Unplanned Pregnancies Hurt Military Women

Women in the military have access to some of the nation's best health care, which includes free birth control. But a new study shows that many women are not using it and the rate of unintended pregnancy is double that of the general population.

And today, with the Department of Defense having just ended its longtime ban on women serving in combat roles, an unplanned pregnancy could have wider ramifications not only for a woman's health, but for her opportunities for advancement.

An estimated 10.5 percent of active duty women, ages 18 to 44, reported an unplanned pregnancy in the prior 12 months in 2008, the last year for which there are statistics, according to researchers at Ibis Reproductive Health, a nonprofit organization that supports women's sexual and reproductive rights.

That number was higher than in 2005, when the rate was 9.7 percent.

In the non-military population, about 5.2 percent of women of reproductive age report an unintended pregnancy each year, according to the study, published this week in the February issue of Obstetrics and Gynecology.

The Ibis study was based on surveys of more than 7,000 active-duty women; the statistics were obtained from the Department of Defense under the Freedom of Information Act. Rates were equal among those women who were deployed and those serving stateside.

Women make up 202,400 of the U.S. military's 1.4 million active duty personnel; more than 280,000 women have deployed over the last decade to Iraq and Afghanistan.

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"It's terrific that women are getting recognition for their role in combat missions and are being considered for all types of promotions in the armed services," said lead author Kate Grindlay, senior project manager at Ibis. "But for women to reach their potential, they must be able to access birth control for their personal health and well-being."

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About 900 women had been unable to deploy in the past year due to a pregnancy, either planned or unplanned, according to the study. The highest rates were among younger women with less education who were either married or cohabitating, researchers said.

The authors of the study say that an unwanted pregnancy not only disrupts a woman's military career, but takes a toll on military readiness because pregnant women cannot be deployed or must be evacuated from war zones. They say the military needs to take a more "comprehensive approach" to address the problem.

A July 2012 Ibis study, based on women deployed over the last decade, revealed they face a variety of barriers to accessing contraception.
Women said they did not speak with a military medical provider about birth control before they deployed overseas -- either it was never offered or the woman never asked.

Military policies that forbid sexual activity between fellow service members "led some women to think contraception was not available or not needed," said the report.

Others said they had trouble getting preferred types of birth control -- the IUD, for example -- or adequate supplies before deployment.

"In addition to these access barriers, the high rate of sexual assault in the military also puts women at risk of unintended pregnancy," said the July study.

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Abortions are only provided at military hospitals in cases of rape, incest or life endangerment. A woman must either risk an abortion at a local hospital during deployment or be sent home. Tricare, the military insurance plan, does not cover an abortion.

"Women who are deployed in Iraq wouldn't have any abortion options and must be evacuated and it could compromise confidentiality and access to care," said Grindlay.

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The real lesson from the bird flu storm

The controversy over whether work on airborne H5N1 bird flu can be published shows that transparency is vital to upholding public trust

So the research moratorium on H5N1 bird flu is over. In 2011 I was one of the first journalists to report the discovery that H5N1 bird flu, which is highly lethal in humans, can mutate to become readily transmissible not just in birds but also in mammals like us – while, apparently, remaining lethal.

What happened next shocked the researchers. Publication of the work was blocked, as US biosecurity experts insisted it would be crazy to tell would-be bioterrorists about this. The 39 labs around the world that do this research responded by declaring a moratorium on further work: there's little point doing research you can't publish.

A year later, the US will shortly launch a new review process to address this. This week, the labs said they would soon resume work on whether, and how, a virus now evolving across Eurasia might become an apocalyptic threat to humanity.

This resumption is good news – but there's a proviso. Hypothetical bioterrorists aside, the real worry for many critics is the danger posed by research itself. We don't want labs to inadvertently release the virus we fear.

That doesn't just require stringent containment and more bureaucracy – it means doing experiments only when benefits really outweigh risks. If, as seems likely, all parties involved cannot agree on that, then the whole process should at least be as transparent as possible. Top research officials in the US have been saying this, and that too is good.

Alarming spin

But are researchers as committed to transparency? The H5N1 kerfuffle has been notable for an alarming amount of spin. Details of the findings have been reinterpreted as pressures have mounted. The experience may have left some researchers even less likely to tell us what they're doing.

The story emerged at a flu meeting in Malta in September 2011. Ron Fouchier of the Erasmus Medical Center in Rotterdam reported that he had made H5N1 able to spread between ferrets via airborne droplets, by simply passing it repeatedly between the animals.

This was the $64,000 question in flu research. At present, H5N1 cannot become a human pandemic as it does not spread this way in mammals. But can it evolve this ability? Some virologists said no. Others said it might, but the mutant would not be as lethal.

No such luck. "All the ferrets died," Fouchier told me. "We have to do more to control H5N1." He was clearly upset at the prospect of such a virus evolving naturally; so were other flu researchers at the meeting. I reported it

Fouchier had left out a lot of detail as the research had been submitted to the journal Science, which doesn't allow authors to say much before publication. When he said the ferrets all died, I thought he was referring to the ones that inhaled the virus. In fact those ferrets lived; the ones that died had had that same virus put into their windpipe.

We would have corrected the article had the researchers complained. Maybe it seemed a minor point: the team had also reported that putting a flu virus in a ferret's windpipe was the best test of its danger to humans. The transmissible virus killed in a way that might be relevant to people – that's what mattered. The detail wouldn't have changed our conclusion.

Dangerous or not?

But then the dispute over whether the work could be published blew up, and The New York Times charged that this research was just too dangerous.

In February last year, the researchers' story had changed dramatically. The press had blown things out of proportion. The mutant virus wasn't dangerous. None of the ferrets that inhaled it died, you had to practically shove it into their lungs to kill them. Anyway, animal work doesn't show what will happen in people.

Efforts to portray the transmissible virus as harmless were almost comical. One researcher told me the mutant H5N1 was no biggie – even the 2009 pandemic flu kills in ferrets' tracheas. Ah, but only one in three – the H5N1 killed them all, so not quite the same.

When the research was finally published, none of the spin seemed very relevant. The message of Malta remained: H5N1 became airborne in mammals, and could still kill. That's enough. Yes, this is animal work: if a virus that kills in a ferret's throat, but not in its nose, emerges in nature, we may get lucky. Or maybe we'd best not inhale.

Full transparency

Some defensiveness is understandable if scientists fear work they rightly consider vitally important may be banned. Yet full transparency is the answer. I fear that lesson has not sunk in. After the papers were published, one of the researchers insisted to me that there was no reason why he should ever talk to a journalist; this week that person begged journalists to tell the public the researchers' side of the story, so they wouldn't get this kind of opposition.

That's not how it's done. Transparency is an important safeguard against some who may take excessive risks (it happens) as well as showing the good that scientists do. It must serve both these functions, or no one will believe the good news.

I gave a talk in Malta too, about public communication. I told a roomful of flu researchers the old risk-management saying: strive to be, not trusted, but accountable. I got a lot of blank, angry stares.

This problem won't go away until that gets rueful, knowing nods. It isn't happening yet.

Debora MacKenzie is a consultant for New Scientist based in Brussels

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Keppel Corp's net profit falls 22% on-year in Q4

SINGAPORE: Falling margins from building oil rigs has hit the bottomline of Keppel Corp.

Net profit for the world's leading rig builder fell 22 per cent on-year to S$305 million in the fourth quarter last year.

Still, full year profit for the conglomerate came in 15 per cent to S$2.24 billion.

Despite lower net profit in the three months ended Dec 31, Keppel Corp still declared a final dividend of 27 cents per share.

As part of its 45th anniversary, Keppel Corp is handing out more goodies to its shareholders.

The company has proposed to distribute one Keppel REIT unit for every five Keppel Corp shares.

That is about 27.4 cents per share based on Keppel REIT's closing price of S$1.37 on Thursday.

Together with the interim dividend of 18 cents, total distribution for 2012 will be 72.4 cents per share.

Keppel Corp said the lower net profit was partly due to lower contributions from its offshore and marine unit.

Offshore and Marine's contribution was 12 per cent lower from a higher base in 2011 when margins were at record highs. It contributes to half of Keppel Corp's net profits.

"Keen rivalry from Chinese and Korean yards have suppressed prices and squeezed margins on newbuilds," said Choo Chiau Beng, chief executive officer at Keppel Corp. "In 2013, we will be completing a record of 22 newbuild units."

Analysts remained upbeat of Keppel's prospects going forward.

They say their financial results still outperformed market expectations.

Keppel Corp expects crude oil prices to stay above US$100 per barrel, supporting the need for more global exploration and production.

But global challenges like the slower US economy and the eurozone crisis from last year will continue to pose uncertainties for Keppel Corp's business.

Keppel Corp's property arm, led by the listed Keppel Land, boosted the group's earnings.

Net profit for the property division was 2.5 times higher than in 2011, offsetting the lower earnings from business in the offshore and marine, and infrastructure.

But Keppel Corp does not expect its property arm to perform better this year.

This is because recognition from sales of completed units at its development Reflections at Keppel Bay is expected to be lower this financial year.

- CNA/xq

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Twitter unveils Vine, its six-second Instagram for video

Twitter today unveiled Vine, an app for iOS that lets anyone create and share short looping videos.

Twitter acquired Vine last fall, but anyone can use Vine regardless of whether they use Twitter. However, the service is clearly meant to be embedded anywhere, and there are plenty of examples of the videos being embedded in tweets. The service (see an example below) is being referred to by many as Twitter's "Instagram for video."

Vine videos are limited to a maximum of six seconds, and play in a continuous loop. They are shot using the Vine app. In a blog post, Vine co-founder and general manager Dom Hofmann wrote that, "Posts on Vine are about abbreviation -- the shortened form of something larger. They're little windows into the people, settings, ideas and objects that make up your life. They're quirky, and we think that's part of what makes them so special."

It's not clear, however, if Vine posts have a technical limitation that keeps that six seconds or shorter. Neither Twitter nor Vine immediately responded to a request for comment.

Although Twitter officially unveiled the service today, CEO Dick Costolo teased it yesterday when he posted a tweet with an embedded video. What was not clear yesterday, however, was whether Vine was going to become Twitter's own hosted video service, or if, as turned out to be the case, it would be a stand-alone service that works in conjunction with Twitter, but doesn't depend on it.

There are of course other embeddable short video services. One is Tout, a service that lets people shoot videos of up to 15 seconds, and then either embed them in tweets, Facebook posts, blogs, or elsewhere, or view them directly on the Web. But Twitter seems to have decided that Vine was a service worth buying, despite the fact that it will allow it to exist independently.

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Exterminator Charged in Pa. Doctor's Murder

An exterminator named Joseph Smith was arrested and charged today in the strangling and burning death of Philadelphia pediatrician Melissa Ketunuti.

Smith, 36, had been sent to Ketunuti's home on a service call where the two got into "some kind of argument" in Ketunuti's basement on Monday, Capt. James Clark of the Philadelphia police department said this morning.

"At her home they got into an argument. It went terribly wrong. He struck her, and knocked her to the ground," Clark said. "Immediately he jumped on top of her, started strangling her. She passed out, and then he set her body on fire."

Clark said Smith burned the woman's body "to hide evidence like DNA." He said "at some point, he bound her up." The doctor was found with her hands and feet tied behind her back.

The captain said that before today's arrest Smith's record consisted of only "minor traffic offenses."

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Police received a call from Ketunuti's dog-walker about the house fire around 12:30 p.m. Monday, and once inside found Ketunuti with her hands and feet bound. They believe Smith hit her and strangled her with a rope, causing her to pass out, and then bound her body and set fire to it in order to destroy evidence, including DNA evidence.

Ketunuti, 35, was fully clothed and police do not believe she was sexually assaulted.

She was a doctor at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and had lived alone in the Graduate Hospital neighborhood of the city for about three years.

Clark said that homicide detectives scoured the neighborhood for surveillance videos from nearby stores and businesses, and through the video identified the suspect.

Smith was spotted on video getting out of the vehicle and following Ketunuti to her home. The man left her home after an hour and was seen on video circling her home.

Detectives drove to Clark's home in Levittown, Pa., outside of Philadelphia where he lives with a girlfriend and her child, on Wednesday night and brought him back to the Philadelphia police station.

A silver Ford truck was towed from Smith's home, which was the same truck spotted on surveillance video Monday in Ketunuti's neighborhood, sources told ABC News affiliate WPVI.

There, he gave statements that led police to charge him with the murders, Clark said.

Smith will face charges of murder, arson, and abuse of a corpse.

Ketunuti's hospital issued a statement Tuesday that she was "a warm, caring, earnest, bright young woman with her whole future ahead of her," adding that she will be deeply missed.

"[She was] super pleasant, really nice," one neighbor said. "Just super friendly."

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Can we really 'cure' autism?

Some claim that new research shows people can grow out of autism, but it is more likely that they simply cope better with the condition over time

The New York Times has pointed to an intriguing study ostensibly showing that some small percentage of people with autism can "outgrow" their symptoms. The story was oddly unsatisfying, claiming in one paragraph that the study, published in The Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, will alter the way parents "think and talk about autism" but also cautioning against false hope.

The writer seems only dimly aware how this half-hearted message will set off a bomb in the world where Jenny McCarthy lives – that she will turn on that wicked grin and brandish this study to launch another 40 years of vicious debate over whether autism is caused by environmental factors, namely vaccines, and thus can be cured by brave and dedicated parents like her, or whether it's just a condition people are born with.

Thankfully, science writer Emily Willingham has parsed through the study in Forbes to show us what it really finds, which is not much that's new and certainly nothing that will change our thinking about the progress of autism or make us believe in the McCarthy miracle cure. As Willingham points out, the people who seem to have "grown out" of their autism had higher cognitive functioning and milder symptoms in the first place, and "many of them had behavioral interventions in childhood".

One measure the researchers used to evaluate progress was "typically developing friends", which people with autism sometimes have anyway. Seven of the 34 had some impairment in "non verbal social interactions" which the researchers decided, somewhat arbitrarily, was due to other factors such as anxiety or depression.

Anyone who has read a single memoir by someone with Asperger's or known someone well with the condition can intuit what's going on. At the moment, I happen to be reading Look Me in the Eye: My life with Asperger's by John Elder Robison. Over the course of his life, Robison learns to compensate for his social limitations. As a child he teaches himself to say appropriate things to children and not just foist on them his own obsessive interests. As an adult he learns that blurting out the truth – "you look fatter" – is not always the right thing to do.

Working around autism

He doesn't "outgrow" his autism, he just learns to work around it. Even later in his life he writes that he wishes his disability were more obvious; when we see someone in a wheelchair we know they can't walk, so we help them across the street. There is no way to "see" Asperger's so people just assume he's a jerk.

Willingham makes the comparison to diabetes, which I have. I have learned how to control my blood sugar pretty well, but I still have diabetes. Autism for high-functioning kids works something like that, even more so these days.

When Robison was a kid, no one understood him at all. They just thought he was odd and would grow up to be a failure. But now there is a well-developed understanding of Asperger's and its symptoms, and many behavioural therapies that can help people, especially if they are smart enough to absorb them. So it stands to reason that as time goes on, more people with Asperger's or autism will look, to all the world, as if they are "cured" without actually being so.

This article originally appeared in Slate. Hanna Rosin is the author of The End of Men and a co-founder of Slate's Double X

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Japan presses Algeria for answers as toll hits nine

ALGIERS: A senior Japanese official met Algeria's prime minister on Wednesday to press for an explanation of the gas plant siege, as Tokyo confirmed the deaths of two more nationals, taking its toll to nine.

Senior Vice Foreign Minister Shunichi Suzuki arrived aboard a government jet that is to repatriate the bodies of those known to have been killed in the hostage crisis, along with the seven Japanese who survived.

Tokyo announced late Wednesday that it knew for sure that nine Japanese were killed after Islamist gunmen overran the desert facility. One Japanese citizen remains unaccounted for.

"Unfortunately, we have been able to confirm two more deaths," said Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga. "The Japanese government expresses sincere condolences to the families and people concerned."

"The use of violence cannot be tolerated for any reason. We firmly condemn acts of terror," he said adding the government would do its utmost to confirm the fate of the final missing person.

Seventeen Japanese were at the facility in In Amenas when jihadists struck last Wednesday at the start of a four-day siege that left dozens of foreigners dead. Seven of them made it to safety.

Suzuki carried a letter to Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika from Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Suga told reporters in Tokyo earlier.

As well as Prime Minister Abdelmalek Saleki, Suzuki also met Foreign Minister Mourad Medelci, Japan's Kyodo News reported, citing Tokyo's foreign ministry.

Japan has asked Algeria to fully investigate events at the gas plant and exactly how individuals died, Suga said in Tokyo.

"Algeria has promised to cooperate as much as possible," he said.

Algeria has said 37 foreigners of eight different nationalities and an Algerian were killed in the siege, which ended on Saturday.

Several people are still missing and the bodies of others are so badly charred that they have not been identified.

Wednesday's visit came as it emerged that Britain, Japan, the United States and other countries whose nationals were caught up in the events at the In Amenas plant issued a joint demarche to Algeria last Friday.

A demarche is a formal diplomatic move in which a country's stance is conveyed in person -- rather than by note -- to another government.

In a conference telephone call, vice foreign minister Minoru Kiuchi told foreign minister Medelci that Tokyo wanted Algiers to do all it could to protect captives.

"Japan is strongly concerned about acts that put the lives of the hostages at risk, and it is regrettable that the Algerian government pressed military rescue operations," he said, according to the foreign ministry.

Japan was among the more forthright of nations as the hostage crisis unfolded, summoning Algiers' ambassador to demand answers and to push for military restraint as armed forces surrounded the plant.

The Japanese plane's arrival in Algiers came as Tokyo announced it was shutting its embassy in neighbouring Mali, evacuating staff and urging its nationals there to leave because of the deteriorating security situation.

The kidnappers claimed they launched their attack in protest at Algeria's complicity in a French military campaign against Islamists in Mali.

The Japanese death toll in Algeria -- the highest in a terror attack since Al-Qaeda crashed airliners into New York's Twin Towers when 24 Japanese died -- has shaken a country not accustomed to its citizens being made targets abroad.

There has been blanket media coverage of events half a world away and anguished demands for more to be done to protect Japanese working in trouble spots, including beefing up spy networks.

Kyodo on Wednesday said Suga indicated Tokyo's willingness to consider increasing the number of defence attaches at Japanese embassies to strengthen the country's ability to gather information.

"I am aware of the need. We need to think about the most effective (crisis-response) measures," Suga said.

-AFP/ac

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Surface RT tablet to get update glitch fix -- in February

Hang in there, Surface RT users.

(Credit:
Josh Miller/CNET)

Microsoft is working on a fix for Windows RT users hit by application-updating problems that seemingly were introduced by the latest set of updates Microsoft pushed out for the operating system earlier this month.

As The Next Web noted late last week, some Surface RT users have not been able to access the Windows Store or Windows Update since applying the latest set of Patch Tuesday fixes, rolled out on January 8. A firmware update for Surface RT devices was also part of the batch of updates delivered at that time.

A Microsoft spokesperson said the company expects to have a fix ready by early February. Here's the official statement:

Some Windows RT customers who attempted to apply January's bulletins had issues installing updates. Specifically, impacted Windows RT devices went into connected standby mode during the download of updates from Windows Update, causing the connection to be disrupted. We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused and are working to correct the issue; we expect to have a fix in place in the first week of February.

The spokesperson's statement noted that the coming fix will be for all ARM-based Windows RT devices. Surface RTs comprise the significant majority of systems running the Windows RT operating system at this point.

Microsoft officials announced yesterday that the company will expand Surface RT's availability to customers in 13 Western European markets beyond the countries where it is available now. (Surface RT is already available in Australia, Canada, China, France, Germany, Hong Kong, the United Kingdom and the U.S.) Microsoft also plans to make available a 64GB version of the Surface RT that isn't bundled with the black Touch Cover for $599.

One final note: As part of Microsoft's Surface-related announcements yesterday, officials started using the slightly shorter (but still awful) "Surface Windows RT" and "Surface Windows 8 Pro" names to refer to the first two Microsoft-made PC/tablet hybrids. Before yesterday, the products were known officially as "Surface With Windows RT" and "Surface With
Windows 8 Pro." I'm not sure why Microsoft doesn't just call them Surface RT and
Surface Pro like most of the rest of us do. But there you have it.

This story originally appeared at ZDNet under the headline "Microsoft to deliver fix for Surface RT users hit by application-update problems.

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Pictures: Trout vs. Trout in Yellowstone Lake

Photograph by Jay Fleming

Without aggressive management, the population of Yellowstone cutthroats could be decimated. To suppress the population of lake trout, the National Park Service engaged a contract fishing company to net them. Cutthroats are removed carefully from the traps and thrown back. Lake trout are removed and killed. Last year about 300,000 of the non-native intruders were taken from the lake.

Published January 22, 2013

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Clinton Says Budget Cuts Undermine Security

Outgoing Secretary of State Hillary Clinton stood her ground today, telling the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that she has overseen plans to secure diplomatic outposts around the world while cuts in State Department funding undermine those efforts.

Citing a report by the department's Accountability Review Board on the security failures that led to the deaths of four Americans in Benghazi, Libya, during an attack last year, Clinton said the board is pushing for an increase in funding to facilities of more than $2 billion per year.

"Consistent shortfalls have required the department to prioritize available funding out of security accounts," Clinton told the Senate this morning, while again taking responsibility for the Benghazi attack. "And I will be the first to say that the prioritization process was at times imperfect, but as the ARB said, the funds provided were inadequate. So we need to work together to overcome that."

Clinton choked up earlier in discussing the Benghazi attack.

"I stood next to President Obama as the Marines carried those flag-draped caskets off the plane at Andrews," Clinton said this morning, her voice growing hoarse with emotion. "I put my arms around the mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers, sons and daughters."

Clinton is the only witness giving long-awaited testimony before the Foreign Relations Committee right now, and will appear before the House Foreign Affairs Committee at 2 p.m.

Molly Riley/UPI via Newscom

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The secretary, who postponed her testimony in December, started today by giving context to the terrorist attack.

"Any clear-eyed examination of this matter must begin with this sobering fact," Clinton began. "Since 1988, there have been 19 Accountability Review Boards investigating attacks on American diplomats and their facilities."

But the secretary did not deny her role in the failures, saying that as secretary of state, she has "no higher priority and no greater responsibility" than protecting American diplomats abroad like those killed in Benghazi.

"As I have said many times, I take responsibility, and nobody is more committed to getting this right," Clinton said. "I am determined to leave the State Department and our country safer, stronger and more secure."

Clinton testified that the United States needs to be able to "chew gum and walk at the same time," working to shore up its fiscal situation while also strengthening security, and she refuted the idea that across-the-board cuts slated to take place in March, commonly referred to as sequestration, were the way to do that."

"Now sequestration will be very damaging to the State Department and USAID if it does come to pass, because it throws the baby out with the bath," Clinton said.

While the State Department does need to make cuts in certain areas, "there are also a lot of very essential programs … that we can't afford to cut more of," she added.

More than four months have passed since the attack killed U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans in Libya. These meetings, during which Clinton discussed the report on State Department security failures by the Accountability Review Board, were postponed because of her recent illness.

Clinton told the Senate that the State Department is on track to have 85 percent of action items based on the recommendations in the Accountability Review Board report accomplished by March, with some already implemented.

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