Trade Policy: Scenes from the Broadway revival of Horton Foote’s play.     It seemed like a watershed moment for the Affordable Care Act when Florida Gov. Rick Scott (R), a staunch Obamacare opponent, embraced the Medicaid expansion in February. "While the federal government is committed to paying 100 percent of the costs, I cannot deny Floridians who need access to health care," Scott told reporters at a press conference. Read full article >>    To protect the federal civilian agencies against cyberthreats, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is preparing to deploy a more powerful version of its EINSTEIN intrusion-detection system that’s supposed to detect attacks and malware, especially associated with e-mail. But since this version of EINSTEIN is acknowledged by DHS to be able to read electronic content, it’s raising privacy concerns.     Arvind, the Charles W. and Jennifer C. Johnson Professor of Computer Science and Engineering; In the late years of the George W. Bush administration, a group of veterans of the Clinton White House's economics shop launched the Hamilton Project, a research effort aimed at developing policies to strengthen the nation's long-term economic prospects. DALLAS - Chip maker Texas Instruments Inc. said Monday that "substantial" damage to one of its major manufacturing plants near Tokyo in last week's earthquake will result in extra costs and lost revenue in the first half of this year. Triptease, Ridiculous Fishing, MessageMe, Intuit Pay, The Great Brain Experiment, Field Trip, Look and Find Elmo, The Croods and moreIt's time for our weekly roundup of brand new and notable apps for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch devices.The selection covers apps released for the first time in the last seven days, as opposed to updates to older apps. It covers apps and games, with the prices referring to the initial download: so (Free) may mean (Freemium) in some cases.Looking for Android? The weekly best Android apps post was published earlier in the day. Read on for this week's iOS selection.Triptease (Free)A lot of people with iPads are spending evenings on the sofa browsing for holidays, whether making definite plans or just wishfully thinking. Triptease is the latest iPad app hoping to provide a few ideas, bringing together travel reviews from experts and holidaymakers alike in a stylish touchscreen interface.iPadRidiculous Fishing - A Tale of Redemption (£1.99)If you buy one iOS game this month, make it Ridiculous Fishing. The title doesn't lie: the game sees you fishing for a variety of sea creatures, and the array of power-ups – not to mention the way you chuck your catch into the sky and fill it full of bullets – is ridiculous. But it's also one of the most addictive games I've played this year. And for anyone chafing at the dominance of freemium games on the App Store, see this: "No IAP. Buy the game, play the game... Even the hats are IAP-free."iPhone / iPadMessageMe (Free)Is 2013 too late for a new messaging app to cause a stir? Seemingly not. MessageMe is getting similar buzz this week to WhatsApp in its early days. The app is a combination of one-to-one and group messaging, but throws in simple sharing of YouTube videos, iTunes songs and digitally scribbled-on photos. Facebook is an option to find friends, but BBM-style private PINs are also supported.iPhoneIntuit Pay (Free)From fishy business earlier on to... well, just business really. Intuit Pay is one of a number of apps aimed at independent retailers and merchants, offering them a way to accept card payments – with a Bluetooth chip & PIN card reader, obviously. It's fully accredited for Visa, MasterCard and Maestro payments, and available in the UK.iPhone / iPadThe Great Brain Experiment (Free)This is a really interesting app-cum-experiment from University College London, working with the Wellcome Trust. It turns neuroscientific research into mini-games, with players' data being fed back to the University's lab for analysis: "research that could previously only be conducted on small groups of volunteers".iPhone / iPadField Trip (Free)Field Trip is one of Google's offshoots: an app that runs in the background on cure tinnitus and pings you when "you get close to something interesting", even reading the details to you over your earphones or Bluetooth headset. Better for London currently than other parts of the UK, but that will hopefully improve over time (assuming Google doesn't shut it down a la Google Reader, of course...)iPhoneLook and Find Elmo on Sesame Street (£0.69)There are plenty of hidden-object games on iOS, but only one of them stars Elmo, the furry red monster from Sesame Street. This official app offers six scenes for children to explore with their fingers, searching for "things that go HONK! and BOING! and CLANK!". The link above is for iPhone, but the iPad version can be found here.iPhone / iPadThe Croods (Free)The Croods is Rovio's latest non-Angry-Birds game – a partnership with Hollywood studio DreamWorks Animation based on the latter's new film. It sees you trapping and taming wild animals, building houses for them to live in and decorating your prehistoric village. It's freemium, with an in-app store selling virtual coins and crystals in amounts up to £39.99, so parents should lock down their IAP settings before letting a child play.iPhone / iPadYouTube Capture (Free)Released last year for iPhone, YouTube's video-shooting'n'sharing app has now been made universal with a native iPad version. It makes it quick and easy to record videos, perform simple editing functions and then upload them to YouTube – as well as sharing the details to Google+, Facebook and Twitter.iPadThe Romans (£2.49)What did the Romans ever do for us? Here's an app hoping to explain. Launched by Cotswold District Council, it's based on the Corinium Museum in Cirencester, showing off its archaeological remains from the Roman age, as well as photographs, artists' impressions and information on the town's Roman history.iPadCBS (Free)This app is US-only, understandably since CBS is an American broadcaster. It's the network's attempt to get people watching shows on their iOS devices, with full streaming episodes of shows including NCIS, How I Met Your Mother and The Late Show with David Letterman. There are social feeds for each show, as well as information on casts and schedules.iPhone / iPadCalendars by Readdle (Free)Readdle is the latest developer making a bid to dislodge the default iOS calendar app from people's homescreens. Calendars syncs with that plus Google Calendar to manage and display upcoming events, with a nifty drag'n'drop interface and SMS reminders.iPhone / iPadWebMD Pregnancy (Free)Health website WebMD has spun off an iPhone app focusing purely on pregnancy, from conception through the three trimesters and onto the "Oh me, oh my, I can't wait to get this over with, buy me 10 pineapples and the hottest curry you can find" final stages. The app blends medical information with a pregnancy photojournal, to-do lists and a Kick Counter.iPhoneSlamjet Stadium (£1.99)If the iOS conversion of Speedball 2 failed to sate your future-sport appetite, Slamjet Stadium is a must-download. Loosely based on football, it sees you boshing a ball around a pitch while knocking over as many opponents as you can, with solo matches plus the opportunity to play a friend on the same iPad.iPadNightSky (£1.49)iOS and Android are getting a decent crop of beautifully-eerie physics puzzlers at the moment, with NightSky the latest. Based on a PC and DS game, it sees you manipulating a "mysterious crystal sphere" around the screen, with plenty of moody silhouettes and ambient electronics to accompany your efforts. It's rather marvellous.iPhone / iPadKids Vocab - MindSnacks (Free)MindSnacks is one of the children's app developers actually getting some traction on the app stores, with more than 6m downloads so far. Its latest app is aimed at 7-12 year-olds, teaching them vocabulary with entertaining mini-games over 25 lessons. One comes for free, and a single £2.99 in-app purchase unlocks the rest.iPhone / iPadLe Vamp (£1.49)There's something special about Le Vamp, a characterful iOS game based around a young vampire running through the forest. Yes, endless running, you could say – with sunlight, water and enemies to avoid along the way. Intuitive swipe aquaponics 4 you download some lovely creative touches make this a treat.iPhone / iPadHurts Exile (Free)Musical duo Hurts have a new album called Exile out, which is being promoted by this eerie "binaural sound" iOS game. It sees you making your way through a mysterious plotline by listening rather than watching – controlling the action by speaking into the microphone. Music from the album filters in and out as you go. It's clearly influenced strongly by another audio game, Papa Sangre, which made waves on the App Store back in 2010.iPhone / iPadBaidu News (Free)Another US-only app (for now) with an interesting source: Chinese internet giant Baidu. It has localised the app from its home market. What is it? A news aggregation app, splitting news into topics and promising "all greatest news together". It looks slick, but can it compete with Flipboard, Pulse, Zite, News360 and the rest?iPhoneStargate SG-1: Unleashed Ep 1 (£2.99)Very exciting news for fervent fans of Stargate SG-1 (and there are plenty of those) – an official game based on the TV show, which aired for 10 seasons in its heyday. Cast members Richard Dean Anderson, Amanda Tapping and Michael Shanks are on board for voice duties in this adventure game, with the "Ep 1" indicating that more instalments may be on the way too.iPhone / iPadChord! (£2.99)This looks a really useful app for musicians, laying out chords and scales for guitar and other fretted instruments, searching its database or entering them on a virtual keyboard or guitar neck. It's all very impressively presented, with uses for novice musicians and experienced players alike.iPhoneSuper Stickman Golf 2 (£0.69)As someone who lost a fair few hours to the original Super Stickman Golf, I've been looking forward to its sequel. It offers 20 courses to stick-swing your way round and online multiplayer to test your skills against other players. It's a freemium game, with virtual currency and extra features sold from its in-game store.iPhone / iPadThe Particles (£1.99)This app styles itself as "the definitive interactive guide to subatomic particles and particle physics", which sounds slightly scary. Actually, though, this is a really accessible app with videos, images, definitions and physicist biographies to help you tell your Quarks from your Bosons, and a clever spinning-wheel navigation system to find your way through its content.iPadConcert Vault for iPad (Free)Don't get to as many gigs as you used to, but own an iPad? Concert Vault may be just the ticket. Released by music site Wolfgang's Vault, it's a collection of audio and video recordings of gigs from the 1950s to the 2010s, split into genres including rock, blues, country, folk and indie. You pay for unlimited access to the archives: a monthly subscription of £2.49 or an annual fee of £27.99.iPadPavlov Dog Monitor (£1.49)This app may be a niche, but it's a helluva good one. Pavlov Dog Monitor is exactly what it sounds like: an app for monitoring your dog's behaviour at home while you're away. The idea being that you record video messages: 'Good Dog' and 'Bad Dog'. Then leave the app running on an iOS device for the videos to play if the dog is noisy or quiet – monitoring the activity, and even posting updates to your Facebook page.iPhone / iPadHello Kitty Music Piano Play-Along Deluxe (£0.69)Hello Kitty continues to be enormously popular around the world, but now Sanrio's cartoon cat wants to teach children to play music. This app uses cutesy mini-games to get kids playing a virtual piano, with two difficulty modes, several instrument sounds and the option for them to record their own compositions and save them for posterity. iPadRepix – Remix & Paint Photos (Free)For many smartphone owners, photo-editing doesn't go any further than applying an Instagram filter. Repix is for people who want to have a bit more fun with the idea: a way to "paint remixes from photos using magical Repix brushes". It's a fun-tactile way to spruce up your images, then share them on various social networks.iPhone / iPadIdentiKat (£0.69)More cute cats forex growth bot review although this time children will be actually making the feline characters. IdentiKat is a wonderfully creative app that involves making mogs from (virtual) household junk – buttons, fabric and the like. Easy to use, and the cat creations look excellent.iPadCastle Champions (Free)The latest intriguing splice of several gameplay genres to hit the App Store, Castle Champions blends tower building with tower defence, as you train up an army inside your castle to repel a series of invaders. It's freemium, so expect in-app purchases for virtual gold and crystals to hove into view while playing.iPhone / iPadNumerosity: Play with Addition (£1.49)One final educational app for children this week, from developer ThoughtBox. It's a maths-based game for 6-8 year-olds to fine-tune their mathematical skills, and learn some new ones. Simple controls, well-tuned achievements and a sense of fun makes this well worth the download price.iPadiPhoneiPadAppsAppleSmartphonesTablet computersMobileMobile phonesStuart Dredgeguardian.co.uk © 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds Al Qaeda’s North African arm said Tuesday that it had beheaded a French hostage in retaliation for France’s intervention in Mali, Mauritania’s ANI news agency reported. U.S. stocks rose for a fourth week, pushing the Standard & Poor's 500-stock index above 1000 for the first time since November, as better-than-estimated employment, manufacturing and home-sales data boosted confidence that the worst slump since the Great Depression is ending. Liverpool midfielder Joe Allen will have surgery on a long-standing shoulder injury that has ruled him out for the rest of the season, the Merseyside club said on Wednesday. In Renaissance England, women were constantly performing scientific experiments and advancing health care - but they didn't get much credit for it. That's the gist of a new exhibition at the Folger Shakespeare Library that shows the natural remedies that women used to treat illnesses at home. The... Pop-in loads on the surface of a nickel-based superalloy sample Paintings commissioned by Europeans in India in the 18th century at the Arader Galleries in Manhattan. House lawmakers exchanged partisan barbs Tuesday as they looked back on how the current and former administrations have regulated offshore drilling over the past decade. SINGAPORE -- Oil prices hovered near $97 a barrel Wednesday in Asia after a big loss overnight as Japan struggled to control a damaged nuclear plant and cope with a devastating earthquake and tsunami. Alexei Borodin Photo: M. Scott Brauer PayPal, which claims more than 128 million active accounts in 193 markets and 25 currencies around the globe, is now looking at outer space.     The United States, officials from both countries say, took on too many projects and often did not consult with the Iraqis about which projects were needed and how best to go about them. Maria T. Zuber, the E.A. Griswold Professor of Geophysics, will become MIT’s next vice president for research, President L. Rafael Reif announced today. Zuber chaired MIT’s Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences from 2003 to 2011, and has held leadership roles associated with scientific experiments or instrumentation on nine NASA missions over the past two decades.Claude R. Canizares, who has served since 2006 as MIT’s vice president for research and associate provost, has been tapped by Reif for a new vice presidential post with responsibility for MIT’s major international partnerships. Reif made the announcement this morning in an email to the MIT community. Zuber and Canizares will assume their new roles effective Jan. 16.Maria Zuber named vice president for researchMaria Zuber has been a member of the MIT faculty since 1995; she was previously on the faculty of Johns Hopkins University. She has also served, since 1994, as a senior research scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. “Well-versed in the ways of Washington, with a deep awareness of the needs of world-class research teams, a broad understanding of the research enterprise at MIT and a proven ability to orchestrate natural vitiligo treatment and build effective teams, Professor Zuber is extraordinarily well-prepared to lead MIT in federal research policy and administration,” Reif said. “As uncertainty prevails around federal research funding, she will be a compelling advocate for farsighted federal investment in university research.”As vice president for research, Zuber will be responsible for research administration and policy at the Institute. She will oversee more than a dozen interdisciplinary research centers, including the David H. Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research, the Plasma Science and Fusion Center, the Research Laboratory of Electronics, the Institute for Soldier Nanotechnologies, the MIT Energy Initiative (MITEI), and the Haystack Observatory. The vice president for research is also responsible for research integrity and compliance, and plays a central role in research relationships with the federal government.“The research enterprise is the heart and soul of MIT,” Zuber said. “I am delighted to have the opportunity to shape the organization to be optimally responsive to faculty needs and to articulate the importance of investment in science and technology. I look forward to building on the strong foundation established by Claude Canizares to enable more cross-disciplinary endeavors that can be game-changers within and beyond MIT.” Since 1990, Zuber has held leadership roles associated with scientific experiments or instrumentation on nine NASA missions; at present, she remains involved with six of these missions. Since 2008, she has served as principal investigator of the space agency’s Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) mission, an effort to map the moon’s gravitational field. By precisely measuring changes in distance between twin spacecraft orbiting the moon, she and other scientists hope to answer fundamental questions about the moon’s evolution and internal composition.Currently, Zuber also holds leadership positions on two research projects that are part of NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter mission: as investigation lead on the laser ranger project and as deputy principal investigator on the lunar orbiter laser altimeter project.Zuber’s research bridges planetary geophysics and the technology of space-based laser and radio systems; she also has extensive experience in leading large scientific projects. GRAIL has been recognized for its achievements in science, technology and education; Zuber’s management brought the mission in on time and under budget.Zuber holds a BA from the University of Pennsylvania, awarded in 1980, and an ScM and PhD from Brown University, awarded in 1983 and 1986, respectively. She has received awards and honors including MIT’s Killian Faculty Achievement Award; the American Geophysical Union’s Harry H. Hess Medal; and numerous NASA awards, including the Distinguished Public Service Medal and the Outstanding Public Leadership Medal.Claude Canizares named vice presidentClaude Canizares came to MIT as a postdoc in 1971 and joined the faculty in 1974. He served as director of the MIT Center for Space Research (now the Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research) from 1990 to 2002. From 2001 to 2006 he served as the Institute’s associate provost before becoming vice president for research and associate provost in 2006. During Canizares’ tenure, the Office of the Vice President for Research assumed primary responsibility for the Office of Sponsored Programs, and helped establish and oversee the Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology Centre (SMART), MITEI, and the David H. Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research. Among other notable accomplishments as vice president for research, Canizares took a leadership role in initiating a consortium to build the new Massachusetts Green High Performance Computing Center in Holyoke; helped to establish the new Institute of Medical Engineering and Science; and fostered stronger ties between MIT’s main campus in Cambridge and Lincoln Laboratory, a research laboratory in Lexington, Mass., that MIT operates for the U.S. Department of Defense.  “Year after year, despite a challenging funding environment, Claude Canizares led MIT to remarkable success in securing research support, while also helping to launch bold new initiatives, from Singapore to Skolkovo,” Reif said. “We are all grateful for his untiring dedication and creative leadership.”In his new role, Canizares will oversee MIT’s portfolio of international engagements, which has seen four major additions in the past trademiner MIT assisted in the 2007 creation of the Masdar Institute of Science and Technology in Abu Dhabi, a graduate educational and research institute devoted to advanced energy and sustainable technologies. Since 2008, Institute officials have partnered with the Singaporean government to establish SMART and the Singapore University of Technology and Design. And in 2011, MIT joined in the creation of the Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology in Russia, envisioned as a world-class graduate research university. Canizares will also continue to oversee Lincoln Laboratory.“It has been a great privilege to serve as associate provost and as vice president for research,” Canizares said. “I look forward to being able to concentrate my attention on our present and future global engagements, and on continuing to strengthen the ties between our campus and Lincoln Laboratory.” Canizares holds a BA, MA and PhD in physics from Harvard University. He is an authority on high-resolution X-ray spectroscopy and plasma diagnostics of supernova remnants and clusters of galaxies; X-ray studies of dark matter; X-ray properties of quasars and active galactic nuclei; and observational cosmology. He led the development of the Chandra High-Resolution Transmission Grating Spectrometer at NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory. Canizares is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, has been honored for Meritorious Civilian Service to the United States Air Force, and has received two NASA Public Service Medals, as well as the Goddard Medal of the American Astronautical Society.Canizares’ appointment as vice president will run until June 2014. In a letter of condolence to the people of Venezuela, Iran’s president struck a note of interfaith harmony, expressing confidence that Hugo Chávez would be resurrected, along with Jesus and the Hidden Imam. Consumer spending rebounded and incomes recorded their largest increase in three months in May, adding to data that have suggested the economy has shifted to firmer ground.     European Clubs Association (ECA) president Karl-Heinz Rummenigge's recent comments on the transfer system were branded as unbelievable and naive on Tuesday by the world players' union FIFPro. Sometimes the fastest pathway from point A to point B is not a straight line: for example, if you’re underwater and contending with strong and shifting currents. But figuring out the best route in such settings is a monumentally complex problem — especially if you’re trying to do it not just for one underwater vehicle, but for a swarm of them moving all at once toward separate destinations. But that’s just what a team of engineers at MIT has figured out how to do, in research results to be presented in May at the annual IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation. The team, led by Pierre Lermusiaux, the Doherty Associate Professor in Ocean Utilization, developed a mathematical procedure that can optimize path planning for automated underwater vehicles (AUVs), even in regions with complex shorelines and strong shifting currents. The system can provide paths optimized either for the shortest travel time or for the minimum use of energy, or to maximize the collection of data that is considered most important.Collections of propelled AUVs and gliding AUVs (also called gliders) are now often used for mapping and oceanographic research, for military reconnaissance and harbor protection, or for deep-sea oil-well maintenance and emergency response. So far, fleets of up to 20 such AUVs have been deployed, but in the coming years far larger fleets could come into service, Lermusiaux says, making the computational task of planning optimal paths much more complex.He adds that earlier attempts to find optimal paths for underwater vehicles were either imprecise, unable to cope with changing currents and complex topography, or required so much computational power that they couldn’t be applied to real-time control of swarms of robotic vehicles. The China National Offshore Oil Corp. will pay Chesapeake Energy $2.2 billion for a one-third interest in a South Texas oil and natural gas shale project and will pay billions of dollars more for its share of development costs over the next several

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