Last August, 16-year-old Lori Brownell passed out while head-banging at a concert. A month later, she lost consciousness again at her school?s homecoming dance in upstate Corinth, N.Y. Brownell says her doctors put her on Celexa, but she only developed more symptoms, including involuntary twitching and clapping. In videos she posted to YouTube, Brownell flutters her fingers, touches her hair, snorts through her nose and throat, and shouts ?Hey, hey, hey,? seemingly without control. On Christmas Eve, doctors diagnosed her with Tourette?s Syndrome. Now, however, her symptoms have another name: conversion disorder, or mass hysteria.
MILAN (AP) -Serie A leader Juventus will look to extend its unbeaten league run to 21 games this season at Parma on Tuesday and move four points provisionally clear at the top of the standings.
Juventus is the only club still unbeaten in Serie A, with every other team having lost at least three games.
"We're performing beyond the most rose-colored predictions," defender Giorgio Chiellini said. "We were convinced we could have a very good season but we were also coming off the back of two difficult years and in summer, although we didn't start building again from zero, we changed a lot.
"We've been good in immediately finding a balance and a style of play and now we're continuing to grow. It's a process that has not stopped yet and it has to continue if we want to achieve a dream."
Parma is unlikely to pose Juventus much of a challenge, having won just once in its past 10 games.
Juventus gave another solid performance on Saturday by beating third-place Udinese 2-1 to remain a point clear of second-place AC Milan, which faces Lazio on Wednesday in a rematch of last week's Italian Cup clash. Milan won that match 3-1.
Tuesday will also be significant in that the transfer window closes at 7 p.m. local time (1800 GMT) and Juve has not ruled out strengthening its squad still further.
"If tomorrow we sense the possibility of improving the squad, we will do so," general director Giuseppe Marotta said on Sunday. "We shouldn't hide, the numbers are on our side. We're unbeaten and we have to act out the role of protagonists. We will fight until the end so that we can give everyone a glorious finish."
Milan is likely to chase Juventus all the way and the current Serie A champion is still clinging close after a comfortable 3-0 win against Cagliari as the bid for the title swiftly looks like developing into a two-horse race.
"The table's stretched out a bit now," Milan coach Massimiliano Allegri said. "It was important to win to remain in Juventus' wake and to create a gap between third and fourth after the weekend's results."
Allegri is also unconcerned that midfielder Alexander Merkel will be out for at least two months with a knee injury.
"I'm sad to have lost Merkel for two months," he said. "However, it's not a worry for me because Emanuelson played very well. This lad has grown a lot in the last few games, also because he has played in a run of games."
Maxi Lopez could make his debut after the new signing was on the bench for Milan at the weekend.
Lazio will present a tougher challenge than Cagliari. It beat Chievo Verona at the weekend to leapfrog above Inter Milan and into fourth place in the standings. Any slip up from Udinese, which faces rapidly-improving Lecce, could see Lazio move into third in the table.
Inter is a point behind Lazio after a surprise loss to Lecce at the weekend which snapped the Nerazzurri's seven-match winning streak in the league.
Claudio Ranieri's team hosts Palermo, which has picked up just three points on its travels all season.
Elsewhere, it's: Atalanta vs. Genoa; Bologna vs. Fiorentina; Cagliari vs. Roma; Napoli vs. Cesena; and Siena vs. Catania. On Thursday rock-bottom Novara faces Chievo.
? 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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Arsenal advances in FA Cup
Roundup: Arsenal kept its bid to end a seven-year trophy drought on track Sunday, scoring three times in eight second-half minutes to beat Aston Villa 3-2 and reach the fifth round of the FA Cup.
LONDON ? Two giant pandas on loan to a Scottish zoo have been removed from display while being treated for colic.
Edinburgh Zoo officials say female panda Tian Tian was treated by a veterinarian for the illness on Saturday, just as her male companion Yang Guang is recovering from a bout diagnosed earlier this month.
Officials say the illness is not serious, but can cause discomfort and requires medication.
The zoo said Tian Tian would be allowed "to relax privately away from public view" over the weekend.
Yang Guang is expected to be back on view Monday.
The 8-year-old pair are the first pandas to live in Britain in nearly two decades. They arrived from China in December and are expected to draw huge crowds of visitors to the zoo.
If there's one thing we took away from our jaunt at CES, it's this: consumers' appetites for mainstream laptops haven't waned all that much. Even in the Ultrabook category, Intel expects half of the models to go on sale this year will have 14- and 15-inch screens -- as strong an indicator as any that lots of folks aren't yet ready to give up their slightly larger screens, their discrete graphics, their (gasp!) optical drives. While HP recently announced its first Ultrabook for the consumer market, the Envy 14 Spectre, it's fully fleshed out its premium Envy series to include two additional models for people who crave more oomph.
The Envy 15 is the medium-sized member of the crew, with a 15.6-inch screen and the same overhauled design you'll find across the Envy lineup. Delightfully, too, it marks the return of HP's eye-popping Radiance display, and also comes with a generous two-year warranty and full copies of Photoshop Elements and Premiere Elements. And with a starting price of $1,100, it sharply undercuts the 15-inch MacBook Pro, while taking direct aim at other high-end 15-inchers, like the Dell XPS 15z and Samsung Series 7 Chronos. So how does it stack up? Meet us after the break to find out.
LONDON ? Two giant pandas on loan to a Scottish zoo have been removed from display while being treated for colic.
Edinburgh Zoo officials say female panda Tian Tian was treated by a veterinarian for the illness on Saturday, just as her male companion Yang Guang is recovering from a bout diagnosed earlier this month.
Officials say the illness is not serious, but can cause discomfort and requires medication.
The zoo said Tian Tian would be allowed "to relax privately away from public view" over the weekend.
Yang Guang is expected to be back on view Monday.
The 8-year-old pair are the first pandas to live in Britain in nearly two decades. They arrived from China in December and are expected to draw huge crowds of visitors to the zoo.
Of all the tests we conduct when we review a phone, for some reason we've never checked to see how well a handset skips across a lake. But a Chinese man has, officially ending the iPhone vs. Android debate. More »
MEXICO CITY ? Several Nobel prize laureates are joining the PEN International writers group in condemning attacks on journalists in Mexico.
Mario Vargas Llosa and Toni Morrison are among those participating in a full-page ad in the newspaper El Universal, signed by 170 of the world's most acclaimed writers. It recognizes the courage of journalists in a country were attacks have increased dramatically with drug violence in recent years.
Friday's ad says attacks on journalists "impede the ability to live a secure life free of censorship."
Attacks on Mexican journalists generally go unprosecuted.
Mexico's national human rights commission says 74 journalists were killed from 2000 to 2011. The Committee to Protect Journalists says 51 were slain in that time.
ScienceDaily (Jan. 26, 2012) ? NASA's Kepler mission has discovered 11 new planetary systems hosting 26 confirmed planets. These discoveries nearly double the number of verified Kepler planets and triple the number of stars known to have more than one planet that transits, or passes in front of, the star. Such systems will help astronomers better understand how planets form.
The planets orbit close to their host stars and range in size from 1.5 times the radius of Earth to larger than Jupiter. Fifteen are between Earth and Neptune in size. Further observations will be required to determine which are rocky like Earth and which have thick gaseous atmospheres like Neptune. The planets orbit their host star once every six to 143 days. All are closer to their host star than Venus is to our sun.
"Prior to the Kepler mission, we knew of perhaps 500 exoplanets across the whole sky," said Doug Hudgins, Kepler program scientist at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "Now, in just two years staring at a patch of sky not much bigger than your fist, Kepler has discovered more than 60 planets and more than 2,300 planet candidates. This tells us that our galaxy is positively loaded with planets of all sizes and orbits."
Kepler identifies planet candidates by repeatedly measuring the change in brightness of more than 150,000 stars to detect when a planet passes in front of the star. That passage casts a small shadow toward Earth and the Kepler spacecraft.
"Confirming that the small decrease in the star's brightness is due to a planet requires additional observations and time-consuming analysis," said Eric Ford, associate professor of astronomy at the University of Florida and lead author of the paper confirming Kepler-23 and Kepler-24. "We verified these planets using new techniques that dramatically accelerated their discovery."
Each of the newly confirmed planetary systems contains two to five closely spaced transiting planets. In tightly packed planetary systems, the gravitational pull of the planets on each other causes some planets to accelerate and some to decelerate along their orbits. The acceleration causes the orbital period of each planet to change. Kepler detects this effect by measuring the changes, or so-called Transit Timing Variations.
Planetary systems with Transit Timing Variations can be verified without requiring extensive ground-based observations, accelerating confirmation of planet candidates. This detection technique also increases Kepler's ability to confirm planetary systems around fainter and more distant stars.
"By precisely timing when each planet transits its star, Kepler detected the gravitational tug of the planets on each other, clinching the case for 10 of the newly announced planetary systems," said Dan Fabrycky, Hubble Fellow at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and lead author for a paper confirming Kepler-29, 30, 31 and 32.
Five of the systems (Kepler-25, Kepler-27, Kepler-30, Kepler-31 and Kepler-33) contain a pair of planets where the inner planet orbits the star twice during each orbit of the outer planet. Four of the systems (Kepler-23, Kepler-24, Kepler-28 and Kepler-32) contain a pairing where the outer planet circles the star twice for every three times the inner planet orbits its star.
"These configurations help to amplify the gravitational interactions between the planets, similar to how my sons kick their legs on a swing at the right time to go higher," said Jason Steffen, the Brinson postdoctoral fellow at Fermilab Center for Particle Astrophysics in Batavia, Ill., and lead author of a paper confirming Kepler-25, 26, 27 and 28.
Kepler-33, a star that is older and more massive than our sun, had the most planets. The system hosts five planets, ranging in size from 1.5 to 5 times that of Earth. All of the planets are located closer to their star than any planet is to our sun.
The properties of a star provide clues for planet detection. The decrease in the star's brightness and duration of a planet transit combined with the properties of its host star present a recognizable signature. When astronomers detect planet candidates that exhibit similar signatures around the same star, the likelihood of any of these planet candidates being a false positive is very low.
"The approach used to verify the Kepler-33 planets shows the overall reliability is quite high," said Jack Lissauer, planetary scientist at NASA Ames Research Center at Moffett Field, Calif., and lead author of the paper on Kepler-33. "This is a validation by multiplicity."
These discoveries are published in four different papers in the Astrophysical Journal and the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.
Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif., manages Kepler's ground system development, mission operations and science data analysis. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., managed the Kepler mission's development.
Ball Aerospace and Technologies Corp. in Boulder, Colo., developed the Kepler flight system and supports mission operations with the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of Colorado in Boulder.
The Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore archives, hosts and distributes Kepler science data. Kepler is NASA's 10th Discovery Mission and is funded by NASA's Science Mission Directorate at the agency's headquarters in Washington.
For more information about the Kepler mission and to view the digital press kit, visit http://www.nasa.gov/kepler . More information about exoplanets and NASA's planet-finding program is at http://planetquest.jpl.nasa.gov .
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There are obvious stats, bizarre ones, and then the good old informative ones. New data from Google revealed by Ad Age, falls into the latter category. According to Goog's numbers, more people have a mobile internet-capable device than a PC or laptop in the five key markets it tested (US, UK, Germany, France and Japan). In the US, this figure is nearly 10% more, some 76% against 68%. The numbers were taken in September and October last year, which means any impact Christmas may have had won't be taken into account. The trend away from featurephones towards smartphones is also drilled home, but that won't be news to many people 'round these parts. No matter how you connect these days, any savvy netizen will tell you: it's quality, not quantity that counts anyway.
MOGADISHU, Somalia ? U.S. Navy SEALs parachuted into Somalia under cover of darkness early Wednesday and crept up to an outdoor camp where an American woman and Danish man were being held hostage. Soon, nine kidnappers were dead and both hostages were freed.
President Barack Obama authorized the mission by SEAL Team 6 two days earlier, deploying the same unit that killed Osama bin Laden last year. Minutes after the president gave his State of the Union address to Congress he was on the phone with the American's father to tell him his daughter was safe.
The Danish Refugee Council confirmed the two aid workers, American Jessica Buchanan and Poul Hagen Thisted, a Dane, were "on their way to be reunited with their families."
Buchanan, 32, and Thisted, 60, were working with a de-mining unit of the Danish Refugee Council when gunmen kidnapped the two in October.
The raiders came in quickly, catching the guards as they were sleeping after having chewed the narcotic leaf qat for much of the evening, a pirate who gave his name as Bile Hussein told The Associated Press by phone. Hussein said he was not present at the site but had spoken with other pirates who were, and that they told him nine pirates had been killed in the raid and three were "taken away."
The hostage rescue was carried out by the same SEAL unit behind the operation in Pakistan last May that killed bin Laden, two U.S. officials said on condition of anonymity to discuss the operation. It was not clear if any members participated in both operations. The unit is the Naval Special Warfare Development Group, also known as SEAL Team 6.
One official said that the team parachuted into the area before moving on foot to the target. The raid happened near the Somali town of Adado.
New intelligence emerged last week that Buchanan's health was "deteriorating rapidly," so Obama directed his security team to develop a rescue plan, according to a senior administration official who was not authorized to speak publicly. A Danish Refugee Council official, Mary Ann Olsen, said that Buchanan was "not that ill" but needed medicine.
"As Commander-in-Chief, I could not be prouder of the troops who carried out this mission, and the dedicated professionals who supported their efforts," Obama said in a statement released by the White House. "The United States will not tolerate the abduction of our people, and will spare no effort to secure the safety of our citizens and to bring their captors to justice."
A Western official said the rescuers and the freed hostages flew by helicopter to a U.S. military base called Camp Lemonnier in the Horn of Africa nation of Djibouti. Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity because the information had not been released publicly. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta visited Camp Lemonnier just over a month ago. A key U.S. ally in this region, Djibouti has the only U.S. base in sub-Saharan Africa. It hosts the military's Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa.
The timing of the raid may have been made more urgent by Buchanan's medical condition. The Danish Refugee Council had been trying to work with Somali elders to win the hostages' freedom but had found little success.
"One of the hostages has a disease that was very serious and that had to be solved," Danish Foreign Minister Villy Soevndal told Denmark's TV2 channel. Soevndal did not provide any more details. Soevndal congratulated the Americans for the raid.
The Danish Refugee Council said both freed hostages are unharmed "and at a safe location." The group said in a separate statement that the two "are on their way to be reunited with their families."
Olsen informed Thisted's family of of the successful military operation and said "they were very happy and incredibly relieved that it is over." Olsen said the two freed hostages were in Djibouti and would soon be moved to a "safe haven." She said Buchanan does not need to be hospitalized.
"One of the first things Poul and Jessica were able to do was to call their families and say they were freed," Olsen said. "They will be reunited with their families as quickly as possible," Olsen said.
The head of the Danish Refugee Council, Andreas Kamm, said he would have preferred to see the two hostages freed peacefully after working with Somali groups to win the pair's freedom, "but we're happy with the outcome. This is a day of joy indeed."
The two aid workers appear to have been kidnapped by criminals ? sometimes referred to as pirates ? and not by Somalia's al-Qaida-linked militant group al-Shabab. As large ships at sea have increased their defenses against pirate attacks, gangs have looked for other money making opportunities like land-based kidnappings.
The Danish Refugee Council had earlier enlisted traditional Somali elders and members of civil society to seek the release of the two hostages.
"We are really happy with the successful release of the innocents kidnapped by evildoers," said Mohamud Sahal, an elder in Galkayo town, by phone. "They were guests who were treated brutally. That was against Islam and our culture ... These men (pirates) have spoiled our good customs and culture, so Somalis should fight back."
Buchanan lived in neighboring Kenya before Somalia, and worked at a school in Nairobi called the Rosslyn Academy from 2007-09, said Rob Beyer, the dean of students. He described the American as quick to laugh and adventurous.
"There have been tears on and around the campus today," Beyer said. "She was well-loved by all her students."
Buchanan graduated in 2006 from Valley Forge Christian College, a small suburban Philadelphia school. The school's president, the Rev. Don Meyer, said Buchanan taught at Rosslyn as part of her studies and "fell in love with Africa."
"Ever since Jessica was captured, we all as a community have been praying for her safety and for her safe release," Meyer said. "We are also grateful that our prayers have been answered."
Buchanan and Thisted were seized in October from the portion of Galkayo town under the control of a government-allied clan militia. The aid agency has said that Somalis held demonstrations demanding the pair's quick release.
Their Somali colleague was detained by police on suspicion of being involved in their kidnapping.
The two hostages were working in northern Somalia for the Danish Demining Group, whose experts have been clearing mines and unexploded ordnance in conflict zones in Africa and the Middle East.
Several hostages are still being held in Somalia, including a British tourist, two Spanish doctors seized from neighboring Kenya, and an American journalist kidnapped on Saturday.
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Associated Press reporters Julie Pace in Washington, Jason Straziuso in Nairobi, Kenya, Jan M. Olsen in Copenhagen, Denmark, and Patrick Walters in Philadelphia contributed to this report. Houreld reported from Nairobi and Dozier from Washington.
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Follow Katharine Houreld at http://twitter.com/khoureld
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LONDON ? Britain's High Court has cleared the way for the extradition of a suspected Basque separatist wanted in connection with a plot to assassinate Spain's king.
The court ruled Monday that Eneko Gogeaskoetxea Arronategui, 44, can be sent to Spain. He has several days to appeal the decision.
Gogeaskoetxea Arronategui is suspected of being one of several ETA members allegedly behind a foiled bomb plot at the 1997 opening of the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, in northern Spain. King Juan Carlos was believed to have been the target.
The suspect was arrested in July at his home in Cambridge.
ETA is a Basque separatist group that has killed 829 people since 1968 in a campaign of bombings, shootings, kidnappings and extortion.
Helima Croft, Barclays Capital, discusses the geopolitical implications of the EU's oil embargo on Iranian imports, and the U.S. sanctions on Iran's third largest bank.
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Ravens quarterback Joe Flacco has just completed the fourth year of a five-year rookie contract.? He thinks he?s done enough to merit additional security.
?Definitely,? Flacco said Monday, via the team?s official website. ?We?ll see how it goes; if it goes, it goes, if it doesn?t, it doesn?t.?
So far, it hasn?t been going anywhere.? Per a source with knowledge of the situation, there have been no talks toward a new contract.
Why does Flacco think he has earned an extension?? ?I think I?m the quarterback that I am,? Flacco said.? ?I think the first four years that I?ve played here we?ve gone to the playoffs every time [and] won a game. I think the last two years that I?ve played in the playoffs, I?ve played well in the playoffs.?
I think.? I get.? The point.
But he wasn?t done.? ?And like I said earlier, I think when you watch the film and you?re a guy in this organization, I think that you can say, ?Hey, he?s played pretty damn good for us,?? Flacco added.? ?But like I said, you never know what?s going to happen.
Though owner Steve Bisciotti said last year that he envisioned negotiations beginning in 2012, there?s a chance that, once the two sides start talking, they?ll realize that there?s a significant disconnect between what the Ravens want to pay and what Flacco wants to be paid.? On one hand, Flacco?s camp surely will point to performances like the one he put together on Sunday in the AFC title game.? On the other hand, the team surely will point to his consistent pattern of inconsistency.
In the end, both sides would be wise to work something out.? While the Ravens could do a lot better at the position, they could do ? and have done ? a lot worse in the past.
BEIJING ? Caving to public pressure, Beijing environmental authorities started releasing more detailed air quality data Saturday that may better reflect how bad the Chinese capital's air pollution is.
The initial measurements were low on a day where you could see blue sky. After a week of smothering smog, the skies over the city were being cleared by a north wind.
The readings of PM2.5 ? particulate matter less than 2.5 micrometers in size or about 1/30th the average width of a human hair ? were being posted on Beijing's environmental monitoring center's website. Such small particulates can penetrate deep into the lungs, so measuring them is considered a more accurate reflection of air quality than other methods.
It is the first time Beijing has publicly revealed PM2.5 data and follows a clamor of calls by citizens on social networking sites tired of breathing in gray and yellow air. The U.S. Embassy measures PM2.5 from a device on its rooftop and releases the results, and some residents have even tested the air around their neighborhoods and posted the results online.
Beijing is releasing hourly readings of PM2.5 that are taken from one monitoring site about 4 miles (7 kilometers) west of Tiananmen Square, the monitoring center's website said Saturday. It said the data was for research purposes and the public should only use it as a reference.
The reading at noon Saturday was 0.015 mg/m3, which would be classed as "good" for a 24-hour exposure at that level, according to U.S. Environmental Protection Agency standards. The U.S. Embassy reading taken from its site on the eastern edge of downtown Beijing said its noon reading was "moderate." Its readings are posted on Twitter.
Steven Andrews, an environmental consultant who has studied Beijing's pollution data since 2006, said he was "already a bit suspicious" of Beijing's PM2.5 data. Within the 24-hour period to noon Saturday, Beijing reported seven hourly figures "at the very low level" of 0.003 milligrams per cubic meter.
"In all of 2010 and 2011, the U.S. Embassy reported values at or below that level only 18 times out of over 15,000 hourly values or about 0.1 percent of the time," said Andrews. "PM2.5 concentrations vary by area so a direct comparison between sites isn't possible, but the numbers being reported during some hours seem surpisingly low."
The Beijing center had promised to release PM2.5 data by the start of the Chinese Lunar New Year on Monday. It has six sites that can test for PM2.5 and 27 that can test for the larger, coarser PM10 particles that are considered less hazardous. The center is expected to buy equipment and build more monitoring sites to enable PM2.5 testing.
Beijing wasn't expected to include PM2.5 in its daily roundups of the air quality anytime soon. Those disclosures, for example "light" or "serious," are based on the amount of PM10, sulfur dioxide and nitrogen dioxide in the air.
Beijing interprets air quality using less stringent standards than the U.S. Embassy, so often when the government says pollution is "light," the embassy terms it "hazardous."
"There has been tremendous amounts of attention in the Chinese media ? whichever newspaper you pick up, whichever radio station you listen to, channel you watch ? they are all talking about PM2.5 and how levels are so high," said Andrews.
"What has been so powerful is that people are skeptical, and I think rightly skeptical," about the government's descriptions of data, he said.
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Online:
Beijing center's readings (in Chinese): http://zx.bjmemc.com.cn/
The U.S. Embassy's Twitter feed: https://twitter.com/beijingair
SAN CARLOS, Calif. (AP) ? A company founded by Neil Young is facing a lawsuit over a fire in the San Francisco Bay Area that authorities say started in a vintage car the rocker had converted into a hybrid vehicle.
The San Jose Mercury News reports (http://bit.ly/ytJtkW) that Unigard Insurance Co. sued LincVolt LLC this week, accusing the company of negligence for converting the 1959 Lincoln Continental to run on electricity and a biodiesel-powered generator.
The suit seeks nearly $500,000 that Unigard says it paid to the owner of a building damaged in the 2010 blaze in San Carlos.
Fire officials say the blaze started in the car, dubbed the LincVolt. Young converted the car into a hybrid vehicle in a highly-publicized project to promote fuel-efficiency.
He did not respond to a request for comment.
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Information from: San Mateo County Times, http://www.sanmateotimes.com
PARIS ? French President Nicolas Sarkozy is urging stronger, more decisive sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program.
France wants the entire European Union to impose an embargo on Iranian oil and freeze the international assets of Iran's central bank to force it to halt the suspected development of nuclear arms.
Iran insists its nuclear activities are aimed at producing energy, not arms. An EU decision may be reached at a meeting in Brussels next week.
In an annual speech on French diplomacy Friday, Sarkozy accused Iran of lying and denounced what he called its "senseless race for a nuclear bomb."
He called for "much stronger, much more decisive" sanctions ? "time is running out" and "everything must be done to avoid" international military intervention, he added.
HOUSTON (Reuters) ? While millions of college grads look forlornly into the worst U.S. job market in decades, Emily Woner pretty much guaranteed herself one of America's best-paid post-graduate jobs before she ever set foot on campus.
Spurred by an early interest in following her father's footsteps into the oil sector, Woner secured a post-high school internship with Oklahoma City-based Devon Energy Corp (DVN.N).
After summers spent riding seismic trucks in the Barnett shale, designing water pipelines in east Texas and helping model oil reservoirs in Wyoming, she's now a 22-year-old senior at the University of Tulsa waiting to take a job in one the country's most sought-after professions: petroleum engineering.
"I'm really lucky. In my class, a lot of us are already committed to companies," Woner said.
Luck has little to do with it. Energy companies are racing to exploit America's vast shale gas and oil fields, the increasing discoveries of which has upended markets and sparked the biggest drilling boom in generations.
While Wall Street slashes the kind of banking and trading positions that were once the most coveted for top graduates, energy firms can't hire fast enough for the technical jobs that have been all but overlooked for a generation.
The shale boom has run into many obstacles: environmental concerns from earthquakes to water safety, a lack of needed materials, and logistical bottlenecks.
But the shortage of specialty engineers may prove one of the most vexing. Poaching is rife and supplies are short, putting a premium on industry veterans who know how to get the most value out of wells that can cost tens of millions of dollars to drill.
Oil companies have seen the squeeze coming for years, and -- to a degree -- the job market has responded. Bachelor's degrees in petroleum engineering trebled to over 750 since 2001.
But industry officials and analysts say it is likely still not enough for companies to maintain their ambitious growth in North American shale oil plays, Canada's oil sands, deepwater offshore Brazil, post-war Iraq and other frontiers.
At least 40 percent of the globe's petroleum engineers are expected to retire in the coming decade, according to top industry recruiters. A generation lost to the 1980s oil bust leaves a thin cadre of mid-career professionals to take up the slack until incoming 20-somethings get up to speed.
"We know it will be a challenge to get our share of the talent to meet our growth needs," said Frank Rudolph, executive vice president of human resources at Devon.
Half of the world's energy companies say they will delay projects if they can't get the right people, according to a 2011 Schlumberger Business Consulting survey of 37 global firms.
And competition is more fierce than ever, said Dane Groeneveld, regional director of NES Global Talent, a worldwide oil and gas industry recruiter.
"It's at the front end where you're creating the value and really finding those assets, which really underpin the share price," he said. "It's just at the foundation of the future of the business where you tend to find that people are fighting more tooth and nail for people in that space."
KEY TO FUTURE SUPPLY
Petroleum engineers seek out oil and gas reservoirs, whether tens of thousands of feet beneath the sea or locked tight in thick shale far underground. They also design methods, equipment and processes to coax as much oil and gas as possible from those unforgiving recesses.
They work with geologists, geophysicists and other specialists to study layers and porosity of rock with seismic data maps and rock samples. Then they decide how to best extract oil and gas, whether by injecting water or steam or blasting cracks in the sides of wells using chemicals and sand to create fissures for oil and gas to flow -- a process that has become politically charged amid fears of contaminating groundwater.
Their roles have grown ever more crucial as the industry expand into unforgiving frontiers -- ultra-deep water far offshore, or the Arctic -- and as they develop ever more high-tech methods, from multi-dimensional real-time reservoir data and electromagnetic surveys to horizontal drilling.
"The technical complexity of future oil supply requires both technology and qualified petrotechnical professionals in greater number than the easier oil of previous generations would have required," said Al Escher, area director of North and South America for Schlumberger Business Consulting and a petroleum engineer.
During the oil bust, companies kept producing to pay the bills, but slashed exploration and petroleum engineers. College students also fled oil-centric programs. That changed in the 2000s as U.S. crude prices broke into triple digits, reaching an all-time high of nearly $150 a barrel in 2008.
Demand has intensified once again as oil firms rush to tap into the vast oil and gas reserves trapped in U.S. shale rocks, a process that requires far more wells than the big-ticket offshore fields that were the mainstay in recent decades.
U.S. shale oil plays -- most of which produced almost no oil just a few years ago -- now pump nearly 1 million barrels per day, with potential to jump to 3 million barrels per day by 2035 as more reservoirs in more plays are found, according to the National Petroleum Council. Canadian production is also booming, while Brazil's offshore output also is poised to surge.
ANSWERING THE CALL
Petroleum engineering programs have upped enrollment to meet that demand. Bachelor's degrees awarded shot up 181 percent to 753 since 2001, according to the American Society for Engineering Education's 2011 report.
And they're getting lucrative jobs. Total employment surged 221 percent to 28,210 since 1997. Mean salaries jumped 87 percent to $127,970 over the same time span -- 26 percent higher than nuclear engineers, the second best-paid engineering discipline, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
With demand so high and opportunities so widespread, companies send interns like Woner to offshore platforms, onshore drilling sites and other get-your-hands-dirty tasks in hopes of signing up the best ones early and often.
"I can show you a picture and tell you about it, but until you're standing on the drilling rig on the top of the mud pits and actually smell that smell, it's something you can't wrap your head around," said Daniel Rohling, 28, a senior reservoir engineer for El Paso Corp, (EP.N) where he interned before graduating in 2006. "It's the same with the whole industry."
Yet petroleum engineering programs are feeling the pinch as well, even capping enrollment because they can't entice enough professors to trade high private sector salaries for classrooms.
"Our faculty are maxed out and we have six faculty openings, but it's really difficult to find faculty because the job market is so hot," says Stephen Holditch, head of the petroleum engineering program at Texas A&M University.
"Companies are competing for employees and giving bonuses, but our faculty has not had a raise in two years."
He expects the number of graduates to max out at 1,000 to 1,200 per year beyond 2011.
SHHH, WE'RE POACHING TOO
While engineering graduates are hot commodities, experienced professionals in their late 30s and 40s are the most coveted.
"Although now we're seeing a sharp market increase in college graduates in the field being hired too, the mid-career professionals represent revenue. They can hit the ground running and they're not about to retire," said Bonnie Browning, a recruiter for Q4B, a managed recruiting firm whose clients include ConocoPhillips, (COP.N) Occidental Petroleum Corp (OXY.N) and Schlumberger (SLB.N).
Salaries can reach as high as $700,000 to $800,000 for senior engineers in managerial roles overseeing exploration, hikes of 20 to 30 percent, says Groeneveld.
He also said producers are offering bonuses and perks - such as help with selling a house - both to workers they hope to place in remote locale and those sought for U.S. hotspots.
Meanwhile, 20-somethings like Woner and Rohling are taking on more responsibility faster than the outgoing generation, running exploration projects in prolific shale oil plays like the Eagle Ford in Texas or the Bakken in North Dakota.
"The younger crowd is starting to lead the teams and the crews," Rohling said. "More and more, we're calling the shots in a lot of different areas, like the shales.
"We're going to pick up the torch of this industry long before we should have had to," he said.
(Reporting By Kristen Hays; additional reporting by Joshua Schneyer in Rio de Janiero; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)
YOKOSUKA, Japan ? It's getting a bit more crowded under the sea in Asia, where Andrew Peterson commands one of the world's mightiest weapons: a $2 billion nuclear submarine with unrivaled stealth and missiles that can devastate targets hundreds of miles (kilometers) away.
Super high-tech submarines like Cmdr. Peterson's USS Oklahoma City have long been the envy of navies all over the globe ? and a key component of U.S. military strategy.
"We really have no peer," Peterson told The Associated Press during a recent port call in Japan.
But America's submarine dominance in the Pacific is facing its biggest challenge since the Cold War. Nearly every Asian country with a coastline is fortifying its submarine fleet amid territorial disputes stirred up by an increasingly assertive China and the promise of bountiful natural resources.
Submarines are difficult to find and hard to destroy. Even fairly crude submarine forces can attack surface ships or other targets with a great deal of stealth, making them perfect for countries with limited resources. The threat of such an attack is a powerful deterrent in Asia, where coastal defenses are vital.
"This is shaping up as an intense arms race," said Lyle Goldstein, an associate professor at the China Maritime Studies Institute of the U.S. Naval War College. "This arms race is not simply China versus the rest ? though that explains much of it ? because there are other rivalries here as well."
China is pouring money into enlarging and modernizing its fleet, and India is planning to get a nuclear-powered attack submarine ? the INS Chakra ? on a 10-year lease from Russia as early as this month.
Australia is debating its most-expensive defense project ever ? a submarine upgrade that could cost more than 36 billion dollars.
Japan is adding another eight to its 16-boat fleet. South Korea is selling them to Indonesia. Malaysia, Pakistan, the Philippines, Vietnam, Thailand, Singapore, Taiwan and even Bangladesh either now have or are planning to acquire subs.
North Korea, which has a large fleet of mini-subs, allegedly put them to deadly use in 2010 ? killing 46 South Korean sailors in the worst clash since their war ended in 1953.
The trend has a momentum of its own ? once one country gets submarines, its neighbors are under pressure to follow suit, lest they give up a strategic advantage. But the rush to build up submarine forces also underscores a growing awareness of the region's potential riches.
Roughly half of the goods transported between continents by ship go through the South China Sea, accounting for $1.2 trillion in U.S. trade annually. The area has vast, largely untapped natural resources ? including oil reserves of seven billion barrels and an estimated 900 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.
"The geostrategic significance of the South China Sea is difficult to overstate," said a report this month by the Center for a New American Security, a private think tank based in Washington DC. "To the extent that the world economy has a geographical center, it is in the South China Sea."
With the decline of Russia, the U.S. remains the top nation with a significant capability to operate submarines in the open seas ? a crucial advantage if Washington wants to maintain its role in keeping key sea lanes and chokepoints like the Malacca Strait, which connects the Indian Ocean to the western Pacific, free for commercial trade.
The U.S. Navy's blue water superiority is likely to continue for the foreseeable future. Peterson, the Oklahoma City skipper, said the Navy's workhorse Los Angeles-class subs remain a cut above the rest. "The beauty is that they are still the state of the art."
But, closer to shore, China is challenging the status quo.
"China has put a major emphasis on submarines, with the result that the PLA Navy submarine force is now, along with the Chinese missile forces, one of the sharpest arrows in China's quiver of military capabilities," Goldstein said.
China now has more than 60 subs in its navy, including nine that are nuclear-powered, according to the Pentagon's annual overview last year.
Its mainstay boats are diesel-powered Song-class vessels, but it also is developing more advanced nuclear-powered attack and ballistic submarines, including the Jin class that would carry missiles with a range of 4,600 miles (7,400 kilometers). Nuclear-powered subs can operate longer submerged than their diesel counterparts.
China has a long way to go to match the U.S. Navy ? the advanced Jin subs, for example, would have to be well into the Japan Sea for the continental United States to be within their range ? and Goldstein said that Beijing's threat has been overblown.
To keep its edge, however, the United States now has more submarines in the Pacific than in the Atlantic. With the military missions in Iraq and Afghanistan wrapping up, the Obama administration has also announced a "pivot to the Pacific" strategy that will likely further boost U.S. naval resources in the region.
Even so, China is just one player in an increasingly complicated game.
"Everybody's buying subs, but not for the same reasons," said Owen Cote, associate director of MIT's Security Studies Program.
The Pacific is dotted by scores of disputed islands, and who controls what part of the seas is a potentially explosive question. Japan has rival claims with China, South Korea and Russia. A half dozen countries claim rights to the remote Spratly Islands.
"Vietnam and the other states abutting the South China Sea want to have the option to contest a Chinese decision to resolve the various boundary issues that divide them by force," Cote said. "The Chinese have an interest in using submarines in preventing U.S. surface ships from intervening on behalf of one of these neighbors in such a conflict."
As regional navies get stronger, so does the potential for armed clashes.
"It poses the prospect of changing the balance of power across the Asia-Pacific ? in fact it already has," said Hugh White, Australian National University's professor of strategic and defense studies. "This is a very maritime part of the world. Anyone with a submarine has a clear capability of disrupting commercial shipping."
White said the development of submarine forces by multiple Asian nations is already inhibiting the ability of China and the United States to project their naval power, and posing new issues for smaller navies caught in the middle.
"There are questions about whether the U.S. will continue to assume its security role," he said. "This is a big debate in Australia right now. Do we aim to be able to act independently of the U.S.? To what extent do we want to be able to operate against a major player like China, or more locally against Indonesia?"
Tampa?? A Senate committee will consider a bill that would allow lawmakers to secretly privatize or outsource state agency functions. That includes privatizing the state's prisons. The Senate rules committee will take up the bill (PCB 7170) at its Wednesday afternoon meeting. The bill essentially means that...
Posted: 4:10 pm Tue, January 17, 2012 By ?BRIAN JOHNSON Tags: 2012 legislative session, bonding bill, Julian Loscalzo, Mark Dayton, Mayo Civic Center, Mayo Clinic, Minnesota State Colleges and Universities, Minnesota Transportation Alliance, Minnesota Zoo, Nicollet Mall, Southwest Corridor, University of Minnesota
Gov. Mark Dayton (File photo)
After state lawmakers approved $531 million bonding bill last summer, construction and labor leaders wasted no time in calling for another large public works construction package in 2012.
If Gov. Mark Dayton has his way they?ll get their wish.
On Tuesday, Dayton unveiled recommendations for a $775 million bonding package that would help pay for everything from Nicollet Mall improvements to a new St. Paul Saints ballpark.
Some projects, however, were conspicuously absent.
Among those that didn?t make the governor?s list: the $67.7 million Interchange transit hub at Target Field, and a major renovation of the oldest building on the University of Minnesota?s Twin Cities campus.
The governor?s package does include $13.5 million for ?critical repairs? to the Capitol building, but it?s far short of the Capitol?s $241 million worth of maintenance and restoration needs.
Phil Raines, vice president of public affairs for the Associated Builders and Contractors of Minnesota, said the needs at the Capitol are real, but it may be a tough sell politically.
?It benefits the people of St. Paul and it benefits people that visit the Capitol, but in an election year it doesn?t give you a lot of bang for the buck,? Raines said. ?And it could be seen by some people as legislators improving their own space, or gold-plating their own space, at the expense of other projects.?
Dayton spokesperson Katharine Tinucci wrote in an email to Finance & Commerce that the State Capitol Preservation recommendations didn?t come in time to be considered for the bonding governor?s bonding proposal.
?I expect they will be considered separately from the bonding proposal? released Tuesday, she wrote.
Tinucci added that there are ?certainly many worthy projects the governor would have liked to include,? but ?we received requests for projects that far exceeds the $775 million proposed [Tuesday]. ? We are limited as to how much we can bond for this year.?
Overall, the bill is heavy on new projects, but asset preservation ?doesn?t seem to have gotten a whole lot of support,? Raines said.
Contractors like asset preservation because it provides immediate jobs that are labor intensive, he said.
?Those jobs tend to move forward really fast,? Raines said. ?You tend to have a better labor-material mix in terms of putting people to work.?
The University of Minnesota requested $90 million for asset preservation, but the Dayton plan includes only $20 million.
Overall, the governor?s bonding recommendations would jump-start $107 million worth of U of M projects (to be paid for with $78 million in state general obligation bonds, plus $29 million in university bonds).
The university is requesting $209 million.
Kathleen O?Brien, vice president of University Services, said in a statement that Dayton has been a ?tireless advocate? for the university, but that she?s ?deeply concerned? about the ?diminished level of funding? for asset preservation.
The university manages 29 million square feet of property statewide and upwards of 70 percent of the university?s facilities are more than 30 years old, she said.
?We not only have emergencies that we need to deal with, like a wind storm or an ice storm or a leaking pipe that causes problems with a building, but we also are trying to make upgrades in buildings that allow us to improve our teaching facilities and research facilities,? O?Brien told Finance & Commerce.
The University of Minnesota wants the state to contribute $14 million toward a $21 million renovation of historic Eddy Hall. But the project didn?t make the governor?s bonding wish list. (File photo: Bill Klotz)
Other university projects that aren?t on the governor?s list include a proposed $11 million American Indian Learning Resource Center at the Duluth campus, and a $21 million renovation of Eddy Hall, the oldest building on campus.
The university wants $14 million in state bonding money for the Eddy Hall renovation, which would allow the university to decommission Williamson Hall and Fraser Hall and reorganize student services space, O?Brien said.
?We are trying to not only take care of our historic buildings ? but we are also trying to decrease the amount of building space we have and only keep what we need,? she said.
Dayton, speaking at a Capitol press conference, said the public works projects under his plan would create up to 21,700 jobs. He urged the Legislature to act on it by the end of next month.
Republicans are likely to be more open to a smaller bonding package ? about half as big as Dayton?s.
?My sense is there will be a bonding bill between $300 [million] and $500 million,? House Republican Capital Investment Chairman Larry Howes said in December.
Glen Johnson, business manager for the International Union of Operating Engineers Local 49 in Minneapolis, echoed the governor?s call for quick action.
?If they drag it out like they?ve done in the past, we lose the construction season,? Johnson said. ?You have to have the money there in the wintertime so people can plan accordingly.?
Campus and transportation projects are well-represented in Dayton?s plan.
In addition to the university projects, the plan includes $63.5 million for the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities system, $30 million for bridge repair and construction, and $25 million for the Southwest Corridor light rail project, among other projects.
Margaret Donahoe, executive director of the Minnesota Transportation Alliance, said she?s pleased to see money for local bridges because the state has a backlog of bridges that need repair and safety improvements.
?Local governments are also struggling to keep up with needed repair and safety improvements on local roads, so we would like to also see funding for the Local Road Improvement Program in the final bill,? she wrote in an email to Finance & Commerce. ?We also believe that the state should continue moving forward with multiple transit lines and should be supporting the construction of the Interchange transit hub at Target Field.?
Civic center projects are prominent on the governor?s list. Dayton recommends $35 million the Rochester Mayo Civic Center expansion, $14.5 million for the Mankato Civic Center, and $10 million for the St. Cloud Civic Center.
Minneapolis would get $25 million toward a Nicollet Mall renovation.
Other projects on the list include an expansion of the HormelInstitute in Austin ($13.5 million), an improved home for dolphins at the Minnesota Zoo ($7 million) and the Harriet Tubman Center in Maplewood ($3.4 million).
The $29.4 million Hormel project, a partnership between the University of Minnesota, the Mayo Clinic and the Hormel Foundation, would provide a building addition for the Hormel Institute in Austin. The addition would house 15 research labs, research technology space, and support space for cancer research.
Every project on the list would ?put workers back to work, no doubt,? Johnson said.
Several projects have been up for bonding money in previous legislative sessions, including the Saints stadium. Dayton?s plan includes $27 million to help design and build the proposed $50 million ballpark in downtown St. Paul. The Saints stadium didn?t make the final cut in last summer?s bonding bill.
Julian Loscalzo, a lobbyist for the Saints, told Finance & Commerce last week that ?we are going to go after it? again in 2012. ?That is basically our approach. I think we continue to build support? for the ballpark, he said.
SOURCE: The governor?s 28-page bonding request is available here.
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