Super Squares is a simple, addictive puzzle games for iPhone and iPad. The goal of Super Squares is to connect each square to another one of the same color, collecting all the stars in a level along the way. Draw different routes to avoid obsticles, and avoid blocking a color's path. Certain levels give you a set number of bombs in order to destroy obsticles. You can buy more if you run out, though it's easy enough to figure out how to beat the level with the given bombs.
Super Squares is very engaging, and free to download, though there are in-app purchases. While you can play through the first 300 levels for free, you will need to pay to unlock more. There are several packs available for $0.99 a piece, but you can buy all every level for $3.99. A universal game, Super Squares can be found on the App Store now.
Sal Russo of the Tea Party Express speaks at the National Press Club in 2011. Russo predicts the Tea Party will be re-energized for the 2014 midterm elections.
Alex Brandon/AP
Sal Russo of the Tea Party Express speaks at the National Press Club in 2011. Russo predicts the Tea Party will be re-energized for the 2014 midterm elections.
Alex Brandon/AP
It's been a tough week for the Tea Party and its supporters in Congress. The Affordable Care Act survived the Capitol Hill standoff largely untouched. President Obama and the Democrats stared them down and won. And fights with establishment Republicans revealed the depth of division within the GOP.
Public opinion polls show support for the Tea Party has fallen dramatically — to its lowest point ever. But Tea Party activists say that the movement isn't going away.
Sal Russo of the Tea Party Express, one of largest such groups in the nation, was philosophical about what many say was a losing battle to begin with.
"You fight every fight, you know, ideally to win," he says. "But sometimes, you know you have a long shot at it, but it's worth getting in the ring and giving it a shot, and that's what we did."
Russo also predicts that you'll see a re-energized and motivated Tea Party in the year leading up to 2014's midterm elections.
"I don't think you're ever going to repeat the huge wave of 2010, but I think it's going to be stronger than 2012," he says. "I think people are ginned up and saying, 'Look, we can't just keep spending money like drunken sailors.' "
Asked about falling public support for the Tea Party, Russo says polls go up and down.
But Tom Zawistowski, who heads the Portage County Tea Party group in Ohio, says such polls aren't to be believed because of the way the president, the Democrats and the media portray them.
Tom Zawistowski of the Portage County Tea Party in Ohio says his group is now focused on local elections next month.
Tony Dejak/AP
Tom Zawistowski of the Portage County Tea Party in Ohio says his group is now focused on local elections next month.
Tony Dejak/AP
"We don't have horns — you know, we're not from another planet," he says. "We're just like all the other people listening to your show. And we have our own life experiences and we see things in a certain way."
When asked what comes next for them, he points to elections coming up on Nov. 5. And he's talking 2013, not 2014.
"We're engaged with school boards, and we're out interviewing school board candidates, and we're talking to township trustees and city council members," he says. "Those are important people. They serve us as much as the guys in D.C., if not more so."
A major force behind the Tea Party has been the Washington, D.C.-based organization FreedomWorks. Matt Kibbe, the group's CEO, said on C-SPAN on Friday that it's the Republican Party — not the Tea Party — that needs to learn from this week's events in Washington.
"Everything's more democratized," he says. "And Republicans should come to terms with that. They still want to control things from the top down, and if they do that, there will absolutely be a split. But my prediction would be that we take over the Republican Party, and they go the way of the Whigs."
The Whig Party, of course, dissolved in the mid-1800s.
But there are also plenty of questions ahead for the Tea Party: Will it be able to recruit good candidates? Will it be able to raise money as it has? And how will the events of this week affect how general-election voters view the organization?
On Friday, Oct. 18, 2013, Joyce Jackson holds a drawing made by her son Bobby Gerald Bennett, in Dallas. Jackson says Bennett, who is a schizophrenic, wanted to take the drawing with him out of the house leading to an argument that caused her to call police Monday. Surveillance video from a neighbor's camera shows Bennett standing as two officers approach him. Seconds later, Officer Cardan Spencer fires at Bennet who now remains in a hospital intensive care unit. Dallas police have opened a criminal investigation and placed the officer on administrative leave indefinitely. (AP Photo/Nomaan Merchant)
On Friday, Oct. 18, 2013, Joyce Jackson holds a drawing made by her son Bobby Gerald Bennett, in Dallas. Jackson says Bennett, who is a schizophrenic, wanted to take the drawing with him out of the house leading to an argument that caused her to call police Monday. Surveillance video from a neighbor's camera shows Bennett standing as two officers approach him. Seconds later, Officer Cardan Spencer fires at Bennet who now remains in a hospital intensive care unit. Dallas police have opened a criminal investigation and placed the officer on administrative leave indefinitely. (AP Photo/Nomaan Merchant)
This image from video courtesy of Maurice Bunch shows Bobby Gerald Bennett, left, standing as two Dallas Police officers approach him. Seconds later, Officer Cardan Spencer fires at Bennet who now remains in a hospital intensive care unit. Dallas police have opened a criminal investigation and placed the officer on administrative leave indefinitely after he shot and wounded Bennet who is a schizophrenic. (AP Photo/Maurice Bunch)
This image from video courtesy of Maurice Bunch shows Bobby Gerald Bennett , left, after Dallas Police Officer Cardan Spencer shot Bennet, who now remains in a hospital intensive care unit. Dallas police have opened a criminal investigation and placed the officer on administrative leave indefinitely after shooting the schizophrenic man. (AP Photo/Courtesy of Maurice Bunch)
DALLAS (AP) — Surveillance video showing a Dallas police officer shooting a mentally ill man standing still about 20 feet away contradicts the assertion of an officer that the man threatened his safety by lunging at him with a knife.
Bobby Gerald Bennett remains hospitalized after being shot in the stomach Monday. The officer who shot him, Cardan Spencer, is on indefinite administrative leave pending a criminal investigation after a neighbor released surveillance video that captured the incident.
Bennett was charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon on a public servant, but Police Chief David Brown announced Friday that the charge would be dropped.
Bennett's mother, Joyce Jackson, said in an interview Friday that her 52-year-old son has been diagnosed with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, and that he was off his medication at the time of the shooting. Jackson said she was arguing with Bennett when she called the police. She was told that officers who have been trained in dealing with the mentally ill would arrive to assist her.
The officers arrived outside her southeast Dallas home around noon to find Bennett sitting on a chair in the street holding a knife. At this point, accounts of the incident differ.
Spencer wrote in a police report that Bennett refused to drop the knife and moved toward him and another officer "in a threatening manner." Spencer says that's when he fired at Bennett four times from about 20 feet away, wounding him.
The video tells a different story. Although the police report says Bennett "lunged" at the officers with a knife, in the video he stands up from the chair but then doesn't appear to move at all until the gun is fired and he crumples to the ground.
The surveillance video doesn't include audio, and Spencer wrote in his report that Bennett yelled at them, "You all are gonna need more officers than this!" But it doesn't show that the incident "escalated, which led an officer to fire his weapon upon the individual," as police spokesman Warren Mitchell said in a statement a few hours after the shooting.
Police Chief David Brown said in a statement Thursday night that Spencer has been placed on indefinite administrative leave pending a "thorough criminal investigation."
Jackson said she and her son had been arguing about whether he could take an ink drawing of a rose he had done for his late grandmother, she said. The drawing is framed on the wall of her home.
The argument soon escalated to the point where Jackson felt she needed police assistance.
"I'm devastated that I felt the need to call 911," Jackson said.
Jackson said her son struggles with mental illness and often leaves her home to sleep on the streets, but said he is an avid artist and reader and isn't violent. According to state criminal records, he was convicted of larceny, vehicle theft and forgery in the 1980s but has no recent arrests.
"I was expecting help from someone that's a lot more knowledgeable than me," she said. Mitchell, the police spokesman, declined to say Friday whether the two officers sent to Jackson's home had any specific mental health training.
Jackson did not see the shooting. She was inside her home when she heard four gunshots. She said it was a "miracle" that her neighbor's camera recorded the incident. Otherwise, "I wouldn't have had a leg to stand on," she said.
Maurice Bunch installed the surveillance camera two years ago after a trailer was stolen from his driveway.
___
Follow Nomaan Merchant on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/nomaanmerchant
Firas Zahabi, founder of Montreal's TriStar Gym and trainer to UFC Welterweight champion Georges St-Pierre, spoke with SiriusXM Fight Club this week about comments the champ had made about a lack of support from the UFC. St-Pierre told a Canadian media outlet he didn't feel fully backed in his pursuit of more extensive drug screenings. When asked how St-Pierre felt the UFC had let him down, Zahabi gives his take on the debacle:
"I'm not sure exactly what he meant to ... we're kind of passed that,' said Zahabi. "We don't really talk about it anymore. We just do the testing. At the end of the day, we wanted VADA because VADA can ensure HGH testing. If you really want to know the nuts and bolts, they were going to ensure HGH testing on every test. Doing it the other way, with Nevada, they wanted to do it random. Nobody knows when we're testing at any time. We're OK with random testing. We want random testing plus HGH on every test. So it doesn't matter the cost. 'It costs more to do that test?' Fine, do it for every single test because we to hear anybody say anymore that Georges is taking growth hormones. Georges has been accused of that for years, since the beginning of his pro career, and we want to be able to prove to everybody that he's been tested thoroughly for HGH."
What followed was a highly publicized back and forth between not only the two fighters' camps, but also Keith Kizer, executive director of the Nevada State Athletic Commission.
"It turned out to be a controversy. It turned out to be a big problem. We had a lot of misunderstandings. I think everybody wants to be clean. I think Johny Hendricks is clean. I think Georges is clean. I think everybody wants to do the best job possible, but it was just too ... I don't know. Everybody interpreted one thing from the next. Johny Hendricks said 'Oh, you guys want to do VADA? Then we don't want to do VADA.' Not Johny Hendricks himself, but his camp. And they were like 'We want to do the most thorough testing possible,' and they don't even test for HGH or whatnot."
Frustrated by the entire process, Zahabi says he was willing to help bankroll the testing himself to finally settle the matter.
"There was just so much back and forth and I don't even know who was saying what anymore. I just said 'look, just test them with both tests. Get the best test possible. Get the highest criteria possible. Lets do that.' I'm ready to put money in myself if that's going to make everyone happy. I know it's quite expensive, but I was ready to do anything to make everybody happy and just have the strictest testing. It just didn't work out that way. Georges was disappointed with the UFC. I don't know why, you'd have to ask him, but it was a big controversy for something so simple."
"I don't know how 'we didn't back him up,' said White. The UFC was involved in all of those conversations that they had with the commission. Originally, Georges St-Pierre said he was going to pay for it, then he wasn't going to pay for it. Just the whole thing was done very weird. If he feels we didn't support him ... I mean, I don't know. The whole thing is f***ing weird."
"I haven't talked to him about it. He's very fired up about it because he went out there and started this thing and then it turned into a huge clusterf**k. I don't know what to say. I don't know what to tell him. The whole f***ing thing is weird."
St-Pierre will defend his welterweight title to Hendricks in the main event at UFC 167 on Nov. 16, 2013 in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Bjorn's offer. With Bellator CEO Bjorn Rebney offering Dana White a somewhat indecent proposal involving Ben Askren, the UFC boss says the other side is playing games. "I don't give a s--t what they're doing. They don't matter and I don't care."
Good news for Pierce. With some fans fearing the worst for Mike Pierce's injured knee and ankle, it sounds like he may be able to return to training without having surgery.
We Train in Public. UFC middleweight champion Chris Weidman will be giving fans an unprecedented inside look into his training with the launch of his Champ Challenge. "You get my list of workouts, videos of my workouts, my nutritional plan for the day, every single day. Access to the gym pretty much 24 hours."
MEDIA STEW
UFC Primetime: Velasquez vs. Dos Santos 3 - Episode 3.
Brazilian Anderson Silva and Canadian George "GSP" St. Pierre are two competitors who usually show up near the top on the best fighter in MMA pound-for-pound lists. I will exclude Jon Jones at the moment, the future will determine whether he claims the all-time title. While Silva has been a human wrecking ball destroying such greats as Rich Franklin (twice), and Dan Henderson en route to 16 straight wins before his loss to Weidman, St. Pierre has used his superior wrestling game to suffocate opponents and literally make them quit on the mat while winning his last 16 out of 17 fighst in the UFC. In short their records stand at a eerily similar 16-1 over their last 17 fights during a period which many call the golden age of MMA.
Often called the best wrestler in MMA, the criticism against St. Pierre recently has been his inability to finish fights as he has six straight decision wins. Silva on the other hand has always been a devastating finisher, but it seems that his embarrassing wealth of talent has dulled his competitive edge and lately he seems content to taunt his opponents in the ring in a bizarre manner rather than try and finish them. Their most recent fights are probably the best indicator to use when arguing which of these fighters is better pound-for-pound or the.
Looking forward to some delicious eats and stimulating conversation, Eva Longoria and Melanie Griffith showed up at E. Baldi restaurant in Beverly Hills on Thursday afternoon (October 17).
Both ladies looked beautiful as they finished up their meal and promptly headed off to a shopping spree at several nearby boutiques.
Last night, Eva had a guest-starring role on “Welcome to the Family,” the new NBC series starring her “Desperate Housewives” costar Ricardo Chavira.
Prior to the show, Longoria tweeted, “You guys ready for my return to television!! Watch me this week with @RicardoAChavira on Welcome To The Family this Thur on NBC!#WTTF.”
Late last week, as the G.O.P. descended ever-deeper into civil war, Matt Yglesias and Jonathan Chait both had pieces up marveling at the absence of any actual policy disagreement between the populists driving the shutdown and the establishment/leadership/Senate Republicans trying to find a way out. “Intra-party schisms … are usually rooted in policy,” Chait wrote, but “mainstream Republicans and the tea party have fallen out almost entirely over political tactics.” Yglesias agreed, contrasting the party’s split on foreign policy, where there’s a big substantive gap between the Rand Paul/Justin Amash/Mike Lee libertarian wing and the more hawkish old guard, with the purely tactical split on economic policy:
Contact: Scott LaFee slafee@ucsd.edu 619-543-6163 University of California - San Diego
Researchers find both effectively reduce tobacco consumption among low-income smokers
Researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine say high-priced cigarettes and smoke-free homes effectively reduce smoking behaviors among low-income individuals a demographic in which tobacco use has remained comparatively high.
Writing in the October 17, 2013 issue of the American Journal of Public Health, principal investigator John P. Pierce, PhD, professor and director of population sciences at UC San Diego School of Medicine, and colleagues found that expensive cigarettes $4.50 or more per pack were associated with lower consumption across all levels.
"Living in a state where the average price paid for cigarettes is low ($3.20 or less per pack) means that all smokers, regardless of income, will smoke a lot more than those who live in a state with higher prices," said Pierce. "This is the case for those living below the federal poverty level as well as for the wealthy."
When smokers agreed to a smoke-free home, not only were they more likely to reduce their smoking but, in addition, if they quit, they were less likely to relapse.
"Price is a deterrent to smoking," said Pierce, "but successful quitting (90 or more days) was associated in this study only with a smoke-free home."
The challenge to anti-smoking groups is that low-income smokers are less likely to adopt a smoke-free home environment. Pierce offered several possible explanations: "First, there's a higher prevalence of smoking in people with lower incomes, which means that there will be more spouses who smoke as well. When both adults smoke, there is much lower motivation to introduce a smoke-free home. Also, social norms against smoking have historically been lower in those with lower incomes.
"No one is mandating a smoke-free home," Pierce continued. "We are telling people that if they really want to quit, then introducing a smoke-free home will help them be successful. This study supports the current policy of increasing (cigarette) prices and building social norms that protect against secondhand smoke. These policies will reduce consumption among all smokers reducing potential harm and the ensuing smoke-free homes will help smokers quit successfully."
The findings are derived from the 2006-2007 Tobacco Use Supplement to the Current Population Survey, a monthly nationally representative cross-sectional survey conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau. The researchers analyzed three sets of supplement data containing responses from more than 150,000 participants aged 18 and older who self-reported both income and smoking habits.
Maya Vijayaraghavan, MD, assistant clinical professor in the Department of Family and Preventive medicine and the study's first author, said one potential avenue for intervention was to increase regulation of secondhand smoke in public housing.
"This may change norms around smoking among low-income populations living in public housing," Vijayaraghavan said. "What is important is that clinicians need to emphasize social norms concerning tobacco use and should encourage and discuss strategies for adopting smoke-free homes among all smokers. Additionally, there is a lot of interest in raising cigarette price to reduce smoking. While we have evidence that moderate increases reduce smoking behavior in all income groups, it is important to match such a policy with support to help lower income smokers to quit successfully."
###
Study co-authors include Karen Messer and Martha M. White, both at UC San Diego Moores Cancer Center.
Funding support for this study came, in part, from UC Tobacco-Related Disease Research Program grants 18CA-0134 and 21RT-0135.
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Costly cigarettes and smoke-free homes
Public release date: 17-Oct-2013 [
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Contact: Scott LaFee slafee@ucsd.edu 619-543-6163 University of California - San Diego
Researchers find both effectively reduce tobacco consumption among low-income smokers
Researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine say high-priced cigarettes and smoke-free homes effectively reduce smoking behaviors among low-income individuals a demographic in which tobacco use has remained comparatively high.
Writing in the October 17, 2013 issue of the American Journal of Public Health, principal investigator John P. Pierce, PhD, professor and director of population sciences at UC San Diego School of Medicine, and colleagues found that expensive cigarettes $4.50 or more per pack were associated with lower consumption across all levels.
"Living in a state where the average price paid for cigarettes is low ($3.20 or less per pack) means that all smokers, regardless of income, will smoke a lot more than those who live in a state with higher prices," said Pierce. "This is the case for those living below the federal poverty level as well as for the wealthy."
When smokers agreed to a smoke-free home, not only were they more likely to reduce their smoking but, in addition, if they quit, they were less likely to relapse.
"Price is a deterrent to smoking," said Pierce, "but successful quitting (90 or more days) was associated in this study only with a smoke-free home."
The challenge to anti-smoking groups is that low-income smokers are less likely to adopt a smoke-free home environment. Pierce offered several possible explanations: "First, there's a higher prevalence of smoking in people with lower incomes, which means that there will be more spouses who smoke as well. When both adults smoke, there is much lower motivation to introduce a smoke-free home. Also, social norms against smoking have historically been lower in those with lower incomes.
"No one is mandating a smoke-free home," Pierce continued. "We are telling people that if they really want to quit, then introducing a smoke-free home will help them be successful. This study supports the current policy of increasing (cigarette) prices and building social norms that protect against secondhand smoke. These policies will reduce consumption among all smokers reducing potential harm and the ensuing smoke-free homes will help smokers quit successfully."
The findings are derived from the 2006-2007 Tobacco Use Supplement to the Current Population Survey, a monthly nationally representative cross-sectional survey conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau. The researchers analyzed three sets of supplement data containing responses from more than 150,000 participants aged 18 and older who self-reported both income and smoking habits.
Maya Vijayaraghavan, MD, assistant clinical professor in the Department of Family and Preventive medicine and the study's first author, said one potential avenue for intervention was to increase regulation of secondhand smoke in public housing.
"This may change norms around smoking among low-income populations living in public housing," Vijayaraghavan said. "What is important is that clinicians need to emphasize social norms concerning tobacco use and should encourage and discuss strategies for adopting smoke-free homes among all smokers. Additionally, there is a lot of interest in raising cigarette price to reduce smoking. While we have evidence that moderate increases reduce smoking behavior in all income groups, it is important to match such a policy with support to help lower income smokers to quit successfully."
###
Study co-authors include Karen Messer and Martha M. White, both at UC San Diego Moores Cancer Center.
Funding support for this study came, in part, from UC Tobacco-Related Disease Research Program grants 18CA-0134 and 21RT-0135.
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
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