Administration says furloughs are possible, but not immediately

They don’t want it to happen.

They don’t necessarily think it is going to happen.

But Obama administration officials want federal employees to be ready if it does happen.

“It” is sequestration, the process of across-the-board budget cuts that are scheduled to begin taking effect in January unless the White House and Congress come to an agreement to prevent “it.”

To get folks ready, federal agencies sent messages to their employees Thursday to explain what sequestration is and is not and how it would, and would not, affect operations, albeit in general terms.

“Under sequestration, we would still have funds available after January 2, but our overall funding for the remainder of the year would be reduced,” said a message from “Charlie B,” also known as NASA Administrator Charles F. Bolden Jr.

Nearly identical language, supplied by the Office of Management and Budget, was in messages sent by agencies.

Explaining that sequestration — which was put into place by the Budget Control Act of 2011 — is different from a government shutdown in which agency appropriations have lapsed, the message from Bolden and others added: “For these reasons, I do not expect our day-to-day operations to change dramatically on or immediately after January 2, should sequestration occur. This means that we will not be executing any immediate personnel actions, such as furloughs, on that date. Should we have to operate under reduced funding levels for an extended period of time, we may have to consider furloughs or other actions in the future.”

William R. Dougan, president of the National Federation of Federal Employees, who was among the labor leaders on a 6 p.m. Wednesday conference call with Office of Personnel Management Director John Berry and Danny Werfel, controller of the Office of Management and Budget, said the notice to employees would help prevent them from being alarmed during this period of great uncertainty in government.

“Let me assure you,” the messages to employees said, “that we will carefully examine other options to reduce costs within the agency before taking such [personnel] action, taking into consideration our obligation to execute our core mission.”

Layoffs, or reductions in force, were not mentioned in the messages or predicted by administration officials during the call, but the possibility of “other actions in the future” clearly makes labor leaders wary.

“Sequestration would very likely lead to furloughs and RIFs,” said J. David Cox, president of the American Federation of Government Employees, “so will the spending caps which are also part of the Budget Control Act — the law whose terrible provisions will undermine federal employees and agencies for an entire decade.”

Despite that prediction, Rep. James Moran (D-Va.), whose northern Virginia district is home to about 165,000 current and former federal employees, said he worries they still don’t understand the real possibility of furloughs and layoffs.

“They really are taking this with kind of as casual an attitude as Wall Street is taking it,” he said. “But by the time we get to next week, between Christmas and New Year’s, all of a sudden they’re going to realize how serious this is. This OMB notice may alert them that this is real. I don’t think most of them accept that this is real yet, even though they’ve been reading about it. They think Congress has been doing its normal thing. I’m very much worried, it’s going to be chaos if we go over the cliff, and I think there’s at least a 50-50 chance that we’ll go over.”

Cox said he’s “glad the administration seems to be taking a ‘hope for the best, but prepare for the worst’ approach, because as awful as sequestration would be, some of the items in these ‘grand deals’ are outrageously bad for federal employees. We’re doing our own preparation to make sure that if sequestration does occur, agencies spread the pain to their larger and more costly contractor workforce and don’t put it all on us.”

The International Federation of Professional & Technical Engineers, which reported on the conference call in a “sequestration update” e-mail to its members Thursday morning, said this:

“First and foremost, it is becoming more and more likely that there will be a deal that includes significant revenue increases so that there will be less of a need for cuts. Even if it doesn’t happen by December 31st, it will likely happen by early January at the absolute latest.

“Second, regardless of the final deal, there will be large cuts to most federal agencies so there will be pain although much less than if the Budget Control Act (sequestration) were allowed to kick in.

“Third, sequestration or any deal to avoid it is not a shutdown. All federal agencies will be open on January 2nd, and all federal employees should report to work as scheduled. Any cuts will be gradually implemented and so there should not be any real disruptions in January (i.e., no furloughs).”

That’s about as optimistic an outlook of the current situation as you’ll find. But even it clearly indicates there will be pain.

The question is how much pain, how soon.

Ed O’Keefe contributed to this report. Previous columns by Joe Davidson are available at wapo.st/JoeDavidson.

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Gujarat election result: Gujarat Parivartan Party shrinks BJP win

RAJKOT: Former chief minister Keshubhai Patel's call for parivartan (change) may have met with indifference. But his Gujarat Parivartan Party (GPP) denied BJP a sweeter victory in the saffron stronghold Saurashtra. In absence of GPP, BJP was set to break the astronomical figure of 130 seats.

Results show that GPP presence has cost BJP at least 10 seats in Saurashtra namely Talala, Lathi, Palitana, Limdi , Wankaner, Rajkot(east), Jasdan, Jetpur, Dhoraji and Manavadar.

While Keshubhai himself trounced sitting MLA Kanu Bhalala in Visavadar, GPP's Nalin Kotadiya too defeated Dhari legislator Mansukh Bhuva to grab the seat. A former BJP man, Kotadiya had shifted loyalty to Keshubhai two months ago.

GPP played a spoilsport in Wankaner too where BJP had a bright chance of winning the seat back from Congress. Had GPP's Parsottam Bavalava not pocketed around 20,000 votes, BJP's Jitu Somani was sure to win considering that the sitting Congress MLA Javed Pirzada won by just 5,000 votes.

In Rajkot (east), BJP fielded Kashyap Shukla, son of one of BJP founders in state Chiman Shukla. But GPP's Pravin Ambaliya bagged around 15,000-20 ,000 votes, paving way for Congress to win this traditional BJP seat for the first time.

BJP's sitting minister of state for forests Kiritsinh Rana too has only GPP's candidate Pravinsinh Solanki to blame for his defeat. Solanki hails from Darbar community , the same as Rana's . He bagged 2,560 votes that led to Congress's Soma Ganda Patel scraping through by just 1,561.

GPP's Nathu Kamaliya also denied victory to BJP's Govind Parmar in Talala seat of Junagadh district by grabbing nearly 10,599 votes. There are around 20,000 Leuva Patels too in this constituency . The defeat of state BJP president RC Faldu's loss in Jamnagar (rural) seat is also being attributed to GPP's Pranjivan Kundaria.

Meanwhile, the ignominious defeat of Keshubhai's party also brought to fore that fact that regional parties or third fronts cannot become a force to reckon with. In the past, regional parties like Swatantra Party, Maha Saurashtra P arty, Maha Gujarat Janta Parishad, Rashtriya Congress, Kisan Majdoor Lok Paksha and Maha Gujarat Janta Party have tried to test their electoral mettle. But all remained a one-election wonder. "People in Gujarat do not accept regional parties. The main reason is that such parties don't have organizational support and rank and file to build the party," said political analyst.

Shankersinh Vaghela's infamous rebellion against BJP to form Rashtriya Janta Party (RJP) did not help the former chief minister for long. In the ensuing elections, voters ou rightly rejected RJP got just four seats.

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Hollies Get Prickly for a Reason

With shiny evergreen leaves and bright red berries, holly trees are a naturally festive decoration seen throughout the Christmas season.

They're famously sharp. But not all holly leaves are prickly, even on the same tree. And scientists now think they know how the plants are able to make sharper leaves, seemingly at will. (Watch a video about how Christmas trees are made.)

A new study published in the Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society suggests leaf variations on a single tree are the combined result of animals browsing on them and the trees' swift molecular response to that sort of environmental pressure.

Carlos Herrera of the National Research Council of Spain led the study in southeastern Spain. He and his team investigated the European holly tree, Ilex aquifolium. Hollies, like other plants, can make different types of leaves at the same time. This is called heterophylly. Out of the 40 holly trees they studied, 39 trees displayed different kinds of leaves, both prickly and smooth.

Five holly leaves from the same tree.

Photographs by Emmanuel Lattes, Alamy

Some trees looked like they had been browsed upon by wild goats and deer. On those trees, the lower 8 feet (2.5 meters) had more prickly leaves, while higher up the leaves tended to be smooth. Scientists wanted to figure out how the holly trees could make the change in leaf shape so quickly.

All of the leaves on a tree are genetic twins and share exactly the same DNA sequence. By looking in the DNA for traces of a chemical process called methylation, which modifies DNA but doesn't alter the organism's genetic sequence, the team could determine whether leaf variation was a response to environmental or genetic changes. They found a relationship between recent browsing by animals, the growth of prickly leaves, and methylation.

"In holly, what we found is that the DNA of prickly leaves was significantly less methylated than prickless leaves, and from this we inferred that methylation changes are ultimately responsible for leaf shape changes," Herrera said. "The novelty of our study is that we show that these well-known changes in leaf type are associated with differences in DNA methylation patterns, that is, epigenetic changes that do not depend on variation in the sequence of DNA."

"Heterophylly is an obvious feature of a well-known species, and this has been ascribed to browsing. However, until now, no one has been able to come up with a mechanism for how this occurs," said Mike Fay, chief editor of the Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society and head of genetics at the Kew Royal Botanic Gardens. "With this new study, we are now one major step forward towards understanding how."

Epigenetic changes take place independently of variation in the genetic DNA sequence. (Read more about epigenetics in National Geographic magazine's "A Thing or Two About Twins.")

"This has clear and important implications for plant conservation," Herrera said. In natural populations that have their genetic variation depleted by habitat loss, the ability to respond quickly, without waiting for slower DNA changes, could help organisms survive accelerated environmental change. The plants' adaptability, he says, is an "optimistic note" amidst so many conservation concerns. (Related: "Wild Holly, Mistletoe, Spread With Warmer Winters.")

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Boehner Pulls Plan B Option

In a surprise development late Thursday night, House Speaker John Boehner pulled his so-called "Plan B option" -- an extension of current tax rates for Americans making up to $1 million a year -- from the House floor, admitting that it did not have the support necessary to pass and leaving a resolution to the fiscal cliff in question.

"The House did not take up the tax measure today because it did not have sufficient support from our members to pass. Now it is up to the president to work with [Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry] Reid on legislation to avert the fiscal cliff," Boehner, R-Ohio, wrote in a statement. "The House has already passed legislation to stop all of the Jan. 1 tax rate increases and replace the sequester with responsible spending cuts that will begin to address our nation's crippling debt. The Senate must now act."

Immediately after the announcement that "plan B" had failed, Dow Jones Industrial futures traded down, with other stock indicators also signaling sharp losses and volatility for Friday morning's opening -- though stock futures generally are lightly traded in the evening. Indicators soon bounced off the initial lows but still signaled a rough start to the final trading session of the week.

In Washington, all legislative business has concluded for the week. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor's office said that members could still return "after the Christmas holiday when needed" if a breakthrough is eventually reached.

Jacquelyn Martin/AP Photo

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The outlook for a deal to avert the "fiscal cliff" by Christmas has reached a new low, with no clear path forward, though lawmakers and the White House maintained hope this week for a deficit-reduction compromise by the end of the year.

A senior aide to the speaker confirmed late Thursday evening that Boehner and Obama still have not spoken since Monday evening, when the speaker told the president that he would move ahead with his backup plan, although staff-level talks have continued behind the scenes.

"Speaker Boehner tried to play hardball by asking his members to vote for a tax increase. He learned the hard way that you must find a bipartisan solution," one senior House Democratic leadership aide said reacting to the developments. "Walking away has considerably weakened him and put the country literally on the precipice of the cliff."

Republicans had sought to act to avoid an income tax hike on 99 percent of Americans in 2013, and leverage new pressure on President Obama in the ongoing talks for a broader "cliff" deal.

Obama has threatened to veto the legislation, calling it counterproductive and the cuts burdensome for the middle class, and Reid, D-Nev., has promised not to bring it up for consideration in the Senate.

"'Plan B' ... is a multi-day exercise in futility at a time when we do not have the luxury of exercises in futility," said White House spokesman Jay Carney Thursday.

Democrats complained that the posturing on "plan B" distracted the focus from a broader bargain on taxes, spending, entitlement reforms and other measures that had begun coming into focus earlier this week.

Reid said the Senate would break for the Christmas holiday but return to Washington one week from Thursday. President Obama will not join his family in Hawaii on Friday as planned if the "cliff" is not resolved, an administration official said.

"If you look at Speaker Boehner's proposal and you look at my proposal, they're actually pretty close," Obama said Wednesday, appealing for a big "fair deal."

"It is a deal that can get done," he said. "But it cannot be done if every side wants 100 percent. And part of what voters were looking for is some compromise up here."

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Australia customs upheaval over Sydney airport graft

SYDNEY: Australia announced an overhaul of its customs service on Thursday after eight people were arrested in a corruption investigation linked to an alleged drugs ring at Sydney airport.

"I am working on major structural and cultural reforms to Customs and will announce them next year," Home Affairs Minister Jason Clare said.

"There is no place for corruption in our law enforcement agencies. Where it exists we have to weed it out."

The move follows the recent arrests of a customs officer, another from the quarantine service and six members of the public after a two-year probe. They have been charged with a range of offences including drug trafficking, receiving bribes and abuse of public office.

Police said the inquiry was continuing amid allegations that an "entrenched network" of corrupt customs officers at Sydney airport have been working with organised crime figures to import drugs.

A six-month investigation by Fairfax Media and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation said up to 20 officials were suspected of being involved in importing pseudoephedrine, cocaine, steroids and possibly weapons.

Australian Customs and Border Protection Service acting chief Michael Pezzullo said he was disappointed but not surprised by the revelations.

"We identified that we had a potential problem at Sydney International Airport and took appropriate investigative activity. This action continues," he said.

"We will review as required the role of workplace culture, management and leadership and take all necessary action to ensure the integrity of our workforce."

Australian Federal Police Commissioner Tony Negus claimed that couriers were sent overseas to collect drugs before returning through customs with the help of people in "trusted positions".

"What has been alleged before the court so far is that the customs officers involved in this would meet drug couriers off a plane," he said.

"They would then walk them through the primary line of customs, and then out into the waiting halls."

He added that it would also be alleged that customs officials "played a role in organising the couriers themselves to go overseas and to actually facilitate their collection of the narcotics overseas".

- AFP/al

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Himachal Pradesh assembly elections 2012: Neck-and-neck contest predicted

SHIMLA: Himachal Pradesh is all set to decide its political future with counting scheduled on Thursday. The poll fight, which began on November 4 with a record turnout, seems to be a neck-and-neck contest between the ruling BJP government and the Congress party.

Since the assembly elections 46 days ago, candidates have been trying to determine voters' mood. While the Congress appears confident of showing BJP the door, the ruling party seems to be banking on anti-UPA mood due to a number of factors like the LPG and diesel price hike and reduction in number of subsidized cylinders.

Though both the parties are confident of winning conformably, post-poll surveys suggest a tight fight.

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Detecting Rabid Bats Before They Bite

A picture is worth a thousand words—or in the case of bats, a rabies diagnosis. A new study reveals that rabid bats have cooler faces compared to uninfected colony-mates. And researchers are hopeful that thermal scans of bat faces could improve rabies surveillance in wild colonies, preventing outbreaks that introduce infections into other animals—including humans.

Bats are a major reservoir for the rabies virus, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta. Previous research shows that bats can transmit their strains to other animals, potentially putting people at risk. (Popular Videos: Bats share the screen with creepy co-stars.)

Rabies, typically transmitted in saliva, targets the brain and is almost always fatal in animals and people if left untreated. No current tests detect rabies in live animals—only brain tissue analysis is accurate.

Searching for a way to detect the virus in bats before the animals died, rabies specialist James Ellison and his colleagues at the CDC turned to a captive colony of big brown bats (Eptesicus fuscus). Previous studies had found temperature increases in the noses of rabid raccoons, so the team expected to see similar results with bats.

Researchers established normal temperature ranges for E. fuscus—the bat species most commonly sent for rabies testing—then injected 24 individuals with the virus. The 21-day study monitored facial temperatures with infrared cameras, and 13 of the 21 bats that developed rabies showed temperature drops of more than 4ºC.

"I was surprised to find the bats' faces were cooler because rabies causes inflammation—and that creates heat," said Ellison. "No one has done this before with bats," he added, and so researchers aren't sure what's causing the temperature changes they've discovered in the mammals. (Related: "Bats Have Superfast Muscles—A Mammal First.")

Although thermal scans didn't catch every instance of rabies in the colony, this method may be a way to detect the virus in bats before symptoms appear. The team plans to fine-tune their measurements of facial temperatures, and then Ellison hopes to try surveillance in the field.

This study was published online November 9 in Zoonoses and Public Health.

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Obama Invokes Newtown on 'Cliff' Deal

Invoking the somber aftermath of the school massacre in Newtown, Conn., President Obama today appealed to congressional Republicans to embrace a standing "fair deal" on taxes and spending that would avert the fiscal cliff in 13 days.

"If there's one thing we should have after this week, it should be a sense of perspective about what's important," Obama said at a midday news conference.

"I would like to think that members of that [Republican] caucus would say to themselves, 'You know what? We disagree with the president on a whole bunch of things,'" he said. "'But right now what the country needs is for us to compromise.'"

House Speaker John Boehner's response: "Get serious."

Boehner announced at a 52-second news conference that the House will vote Thursday to approve a "plan B" to a broad White House deal -- and authorize simply extending current tax rates for people earning less than $1 million a year and little more.

"Then, the president will have a decision to make," the Ohio Republican said. "He can call on Senate Democrats to pass that bill or he could be responsible for the largest tax increase in American history."

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Unless Congress acts by Dec. 31, every American will face higher income tax rates and government programs will get hit with deep automatic cuts starting in 2013.

Obama and Boehner have been inching closer to a deal on tax hikes and spending cuts to help reduce the deficit. But they have not yet had a breakthrough on a deal.

Obama's latest plan would raise $1.2 trillion in new tax revenue over 10 years, largely through higher tax rates on incomes above $400,000. He also proposes roughly $930 billion in spending cuts, including new limits on entitlement spending, such as slower annual cost-of-living increases for Social Security beneficiaries.

Boehner has agreed to $1 trillion in new tax revenue, with a tax rate hike for households earning over $1 million. He is seeking more than $1 trillion in spending cuts, with significant changes to Medicare and Social Security.

The president said today that he remains "optimistic" about reaching a broad compromise by Christmas because both sides are "pretty close," a sentiment that has been publicly shared by Boehner.

But the speaker's backup plan has, at least temporarily, stymied talks, with no reported contact between the sides since Monday.

"The speaker should return to the negotiating table with the president because if he does I firmly believe we can have an agreement before Christmas," said Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., a White House ally.

Schumer said Obama and Boehner are "not that far apart" in the negotiations.

"If they were to come to an agreement by Friday, they could write this stuff over the Christmas break and then we'd have to come back before the New Year and pass it," Schumer said.

Obama said he is "open to conversations" and planned to reach out to congressional leaders over the next few days to try to nudge Republicans to accept a "fair deal."

"At some point, there's got to be, I think, a recognition on the part of my Republican friends that -- you know, take the deal," he told reporters.

"They keep on finding ways to say no, as opposed to finding ways to say yes," Obama added. "At some point, you know, they've got take me out of it and think about their voters and think about what's best for the country."

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Civilian analysts gained Petraeus’s ear while he was commander in Afghanistan

Frederick and Kimberly Kagan, a husband-and-wife team of hawkish military analysts, put their jobs at influential Washington think tanks on hold for almost a year to work for Gen. David H. Petraeus when he was the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan. Provided desks, e-mail accounts and top-level security clearances in Kabul, they pored through classified intelligence reports, participated in senior-level strategy sessions and probed the assessments of field officers in order to advise Petraeus about how to fight the war differently.

Their compensation from the U.S. government for their efforts, which often involved 18-hour workdays, seven days a week and dangerous battlefield visits?

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Squash: Nicol David in quest for 7th world title

GRAND CAYMAN, Cayman Islands: Nicol David has discovered that greater self-knowledge is helping her deal with the pressures as she tries to extend her all-time record of world titles to seven.

The already legendary Malaysian has made a flying start to her campaign here, but has had to take profound and very personal measures to help endure the stresses which only increase with time.

David carries the relentlessly heavy burden of flag-bearer for an emerging nation, is subjected to constant media demands and appearance requests, and now, in her 30th year, finds herself expected to fend off a growing bevy of younger rivals.

Hence the role of Frank Cabooter, a sports psychologist who works at the University of Amsterdam, specialising in burn-out and depression, has increased in importance for David.

"In the last two to three years he has given me a lot of insight into who I am and how I can look at understanding myself better - not just on a squash basis, but on a personal note," she confides.

"It means you have to admit to things you may not have seen or known. But at the same time if you can improve yourself if you can adjust. It's so fascinating (learning about) our mind and how it works.

"We go into what works for me, what goes through my mind, and how I manage it," adds David, who here has been feeding off the vibes of the music, the warm climate, and the friendly seaside atmosphere.

So far, she has dealt impressively with Omneya Abdel Kawy, the 2010 World Open finalist from Egypt, and Annie Au, the world number nine from Hong Kong, both in straight games and in about half an hour each.

But after more than six years unbroken as world number one, David knows her strengths and weaknesses are evolving. "As time goes on we all change, as we get older," she says.

"I'm trying to use that to my advantage. There are a lot of things to learn from. And a lot of things to understand about myself as a squash player and my own growth.

"All this changed me and kept me in tune (with my feelings)."

David has occasionally revealed signs of human frailty, but when it has happened she has tried to learn why it emerged, and worked to develop her capacity to deal with it.

A notable example was when she lost her British Open title three years ago with a hesitant quarter-final defeat to Ireland's Madeline Perry.

That is why another quarter-final match with Perry here Wednesday may offer an insight into the champion's mental growth and personal development.

David had a rest day on Tuesday in which to prepare. But her focus is unlikely to be on the quality of her opponent's skills, but the entwining of her own tactical concerns with her state of mind.

"It's always a good match with Madeline, but I know how important it is to focus more on my game and what I have to do," the record-breaking champion said. "I have to bring my game up - and make sure I bring it with me to the court."

- AFP/al

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