txya900619/gigaword_nyt_p · Datasets at Hugging Face

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As he watches landscapers and big sod farms shut down, he hopes his own business survives.	20090331	story
Swiftmud made the decision after getting an update on the three-year drought. Weather experts predict a drier than normal spring that will continue at least until the start of the rainy season in June.	20090331	story
Water managers had considered a total ban on professional pressure washing, but analysts determined that could eliminate another 2,226 jobs and $81 million in business revenues, in part because painters and concrete refinishers rely on it.	20090331	story
BROOKSVILLE	20090331	story
"You have the economic situation and the water ban situation," he said. "March, April, May and part of June should be our busy times, and it's not here. Everything is way down."	20090331	story
Learn more on the Web	20090331	story
He suggested a surcharge that would make big users pay more.	20090331	story
Property owners need to move toward "Florida-friendly" landscaping that uses less water than grass, board member Todd Pressman said.	20090331	story
What's allowed, what's not	20090331	story
The rules passed Tuesday by Swiftmud do not affect those who get their water from the city of Tampa, which last week passed even more stringent watering rules that include a sprinkler ban. Those who have reclaimed water also aren't affected.	20090331	story
Officials hope the new rules will cut water use by 20 percent and save 50 million gallons a day.	20090331	story
Still allowed: commercial car washing, pressure washing; some hand watering.	20090331	story
The restrictions that Swiftmud ultimately approved do to some extent protect businesses.	20090331	story
Sod farmers say they're already hurting.	20090331	story
Get ready to turn off your cute backyard fountain, adjust the sprinkler timer and take the car to a carwash.	20090331	story
Weekly watering between midnight and 4 a.m. on designated day only, for properties less than 1 acre.	20090331	story
"The most effective tool we have is money," he said.	20090331	story
Meanwhile, some congressional Democrats have become frustrated with what they consider to be the slow pace in releasing information.	20090331	story
The question of what documents will be declassified and released promises to be a continuing challenge for the administration. As part of its lawsuit, the ACLU is seeking, among many other documents, material related to the destruction of CIA interrogation videotapes, reports by the agency's inspector general and Defense Department documents related to the abuse and death of prisoners.	20090331	story
On Tuesday, two Democratic senators, Richard J. Durbin of Illinois and Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, wrote to the Justice Department to complain about delays in the release of a report by the its ethics office on the role of department lawyers in providing legal advice on waterboarding and other interrogation methods under Bush.	20090331	story
The Obama administration is intensely debating whether and when to release documents from the Bush administration related to harsh interrogation methods used on prisoners belonging to al-Qaida, according to administration and congressional officials.	20090331	story
Holder and other top officials have condemned the most extreme of the past interrogation techniques, waterboarding, as illegal torture, and they see no reason to hide from public view what they consider the mistakes of their predecessors.	20090331	story
"Due to the complexity and classification level of the draft report, the review process described above likely will require substantial time and effort," Burton wrote.	20090331	story
The Obama administration has already made public some legal opinions from the Bush Justice Department, and both Obama and Holder have pledged a new policy of openness. But they are listening to the objections of intelligence officials. Newsweek reported this week that Michael V. Hayden, who stepped down in February as CIA director, was lobbying against disclosing the Bradbury memorandums.	20090331	story
The Justice Department had asked Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein of U.S. District Court in Manhattan to delay a decision on whether to order the release of the memorandums, suggesting that the government might voluntarily release them. Government lawyers could turn them over this week or seek a further delay.	20090331	story
In their reply on Tuesday, Durbin and Whitehouse objected to the delays and expressed concern that the multiple reviews might water down the report.	20090331	story
In his presidential campaign, Obama repeatedly criticized the CIA's interrogation program and other counterterrorism programs. Vice President Joe Biden repeated the criticism at CIA headquarters during the swearing in of the agency's new director, Leon Panetta. But Obama has said he prefers to look forward rather than backward and has not endorsed a Congressional proposal for a "truth commission" to investigate Bush counterterrorism programs.	20090331	story
Some officials, including Gregory B. Craig, the White House counsel, and Attorney General Eric Holder, have argued for disclosing the material as quickly as possible to distance the new administration from the most controversial policies of the Bush years.	20090331	story
One test on the disclosure issue will come this week in federal court in New York. By Thursday, the Justice Department must tell a judge overseeing a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit by the American Civil Liberties Union whether it will release three legal memorandums from 2005, signed by Steven G. Bradbury, who worked in the department's Office of Legal Counsel under President George W. Bush, that offered legal justification for harsh interrogation.	20090331	story
Do I have to turn off my backyard fountain?	20090331	story
You have to follow the new restrictions on hours, but fresh sod still gets a 30-day establishment period. For the first 15 days, new turf may be watered any day of the week. For the next 15 days, you can water every other day.	20090331	story
What are the new hours for lawn irrigation?	20090331	story
Hand-watering will be allowed from 6 a.m. to 8 a.m. and 6 to 10 p.m. on watering days.	20090331	story
Who is affected by the rules?	20090331	story
Are golf courses and farms affected?	20090331	story
The thermostat rule applies only to buildings with water-based cooling systems typically government buildings, common areas in malls, and lobbies of multitenant office buildings.	20090331	story
Amid a three-year drought, the Southwest Florida Water Management District imposed its most severe water restrictions ever. They start Friday and run at least through June 30.	20090331	story
New landscaping has a 60-day establishment period. For the first 15 days, the plants can be watered any day of the week. You can water every other day for the next 30 days and twice a week in the final 15 days.	20090331	story
All lawn watering remains limited to the once-a-week schedule already in effect. Hours for sprinkling will be midnight to 4 a.m. for properties less than 1 acre. For properties larger than 1 acre, it's midnight to 4 a.m. and 8 p.m. to midnight. City of Tampa water customers cannot use lawn sprinklers at all.	20090331	story
All Tampa Bay Water customers, which includes Hillsborough, Pasco and Pinellas counties and most of their cities. Cities not affected are Belleair, Dade City, Dunedin, Plant City, San Antonio, Temple Terrace and Zephyrhills.	20090331	story
No.	20090331	story
Will I have to set my thermostat at 78 degrees or above?	20090331	story
What about my landscaping?	20090331	story
Can I wash my car or pressure wash my house?	20090331	story
Yes. Only fountains that use reclaimed water or saltwater are permitted.	20090331	story
"This time, we did not get the results we wanted," said Rep. Alan Hays, R-Umatilla, chairman of the House Government Operations Appropriations Committee.	20090331	story
The Lottery's advertising expenses have increased under the firm's month-to-month arrangement from about $298,000 a month to an average of $346,000 a month this fiscal year, according to a legislative watchdog agency. DiBenigno attributed the increase to the promotion of Powerball.	20090331	story
A legislative committee grilled DiBenigno over his decisions for 90 minutes Tuesday. It was by far the most critical interrogation of any of Gov. Charlie Crist's agency heads since he took office in 2007.	20090331	story
Times/Herald Tallahassee Bureau	20090331	story
Lawmakers required the Lottery to "competitively solicit for advertising contracts," and told the Lottery it "may not extend or renew the current contracts."	20090331	story
TALLAHASSEE The chief of the Florida Lottery waited eight months to follow legislative orders to seek new offers for the agency's lucrative advertising work, then skirted a legislative order to seek competitive proposals.	20090331	story
After receiving detailed proposals from 29 advertising agencies, DiBenigno said a review committee has whittled the list of finalists to seven. One of the firms is Cooper DDB, he said, and the new agency should be chosen by May.	20090331	story
By the time the Lottery got around to seeking a new advertising agency, it was Feb. 6, and the letter seeking proposals referred to an "informal" competitive process, a term DiBenigno said Tuesday was "a very poor choice of words."	20090331	story
Instead, the Lottery retained Cooper DDB on a month-to-month "extension," as DiBenigno called it. He said the Lottery was preoccupied with Florida's participation in the multistate Powerball game while negotiating a new contract with the Lottery's scratch-off ticket vendor.	20090331	story
DiBenigno, guided by a recent legal opinion by his general counsel, Ken Hart, said the "informal" approach was allowed by an exception in Florida's competitive-bid law for "artistic services." That is the same exception that Attorney General Bill McCollum used recently to pay a political consultant $1.4 million for public service ads alerting Floridians to the dangers of cybercrime.	20090331	story
Rep. Clay Ford, R-Gulf Breeze, a lawyer, took issue with the Lottery chief's reliance on his attorney's retroactive approval of the action.	20090331	story
A former trader at Drexel Burnham Lambert, the junk bond powerhouse of the 1980s, Feinberg rose from relative obscurity on Wall Street after a decade trading mostly in bonds.	20090331	story
"It seems like Chrysler would be in extreme difficulty whether Cerberus had showed up or not," said Josh Lerner, a professor at the Harvard Business School who has studied private equity.	20090331	story
Cerberus' stake in GMAC fell to a single-digit percentage, and the firm put in only $105 million in new capital while General Motors invested $884 million. Cerberus' co-investors, losing faith on the gamble, by and large declined to put in new funds. Only one-third of the co-investors chose to double down, and among them they put in $261 million, according to the co-investor, who has reviewed the investments.	20090331	story
Cerberus persuaded some of the most prominent names in the financial world to join it in its Chrysler and GMAC investments. Its co-investors in those include the investment arm of Abu Dhabi as well as hedge funds like York Capital. Some hedge funds, like Eton Park, invested only in GMAC, but they, too, are feeling the pain.	20090331	story
It was not the road he had envisioned when his private investment firm, Cerberus Capital Management, bought Chrysler in the summer of 2007.	20090331	story
Cerberus' investors in the Chrysler deal include pension funds for public employees in Indiana and for public school employees in Pennsylvania, according to PitchBook.	20090331	story
But Cerberus, like many private equity firms, loaded its new ward with what turned out to be crippling amounts of debt. Cerberus piled about $20 billion of debt onto Chrysler, Gabbert said. As car sales plunged across the industry -- and, in particular, at Chrysler -- the carmaker began to buckle under its load.	20090331	story
Those co-investors have taken four times the losses in aggregate as Cerberus, and many have already written their stakes down to zero, or pennies on the dollar. A few of them, though, doubled down on GMAC in December, counting on Cerberus to find a way out of the wreck.	20090331	story
Its daring deal for Chrysler vaulted Cerberus, then virtually unknown outside financial circles, to prominence. But now Cerberus -- and its investors -- are paying the price.	20090331	story
So as the Obama administration prepared to assert control over Chrysler and General Motors, Feinberg flew to Washington to try to salvage what he could. In a midweek meeting with Treasury officials, Feinberg agreed to give up the 80.1 percent stake in Chrysler held by Cerberus and its co-investors, according to a person briefed on the negotiations. He first offered to do this last year.	20090331	story
A few weeks ago, Cerberus began telling its co-investors that it was likely to give up control of Chrysler's auto unit, according to a co-investor and also the person briefed on Feinberg's meeting. The co-investors had agreed from the start that Cerberus could give away their stakes along with its own and that Cerberus could make virtually all of the decisions related to Chrysler and GMAC.	20090331	story
The main path of hope for Cerberus depends on government support for Chrysler Financial, which Cerberus split into a separate company from the automaker. Regulators informally rejected its request to become a bank holding company late last year, even while approving an application for such a conversion by GMAC. Political rancor related to Cerberus contributed to that decision by regulators, according to one of the people briefed on the situation. Now Cerberus is pushing the new administration to reconsider.	20090331	story
But Feinberg did not go quietly. He also discussed additional federal money to help his other wayward investments in Detroit: GMAC and Chrysler Financial. Cerberus is now pushing the government to help orchestrate a merger of the two auto-financing companies -- a move that might eventually yield a profit for Cerberus.	20090331	story
Back then, Feinberg was hailed as a hero -- the Wall Street financier who just might save the American car industry. Instead, he lost billions for his investors and co-investors. And last week it became clear that he would lose Chrysler's auto operations, as well.	20090331	story
Cerberus is also pushing the Treasury and the Justice Departments for support of its goal to merge GMAC and Chrysler Financial.	20090331	story
"There was hope with Cerberus, that they would add managerial skill, and turn Chrysler around," said Antoinette Schoar, a professor at MIT. "It's difficult to say whether the private equity firm did a good enough job, or, were they just caught in this?"	20090331	story
Cerberus' management has taken offense in the last few months at the suggestion that it has not done enough to save Chrysler. In a letter to The New York Times last month, the firm's chief operating officer, Mark A. Neporent, wrote that "Cerberus has already stepped up to the plate." He also wrote that Cerberus' investors include pension funds and retirement plans.	20090331	story
Cerberus put in only about one-fifth of the capital for Chrysler and GMAC, limiting its financial downside, but it was in charge of appointing new management teams and establishing Chrysler's overall strategy.	20090331	story
That co-investor, who asked to remain anonymous, said he felt the investments alongside Cerberus were among the worse his firm had ever made. A spokesman for Cerberus declined to comment.	20090331	story
The auto companies are not Cerberus' only problems. Investors in its private equity and hedge funds are trying to pull money out en masse. The firm is considering repaying those investors for now by giving them stakes in a spun-off fund, rather than cash, according to a person briefed on the matter.	20090331	story
Some officials, including Clinton, are skeptical that Iran's leaders will ever embrace the American overtures. But reaching out, analysts say, keeps Iran on the defensive by demonstrating to the Europeans, the Russians and others that the United States is sincerely trying. And talking about Afghanistan is easier than confronting more divisive issues, especially Iran's nuclear ambitions.	20090331	story
"Our collective inability to implement a clear and sustained strategy has allowed violent extremists to regain a foothold in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and make the area a nerve center for efforts to spread violence from London to Mumbai," Clinton said.	20090331	story
Clinton had a busy day of diplomacy, notably a meeting with the Russian foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, at which the two discussed cooperation on a variety of issues.	20090331	story
These two American contacts with Iran are another step in the Obama administration's policy of engagement. It is a tentative process, in which the White House makes symbolic gestures, like President Barack Obama's recent video greeting to the Iranian people and government for their New Year, while continuing to formulate its longer-term strategy.	20090331	story
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton confirmed that Holbrooke, the administration's special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, greeted Iran's deputy foreign minister, Mohammad Mehdi Akhondzadeh, on the sidelines of a major conference here devoted to Afghanistan.	20090331	story
It was brief, it was unscheduled and it was not substantive, but a meeting Tuesday between Richard C. Holbrooke, a presidential envoy, and an Iranian diplomat marked the first face-to-face encounter between the Obama administration and the government of Iran.	20090331	story
For weeks, American officials regarded this conference as a good place to make a move. The delivery of the letter, along with Holbrooke's greeting during a lunch break, suggested that the encounter was less than pure serendipity.	20090331	story
For the most part, though, the focus was on Afghanistan -- less as a military issue than as a development problem. Clinton called for a new start in Afghanistan, emphasizing more effective development and better regional coordination.	20090331	story
Moments later, an explosion rang out less than a half-mile away. An unsuspecting Iraqi had detonated a pressure-triggered roadside bomb. His legs were ripped off, and after a brief struggle for air, he died in the dirt.	20090331	story
"These guys are going to fight," he said. "And they are going to die."	20090331	story
Cpl. Phillip Buck stopped in his tracks. And then took three careful steps back, the parched earth cracking beneath his feet like fresh ice over snow.	20090331	story
"I saw the truck lift right off the ground and land again and I thought, 'Oh no,"' he said. "But everyone walked out, their ears ringing but OK."	20090331	story
Capt. Daniel Godbey, 37, said that on one of his first missions, the vehicle in front of his was struck by a roadside bomb.	20090331	story
He estimated that only a few hundred fighters were left. "But what they lack in numbers, they make up for in talent," he said.	20090331	story
"This is the retro war in Iraq," Rago said. "Other commanders are doing what they should be doing in Iraq in 2009. I am not."	20090331	story
American and Iraqi soldiers are still sweeping villages, raiding homes, countering mortar attacks and struggling to dismantle a network of explosives laid by insurgents to protect their sanctuary.	20090331	story
Since the latest operation to clear out the insurgents began here eight weeks ago, Iraqi and American vehicles have been struck by roadside bombs more than 30 times. A dozen Iraqi soldiers have been killed, and three American soldiers have been seriously wounded.	20090331	story
"You never know what he is playing with," said Buck, 27, his eyes squarely on the soldier.	20090331	story
Ten yards in front of him, an Iraqi soldier was inspecting a possible booby trap in a desolate village deserted long ago.	20090331	story
But in South Balad Ruz, American soldiers are constructing a new combat outpost, sleeping on cots in makeshift tents in the desert.	20090331	story
"This is one of the few burning embers of al-Qaida in Diyala," said Lt. Col. Lou Rago, who commands Task Force 3-66 Armor, which he said was the only full battalion in Iraq still tasked solely with classic counterinsurgency combat. "And if it is not snuffed out, it could reignite."	20090331	story
The combat outpost in the area -- named Diamond, after Staff Sgt. Sean D. Diamond, who was killed in February -- marked the end of that era, Rago said.	20090331	story
But what matters most, he said, is simply a persistent presence. And he said he believed that the insurgents also understood the importance of that.	20090331	story
But this corner of Diyala province, north of Baghdad and near the Iranian border, is one of those pockets across northern and eastern Iraq where the war is still being fought much as it was two years ago, when the "surge" of American troops began.	20090331	story

As he watches landscapers and big sod farms shut down, he hopes his own business survives.

20090331

story

Swiftmud made the decision after getting an update on the three-year drought. Weather experts predict a drier than normal spring that will continue at least until the start of the rainy season in June.

20090331

story

Water managers had considered a total ban on professional pressure washing, but analysts determined that could eliminate another 2,226 jobs and $81 million in business revenues, in part because painters and concrete refinishers rely on it.

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story

BROOKSVILLE

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story

"You have the economic situation and the water ban situation," he said. "March, April, May and part of June should be our busy times, and it's not here. Everything is way down."

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story

Learn more on the Web

20090331

story

He suggested a surcharge that would make big users pay more.

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story

Property owners need to move toward "Florida-friendly" landscaping that uses less water than grass, board member Todd Pressman said.

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story

What's allowed, what's not

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story

The rules passed Tuesday by Swiftmud do not affect those who get their water from the city of Tampa, which last week passed even more stringent watering rules that include a sprinkler ban. Those who have reclaimed water also aren't affected.

20090331

story

Officials hope the new rules will cut water use by 20 percent and save 50 million gallons a day.

20090331

story

Still allowed: commercial car washing, pressure washing; some hand watering.

20090331

story

The restrictions that Swiftmud ultimately approved do to some extent protect businesses.

20090331

story

Sod farmers say they're already hurting.

20090331

story

Get ready to turn off your cute backyard fountain, adjust the sprinkler timer and take the car to a carwash.

20090331

story

Weekly watering between midnight and 4 a.m. on designated day only, for properties less than 1 acre.

20090331

story

"The most effective tool we have is money," he said.

20090331

story

Meanwhile, some congressional Democrats have become frustrated with what they consider to be the slow pace in releasing information.

20090331

story

The question of what documents will be declassified and released promises to be a continuing challenge for the administration. As part of its lawsuit, the ACLU is seeking, among many other documents, material related to the destruction of CIA interrogation videotapes, reports by the agency's inspector general and Defense Department documents related to the abuse and death of prisoners.

20090331

story

On Tuesday, two Democratic senators, Richard J. Durbin of Illinois and Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, wrote to the Justice Department to complain about delays in the release of a report by the its ethics office on the role of department lawyers in providing legal advice on waterboarding and other interrogation methods under Bush.

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story

The Obama administration is intensely debating whether and when to release documents from the Bush administration related to harsh interrogation methods used on prisoners belonging to al-Qaida, according to administration and congressional officials.

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story

Holder and other top officials have condemned the most extreme of the past interrogation techniques, waterboarding, as illegal torture, and they see no reason to hide from public view what they consider the mistakes of their predecessors.

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story

"Due to the complexity and classification level of the draft report, the review process described above likely will require substantial time and effort," Burton wrote.

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story

The Obama administration has already made public some legal opinions from the Bush Justice Department, and both Obama and Holder have pledged a new policy of openness. But they are listening to the objections of intelligence officials. Newsweek reported this week that Michael V. Hayden, who stepped down in February as CIA director, was lobbying against disclosing the Bradbury memorandums.

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story

The Justice Department had asked Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein of U.S. District Court in Manhattan to delay a decision on whether to order the release of the memorandums, suggesting that the government might voluntarily release them. Government lawyers could turn them over this week or seek a further delay.

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story

In their reply on Tuesday, Durbin and Whitehouse objected to the delays and expressed concern that the multiple reviews might water down the report.

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story

In his presidential campaign, Obama repeatedly criticized the CIA's interrogation program and other counterterrorism programs. Vice President Joe Biden repeated the criticism at CIA headquarters during the swearing in of the agency's new director, Leon Panetta. But Obama has said he prefers to look forward rather than backward and has not endorsed a Congressional proposal for a "truth commission" to investigate Bush counterterrorism programs.

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story

Some officials, including Gregory B. Craig, the White House counsel, and Attorney General Eric Holder, have argued for disclosing the material as quickly as possible to distance the new administration from the most controversial policies of the Bush years.

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story

One test on the disclosure issue will come this week in federal court in New York. By Thursday, the Justice Department must tell a judge overseeing a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit by the American Civil Liberties Union whether it will release three legal memorandums from 2005, signed by Steven G. Bradbury, who worked in the department's Office of Legal Counsel under President George W. Bush, that offered legal justification for harsh interrogation.

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story

Do I have to turn off my backyard fountain?

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story

You have to follow the new restrictions on hours, but fresh sod still gets a 30-day establishment period. For the first 15 days, new turf may be watered any day of the week. For the next 15 days, you can water every other day.

20090331

story

What are the new hours for lawn irrigation?

20090331

story

Hand-watering will be allowed from 6 a.m. to 8 a.m. and 6 to 10 p.m. on watering days.

20090331

story

Who is affected by the rules?

20090331

story

Are golf courses and farms affected?

20090331

story

The thermostat rule applies only to buildings with water-based cooling systems typically government buildings, common areas in malls, and lobbies of multitenant office buildings.

20090331

story

Amid a three-year drought, the Southwest Florida Water Management District imposed its most severe water restrictions ever. They start Friday and run at least through June 30.

20090331

story

New landscaping has a 60-day establishment period. For the first 15 days, the plants can be watered any day of the week. You can water every other day for the next 30 days and twice a week in the final 15 days.

20090331

story

All lawn watering remains limited to the once-a-week schedule already in effect. Hours for sprinkling will be midnight to 4 a.m. for properties less than 1 acre. For properties larger than 1 acre, it's midnight to 4 a.m. and 8 p.m. to midnight. City of Tampa water customers cannot use lawn sprinklers at all.

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story

All Tampa Bay Water customers, which includes Hillsborough, Pasco and Pinellas counties and most of their cities. Cities not affected are Belleair, Dade City, Dunedin, Plant City, San Antonio, Temple Terrace and Zephyrhills.

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story

No.

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story

Will I have to set my thermostat at 78 degrees or above?

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story

What about my landscaping?

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story

Can I wash my car or pressure wash my house?

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story

Yes. Only fountains that use reclaimed water or saltwater are permitted.

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story

"This time, we did not get the results we wanted," said Rep. Alan Hays, R-Umatilla, chairman of the House Government Operations Appropriations Committee.

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story

The Lottery's advertising expenses have increased under the firm's month-to-month arrangement from about $298,000 a month to an average of $346,000 a month this fiscal year, according to a legislative watchdog agency. DiBenigno attributed the increase to the promotion of Powerball.

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story

A legislative committee grilled DiBenigno over his decisions for 90 minutes Tuesday. It was by far the most critical interrogation of any of Gov. Charlie Crist's agency heads since he took office in 2007.

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story

Times/Herald Tallahassee Bureau

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story

Lawmakers required the Lottery to "competitively solicit for advertising contracts," and told the Lottery it "may not extend or renew the current contracts."

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story

TALLAHASSEE The chief of the Florida Lottery waited eight months to follow legislative orders to seek new offers for the agency's lucrative advertising work, then skirted a legislative order to seek competitive proposals.

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story

After receiving detailed proposals from 29 advertising agencies, DiBenigno said a review committee has whittled the list of finalists to seven. One of the firms is Cooper DDB, he said, and the new agency should be chosen by May.

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story

By the time the Lottery got around to seeking a new advertising agency, it was Feb. 6, and the letter seeking proposals referred to an "informal" competitive process, a term DiBenigno said Tuesday was "a very poor choice of words."

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story

Instead, the Lottery retained Cooper DDB on a month-to-month "extension," as DiBenigno called it. He said the Lottery was preoccupied with Florida's participation in the multistate Powerball game while negotiating a new contract with the Lottery's scratch-off ticket vendor.

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story

DiBenigno, guided by a recent legal opinion by his general counsel, Ken Hart, said the "informal" approach was allowed by an exception in Florida's competitive-bid law for "artistic services." That is the same exception that Attorney General Bill McCollum used recently to pay a political consultant $1.4 million for public service ads alerting Floridians to the dangers of cybercrime.

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story

Rep. Clay Ford, R-Gulf Breeze, a lawyer, took issue with the Lottery chief's reliance on his attorney's retroactive approval of the action.

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story

A former trader at Drexel Burnham Lambert, the junk bond powerhouse of the 1980s, Feinberg rose from relative obscurity on Wall Street after a decade trading mostly in bonds.

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story

"It seems like Chrysler would be in extreme difficulty whether Cerberus had showed up or not," said Josh Lerner, a professor at the Harvard Business School who has studied private equity.

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story

Cerberus' stake in GMAC fell to a single-digit percentage, and the firm put in only $105 million in new capital while General Motors invested $884 million. Cerberus' co-investors, losing faith on the gamble, by and large declined to put in new funds. Only one-third of the co-investors chose to double down, and among them they put in $261 million, according to the co-investor, who has reviewed the investments.

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story

Cerberus persuaded some of the most prominent names in the financial world to join it in its Chrysler and GMAC investments. Its co-investors in those include the investment arm of Abu Dhabi as well as hedge funds like York Capital. Some hedge funds, like Eton Park, invested only in GMAC, but they, too, are feeling the pain.

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story

It was not the road he had envisioned when his private investment firm, Cerberus Capital Management, bought Chrysler in the summer of 2007.

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story

Cerberus' investors in the Chrysler deal include pension funds for public employees in Indiana and for public school employees in Pennsylvania, according to PitchBook.

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story

But Cerberus, like many private equity firms, loaded its new ward with what turned out to be crippling amounts of debt. Cerberus piled about $20 billion of debt onto Chrysler, Gabbert said. As car sales plunged across the industry -- and, in particular, at Chrysler -- the carmaker began to buckle under its load.

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story

Those co-investors have taken four times the losses in aggregate as Cerberus, and many have already written their stakes down to zero, or pennies on the dollar. A few of them, though, doubled down on GMAC in December, counting on Cerberus to find a way out of the wreck.

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Its daring deal for Chrysler vaulted Cerberus, then virtually unknown outside financial circles, to prominence. But now Cerberus -- and its investors -- are paying the price.

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story

So as the Obama administration prepared to assert control over Chrysler and General Motors, Feinberg flew to Washington to try to salvage what he could. In a midweek meeting with Treasury officials, Feinberg agreed to give up the 80.1 percent stake in Chrysler held by Cerberus and its co-investors, according to a person briefed on the negotiations. He first offered to do this last year.

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A few weeks ago, Cerberus began telling its co-investors that it was likely to give up control of Chrysler's auto unit, according to a co-investor and also the person briefed on Feinberg's meeting. The co-investors had agreed from the start that Cerberus could give away their stakes along with its own and that Cerberus could make virtually all of the decisions related to Chrysler and GMAC.

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The main path of hope for Cerberus depends on government support for Chrysler Financial, which Cerberus split into a separate company from the automaker. Regulators informally rejected its request to become a bank holding company late last year, even while approving an application for such a conversion by GMAC. Political rancor related to Cerberus contributed to that decision by regulators, according to one of the people briefed on the situation. Now Cerberus is pushing the new administration to reconsider.

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But Feinberg did not go quietly. He also discussed additional federal money to help his other wayward investments in Detroit: GMAC and Chrysler Financial. Cerberus is now pushing the government to help orchestrate a merger of the two auto-financing companies -- a move that might eventually yield a profit for Cerberus.

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Back then, Feinberg was hailed as a hero -- the Wall Street financier who just might save the American car industry. Instead, he lost billions for his investors and co-investors. And last week it became clear that he would lose Chrysler's auto operations, as well.

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Cerberus is also pushing the Treasury and the Justice Departments for support of its goal to merge GMAC and Chrysler Financial.

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"There was hope with Cerberus, that they would add managerial skill, and turn Chrysler around," said Antoinette Schoar, a professor at MIT. "It's difficult to say whether the private equity firm did a good enough job, or, were they just caught in this?"

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Cerberus' management has taken offense in the last few months at the suggestion that it has not done enough to save Chrysler. In a letter to The New York Times last month, the firm's chief operating officer, Mark A. Neporent, wrote that "Cerberus has already stepped up to the plate." He also wrote that Cerberus' investors include pension funds and retirement plans.

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Cerberus put in only about one-fifth of the capital for Chrysler and GMAC, limiting its financial downside, but it was in charge of appointing new management teams and establishing Chrysler's overall strategy.

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That co-investor, who asked to remain anonymous, said he felt the investments alongside Cerberus were among the worse his firm had ever made. A spokesman for Cerberus declined to comment.

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The auto companies are not Cerberus' only problems. Investors in its private equity and hedge funds are trying to pull money out en masse. The firm is considering repaying those investors for now by giving them stakes in a spun-off fund, rather than cash, according to a person briefed on the matter.

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Some officials, including Clinton, are skeptical that Iran's leaders will ever embrace the American overtures. But reaching out, analysts say, keeps Iran on the defensive by demonstrating to the Europeans, the Russians and others that the United States is sincerely trying. And talking about Afghanistan is easier than confronting more divisive issues, especially Iran's nuclear ambitions.

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"Our collective inability to implement a clear and sustained strategy has allowed violent extremists to regain a foothold in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and make the area a nerve center for efforts to spread violence from London to Mumbai," Clinton said.

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Clinton had a busy day of diplomacy, notably a meeting with the Russian foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, at which the two discussed cooperation on a variety of issues.

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These two American contacts with Iran are another step in the Obama administration's policy of engagement. It is a tentative process, in which the White House makes symbolic gestures, like President Barack Obama's recent video greeting to the Iranian people and government for their New Year, while continuing to formulate its longer-term strategy.

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Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton confirmed that Holbrooke, the administration's special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, greeted Iran's deputy foreign minister, Mohammad Mehdi Akhondzadeh, on the sidelines of a major conference here devoted to Afghanistan.

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It was brief, it was unscheduled and it was not substantive, but a meeting Tuesday between Richard C. Holbrooke, a presidential envoy, and an Iranian diplomat marked the first face-to-face encounter between the Obama administration and the government of Iran.

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For weeks, American officials regarded this conference as a good place to make a move. The delivery of the letter, along with Holbrooke's greeting during a lunch break, suggested that the encounter was less than pure serendipity.

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For the most part, though, the focus was on Afghanistan -- less as a military issue than as a development problem. Clinton called for a new start in Afghanistan, emphasizing more effective development and better regional coordination.

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Moments later, an explosion rang out less than a half-mile away. An unsuspecting Iraqi had detonated a pressure-triggered roadside bomb. His legs were ripped off, and after a brief struggle for air, he died in the dirt.

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"These guys are going to fight," he said. "And they are going to die."

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Cpl. Phillip Buck stopped in his tracks. And then took three careful steps back, the parched earth cracking beneath his feet like fresh ice over snow.

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"I saw the truck lift right off the ground and land again and I thought, 'Oh no,"' he said. "But everyone walked out, their ears ringing but OK."

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Capt. Daniel Godbey, 37, said that on one of his first missions, the vehicle in front of his was struck by a roadside bomb.

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He estimated that only a few hundred fighters were left. "But what they lack in numbers, they make up for in talent," he said.

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"This is the retro war in Iraq," Rago said. "Other commanders are doing what they should be doing in Iraq in 2009. I am not."

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American and Iraqi soldiers are still sweeping villages, raiding homes, countering mortar attacks and struggling to dismantle a network of explosives laid by insurgents to protect their sanctuary.

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Since the latest operation to clear out the insurgents began here eight weeks ago, Iraqi and American vehicles have been struck by roadside bombs more than 30 times. A dozen Iraqi soldiers have been killed, and three American soldiers have been seriously wounded.

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"You never know what he is playing with," said Buck, 27, his eyes squarely on the soldier.

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Ten yards in front of him, an Iraqi soldier was inspecting a possible booby trap in a desolate village deserted long ago.

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But in South Balad Ruz, American soldiers are constructing a new combat outpost, sleeping on cots in makeshift tents in the desert.

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"This is one of the few burning embers of al-Qaida in Diyala," said Lt. Col. Lou Rago, who commands Task Force 3-66 Armor, which he said was the only full battalion in Iraq still tasked solely with classic counterinsurgency combat. "And if it is not snuffed out, it could reignite."

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The combat outpost in the area -- named Diamond, after Staff Sgt. Sean D. Diamond, who was killed in February -- marked the end of that era, Rago said.

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But what matters most, he said, is simply a persistent presence. And he said he believed that the insurgents also understood the importance of that.

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But this corner of Diyala province, north of Baghdad and near the Iranian border, is one of those pockets across northern and eastern Iraq where the war is still being fought much as it was two years ago, when the "surge" of American troops began.

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