Huawei shows off 6.1-inch Android phablet ahead of CES [video]

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VP says Chavez up, walking; doubts persist

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — Vice President Nicolas Maduro surprised Venezuelans with a Christmas Eve announcement that President Hugo Chavez is up and walking two weeks after cancer surgery in Cuba, but the news did little to ease uncertainty surrounding the leader’s condition.

Sounding giddy, Maduro told state television Venezolana de Television that he had spoken by phone with Chavez for 20 minutes Monday night. It was the first time a top Venezuelan government official had confirmed talking personally with Chavez since the Dec. 11 operation, his fourth cancer surgery since 2011.

“He was in a good mood,” Maduro said. “He was walking, he was exercising.”

Chavez supporters reacted with relief, but the statement inspired more questions, given the sparse information the Venezuelan government has provided so far about the president’s cancer. Chavez has kept secret various details about his illness, including the precise location of the tumors and the type of cancer. His long-term prognosis remains a mystery.

Dr. Michael Pishvaian, an oncologist at Georgetown University’s Lombardi Cancer Center in Washington, said it was an encouraging sign that Chavez was walking, and it indicated he would be able to return to Venezuela relatively soon. But he said the long term outlook remained poor.

“It’s definitely good news. It means that he is on the road to recover fully from the surgery,” Pishvaian said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press. “The overall prognosis is still pretty poor. He likely has a terminal diagnosis with his cancer that has come back.”

Pishvaian and other outside doctors have said that given the details Chavez has provided about his cancer, it is most likely a soft-tissue sarcoma.

Chavez first underwent surgery for an unspecified type of pelvic cancer in Cuba in June 2011 and went back this month after tests had found a return of malignant cells in the same area where tumors were previously removed.

Venezuelan officials said that, following the six-hour surgery two weeks ago, Chavez suffered internal bleeding that was stanched and a respiratory infection that was being treated.

Maduro’s announcement came just hours after Information Minister Ernesto Villegas read a statement saying Chavez was showing “a slight improvement with a progressive trend.”

Dr. Carlos Castro, director of the Colombian League against Cancer, an association that promotes cancer prevention, treatment and education, said Maduro’s announcement was too vague to paint a clear picture of Chavez’s condition.

“It’s possible (that he is walking) because everything is possible,” Castro told AP. “They probably had him sit in up in bed and take two steps.”

“It’s unclear what they mean by exercise. Was it four little steps?” he added. “I think he is still in critical condition.”

Maduro’s near-midnight announcement came just as Venezuelan families were gathering for traditional late Christmas Eve dinners and setting off the usual deafening fireworks that accompany the festivities. There was still little outward reaction on a quiet Christmas morning.

Danny Moreno, a software technician watching her 2-year-old son try out his new tricycle, was among the few people at a Caracas plaza who said she had heard Maduro’s announcement. She said she saw a government Twitter message saying an announcement was coming and her mother rushed to turn on the TV.

“We all said, thank God, he’s okay,” she said, smiling.

Dr. Gustavo Medrano, a lung specialist at the Centro Medico hospital in Caracas, said if Chavez is talking, it suggests he is breathing on his own despite the respiratory infection and is not in intensive care. But Medrano said he remained skeptical about Maduro’s comments and could deduce little from them about Chavez’s prognosis for recovery.

“I have no idea because if it was such a serious, urgent, important operation, and that was 14 days ago, I don’t think he could be walking and exercising after a surgery like that,” Medrano said.

Over the weekend, Chavez’s ally, Bolivian President Evo Morales, made a lightning visit to Cuba that only added to the uncertainty.

Journalists had been summoned to cover his arrival and departure in Havana, but hours later that invitation was canceled. No explanation was given, though it could have been due to confusion over Morales’ itinerary as he apparently arrived later than initially scheduled.

Cuban state media published photos of President Raul Castro receiving Morales at the airport and said he came “to express his support” for Chavez, his close ally, but did not give further details. He left Sunday without making any public comments.

For the second day in a row Tuesday, Morales made no mention of his trip to Cuba during public events in Bolivia.

Yet more questions surround Chavez’s political future, with the surgery coming two months after he won re-election to a six-year term.

If he is unable to continue in office, the Venezuelan Constitution calls for new elections to be held. Chavez has asked his followers to back Maduro, his hand-picked successor, in that event.

Venezuelan officials have said Chavez might not return in time for his Jan. 10 inauguration.

Opposition leaders have argued that the constitution does not allow the president’s swearing-in to be postponed, and say new elections should be called if Chavez is unable to take the oath on time.

But government officials have said the constitution lets the Supreme Court administer the oath of office at any time if the National Assembly is unable to do it Jan. 10 as scheduled.

___

Associated Press writers Peter Orsi in Havana, Vivian Sequera in Caracas, Camilo Hernandez in Bogota, Colombia, and Paola Flores in La Paz, Bolivia, contributed to this report.

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Former South African president Mandela “much better”: Zuma

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) – Former South African president and anti-apartheid hero Nelson Mandela is looking much better after more than two weeks in hospital, President Jacob Zuma said on Tuesday.

Zuma, who visited Mandela on Christmas Day, said in a statement that doctors were happy with the progress the elder statesman was making.

“We found him in good spirits. He was happy to have visitors on this special day and is looking much better. The doctors are happy with the progress that he is making,” said Zuma.

The 94-year-old Nobel Peace laureate has been in hospital in Pretoria for more than two weeks after being admitted for routine tests and then undergoing surgery to remove gallstones.

Zuma, who has just been re-elected as president of the ruling African National Congress party, last week described Mandela’s condition as serious. Periodic statements from the presidency continue to stress that the veteran politician is responding to treatment.

No date has been given for his release from hospital. Mandela, who is internationally admired for his struggle against minority white rule, retired from public life in 2004 after serving one term as South Africa‘s first black president.

(Reporting by Sherilee Lakmidas; Editing by Andrew Osborn)

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The Web v. Your Financial Planner

My wife and I had been putting off getting a financial planner for at least a year. This was in keeping with our—OK, my—habit of delaying efforts on things that had a Limited Immediate Payoff and were generally considered Good for One’s Future. But after a second child and new jobs for both of us, it seemed time for someone to help us figure out what to do with our money.

I once worked at a personal-finance magazine, albeit writing more about how to spend than how to save, so I felt mildly knowledgeable about what people should do with their money. The gospel of financial planning is pretty commonsensical: Spend less than you earn; save for retirement before your kids’ college costs; invest in low-cost index funds from Vanguard and the like. Leave stockpicking to gamblers, etc.

My time in personal finance also gave me a solid network of friends and former colleagues who could recommend a planner for my own needs. As it turned out, they all recommended the same one. Armed with their unanimous endorsement, my wife and I scheduled an appointment.

I should interrupt here: That dutiful, responsible impulse to seek out a planner was present in both of us, but there was something more self-aggrandizing at work, too. Hiring a planner implies that you have finances sufficient to require planning. While what we sought to do was not purely a luxury—it is, after all, a good idea to have a plan for your money—there was a part of all this that was pleasing and affirmative that we had “made it.”

Photograph by Charlie Engman for Bloomberg Businessweek; Graphic by Jessica Hagy

We went to visit our financial planner-to-be and were immediately reassured by the Park Avenue address, a well-appointed waiting room with crown molding, and framed photos and letters from happy, affluent families. To top it off, the planner was a fee-only shop, which meant it earned no commissions from the financial products it recommended. (This is really the only kind of planner you should ever talk to.)

My wife and I had a lengthy conversation with the two owners of the firm and an associate. They asked us roughly 972 questions, which may sound tedious but was actually delightful. First off, the questions were about ourselves, so that’s fun; in this way, financial planning is very much like psychotherapy. Second, we felt that every question brought us one step closer to our sustainable, responsible financial future. It was like the financial equivalent of exercising.

We left the advisers’ offices excited and relieved. Our money would be properly allocated, our investments guided to the most efficient mutual funds, and our spending kept within bounds—all by sensible, highly educated men and women in really, really nice suits. All we had to do was furnish the firm with our most up-to-date financial information and fill out a questionnaire together to assess things like our tolerance for risk.

Oh, and we had to pay them $ 5,000.

The first two steps we addressed swiftly. I got PDFs of banking statements and the like and e-mailed them within a couple of days. My wife and I sat down one evening and went through the 30-page questionnaire, answering questions about what we would do if we bought a stock and it cratered six months later (we answered “c”: do nothing and ride it out) and outlining our financial goals for the future (“not be broke” was our animating principle).

It was the $ 5,000 that was the sticking point. While my wife and I were making good money, $ 5,000 is still a considerable chunk of change. I would often think about it this way: If you added together all our retirement accounts—IRAs, 401(k)s, etc.—we had about $ 200,000 socked away. Now, if the planner’s taking $ 5,000, then the first 2.5 percent that money earned would be replacing what we paid the planner. That seemed like a fairly big ante.

Then I read an article about online financial-planning websites like LearnVest, NestWise, and Plan & Act that offer similar services for far less. I could think of 5,000 reasons to look at the alternatives.
 
 
I signed up with NestWise, which was founded by a Wharton professor. For $ 250, NestWise would match you to one of its 17 advisers. Your adviser would craft a detailed financial plan that you would execute. All we had to do was furnish the firm with our most up-to-date financial information and fill out a questionnaire to assess things like our tolerance for risk.

Sound familiar? That’s what struck me. In practice, this wasn’t terribly different than what Park Avenue was offering. In both cases, all my wife and I were seeking was a road map for our finances: Save X each month in your 401(k)s, set aside this much to grow your emergency fund, and so on. Whether that was done in an office of fine leather and rich mahogany or on my laptop while I, pantsless, ate Hot Cheetos was immaterial.

The first step you take with NestWise is to fill out a “FactFinder”—an omnibus statement of your income, assets, and liabilities. The FactFinder has some neat tricks: If your employer is in NestWise’s database, FactFinder can automatically pull in all the funds available in your company’s 401(k), saving you the chore of entering them manually. The FactFinder goes to a living, breathing financial adviser, who crafts an assessment and action plan. My adviser, who works in Florida, was prompt, courteous, and professional. If I e-mailed him, I got a reply within 24 hours, and most often within just a couple of hours.

I finished my FactFinder on Friday, Nov. 30. On Monday, Dec. 3, I received two documents from my adviser: a financial plan and an action plan. The 23-page financial plan included information like how much I’d be able to spend per month in retirement if I followed the plan’s suggestions ($ 15,273) and what I’d need to save each month to fully fund private out-of-state college for my two kids, aged six and two ($ 1,110).

The action plan was a series of steps we would need to take to meet the goals laid out in the financial plan. Here’s how it broke down:
 
• We should have an emergency fund. Everyone should have a cash cushion in case of crises such as major home repair, health expenses, or unemployment. A rule of thumb is to save the equivalent of at least three months’ expenses. In our case, that would be $ 30,000.
 
• My wife and I can participate in 401(k) plans—my adviser suggested we each contribute the maximum allowable amount ($ 17,500 annually). I should put my money into six of the available funds: five Vanguard index funds (surprise, surprise) and one actively managed emerging-markets fund.
 
• My 401(k) has good fund choices, apparently, and my wife’s doesn’t. But she does have the option to self-direct her 401(k), which would open up her options. She should sign up for that and then our adviser would have fund recommendations.
 
• We can contribute up to $ 5,500 each annually to an IRA. My adviser suggested we do that, too, after first determining if we could, and provided fund recommendations.
 
• Old 401(k)s from our previous employers should be rolled over into IRAs (something we’d been meaning to do anyway).
 
• A fairly simple equation that accounts for our children’s ages, compounded interest, and inflation gave us the amount we should save for in their 529 plans.
 
• I have a $ 1 million life insurance policy, but I should get more—at least another million. My wife should get some life insurance as well—also at least a $ 1 million policy.
 
• We should get long-term disability insurance. My wife should get a will (I already have one), and we both should get living wills and powers of attorney, which you can do online through sites like LegalZoom for $ 69.
 
And that’s pretty much that. Would the Park Avenue planners have provided a plan that was terribly different? I don’t think so, and, more important, I don’t think I’d want them to. What I got from NestWise is a very straightforward, low-cost plan—both in terms of the cost to get it and the recommendations it makes. It avoids risky strategies like picking individual stocks but also recognizes we have a fairly long time horizon and we’re ready to weather some ups and downs in the market.

For some people, a firm like the one I visited on Park Avenue may be ideal. The planners there can help figure out estate planning, trusts, tax strategies. And if you have those kinds of issues, then $ 5,000 is probably not as big a deal to you. But spending five large on advice is a lot of money to me. It’s also probably overkill. I learned something working at that personal-finance magazine—financial advice is partially sold on the myth that we are all like snowflakes, that each of us is unique and we require bespoke financial plans that account for the particular contours of our financial position.

I’m not that special. I’m part of a two-earner household with two young kids, no credit-card debt, a mortgage, and a habit of spending too much on restaurants from time to time. If you know my income, my assets, and my liabilities, it’s not terribly hard to plot out a sensible financial plan for me. Park Avenue was going to charge me 20 times what NestWise did. Was their advice really going to be 20 times better? Probably not.

So if your life details are common, what are you paying for? You’re paying for coaches and cheerleaders. It’s the same reason people join health clubs. After all, if you want to lose weight and get fit, it’s simple: Eat better and exercise more. But not everyone can do that on their own—they need to pay a gym or a trainer for motivation.

What NestWise has done is retain all the things we seek from a financial planner—judgment, guidance, and enthusiasm—and jettisoned the rest to drive costs down. There’s no Park Avenue lease to pay, no crown moldings to dust. It’s another case of the Internet replacing in-person, brick-and-mortar businesses. And who’s to say the price stops at $ 250? What if, for $ 149 or $ 99, I had access to a sophisticated program that made the same recommendations I once got from a human? Would I even know the difference? (This is the personal-finance version of the Turing test.)

Obviously, there will always be people who want a human on the job. But some of us may not need that. The Internet continues to give consumers tools that used to be restricted to professionals. Think about all the ways you can research mutual funds online or find the best credit card or home loan. Online services like NestWise may not provide as much of the handholding as traditional advisers, but many of us may not need it.

It’s not like other industries haven’t already gone through this evolution. Think I’m wrong? Ask a travel agent.

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UCB gets Japan clearance for two new drugs

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – Belgian pharmaceutical company UCB has secured two regulatory clearances in Japan, further cementing its worldwide shift to a new generation of drugs.

The company said in a statement on Tuesday that the Japanese Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare had approved UCB’s Neupro patch to treat Parkinson’s disease and moderate-to-severe Restleg Legs Syndrome in adults.

Otsuka Pharmaceutical has the exclusive rights for developing and marketing Neupro in Japan, with UCB responsible in all other regions worldwide. Neupro is available in 35 countries.

In a separate statement on Tuesday, UCB said its drug Cimzia had been approved in Japan for treatment of rheumatoid arthritis in adults.

UCB is jointly developing the drug there with Astellas Pharma Inc, with UCB manufacturing it and Astellas managing distribution and sales. UCB said it would receive an unspecified milestone payment from Astellas.

Cimzia is currently being sold in over 30 countries, including the United States and in Europe.

UCB, a central nervous system and immunology specialist, is placing its hopes on three new drugs – Cimzia, Neupro and epilepsy treatment Vimpat – as previous blockbuster Keppra, also for epilepsy, faces patent expiries.

(Reporting by Philip Blenkinsop; editing by Patrick Graham)

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Acer’s $99 Android tablet might not launch in the U.S.

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U.N. General Assembly voices concern for Myanmar’s Muslims

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – The U.N. General Assembly expressed serious concern on Monday over violence between Rohingya Muslims and Buddhists in Myanmar and called upon its government to address reports of human rights abuses by some authorities.

The 193-nation General Assembly approved by consensus a non-binding resolution, which Myanmar said last month contained a “litany of sweeping allegations, accuracies of which have yet to be verified.”

Outbreaks of violence between ethnic Rakhine Buddhists and the Rohingyas have killed dozens and displaced thousands since June. Rights groups also have accused Myanmar security forces of killing, raping and arresting Rohingyas after the riots. Myanmar said it exercised “maximum restraint” to quell the violence.

The unanimously adopted U.N. resolution “expressing particular concern about the situation of the Rohingya minority in Rakhine state, urges the government to take action to bring about an improvement in their situation and to protect all their human rights, including their right to a nationality.”

At least 800,000 Muslim Rohingyas live in Rakhine State along the western coast of Myanmar, also known as Burma. But Buddhist Rakhines and other Burmese view them as illegal immigrants from neighboring Bangladesh who deserve neither rights nor sympathy.

The resolution adopted on Monday is identical to one approved last month by the General Assembly’s Third Committee, which focuses on human rights. After that vote, Myanmar’s mission to the United Nations said that it accepted the resolution but objected to the Rohingyas being referred to as a minority.

“There has been no such ethnic group as Rohingya among the ethnic groups of Myanmar,” a representative of Myanmar said at the time. “Despite this fact, the right to citizenship for any member or community has been and will never be denied if they are in line with the law of the land.”

(Reporting By Louis Charbonneau; Editing by Paul Simao)

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Bethenny Frankel and husband of 2 years separating

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Bethenny Frankel and husband Jason Hoppy are separating.

The 42-year-old TV personality, chef, author and entrepreneur told The Associated Press Sunday that the split brings her “great sadness.”

“This was an extremely difficult decision that as a woman and a mother, I have to accept as the best choice for our family,” Frankel said. “We have love and respect for one another and will continue to amicably co-parent our daughter who is and will always remain our first priority. This is an immensely painful and heartbreaking time for us.”

Frankel and Hoppy were married in 2010 and have a daughter, Bryn, who was born that same year. The couple’s courtship and marriage were documented in two reality series, “Bethenny Getting Married?” and “Bethenny Ever After…” Frankel gained fame as a star of “The Real Housewives of New York City.” Since her stint on the Bravo show, she has written four books, released a fitness video and founded her Skinnygirl line of cocktails, shapewear and nutritional supplements.

She launched a talk show, “Bethenny,” over the summer that is set to air nationally on Fox stations in 2013.

___

AP Entertainment Writer Sandy Cohen is on Twitter: www.twitter.com/APSandy .

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How Not to Stash $7 Million in Gold

Walter Samaszko Jr. was not a guy who wanted company. He covered the windows of his house in Carson City, Nev., with cardboard so the neighbors couldn’t see inside. He made the postman stick the mail through the slot in his garage rather than coming to the front door. He was so good at keeping people away that when he died of heart failure at age 69 in June, nobody noticed until his house began to smell. Someone called the sheriff’s department. A hazmat team removed Samaszko along with part of the floor he was stuck to.

That’s when everybody found out why he hadn’t been more sociable: The dour, white-haired recluse had been hoarding $ 7 million worth of gold coins, most of them hidden in the crawl space beneath the house. Some were in an old washing machine. There were British sovereigns dating back to the 1840s, Austrian ducats, and South African Kruggerands. But mostly Samaszko had collected rolls and rolls of $ 20 American gold pieces, the kind with double eagles on them. He also had $ 12,000 in cash, a stock account worth $ 165,000—and $ 200 in the bank.

The person who discovered Samaszko’s secret was Jeri Vine, a local real estate broker hired to clean up his house. She spent five days combing through his possessions. Samaszko had been prepared for the worst. He owned several guns, gas masks, and survivalist manuals. His cupboards were filled with canned tuna fish. He had a lot of Johnny Mathis tapes. Vine threw most of it out. “We had like a 33-yard dumpster on the driveway,” she says. “I filled that thing.”

On the fourth day, Vine opened a metal ammunition box in the garage. It was full of gold coins in plastic cases. She called Alan Glover, the public administrator of Carson City. “Alan, get over here immediately!” she told him. “There’s so much money it’s unbelievable.” The sheriff’s department returned to the house, this time with metal detectors. It took Glover and three attorneys two days to count all the coins. With the help of a numismatic expert, they determined that Samaszko’s clutch was worth $ 7 million. The gold is being stored in a vault in Reno until a local probate court judge decides its fate.

Samaszko may have been prepared for a societal collapse, but not for his own end. He had no will. Nor did he have any children. Glover was able to locate a first cousin, Arlene Magdanz, a part-time teacher in San Rafael, Calif., who hadn’t seen him in years. Glover expects the probate court to release the fortune to Magdanz after the IRS extracts its cut. (He estimates the federal government’s take will be about $ 800,000.)

The tale of the elderly recluse who turned out to be a millionaire became a brief sensation, with Vine and Glover appearing on the Today show.

Vine eventually sold Samaszko’s house for an undisclosed price. Some prospective buyers just wanted to see if there was any more gold hidden there. “One guy had his contractor friend go underneath the house,” Vine says. “I told him we went through that place with a fine-toothed comb. Never heard from him again.”

It’s easy to see why Samaszko’s death and the revelations that followed fascinate people. How many of us would have kept $ 7 million in a crawl space and not touched it? It makes you wonder what other secrets died with him.

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Few tests done at toxic sites after superstorm

OLD BRIDGE, N.J. (AP) — For more than a month, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has said that the recent superstorm didn’t cause significant problems at any of the 247 Superfund toxic waste sites it’s monitoring in New York and New Jersey.

But in many cases, no actual tests of soil or water are being conducted, just visual inspections.

The EPA conducted a handful of tests right after the storm, but couldn’t provide details or locations of any recent testing when asked last week. New Jersey officials point out that federally designated Superfund sites are EPA’s responsibility.

The 1980 Superfund law gave EPA the power to order cleanups of abandoned, spilled and illegally dumped hazardous wastes that threaten human health or the environment. The sites can involve long-term or short-term cleanups.

Jeff Tittel, executive director of the Sierra Club in New Jersey, says officials haven’t done enough to ensure there is no contamination from Superfund sites. He’s worried toxins could leach into groundwater and the ocean.

“It’s really serious and I think the EPA and the state of New Jersey have not done due diligence to make sure these sites have not created problems,” Tittel said.

The EPA said last month that none of the Superfund sites it monitors in New York or New Jersey sustained significant damage, but that it has done follow-up sampling at the Gowanus Canal site in Brooklyn, the Newtown Creek site on the border of Queens and Brooklyn, and the Raritan Bay Slag site, all of which flooded during the storm.

But last week, EPA spokeswoman Stacy Kika didn’t respond to questions about whether any soil or water tests have been done at the other 243 Superfund sites. The agency hasn’t said exactly how many of the sites flooded.

“Currently, we do not believe that any sites were impacted in ways that would pose a threat to nearby communities,” EPA said in a statement.

Politicians have been asking similar questions, too. On Nov. 29, U.S. Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., wrote to the EPA to ask for “an additional assessment” of Sandy’s impact on Superfund sites in the state.

Elevated levels of lead, antimony, arsenic and copper have been found at the Raritan Bay Slag site, a Superfund site since 2009. Blast furnaces dumped lead at the site in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and lead slag was also used there to construct a seawall and jetty.

The EPA found lead levels as high as 142,000 parts per million were found at Raritan Bay in 2007. Natural soil levels for lead range from 50 to 400 parts per million.

The EPA took four samples from the site after Superstorm Sandy: two from a fenced-off beach area and two from a nearby public playground. One of the beach samples tested above the recreational limit for lead. In early November, the EPA said it was taking additional samples “to get a more detailed picture of how the material might have shifted” and will “take appropriate steps to prevent public exposure” at the site, according to a bulletin posted on its website. But six weeks later, the agency couldn’t provide more details of what has been found.

The Newtown Creek site, with pesticides, metals, PCBs and volatile organic compounds, and the Gowanus Canal site, heavily contaminated with PCBs, heavy metals, volatile organics and coal tar wastes, were added to the Superfund list in 2010.

Some say the lead at the Raritan Bay site can disperse easily.

Gabriel Fillippeli, director of the Center for Urban Health at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis, said lead tends to stay in the soil once it is deposited but can be moved around by stormwaters or winds. Arsenic, which has been found in the surface water at the site, can leach into the water table, Fillippeli said.

“My concern is twofold. One is, a storm like that surely moved some of that material physically to other places, I would think,” Fillippeli said. “If they don’t cap that or seal it or clean it up, arsenic will continue to make its way slowly into groundwater and lead will be distributed around the neighborhood.”

The lack of testing has left some residents with lingering worries.

The Raritan Bay Slag site sits on the beach overlooking a placid harbor with a view of Staten Island. On a recent foggy morning, workers were hauling out debris, and some nearby residents wondered whether the superstorm increased or spread the amount of pollution at the site.

“I think it brought a lot of crud in from what’s out there,” said Elise Pelletier, whose small bungalow sits on a hill overlooking the Raritan Bay Slag site. “You don’t know what came in from the water.” Her street did not flood because it is up high, but she worries about a park below where people go fishing and walk their dogs. She would like to see more testing done.

Thomas Burke, an associate dean at the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, says both federal and state officials generally have a good handle on the major Superfund sites, which often use caps and walls to contain pollution.

“They are designed to hold up,” Burke said of such structures, but added that “you always have to be concerned that an unusual event can spread things around in the environment.” Burke noted that the storm brought in a “tremendous amount” of water, raising the possibility that groundwater plumes could have changed.

“There really have to be evaluations” of communities near the Superfund sites, he said. “It’s important to take a look.”

Officials in both New York and New Jersey note they’ve also been monitoring less toxic sites known as brownfields and haven’t found major problems. The New York DEC said in a statement that brownfields in that state “were not significantly impacted” and that they don’t plan further tests for storm impacts.

Larry Ragonese, a spokesman for the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, said the agency has done visual inspections of major brownfield sites and also alerted towns and cities to be on the lookout for problems. Ragonese said they just aren’t getting calls voicing such concerns.

Back at the Raritan Bay slag site, some residents want more information. And they want the toxic soil, which has sat here for years, out.

Pat Churchill, who was walking her dog in the park along the water, said she’s still worried.

“There are unanswered questions. You can’t tell me this is all contained. It has to move around,” Churchill said.

Health News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Title Post: Few tests done at toxic sites after superstorm
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