By The Associated Press

Beyond the fame and glory that come to NFL players who star in the postseason or win the Super Bowl, what’s it mean to their wallets?

Curiosity about bonus pay for playoff victories inspired one of the questions in this edition of “Ask AP,” a weekly Q&A column where AP journalists respond to readers’ questions about the news.

If you have your own news-related question that you’d like to see answered by an AP reporter or editor, send it to newsquestions@ap.org, with “Ask AP” in the subject line. And please include your full name and hometown so they can be published with your question.

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The recent revelation of the online publication of TSA screening protocols referred to identification cards for members of Congress. This implies that members of Congress are exempt from the typical airline screening procedures that average citizens are subjected to.

Has Congress contrived yet another way to insulate itself from the travel hassles inflicted on the rest of us?

KJ Hoffman
Basking Ridge, N.J.

—
Members of Congress are not exempt from airport passenger screening, Transportation Security Administration spokeswoman Kristin Lee says. But senators and House members can use their official ID cards in lieu of a driver’s license or passport at screening checkpoints, she says.

The TSA screeners’ manual includes examples not only of congressional IDs but also of other not-often-seen federal IDs that are valid substitutes for driver’s licenses or passports at screening checkpoints. They include those for CIA agents, federal air marshals and federal Alcohol, Firearms and Tobacco agents.

Eileen Sullivan
AP Homeland Security Writer
Washington

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How much extra pay do players whose teams advance in the NFL playoffs earn?

Tom Jeffs
Edison, N.J.

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Here’s how the playoff pay breaks down:

- Wild-card round – Division winner: $21,000 ($20,000 in 2008); other: $19,000 ($18,000 in 2008)

- Divisional playoffs – Winners and losers get $21,000 ($20,000 in 2008)

- Conference Championships – Winners and losers get $38,000 ($37,500 in 2008)

- Super Bowl – Winners: $83,000 ($78,000 in 2008); losers: $42,000 ($40,000 in 2008)

- Pro Bowl – Winners: $45,000 (same as 2008); losers: $22,500 (same as 2008).

To sum up: A player on a division winner participating in the wild-card round and winning the Super Bowl would receive a total of $163,000. A player on a wild-card team that wins the Super Bowl would get a total of $161,000. (Division winners with byes make no money in the first round.)

Many players, too, have contracts that reward them with extra money for postseason wins and other accomplishments.

Barry Wilner
AP Football Writer

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It’s been about a year since the terror attacks in Mumbai, India. I was wondering whether the alleged perpetrators of the attacks in Pakistan have been caught and convicted yet. And have the targeted hotels reopened?

Daniel Lippman
Washington

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Nine of the 10 attackers were killed in the siege. Indian police arrested one, who is currently on trial in Mumbai.

Pakistan has put seven alleged militants on trial, charged with either training the assailants or helping organize and fund the attacks. At least two of the men have been named by India as the masterminds. The closed-door trial began in November and is expected to last several months.

The hotels are resuming operations.

The 268-room Tower wing of the Taj Mahal hotel reopened last December, but management says the 287-room Palace wing won’t be completely ready until the end of April. The dome that caught fire was in the Palace wing, which was also where the fiercest gunbattles took place. In the Heritage wing, conference rooms and four restaurants have reopened.

The 550-room Trident hotel reopened completely last December. The Trident’s sister hotel, the 337-room Oberoi – the two are connected by a bridge – is still shut and work is expected to be completed in the first quarter of 2010.

Erika Kinetz in Mumbai, India
and Chris Brummitt in Islamabad
AP Writers

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Have questions of your own? Send them to newsquestions@ap.org.

By The Associated Press

Sarah Palin wrapped up her new memoir “Going Rogue” in just four months after the book deal was announced – you betcha she did! – but did she write it alone, or did she have help?

Curiosity about the making of Palin’s best-seller inspired one of the questions in this edition of “Ask AP,” a weekly Q&A column where AP journalists respond to readers’ questions about the news.

If you have your own news-related question that you’d like to see answered by an AP reporter or editor, send it to newsquestions@ap.org, with “Ask AP” in the subject line. And please include your full name and hometown so they can be published with your question.

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In a recent AP story, Sony Chief Executive Howard Stringer said a 3-D version of “Men in Black” is being considered, and he said it isn’t clear what other Sony movies might be reissued in 3-D.

It’s my understanding that a 3-D movie is photographed using two different images, one for each eye.

So has Sony been shooting its films in 3-D for years but just releasing them in 2-D? Or is the company planning to re-shoot those old 2-D titles from their film library in 3-D? Or is it planning to use some sort of fake 3-D simulation process on the original films?

Jon Larimore
Arlington, Va.

—
According to the people at Sony Corp., CEO Howard Stringer was referring to an upcoming “Men in Black” movie, which would be the third in the series.
It’s still in development, and the company’s movie studio is considering shooting and releasing it in 3-D, but it hasn’t made a decision yet.

Indeed, 3-D movies require two images. For live-action sequences, that generally requires a special camera set-up that captures left-eye and right-eye images. For animated movies, that can be done on a computer.
Sony has developed its own single-lens 3-D camera, which it showcased in Japan in October.

But the studio says it hasn’t been shooting its 2-D films with 3-D cameras and squirreling away the footage.

It has developed some 3-D titles, including the recent “Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs,” “Open Season” (2006) and “Monster House” (2006). It’s possible those films may be rereleased in 3-D on home video as televisions catch up with the technology in theaters.

There are also ways of converting old 2-D movies into 3-D artificially. Sony says it is monitoring such developments but has not yet announced any plans to remaster 2-D hits from its library into 3-D.

Ryan Nakashima
AP Business Writer
Los Angeles

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Who actually wrote Sarah Palin’s book?

Phil Scott
Vancouver, Wash.

—
The former Republican vice presidential candidate is the credited author of her best-selling memoir, “Going Rogue,” with assistance from Lynn Vincent, a writer and features editor for World magazine, a conservative Christian publication. Vincent is a San Diego resident who has written or co-written several books, including “Donkey Cons: Sex, Crime and Corruption in the Democratic Party.”

Palin reportedly spent weeks in San Diego shortly after resigning as Alaska governor and worked on the manuscript with her collaborator. The folksy memoir was completed just four months after the book deal was announced.

In the book’s acknowledgements, Palin thanks Vincent for her “indispensable help in getting the words on paper.”

Rachel D’Oro
Associated Press Writer
Anchorage, Alaska

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We’ve all gotten e-mails asking that you forward them to all your friends to help cure a disease, be given the wish of your choice or become disgustingly wealthy. I’m sure someone is benefiting from jamming the Internet with all these e-mails, but I’m at a loss to figure out what that benefit might be. Can you explain?

Bill Hart
Canton, Ohio

—
Even if a spam e-mail isn’t trying to sell you something, the person who sent it is probably trying to defraud you in another way.

One kind of spam tries to sell you things, like Viagra. Some senders of these messages will actually deliver products to their buyers. But such messages often link to sites that try to steal your credit card number or give you a computer virus that can be used to control your computer and carry out online crimes.

Another variety promises some freebie, like pornographic pictures or a fun video or timely news story. This kind of spam rarely delivers anything but headaches. You are told you need to open an attachment to view the images, but the attachment can contain a virus, allowing the sender to can take control of your computer and use it to send out more spam.

Some chain letters are just harmless hocus-pocus – a cute story with a prompt to forward it to 10 friends or risk a year of bad luck. But this type of game can be malicious, too, opening you and your friends up to even more malicious spam as your e-mail addresses get forwarded around the Web.

Criminals pump out spam constantly because it is a dirt-cheap way to do a digital stickup. It’s essentially free to send, which is why about 90 percent of the world’s e-mail is spam.

Jordan Robertson
AP Technology Writer
San Francisco

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Have questions of your own? Send them to newsquestions@ap.org.

By The Associated Press

When most people think of nuclear fuel, uranium and plutonium come to mind. Should a different fuel – something called thorium – be used in our nuclear reactors instead?

A reader wondering about the safety of thorium fission submitted one of the questions in this edition of “Ask AP,” a weekly Q&A column where AP journalists respond to readers’ questions about the news.

If you have your own news-related question that you’d like to see answered by an AP reporter or editor, send it to newsquestions@ap.org, with “Ask AP” in the subject line. And please include your full name and hometown so they can be published with your question.

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Until recently, there was a lot reported about malpractice suits and skyrocketing insurance premiums for doctors being among the leading causes of the rapidly rising cost of medical care. Is this issue addressed in the bill that is being prepared in Congress now?

Bob Meyer
Kimbolton, Ohio
—

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office says health care costs go up when doctors practice defensive medicine by ordering unneeded tests to protect themselves from being sued. But the insurance premiums that doctors pay for malpractice coverage are not themselves a major contributor to costs.

The budget office says slapping limits on jury awards in malpractice cases would lead to less defensive medicine, reducing the federal deficit by $54 billion over 10 years. That’s not a huge amount in the $2.5-trillion-a-year U.S. health care system, but it is real money.

The Democratic health care bills in Congress don’t deal with medical malpractice. President Barack Obama says he’s opposed to limits on jury awards, but open to looking for alternatives in which patients injured by a doctor or hospital error can get compensation without having to go to court.

Doctors want the health care legislation to address malpractice, but trial lawyers – generous campaign contributors to Democrats – are trying to stave off any major changes.

The outlook for such reforms in the future is uncertain.

Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar
AP Health Care Writer
Washington

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I have been reading a lot about thorium fission as a possible replacement for uranium and plutonium in the next generation of nuclear reactors. I have read that thorium is more plentiful, avoids altogether the issue of weapons-grade material proliferation, and has less waste that decays more quickly than that from uranium and plutonium.

Seems too good to be true. What is the truth about this? And if it is that good, is there any federal funding to get a pilot reactor up and running?

Mike Collins
La Crosse, Wis.

—
Experts say while thorium fuel has some advantages, the benefits are modest at best.

“A lot of the hype one hears about thorium fuel is indeed too good to be true,” said Ed Lyman of the Union of Concerned Scientists.

Lyman said thorium can be used as a fuel in a fission reactor, where it would play a role similar to uranium-238. But it cannot replace uranium and plutonium. To start a chain reaction, thorium would have to be used together with either enriched uranium, uranium-233 or plutonium.

Thorium is more plentiful, but there is enough readily available uranium to meet projected world demand through 2070, said Felix Killar of the Nuclear Energy Institute. Plutonium is a viable energy source too.

Killar said fission of thorium produces uranium and plutonium that still could be used for nuclear weapons, just in smaller quantities. It also does produce waste, and there still would be the need for long-term disposal.

Lyman said Norway and India, which have vast thorium reserves, are exploring the technology, as is China.

There have been some federally supported projects over the years, but Lyman said he is not aware of any significant effort at this time.

Mark Williams
AP Energy Writer
Columbus, Ohio

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I want to know why the government decided to issue a $6,500 homebuyers’ tax credit only to those who have owned their current homes for more than five years. I feel it is discriminatory not to include second-time homebuyers who haven’t owned homes as long.

Eric Ladwig
Tyler, Texas
—

Sen. Johnny Isakson, R-Ga., a former real estate executive who helped to craft the extended credit with Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., originally wanted all move-up homebuyers to be eligible for the $6,500 tax credit, his press secretary Sheridan Watson said.

But because of cost concerns, the Senate agreed the credit would be limited to those who have lived in their homes for five years or more. Structuring the credit this way – as opposed to, say, saving on costs by reducing the credit amount or tightening restrictions based on the homebuyer’s income – has the greatest impact on the housing market and economy, Watson said.
Watson said the credit as it stands now captures more than half of all homeowners.

The Senate Finance Committee estimates the cost of the $6,500 credit and the extension of the $8,000 credit for first-time homebuyers – defined as those who have not owned a home in the last three years – to be $10.8 billion over 10 years.

About 1.4 million first-time homebuyers qualified for the original credit through August. The National Association of Realtors estimates that 350,000 of them would not have bought their homes without the credit.

To qualify for either credit, buyers must sign a purchase agreement by April 30, 2010, and close by June 30.

J.W. Elphinstone
AP Real Estate Writer
New York

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Have questions of your own? Send them to newsquestions@ap.org.

A space shuttle is no tinker toy. But is it the most complex machine ever built?

Curiosity about the complexity of the reusable spacecraft inspired one of the questions in this edition of “Ask AP,” a weekly Q&A column where AP journalists respond to readers’ questions about the news. And the question led NASA to rethink the way it describes the shuttle program.

If you have your own news-related question that you’d like to see answered by an AP reporter or editor, send it to newsquestions@ap.org, with “Ask AP” in the subject line. And please include your full name and hometown so they can be published with your question.

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We’ve read that the FDIC, which insures depositors’ bank accounts, is currently out of money and operating in the red. What is the status of the finances of the National Credit Union Administration, which insures credit unions?

Fred Clark
Albuquerque, N.M.
—

The National Credit Union Administration, like the FDIC, has an insurance fund financed by fees paid by the institutions. A new fee was assessed this year, and the fund stands at around $8 billion. As is the case with banks, regular deposit accounts in the 7,800 or so federally insured credit unions are covered up to $250,000.

Credit unions are cooperatives that are owned by their members. Twenty-three credit unions have failed so far this year, compared with 18 in 2008, and failures are expected to increase again next year. In March, the NCUA seized control of two large corporate credit unions in Kansas and California that provide wholesale financing for “regular” credit unions – a move the agency said was needed to stabilize the credit union system.

The NCUA last December made more than $40 billion available to support several corporate credit unions with new borrowing from the Treasury Department and provided another $2 billion to help struggling homeowners. The NCUA says most credit unions are vibrant despite the deep recession and its financial condition is strong.

Some experts, though, are more skeptical. A taxpayer bailout of the agency probably won’t be needed, says Bert Ely, a banking industry consultant based in Alexandria, Va., but “I wouldn’t want to swear to it.”

Marcy Gordon
AP Business Writer
Washington

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NASA claims, on its Web site and its iPhone app, that the space shuttle is the most complex machine ever built. Is that really true, even though it was designed over 30 years ago? What about newer machines like the Large Hadron Collider – the world’s largest atom smasher?

Jokton Strealy
Los Angeles

—
Thanks to your query, NASA is backing off its claim that the space shuttle is the most complex machine ever built.

NASA spokesman Mike Curie said a more accurate statement is that the space shuttle is one of the most complex machines ever built, right up there with the International Space Station and the Saturn V rocket that carried men to the moon in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

Curie assured AP that the NASA web site will be updated, at some point, to reflect this change in wording.

“It would be hard to compare it (the shuttle) to a collider,” Curie said from the Kennedy Space Center.

As for other space marvels, Curie said, “Certainly, the station is one of the most amazing engineering achievements ever – to assemble something as long as a football field with the capacity to generate its own power, recycle water and to be an environment for people to live and work 365 days a year, it’s an amazing accomplishment.”

But he noted: “It doesn’t generate 7 million pounds of thrust.”

Trying to ascertain which is the most complex – the shuttle, station or Saturn V – would entail “a really good discussion with experts for about an hour,” Curie said.

Marcia Dunn
AP Aerospace Writer
Cape Canaveral, Fla.

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I have a question about the priest sex abuse lawsuits against the Bridgeport Diocese. A Connecticut court was supposed to decide Nov. 9 how to release trial records related to the case to the press. What happened?

V. Reil
Queens, N.Y.

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On Nov. 10, Waterbury Superior Court Judge Barry Stevens ordered the release of thousands of documents connected to sexual abuse lawsuits involving Bridgeport’s Roman Catholic Diocese. Stevens ruled that the diocese should release the sealed documents by Dec. 1.

The files consist of more than 12,000 pages from 23 lawsuits against six priests settled by the diocese in 2001. The U.S. Supreme Court earlier this month refused to hear the diocese’s appeal of a Connecticut Supreme Court decision ordering release of the documents.

The records, which include depositions, affidavits and motions, have been under seal since the diocese settled the cases in 2001. They could shed light on how recently retired New York Cardinal Edward Egan handled the allegations when he was Bridgeport bishop.

John Christoffersen
Associated Press Writer
New Haven, Conn.

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Have questions of your own? Send them to newsquestions@ap.org.

A lot of the sunniest parts of the U.S. – like Florida and the Gulf Coast – are also prime hurricane country.

If you decide to take advantage of those rays by putting solar panels on your roof, is there a chance they could be ripped off in a storm?

Curiosity about solar panels and hurricanes inspired one of the questions in this edition of “Ask AP,” a weekly Q&A column where AP journalists respond to readers’ questions about the news.

If you have your own news-related question that you’d like to see answered by an AP reporter or editor, send it to newsquestions@ap.org, with “Ask AP” in the subject line. And please include your full name and hometown so they can be published with your question.

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I’m a citizen of Uzbekistan and I read an article of yours that mentioned the number of U.S. deaths in the war in Afghanistan. It said this:

“As of Sunday, Nov. 8, 2009, at least 833 members of the U.S. military had died in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Uzbekistan as a result of the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in late 2001, according to the Defense Department. The department last updated its figures Friday at 10 a.m. EDT. Of those, the military reports 640 were killed by hostile action.”

This gave the impression that members of the U.S. military had died in Uzbekistan. But how could this be? There is no military action in Uzbekistan, and I have never heard that any American has died here.

Zukhriddin Ibragimov
Tashkent, Uzbekistan

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AP maintains information on all U.S. troop casualties reported by the Department of Defense as part of the Afghanistan War effort. This includes service members who have died under non-hostile circumstances and deaths that have occurred outside Afghanistan.

While there have been no combat actions in Uzbekistan, one U.S. soldier, Pvt. Giovanny Maria, 19, of Camden, N.J., died in the country on Nov. 29, 2001, from what the Defense Department described as a “non-hostile gunshot wound.” Maria was among 1,000 soldiers providing security at an air base in southern Uzbekistan, which borders Afghanistan.

The day before his death, about two dozen soldiers from his group, the 10th Mountain Division, were being moved from Uzbekistan to Afghanistan.

According to officials at the time, their mission was to serve as a quick-reaction force in case of renewed Taliban resistance.

Details about Maria’s death and his assignment in Uzbekistan – including whether he was about to go to Afghanistan at the time of his death – are unclear. The Defense Department referred calls to the Army, and Army officials said they would look into Maria’s case but weren’t immediately able to provide more information.

Monika Mathur
AP News Research Center
New York

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I’d like to use solar power on my buildings in Lake Charles, La., but I’m concerned that hurricanes would destroy the equipment. Is there a risk of this?

Harvey Adams
Lake Charles, La.
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There’s certainly a risk. But solar panels should be able to withstand most of the weather that comes your way – even in Hurricane Alley. Unlike roof tiles, solar panels are designed to be bolted to the rafters so they’ll hold in strong weather. Some brands are even engineered to endure 140 mph winds.

Richard Smith, president of Superior Solar Systems in Longwood, Fla., said his company has installed 18,000 solar systems in the Southeast since 1984, and only a handful have blown off in a storm.

“The roof may come off, but the solar panel should not,” Smith said. “When it happens, it’s typically due to debris like a tree limb or something hitting it.”

Before buying solar panels, it’s a good idea to make sure the installer will fasten the panels to the roof rafters instead of the plywood surface. Also make sure there’s a warranty. Many installers will replace solar panels that pop off in a storm as a result of an installation error.

It also may be a good idea to keep nearby trees neatly trimmed, minimizing the chance that one of them will snap off in a storm and take a solar panel with it.

Chris Kahn
AP Energy Writer
New York

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How much money does the federal government owe the Social Security trust funds? And how much interest does the federal government pay on the money it has borrowed every year?

Jim Durham
Chillicothe, Mo.

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The Social Security trust funds have a balance of about $2.5 trillion. Over the years, the federal government has borrowed all of that money to spend on other government programs. In return, the Treasury Department has issued Social Security special bonds – think of them as IOUs, backed by the full faith and credit of the U.S. government.

Twice a year, the Treasury Department makes interest payments to the trust funds, though it is little more than an accounting exercise. No money changes hands, but the interest payments are added to the balance of the trust funds. In 2008, the trust funds earned $116.3 billion in interest, according to the 2009 annual report by the Social Security trustees.

Stephen Ohlemacher
Associated Press Writer
Washington

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Have questions of your own? Send them to newsquestions@ap.org.

By The Associated Press

Instead of figuring out where to put nuclear waste, why can’t we just find a way to neutralize it so it’s no longer hazardous?

Curiosity about what to do with nuclear waste inspired one of the questions in this edition of “Ask AP,” a weekly Q&A column where AP journalists respond to readers’ questions about the news.

If you have your own news-related question that you’d like to see answered by an AP reporter or editor, send it to newsquestions@ap.org, with “Ask AP” in the subject line. And please include your full name and hometown so they can be published with your question.

You can also find Ask AP on AP Mobile, a multimedia news portal available on Internet-enabled mobile devices. Go to http://www.apnews.com/ to learn more.

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How can animals not only drink and live in but even thrive in water that is so contaminated that it would make humans very sick, or kill them, if consumed? I don’t mean fish but mammals, reptiles and amphibians that can survive on water in polluted lakes, canals, rivers and ponds that are unsafe for human consumption.

Jeff Vanderslice
Plantation, Fla.

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Actually, animals often don’t thrive in polluted waters, said Linda Birnbaum, director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences and the National Toxicology Program.

Seals near Central Asia’s Aral Sea and whales near the St. Lawrence Seaway along the U.S.-Canada border have had problems because of pollution, and mink near Lake Michigan don’t reproduce because of dioxin and PCBs, or polychlorinated vinyls, Birnbaum said. Amphibians are disappearing all over the world, for a combination of various and sometimes still unknown reasons.

The real issue, though, is that science looks at animals and people differently. In animals, we look for immediate events, like mass fish die-offs. In people, we look at the long-term chronic effects, like cancer. Rarely do we study cancer or other chronic effects in wild mammals, Birnbaum said.

It’s also worth noting that different species have different tolerances to toxicity.

Seth Borenstein
AP Science Writer
Washington

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How come, with all our technology and great scientific brains, we can’t figure out how to neutralize nuclear waste? What is the problem (in terms a layman can understand)?

Margaret Tabar
Pontiac, Mich.

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The federal government and the nuclear industry figure it will take decades to create the kind of technology that would reduce the volume and radio-toxicity of high-level nuclear waste so that it can be recycled to obtain more energy and improve waste disposal, according to Steve Kraft, senior director of used fuel management at the Nuclear Energy Institute.

The reason no plan has been developed to take care of waste? “It’s extremely complicated,” said Ed Lyman, senior staff scientist with the Union of Concerned Scientists.

“Nuclear waste is a mixture of many different radioactive isotopes, all with specific properties. No one-size-fits-all solution exists to convert those into less hazardous materials,” he said.

Lyman said the problem with reprocessing spent nuclear fuel is that it can be hazardous, expensive and time-consuming – taking thousands of years to fully recycle the waste. And there’s another big potential problem, Lyman said: Plutonium that can be generated by the process can be used to make a nuclear bomb.

Kraft said that, for now, waste can be safely stored at nuclear power plant sites or central facilities. And no matter what technology is developed in the future, there always will be material that will have to be disposed of in a repository.

Mark Williams
AP Energy Writer
Columbus, Ohio

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The NFL seems to issue thousands of dollars in fines to its players every week for various infractions. What happens to that money?

Pedro Rivas
Chicago

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Player fines collected by the league are used in part to support the Players Assistance Trust, an organization that provides assistance to retired players who are in financial distress. They also go to charitable initiatives supporting youth and education programs and sports-related medical research.

Barry Wilner
AP Football Writer
New York

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Have questions of your own? Send them to newsquestions@ap.org.

By The Associated Press

What ever happened to the hole in the ozone layer?

A decade or two ago, alarm bells were sounding about this growing environmental worry. But you don’t hear so much about it these days. Is it less of a problem than it used to be? Did it go away entirely?

Curiosity about the ozone layer inspired one of the questions in this edition of “Ask AP,” a weekly Q&A column where AP journalists respond to readers’ questions about the news.

If you have your own news-related question that you’d like to see answered by an AP reporter or editor, send it to newsquestions@ap.org, with “Ask AP” in the subject line. And please include your full name and hometown so they can be published with your question.

====
Rep. Joe Sestak was elected to Congress in 2007 after retiring from the Navy as an admiral. There have been several generals who have been elected president, but how many military officers with at least one star – brigadier general or rear admiral – have served in Congress after their military careers were over?

Chad Steenerson
Terre Haute, Ind.

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Rep. Joe Sestak, D-Pa., served in the Navy for 31 years and rose to the rank of three-star admiral. He is the only three-star officer to be elected to the House, according to the Office of the House Historian.

It’s unclear how many military officers with at least one star have served in the House. There does not seem to be an authoritative log, and the Office of the House Historian does not have a comprehensive list. Those elected to the House with at least one star include the late Rep. Sonny Montgomery, D-Miss., who was a two-star officer. Andrew Jackson, also a two-star officer, served in both chambers of Congress.

At least 91 senators, including Jackson, have had at least one star, according to the Senate Historical Office. Sens. Barry Goldwater, R-Ariz., and Strom Thurmond, R-S.C., were among those who were two-star officers.

Ann Sanner
Associated Press Writer
Washington

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A number of years ago, the biggest environmental problem was the hole in the ozone layer. Has that hole completely gone away? If so, how was that problem fixed?

Daniel Lippman
Washington

—
The “hole” is actually a huge area of depleted ozone high in the stratosphere over the South Pole. It forms every year because of airborne man-made chemicals. Ozone shields Earth from harmful ultraviolet rays, so its depletion is hazardous.

In 1987, 193 nations agreed to cut emissions of ozone-eating chemicals called chlorofluorocarbons, or CFCs. That began a slow-motion fix of the problem that’s still ongoing. That’s probably why you don’t hear as much about the ozone layer as you used to.

Earlier this year, a NASA study used computer modeling to look at what would have happened if the release of CFCs hadn’t been curtailed. In that scenario, two-thirds of the ozone layer would have vanished by 2065 and the hole in the layer would have covered the Earth, NASA atmospheric scientist Paul Newman said. This would have pushed the world’s temperature up an extra 4 degrees, Newman said.

While cutting CFC emissions helped, the problem hasn’t gone away – the hole still appears every August or so, growing to its maximum size in September or October before breaking up. You can track the latest ozone hole data at http://ozonewatch.gsfc.nasa.gov/index.html

Malcolm Ritter
AP Science Writer
New York

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I’m curious if anyone has ever challenged the legal right of a credit bureau to collect and sell private and financial information about a consumer. What gives a company the right to assemble my information and resell it for a profit? It should be up to me to decide what creditors I provide as a credit reference when applying for loans, credit cards and jobs.

Much of the information they collect seems to be incorrect and nearly impossible to rectify.

And who decided that computers should generate a score to determine a person’s creditworthiness?

Sheryl Smith
Madeira Beach, Fla.

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There have been numerous suits filed against credit reporting agencies regarding the accuracy of their information, but challenging their right to operate would be futile.

The reason: The Fair Credit Reporting Act, first passed in 1970 and amended several times since, includes a congressional finding that the agencies “have assumed a vital role in assembling and evaluating consumer credit and other information on consumers.” The idea is that the banking system depends on this information to evaluate credit worthiness, and that credit is a vital part of the economy.

This law does, however, require these companies to maintain accurate records and respect consumers’ privacy rights, and it restricts access to medical information. It also spells out a consumer’s right to access his credit reports and dispute inaccurate information.

These agencies use the information they collect to calculate your “credit score,” a number that ranks a person’s credit worthiness. FICO, a company formerly known as Fair Isaac, developed the first and most commonly used scoring system.

The systems are designed to examine factors like payment history and credit usage to predict how likely you are to pay back loans. More recently, some employers have started using credit reports as one way to evaluate potential workers.

Eileen AJ Connelly
AP Personal Finance Writer
New York

====
Have questions of your own? Send them to newsquestions@ap.org.

By The Associated Press

Any cop in the U.S. who makes an arrest must also read the suspect his Miranda rights, those famous few lines beginning: “You have the right to remain silent.” How about overseas? When U.S. authorities arrest a terror suspect, must that person also be read his rights?

Curiosity about the boundaries of American judicial principles inspired one of the questions in this edition of “Ask AP,” a weekly Q&A column where AP journalists respond to readers’ questions about the news.

If you have your own news-related question that you’d like to see answered by an AP reporter or editor, send it to newsquestions@ap.org, with “Ask AP” in the subject line. And please include your full name and hometown so they can be published with your question.

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Can you tell me the difference in designation among the American troops deployed throughout the world – i.e., NATO, coalition, UN peacekeepers, etc.?

Kimberly Bush
Springfield, Ill.

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The United States has more than 500,000 forces stationed overseas. They serve under three broad headings. By far the largest is the combatant command system, a geographic designation. U.S. Central Command, for example, covers countries in the Middle East and North Africa. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan fall under Centcom’s jurisdiction. The other broad headings are NATO missions and United Nations missions. In both cases, U.S. forces serve alongside those of other nations. Sometimes that means U.S. forces serve in the same place but under different jurisdictions. In Afghanistan, about 31,000 of the current 65,000 U.S. forces serve under the NATO banner.

Anne Gearan
AP National Security Writer
Washington, D.C.

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What is the current U.S. policy regarding the reading of Miranda rights to captured terrorist suspects? Are Miranda rights reserved for U.S. citizens, or are these warnings given to anyone who might be tried in U.S. courts or U.S. military tribunals? Did our policy change when the administrations changed?

Rowland Driskell
Rancho Palos Verdes, Calif.

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The Obama administration insists there has been no policy change whatsoever regarding the use of Miranda warnings to terror suspects overseas. The policy is this: there is no need to give Miranda warnings to the vast majority of terror suspects overseas because in most cases there is no expectation such a suspect will be brought to the United States for trial. In those relatively few cases where career agents and prosecutors believe they may want to bring that person to trial in the U.S., then Miranda warnings are to be read.

The administration says that of the thousands of terror suspect detainees interviewed in Afghanistan, only a handful have been Mirandized, and most of those warnings were given during the previous Bush administration. The issue became a political argument after conservatives accused the Obama administration of fostering a new policy that favors criminal prosecution of terror suspects, which could, in theory, lead to more suspects overseas getting Miranda warnings.

Devlin Barrett
AP Justice Department Writer
Washington, D.C.

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In the Oct. 4 edition of Boston Globe Magazine, an article on breast cancer stated that numerous studies have shown a link between the artificial growth hormone rBGH and breast cancer. If this is true, why do products that claim they do not contain rBGH need to display the disclaimer, “FDA states: No significant difference in milk from cows treated with the artificial growth hormone (rBGH)”?

Joanne Quirk
Westfield, Mass.

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Both humans and cows naturally produce growth hormone. The artificial hormone rBGH is a synthetic version of the bovine, or cow, growth hormone that some farmers use to stimulate milk production.

The concern about a possible breast cancer link arose because this first hormone increases the cows’ production of a second natural hormone – IGF-1 – that at very high levels is thought to play a role in certain tumors.

How big a role IGF-1 plays remains a scientific question. But the government concluded that any increase in a person’s body from drinking milk from an rBGH-treated cow would be too small to matter. The Food and Drug Administration required the disclaimer, contending that labeling something “rBGH-free” wrongly implied that it was better.

The American Cancer Society reviewed the controversy earlier this year. The organization took no formal position on the use of rBGH and encouraged more research, but concluded: “To date, there is no evidence that drinking milk produced using rBGH adds substantively to circulating IGF-1 levels in humans or to the risk of developing cancer.”

But the Cancer Society also pointed out a different concern: Cows are given antibiotics to treat rBGH-linked infections, and it’s unclear if that contributes to antibiotic-resistant germs in people.

Lauran Neergaard
AP Medical Writer
Washington, D.C.

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Have questions of your own? Send them to newsquestions@ap.org.

One natural resource the United States has a lot of is natural gas. So why not just start using it in place of oil, to reduce the nation’s dependence on imported energy?

Curiosity about the potential of natural gas to become America’s fuel of choice inspired one of the questions in this edition of “Ask AP,” a weekly Q&A column where AP journalists respond to readers’ questions about the news.

If you have your own news-related question that you’d like to see answered by an AP reporter or editor, send it to newsquestions@ap.org, with “Ask AP” in the subject line. And please include your full name and hometown so they can be published with your question.

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How are NFL players paid? Do they just get regular paychecks during the football season, or is their pay spread throughout the year? Do they get paid separately for preseason activities, training camps and postseason play, or is that all included in their overall salary?

What if they have incentive clauses in their contracts – is that money paid as it is earned, or in a lump sum at the end of the season?

Tom Jeffs
Edison, N.J.

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Typically, a player gets paid his whole annual salary during the 17 weeks that make up the regular season, according to the NFL. That doesn’t cover what they do with the team before and after the season – they get separate compensation for those activities.

As for signing and other bonuses: They can be paid as a lump sum or spread out over multiple weeks, depending on the terms of a player’s contract. And if an athlete earns incentive payments – say, by playing a certain number of games or achieving other goals specified in his contract – he usually has to wait until the season ends to cash in.

Barry Wilner
AP Football Writer
New York

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There was an op-ed piece in the Albuquerque Journal by Rep. Harry Teague and energy tycoon T. Boone Pickens that said the solution for our dependence on imported oil is natural gas, which is clean and plentiful enough in the U.S. to last 118 years.

What would it take for us to start using natural gas in place of oil? If we have so much natural gas, why haven’t we been using it all along?

Judy Crane
Tijeras, N.M.

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We do use natural gas extensively. Half the country’s homes are heated with gas. Industries that make steel, plastics and chemicals also count on gas. Utilities’ reliance on gas to make electricity has gone up more than 50 percent over the past 10 years or so, with gas now used to make more than a fifth of the nation’s electricity.

More energy-efficient homes, businesses and appliances, coupled with declining industrial consumption, has kept the use of natural gas at relatively flat levels recently. At the same time, new estimates of U.S. reserves are 35 percent higher than just two years ago, thanks to new technology that has allowed drillers to get gas from shale rock.

The American Clean Skies Foundation, which is backed by the natural gas industry, said a year ago that the U.S. has a 118-year supply of natural gas at 2007 production levels.

The use of gas as a transportation fuel has grown, but still makes up just a tiny part of overall consumption. Quite simply, promoters have not been able to get gas to catch on as a key transportation fuel beyond use in corporate fleets, city buses, trash collection trucks and other government vehicles.

Lack of refueling stations is one problem. Extremely volatile and unpredictable pricing is another. Still, there has been some progress in making equipment that could refuel natural gas vehicles at home.

Using gas as a transportation fuel is “clearly doable,” said Chris McGill of the American Gas Association.

“It’s not a technological issue. It’s a choice issue.”

Mark Williams
AP Energy Writer
Columbus, Ohio

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One of your readers sent you a question regarding fewer veterans, and you said there are 1.4 million people in the active-duty, all-volunteer Army, Navy, Marine Corps and Air Force. What about the Coast Guard, also one of the armed services?

Lowell Gibbs
Albuquerque, N.M.

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The Coast Guard has 42,000 active-duty volunteers, agency spokesman Tony Russell says. That number has gone up slightly each year over the past few years, he says.

The Coast Guard, while a military service, is part of the Homeland Security Department. In times of war, the Coast Guard may be transferred to the Department of the Navy.

Eileen Sullivan
AP Homeland Security Writer
Washington

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Have questions of your own? Send them to newsquestions@ap.org.

By The Associated Press

Capt. Chesley Sullenberger officially returned to the skies this week, eight months after he gained fame by guiding his crippled jetliner into the Hudson River in New York City without the loss of a single life. But what about the damaged US Airways jet? Has that been returned to service?

Curiosity about the pilot’s aircraft inspired one of the questions in this edition of “Ask AP,” a weekly Q&A column where AP journalists respond to readers’ questions about the news.

If you have your own news-related question that you’d like to see answered by an AP reporter or editor, send it to newsquestions@ap.org, with “Ask AP” in the subject line. And please include your full name and hometown so they can be published with your question.

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For a while now I have not heard anything about ships being hijacked off Somalia’s coast. Have there been so many that it’s not worth reporting, or has there been a large downturn? If so, is it because of the patrols, or the fact it is just ending winter in the Southern Hemisphere?

Jeff Gordon
Chattanooga, Tenn.

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There was a lull in Somali pirate attacks from the end of June until September, when monsoons made it hard for pirate skiffs to operate on rough seas off the Horn of Africa. However, the weather is improving and authorities expect attacks to increase. Over the past two weeks, there has been a slight pickup in attacks with the latest involving a Spanish tuna trawler Friday in the Indian Ocean.

Piracy experts attribute the failure of those assaults to better vigilance aboard commercial ships as well as increased patrols and fast response times by international navies in the Gulf of Aden. The International Maritime Bureau, which monitors piracy, applauds the positive development but says navies are bracing for a “surge” in attacks in the gulf and off the east coast of Somalia.

Christopher C. Torchia
AP Chief of Bureau, Istanbul

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Capt. Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger famously landed his US Airways jet on the Hudson River on Jan. 15 after it was disabled by birds flying into the engines. Whatever happened to the plane? Was it repaired and is it now flying again?
Daniel Lippman
Washington

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After the emergency splashdown, the Airbus A320 slowly drifted south in the frigid Hudson. Only about half of the tail fin and rudder were above water when a Fire Department boat tugged the plane to the southern tip of Manhattan and docked it there. Both engines broke off, settling into muck and thick sediment 30 to 50 feet down.

After a recovery mission, the National Transportation Safety Board directed a teardown of the plane’s engines and found bird remains. The aircraft was moved to a Kearny, N.J. salvage yard. It is expected to remain there while the NTSB completes its investigation, which could take 12 to 18 months.

Once the NTSB concludes its investigation, the disassembled plane will be sold for salvage. It will not be repaired and will not fly again, according to Chartis, the company that insured the aircraft.

The 58-year-old Sullenberger officially returned to the skies Thursday to pilot a flight from New York’s LaGuardia Airport to Charlotte, N.C. – the same planned route as the ill-fated January flight.

Anabelle Garay
AP Writer, Dallas

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An e-mail that’s circulating widely says that Medicare premiums will go up again this year and the next, while Social Security payments remain unchanged. It also says that Congress accepted the annual automatic pay raise while freezing Social Security and other pensions. Is this correct?

Joseph Benham
Kerrville, Texas

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Social Security recipients are not expected to get a cost-of-living increase in 2010 because the government index on which the annual adjustments are based showed no inflation this year. Several bills have been introduced to increase benefits anyway, or at least provide an extra one-time payment.
Congress provided a one-time bonus payment of $250 to Social Security recipients in 2009 as part of an economic stimulus package. That was in addition to a 5.8 percent automatic cost-of-living increase Social Security beneficiaries got last January.

Congress voted in March to reject an automatic cost-of-living pay increase for its members in 2010. Senators and representatives got a 2.8 percent – $4,700 a year – cost-of-living boost in January, the same month Social Security benefits were increased.

By law, Medicare Part B premiums covering physician visits do not increase for the vast majority of seniors if there is no increase in Social Security payments. The House voted last week (9/24) to eliminate premium increases for those who would face them. The bill is now before the Senate.
Congress voted last December to let businesses stretch out paying billions of dollars in required contributions to their employee pension plans after many companies said they needed the cash to stay afloat because of the recession.

It took no action regarding pension payments to retirees by defined benefit pension plans.

Stephen Ohlemacher
AP Writer, Washington, D.C.

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Have questions of your own? Send them to newsquestions@ap.org.