oct. 29.

Labor Secretary Thomas Perez greeted returning workers with a sympathetic email.

"Unfortunately, as President Obama correctly noted, you are occasionally called on to perform your remarkably important work in a climate that too often treats federal employees and contractors as a punching bag," Perez said.

The Defense Department called back about 7,000 furloughed civilians. In an open letter to the workforce, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said the department still faces budget uncertainty as Congress struggles to pass a 2014 spending bill and deal with automatic budget cuts. Pentagon Comptroller Robert Hale said the department lost at least $600 million worth of productivity during the four days that civilians were furloughed.

The National Institutes of Health warned university scientists not to expect a quick resumption of research dollars.

At the National Institute of Standards and Technology in Gaithersburg, Md., email servers were slowly grinding back into gear.

Fire protection engineer Dan Madrzykowski had been in the office for about half an hour and about 800 emails had popped into his inbox. And that represented less than a week of the shutdown. Still, Madrzykowski said he was pleased to be back.

"Nothing good was coming from keeping the government closed," he said.

Patrice Roberts, who works for Homeland Security, said she wasn't prepared for the emotional lows of the past 16 days.

"It's just frustrating having that kind of control over your life and just having it taken away from me," said Roberts, who is expecting another shutdown in January. "I'll be better prepared next time."

In Pottsville, Pa., several people waited outside the Social Security office ahead of its 9 a.m. opening. James Ulrich, an unemployed 19-year-old, needed a replacement for his lost Social Security card to apply for jobs. He was told a replacement card would take two weeks to arrive.

"I don't have a really good outlook on the government," he said.

In Cincinnati, Renee Yankey, a government alcohol and tobacco tax specialist, was sleep-deprived after staying up late to watch news of the shutdown-ending deal, but otherwise glad to be back at work with the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau.

"I can tell that the alcohol industry missed us," Yankey said. "The first thing I hear is 'I'm so glad I got a person on the phone!'"

In North Little Rock, Ark, Simeon Yates was glad to return to work as an auditor for the Arkansas National Guard.

"It's definitely a relief financially ... knowing that we'll be able to provide for our families again," said Yates, whose wife stays home with their four young children.

"It was hard to explain to the kids," Yates added. "They enjoyed having me home, but when we were just having hot dogs a lot and pancakes ... you know, being small, they didn't necessarily understand that."

____

Associated Press writers Matthew Barakat in Reston, Va.; Ben Nuckols in Springfield, Va.; Dan Sewell in Cincinnati; Michael Rubinkam in Pottsville, Pa.; Jeannie Nuss in North Little Rock, Ark.; Kathy Matheson in Philadelphia; Rachel D'Oro in Anchorage, Alaska; and Jessica Gresko and Sam Hananel in Washington contributed to this report.

Associated PressSource: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/386c25518f464186bf7a2ac026580ce7/Article_2013-10-17-Shutdown-Government%20Reopens/id-8471c28c58b64201aaae6f9dbfb65ffc
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Geography affects what drugs seniors prescribed

WASHINGTON (AP) — Where seniors live makes a difference not only in how much health care they receive but also the medications they're prescribed — as some miss out on key treatments while others get risky ones, new research shows.

More than 1 in 4 patients on Medicare's prescription drug plan filled at least one prescription for medications long deemed high-risk for seniors, according to the study released Tuesday by the Dartmouth Atlas Project.

Seniors who live in Alexandria, La., were more than three times as likely as those in Rochester, Minn., to receive those potentially harmful drugs, which include muscle relaxants and anxiety relievers that can cause excessive sedation, falls and other problems in older adults.

On the flip side, far more seniors who survived a heart attack were filling prescriptions for cholesterol-lowering statin drugs in Ogden, Utah, than in Abilene, Texas — 91 percent compared to just 44 percent, the study found. That's even though statins are proven to reduce those patients' risk of another heart attack.

Even more surprising, the study found just 14 percent of seniors who've broken a bone because of osteoporosis were receiving proven medications to guard against another fracture — ranging from 7 percent of those patients in Newark, N.J., to 28 percent in Honolulu.

"There's no good reason" for that variation, said lead researcher Dr. Jeffrey Munson, an assistant professor at the Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice.

Researchers with the Dartmouth Atlas have long shown that the type and amount of health care that people receive varies widely around the country, and that those who live where Medicare spends more don't get better quality care.

The newest report examined 2010 prescription data from the 37 million patients who get drug coverage under Medicare Part D, and found even more of a mixed picture when it comes to seniors' medications. For example, patients in the South were more likely to fill prescriptions for those riskier medications, but less likely than those in other regions to get the long-recommended treatments for heart and bone conditions.

The average Part D patient filled 49 monthlong prescriptions — either new ones or refills — in 2010.

But the study suggests doctors in some areas prescribe more readily. The highest number of prescriptions filled was in Miami — 63 — and the lowest in Grand Junction, Colo., 39.

Overall, patients in regions where Medicare Part D spent more on medications weren't more likely to receive the most effective medications, the study found.

Yes, seniors who are sicker will use more medications, but the general health of a region's Medicare population explains less than a third of the variation, the researchers concluded.

Patients don't always fill their prescriptions, because of cost or fear of side effects or myriad other reasons — something this study couldn't measure. It also didn't examine differences in benefits between cheaper and more expensive Part D plans.

But if doctors were following guidelines on best medication practices, there would be far less variation around the country, Munson said.

Doctors "really need to ask themselves, 'Is there a good reason why my patients are getting less effective care than patients in the other regions,'" he said.

He urged patients to ask more questions, too: Why is this medicine being prescribed? What are the pros and cons? Is there something else I should consider taking?

The Dartmouth Atlas, funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, studies health trends using Medicare data; similar figures aren't readily available for the general population.

___

Online:

Dartmouth Atlas: http://www.dartmouthatlas.org

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/geography-affects-drugs-seniors-prescribed-203205703--politics.html
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Jon Bon Jovi Walks Super Fan Branka Delic Down the Aisle at Las Vegas Wedding: Picture

Jon Bon Jovi took another trip down the aisle this weekend! The New Jersey-born rocker, 51, made one fan's dreams come true on Saturday, Oct. 12, when he surprised her at her Las Vegas wedding to give her away.

The bride, 34-year-old Branka Delic of Australia, is such a huge Bon Jovi fan that she chose for her nuptials the same chapel where Bon Jovi married his high school sweetheart, Dorothea Hurley, back in 1989. She also started an online campaign (complete with a website and Facebook page) to get the music superstar to give her away to fiance Gonzalo "Gonzo" Cladera.

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"All her life, Branka thought she would marry Bon Jovi himself. Sadly, at the age of 34 she realized this would never happen, and she accepted Gonzo's proposal instead," a statement on her website read. "She might not be marrying Bon Jovi, but the next best option is for her to walk down the same aisle he did 20 good strong years ago, so the stage has been set...The Graceland Chapel, Las Vegas, Nevada."

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Coincidentally (or not), Bon Jovi had a concert at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas on the very same day that Delic and Cladera planned to tie the knot. "The only problem is, there's a real chance Branka will skip out on the wedding and go to the concert instead," her website read. "Gonzo has waited 14 years for this day, and if Branka skips it, he'll have to wait another 14."

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Fortunately for all involved, Gonzo's wait is over. Bon Jovi stepped up and surprised the couple by showing up at the Graceland Chapel, where the rocker (a happily married father of four) walked Delic down the aisle and posed for pictures with the shocked bride.

"Congratulations, @branksd!" he tweeted after the ceremony. "May you & Gonzalo have a lifetime of happiness, love & memories together - ALWAYS!"

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"Thanks, Jon," Delic replied. "You're an amazing human being for taking the time with us. See you in Sydney."

Later, on her Facebook page, she added: "I have memories for life which I'll never forget. Such an amazing man [to] take time from his schedule to come walk this crazy Aussie down the aisle...Jon...I salute! You're everything I ever imagined, an amazing and generous being...YOU MADE MY LIFE, BABY!!"

Source: http://www.usmagazine.com/celebrity-news/news/jon-bon-jovi-walks-super-fan-branka-delic-down-the-aisle-at-las-vegas-wedding-picture-20131410
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For Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, A Mixed Midterm Report Card

Former White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel speaks at his election night party on Feb. 22, 2011, in Chicago. As mayor of Chicago, Emanuel has faced major challenges, ranging from a ballooning deficit to education, the economy and crime.

Kiichiro Sato/AP

Former White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel speaks at his election night party on Feb. 22, 2011, in Chicago. As mayor of Chicago, Emanuel has faced major challenges, ranging from a ballooning deficit to education, the economy and crime.

Kiichiro Sato/AP

A little more than two years ago, Chicago's then-mayor-elect, Rahm Emanuel, expressed his gratitude to supporters on election night.

"Thank you Chicago, for this humbling victory," he told the crowd. "You sure know how to make a guy feel at home."

But today, Emanuel faces sobering challenges common to most of American's biggest cities.

Not only are schools troubled, Chicago's homicide rate spiked last year — a total of 516 murders — the highest in 10 years. Unemployment is 9 percent. And the city's deficit is looming near the $1 billion mark.

And that's just the short list of urgent problems.

Emanuel ran for mayor as a hometown boy, but he was never a part of the political dynasties that have defined Chicago. He'd left his position as White House chief of staff to govern a city controlled for more than 50 years by the Daley family. Richard J. Daley took office in 1955 and passed the power to a few Democratic protégés. Then his son, Richard M. Daley, served six terms before stepping aside in 2011.

The Daley dynasty was, ostensibly, over.

"And let's be honest, it's an impossible act to follow," Emanuel said on election night. "Yet, we have to move forward. And we know that we face serious new challenges."

'More An Operative Than A Manager'

Emanuel's new-guard Democratic credentials were solid: The three-term congressman had served five years as an adviser to the president in the Clinton White House, and then spent two years with President Obama as his chief of staff.

John Kass has been a reporter and columnist at the Chicago Tribune for more than 20 years. No fan of the Daleys, Kass has his doubts about Emanuel, who he says is more a creature of his Washington years than a genuine Chicagoan.

Members of the Chicago Teachers Union, parents, students and other opponents of a plan to close scores of Chicago public schools march through downtown Chicago in March. In the end, the city closed 50 schools, mostly in low-income communities.

Charles Rex Arbogast/AP

Members of the Chicago Teachers Union, parents, students and other opponents of a plan to close scores of Chicago public schools march through downtown Chicago in March. In the end, the city closed 50 schools, mostly in low-income communities.

Charles Rex Arbogast/AP

"He's trying to offer leadership in a very difficult situation," Kass says. "But he's actually more an operative than a manager. His problem is he's his own chief of staff. He's his own press secretary. You know, he's a control freak that way. He's just got to ... step back a little bit."

But, Kass concedes that Emanuel inherited a very troubled city, one that's running out of money.

"So in some sense Rahm is kind of like those lumberjacks that are on a log," he says. "They're rolling their feet ... to stay dry, because if you stop tapping, you'll fall in."

And, Kass says, part of what Emanuel inherited is a seemingly indestructible Democratic Party infrastructure that has outlasted the Daley dynasty, and still provides the framework for how Chicago works — or doesn't.

"This is a Democratic, blue state with Democratic bosses basically controlling it," Kass says. The Daley family controlled the city for half a century, while the Illinois state speaker of the House, Michael Madigan, has controlled the state legislature for about 30 years.

"They're both South Side Irish guys who know how to play," Kass says.

Chicago's Forgotten Victims

Kass says appreciating the context for Chicago's problems is critical, and the real story is often missed.

He says the murder of 15-year-old high school student Hadiya Pendleton in January hit the already suffering city like a cruel insult. The South Side teenager was shot to death while standing with friends in a park. Two weeks earlier, Pendleton performed at Obama's second inauguration.

The president spoke about Pendleton when he gave his State of the Union Address in February, two weeks after she was shot to death; the first lady, Michelle Obama, attended Pendleton's funeral in Chicago.

"She was what I called the perfect victim — young, innocent, people identified with her. She became symbolic," Kass says.

"Unfortunately, in Chicago, there are what I call imperfect victims. ... Every day there are kids like Nazia Banks and other little young boys that I've written about and he falls through the media cracks, he's not beloved or made into an icon for political purposes. He's just forgotten."

The City's Unheard Voices

The real story of Chicago is nuanced — and evaluations of the mayor's tenure vary accordingly.

Laura Washington, a longtime Chicago political analyst and Chicago Sun-Times columnist, says people ask her all the time how the Emanuel administration is doing so far.

Protesters at an anti-gun violence rally in Chicago in February hold up photos of 15-year-old Hadiya Pendleton at the scene where she was killed Jan. 29. She was shot dead two weeks after she performed at President Obama's second inauguration.

Charles Rex Arbogast/AP

Protesters at an anti-gun violence rally in Chicago in February hold up photos of 15-year-old Hadiya Pendleton at the scene where she was killed Jan. 29. She was shot dead two weeks after she performed at President Obama's second inauguration.

Charles Rex Arbogast/AP

"My answer is, you have to ask how Chicago is doing and you have to decide which Chicago you want to ask," she tells NPR's Arun Rath.

For instance, she says, downtown corporate power brokers are very happy with the city's direction.

"But there's another Chicago, and that tends to be among communities of color, that feel their voices have not been heard," Washington says.

Chicagoans appreciate Emanuel's trademark aggressive style, Washington says, but he's not a natural negotiator.

"We love a good fight in Chicago, and we like to get down and dirty," Washington says. "I think that the problem is that he doesn't leave room for dissension, and he doesn't tolerate backtalk."

School Closures, Clashes With Unions

A major controversy was his decision to close 50 schools to help balance the budget.

"The schools were closed in areas that had lost significant population over the last 10 years ... most of them in communities of color, low-income communities," Washington says. "Folks representing those communities — from the teachers to the parents to the students — felt betrayed."

The union issues haven't ended there: Washington says the mayor has picked fights with the police and firefighters unions.

"He's perceived as being a very much pro-corporate, very much pro-privatization, so that has made folks, especially in the union community, very, very hostile to him," she says.

Nonetheless, Washington says she thinks Chicagoans got what they expected — a tough, single-minded, controlling mayor — but they're disappointed that change hasn't come as quickly as they'd like.

"The violence thing is very disturbing I think to a lot of folks, because there's no clear, obvious reasons why Chicago's violence feels so out of control," she says.

Neglect Of Environmental Issues

The problems in Chicago are big enough and stubborn enough that some significant issues linger on the margins of the mayor's agenda.

Lake Michigan and the Chicago River are polluted, and the city faces many energy and environmental justice issues.

But shortly after Emanuel took office, he dismantled the city's Department of Environment, citing budget constraints. Some staffers were cut, while others were moved to different city departments.

Henry Henderson, the Midwest director for the Natural Resources Defense Council, was Chicago's commissioner of the environment under Mayor Richard M. Daley from 1991 until 1998.

Henderson says Emanuel doesn't see the environment as an organizing principle.

"There is a problem of how it fits within a vision of the future of the city," Henderson says. "Clearly, fiscal responsibility, economic development, significant problems with schools and violence are pervasive. How to integrate energy, water quality, air quality within a central part of the initiatives of the city, remain questions."

Tough To Beat

But the biggest question of all is whether Emanuel will try for a second term.

With no significant challengers so far, he has reportedly already raised $5 million for a re-election campaign.

That's a lot of money, but the election is still more than a year away, says Washington, the Chicago Sun-Times columnist. She expects him to triple that amount by election time in 2015.

"I think he's looking really tough to beat right now," she says.

Washington says the mixed results on the issues, and mixed reviews from Chicagoans, don't mean Emanuel can't win a second term — if he wants it.

"One of the things that I think disturbs some voters here is that they feel that Rahm Emanuel's always got one foot in and one foot out," she says. "Some people think he has presidential aspirations, which he's denied repeatedly, but I think people are a little bit wary of whether he's going to be around for the long haul."

Source: http://www.npr.org/2013/10/19/237792692/for-chicago-mayor-rahm-emanuel-a-rough-midterm-report-card?ft=1&f=1001
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Primary fault (Unqualified Offerings)

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Seene Uses Computer Vision To Create Unique And Eerie 3D Images On iPhone

It’s not often that I use a new ‘photo capture’ app and impressed by it within seconds. It’s not that there’s not a lot of cool stuff being built out there, it’s just that the frontiers are getting closer and easier to predict.

That’s not true with Seene, an app by computer vision company Obvious Engineering that leverages smartphone sensors and WebGL to present curious and eerie 3D scenes. The app is the product of four-man team including CEO Andrew McPhee and CTO Sam Hare. The ‘seenes’ themselves are images mapped onto a rough 3D model of your subject that give the feeling of being able to shift perspective even after you’ve shot it.

This produces small three-dimensional digital dioramas of a moment in time and space.

The capture process is simple. You tap on the capture button to shoot an image and then turn your device to capture the sides, top and bottom of your subject. Just a few degrees will do. The image is then processed and mapped onto a simple object that approximates 3D space. You can then view it in 3D or share it with others.

There are a couple of interesting components to Seene, in my view. First, it has the same sort of post-capture feel that Lytro, the focus-stacking camera that everyone loves but that has failed to gain an immense amount of traction in its current hardware form. The power of that kind of experience is interesting in the way that it ‘explodes’ these static images out into things that approximate human vision. In the case of Lytro it’s the way that our eyes nearly instantly re-focus when they travel from object to object. With Seene, it’s our simple but compelling binocular vision that creates a feeling of ‘being there’.

Seene is also an experience that couldn’t exist in the way that it does without the smartphone, something it has in common with other interesting services like FrontBack and Vine. You couldn’t capture a Seene without a mobile camera in your pocket attached to accelerometers and a powerful dual-core processor that renders the images. The only mass-produced product like this that’s ever been made is the smartphone.

The processing power required is one reason that only iPhone 4S and newer devices can create Seenes, though most other devices can view them.

There have been plenty of other experiments using computer vision to model 3D scenes on the web, but Seene doesn’t use cloud processing to accomplish the unique images it produces. Instead everything, from capture to mapping to processing is done right on the device. And the processing time is nearly instantaneous, a fully rendered Seene pops up almost immediately after shooting on new devices like the iPhone 5s.

Obvious Engineering was founded in March of 2012 and typically works on projects for clients using their computer vision expertise. Seene, says McPhee came out of a desire of the team to build “something that was our idea.”

“Photos drive social communication,” McPhee says and that made them want to do something on a ‘mass scale’ that had the potential to reach hundreds of millions of users. It’s the first thing they’ve attempted to do on this scale.

The experience of viewing a Seene in the hand is fairly visceral, as tilting your hand or body will move the 3D image around as if you were ‘looking around the corner’ of an image. I’ve experienced the desire to do that with really compelling images before, but this is the first time I’ve been able to do it and the effect has really impressed me.

You can also view Seenes in browsers that are WebGL compatible like Chrome and new versions of Safari.

Hare says they’ve had testers in London like directors and photographers producing compelling material that ‘feels’ like a photograph but do things with the app that they hadn’t foreseen. McPhee says that these results come from users who have “different ways of looking at the world.”

And indeed some of the Seenes out there are pretty clever, though it does take a bit of experimentation to get results that look great. In my experience, the best subjects are shot at a medium distance, not close up. Moving subjects aren’t really an option at this point though an image of a fountain I shot did give off the impression that water droplets were hovering in mid-air, very cool.

The team is bootstrapped currently but looking for funding. I’m not sure what kind of future an app like Seene has at scale without the welcoming arms of a larger entity. But the initial experience is fairly compelling.

The dangers here, of course, is that there are all sorts of compelling silos and feeds out there vying for our attention. Instagram, Vine, FrontBack and more all create vertical streams of cool, clever things. But there are only so many hours in the day. Is Seene compelling enough to slice off a chunk of that time?

If it gets enough traction and people take to the unique ‘seenes’ that it presents, there could be something here. I hope so, because the team says that they have a bunch of ideas for how to make the app better and some cool features that they need resources to execute, and so far I’m intrigued.

You can grab Seene on the App Store here.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/6O2N0WllrTs/
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Joan Ganz Cooney, Co-Founder Of Sesame Workshop

Jessica Harris speaks with television producer Joan Ganz Cooney, co-founder of Sesame Workshop, a non-profit organization that develops children's shows intended to help children everywhere reach their highest potential. After, she talks with Stephen McDonnell, founder of Applegate Farms, a natural organic meat company.

Source: http://www.npr.org/2013/10/17/236306448/joan-ganz-cooney-co-founder-of-sesame-workshop?ft=1&f=
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