Category: Connecticut
Norwalk Woman One of 30,000 Runners in Marine Corps Marathon
MARATHON
Norwalk Hour
Katerina Voutsina
Boston University Washington News Service
10/25/2009
WASHINGTON – Her bib number was 10449. His was 11801. She is a sales planner from Norwalk. He is a former Marine aviator in Vietnam.
For Kathryn Marie Laganza, 30, there was nothing more valuable than running the 34th Marine Corps Marathon on Sunday with her father, Joseph Charles Moosbrugger, 65.
“He lives in Long Island, I live in Connecticut, but we have been able to do some races in New York City through the Road Runners Association, so we have been able to meet on weekends,” Laganza said. “Sometimes I go home to my parents’ house and run with him.”
The morning breeze did not hamper the 30,000 runners who lined up at Arlington National Cemetery, the starting point for the race. Among them were 400 registered Connecticut runners – 141 women and 259 men – who participated in the marathon or one of the shorter races also held Sunday, said the marathon’s community relations coordinator, Tami Faram.
The 26.2-mile marathon route wound its way across the Potomac River into Washington, passing the Jefferson and Lincoln Memorials, the Washington Monument and the Capitol, among other landmarks before crossing the river again to the finish line at the Marine Corps Memorial.
Laganza, riding the Metro, arrived at Arlington National Cemetery at 6:50 a.m. accompanied by family friends and neighbors.
She was initially a bit concerned about her father’s leg. “My dad tripped on a metal garden box and gashed his lower leg and shin,” Laganza said. She said Moosbrugger spent a few hours in the emergency room Saturday night having stitches put in.
However, Moosbrugger who had also torn his hamstring in a water skiing accident two summers ago, was the one who finally supported Laganza until the finish line, especially after a stomach problem knocked her off her pace.
“For any father, there is nothing better than to be able to run with one of his children,” Moosbrugger said. “I couldn’t be more proud.”
Laganza said she feels it is an accomplishment for her as well.
“It was awesome. I couldn’t done it without him,” she said after the race. “It is very emotional. It is really nice to share together the fun.”
She had been in training for the race since July. “Basically it is running an average of five to six miles for four days a week and then have a long run on the weekends,” Laganza said.
She said she received some cheers along the way, but not as many as when she ran in the New York city marathon last year. She said running over the bridge across the Potomac at mile 20, where no fans were present, was the hardest point of the course.
“I just wanted to stop,” Laganza said. Nevertheless, she said, the experience justified 100 percent of her effort. “It is not my first marathon, but it is something that I can put on my bucket list with things that I have done. I am sure there will be more.”
For Lindsay Gordon, 19, of Darien, this was her first marathon.
“I think the Marine Corps Marathon is a good marathon to do as your first one, because it is not a particularly difficult course,” said Gordon, who studies international affairs at the George Washington University.
Washington, she said, “is familiar territory.” “The beginning was kind of rough, but running on M Street, so close to my university, transformed the whole area.”
Gordon said that as she approached the finish line, “I loved it when people put their hands out to high-five them…. That was great.” Her mother, Caroline Gordon, traveled from Darien to cheer for her daughter, holding a poster with the words “Let’s go Lin.”
First-time marathon runner John Mentzer of Kittery, Maine, a Navy lieutenant commander, finished in first place, at 2:21:47. Ethiopian Muliye Gurmu was the top female finisher, with a time of 2:49:48.
Beth Johnson, the marathon’s public relations coordinator, said the race is the world’s largest marathon by number of finishers that does not offer prize money to its winners, earning its nickname, she said, of “the people’s marathon.”
But the race is not without any rewards.
“I am really excited to go the runners’ village and get a free massage,” Gordon said.
“There are supposed to be 220 massage therapists [actually, 167] there. They want to break the world record.”
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Himes’ Amendment Would Make Local Solar Company Eligible for Federal Fund
GREEN CONN
Norwalk Hour
Katerina Voutsina
Boston University Washington News Service
10/22/2009
WASHINGTON — U.S. Rep. Jim Himes, D-4, proposed Thursday that local companies who design solar-concentrating products be given access to federal research and development funds.
“Through the 1990s no country on earth invested more in solar [technology] than we did,” Himes said on the House floor. “So, how is it that in 2009 only 5 percent of the world’s solar panels are made in America?”
Himes said that an investment in innovating technologies would create thousands of good, high-paying jobs for American workers such as roofers, electricians and construction workers and in the process restore America’s competitiveness “in one of the most important industries of the next century.”
Hines offered his proposal as an amendment to the Solar Technology Roadmap Act. That bill, sponsored by Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., would authorize the secretary of energy to appoint a “Roadmap Committee” to guide government-private spending of an authorized $2.25 billion for solar research and development.
“We are substantially lagging the Chinese in the production of solar technology,” Himes said in a phone interview, adding that his amendment would clarify the language for “very promising” solar-concentrating technology companies such as Shelton-based OPEL Solar Inc. to be eligible for the federal funds.
OPEL Solar is the only Connecticut-based solar technology manufacturer. It develops, designs and manufactures solar-concentrating products that range from solar farms for industrial-scale utilities to rooftop systems for commercial building applications.
“In simple English, photovoltaic solar technology is the ability to magnify the sun 500 to 600 times more than on a regular flat light panel,” Patricia Agudow, vice president of public relations and government relations for OPEL Solar said in a telephone interview.
If this bill passes, Agudow said, OPEL Solar expects to expand its clientele and grow 20 to 50 percent over the next year.
She said that OPEL’s photovoltaic panels, which employ dual-axis solar trackers and complex lenses to focus sunlight onto a photovoltaic surface are 20 to 40 percent more efficient than a standard photovoltaic cell.
Though such panels are costly, at $250 a watt, the technology still saves consumers many dollars, Agudow said, because the panels generate more power while using less equipment and taking up less land.
“We have 30 people that work for us, but we are in a growth mode,” Agudow said. “In this last six months, we have added about 10 positions.” She that the hiring has a “ripple effect” because the company does some local manufacturing, which would create more jobs.
Without Himes’ amendment, the bill would not include solar thermal and concentrating solar photovoltaic technologies.
“My amendment simply says that concentrated solar technology will be part of a research development that the secretary of energy is mandated to undertake,” Himes said.
If the bill becomes a law, it will authorize the Department of Energy to conduct at least 10 photovoltaic demonstration projects ranging from 1 to 3 megawatts in size and at least three but not more than five solar projects greater than 30 megawatts in size. The bill will also authorize $350 million to carry out these activities in 2011, rising to $550 million in 2015.
“The global race to a clean-energy economy is on and millions of new jobs are on the line,” Himes said. “We may have fallen behind a bit, but this is our chance to catch up.”
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Lawmakers Challenge Administration Officials on H1N1 Response
FLU HEARING
New London Day
Jeanne Amy
Boston University Washington News Service
10/21/09
WASHINGTON—Three cabinet secretaries told lawmakers on Wednesday that they have learned a lot since the H1N1 flu virus surfaced in April.
The Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs held a hearing to monitor the nation’s response to H1N1 flu. Sen. Joseph Lieberman, I-Conn., chairman of the committee, expressed his concern that Americans who want to receive the vaccine may not be able to due to shortages.
“I’m worried that the virus is getting ahead of the public health system’s capacity at this moment to prevent it and to respond to it,” Lieberman said. “We’re facing an enemy whose movement is unpredictable.”
Eleven million doses of the H1N1 vaccine have been ordered by the states as of this week and are being delivered directly to 150,000 sites across the country as they arrive, said Kathleen Sebelius, secretary of Health and Human Services.
“We are better prepared to deal with the current challenge than ever before in history,” Sebelius maintained.
The number of doses available is significantly lower than government officials originally projected and cannot accommodate current demand, Sebelius said. Vaccine production was delayed because of production glitches, she said. State and local governments decide how much to order and where to distribute the vaccines when they arrive.
“We have assumed a lag time between the flu spiking and vaccine availability,” said Janet Napolitano, secretary of Homeland Security.
Education Secretary Arne Duncan said that the federal government has streamlined a tracking system for school dismissals and closures. It hopes to better monitor schools, provide information to teachers and work to keep schools open, he said.
Duncan added that his two children will receive the vaccine.
“By early November, we are confident that vaccine is going to be far more widely available,” Sebelius said. “There is enough vaccine and will be to vaccinate every American who wants to be vaccinated, and we are pushing it out as quickly as we can.”
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Lawmakers Aim to Extend First-Time Homebuyer Tax Credit
HOUSING
New London Day
Jeanne Amy
Boston University Washington News Service
10/20/09
WASHINGTON—Sens. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., and Johnny Isakson, R-Ga., called Tuesday for an extension and expansion of the $8,000 tax credit for homebuyers.
The law now covers only first-time homebuyers, but Dodd and Isakson want it to cover all homebuyers and would raise the income limits, significantly expanding eligibility for the credit.
“Whether they’re renting, hoping to own a home or looking to use their equity to build a more secure financial future, the American people need a stable housing market,” Dodd said in his opening statement at a Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee hearing on the state of the housing market.
The tax credit, implemented as part of the economic recovery package approved in February, is set to expire at the end of next month. Dodd and Isakson seek to extend the program to the end of next June.
Nearly two million first time homebuyers have already taken advantage of the credit, said Dodd, chairman of the committee.
But Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan expressed doubt about the need, testifying that the housing market is stabilizing. The administration, he said, tempered the decline of the market with federal programs such as Making Home Affordable and through the work of the Federal Housing Administration.
Isakson, in testifying before the committee, cited his 33 years of experience as a real estate broker. He said the tax credit has helped to stabilize the housing market.
“The one thing that we can reliably point to that’s made a positive change for the country is the tax credit, and it’s the smallest expenditure,” he said.
The proposed extension and expansion of the tax credit would cost $16.7 billion over five years. Isakson said he would work to come up with the funds to pay for it. “I think it’s our way out,” he said.
Diane Randall, executive director of the Hartford-based Partnership for Strong Communities, also testified, asking Congress to act immediately to spur the rental market rather than focusing solely on home ownership.
“The opportunities for Congress to intervene with solutions for the low-income rental market are immediate and can have dramatic benefits, not only for the nation’s economy but also for people who need the security of an affordable rental home,” Randall said in her opening statement.
Her recommendations ranged from renewing federal rental assistance to financing the National Housing Trust Fund. Describing Connecticut as “a wealthy state that nonetheless has deep pockets of poverty,” Randall said each local market has individual needs.
“Our organization hasn’t taken a formal position on this tax credit proposal,” Randall said in response to a question from Dodd. “As much as we try to help create a fix for homeowners, we’re creating a fix for renters as well. I would hope that we could do both.”
The tax credit issue is also building momentum in the House. Reps. Joe Courtney, D-2nd District, and Ken Calvert, R-Calif., led a bipartisan initiative to extend the $8,000 tax credit by writing a letter to the House leadership. The letter, with 165 signatures from members of Congress, will be delivered on Wednesday.
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Dodd Says Health Care Reform has to be Accomplished
DODD REACTION
Norwalk Hour
Katerina Voutsina
Boston University Washington News Service
10/14/2009
WASHINGTON – Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., expressed satisfaction Wednesday with the Senate Finance Committee’s approval of a health care reform bill.
“We have to get this done,” Dodd told reporters during his weekly conference call. He emphasized that passing a health care reform bill will be “significant for 100 percent of the American people.”
With support from Republican Sen. Olympia Snowe of Maine, the Finance Committee approved Tuesday a $829-billion, 10-year health care bill. That bill now must be merged with a bill that Dodd shepherded through the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee earlier this summer.
“It has been literally three months since we completed our work on July 15,” Dodd said. “It was the longest mark-up in the history of that committee.”
Later on Wednesday afternoon, Dodd met with Max Baucus, chairman of the Finance Committee, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, and White House officials to discuss merging the two bills. Dodd said he cannot predict what the final Senate bill will look like. Once the Senate bill is passed it will have to be reconciled with the House bill. Currently there are three House bills that must be merged into one.
Discussing the fact that the Finance Committee bill does not contain a public option, Dodd said he is “a huge advocate” of a government-run plan because he thinks that it would help reduce costs.
“Those costs cannot continue to escalate,” Dodd said. “We are watching too many people being unemployed in our state and when you lose your job, you lose your health care.” He said 28,000 people in Connecticut have lost health care over the last year.
Dodd also mentioned that the debate over health care does not focus any more on whether there should be a public option. “The question is which one works the best,” he said.
Dodd said Snowe, who was the only Republican to vote for the Finance Committee bill, is for a public option with a trigger that would bring in a public option if there was not competition.
“Now, there is a lot of room in what constitutes a good public option,” Dodd said. “I am still very optimistic that we can win that. It is important we do.”
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Courtney Leads Charge Against Excise Tax on Health Care Benefits
COURNTEY LETTER
New London Day
Jeanne Amy
Boston University Washington News Service
10/07/09
WASHINGTON – Rep. Joe Courtney, D-2nd District, delivered a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., on Wednesday urging the Democratic leadership not to support a health care bill that includes an excise tax on insurers of expensive employer-sponsored health care benefits.
The Senate Finance Committee is considering a bill that would impose the tax on high-value insurance plans beginning in 2013. Insurers would pay a 40 percent tax on the portion of plans that exceed $8,000 for individuals and $21,000 for families. Many middle-income Americans have insurance plans that surpass this threshold.
“The middle class has borne enough of the burden of the economic struggles of this country for the past 10 years that they should be shielded from the issue of who pays for health care reform,” Courtney said at a press conference on Wednesday.
The excise tax would offset part of the cost of the Finance Committee bill. The bills three House committees have approved would rely on other revenue sources to ensure that the legislation would be deficit-neutral.
Courtney’s letter to Pelosi included 157 signatures from members of the House; that’s 62 percent of all House Democrats.
“Any effort to try and tax health benefits along the lines of what the Senate Finance Committee has proposed is a non-starter for a supermajority that exists in the House Democratic Caucus,” Courtney said.
None of the House bills includes an excise tax, but many members are concerned that it will become a point of negotiation when the legislation reaches a House-Senate conference committee.
“There’s not many letters with 157 signatures; that’s what speaks volumes here,” Courtney said.
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Connecticut Ranks Eighth in New State Health Care Scoreboard
HEALTHCARE SCOREBOARD
Norwalk Hour
Katerina Voutsina
Boston University Washington News Service
10/07/2009
WASHINGTON—Connecticut ranks eighth among the states in health care quality in a report released Thursday by the independent Commonwealth Fund.
The report, Aiming Higher: Results from the 2009 State Scoreboard on Health System Performance, is a follow-up to the commission’s 2007 State Scoreboard.
“The goal of the analysis is to examine how states have done, where they have set new benchmarks that we all can see that now are achievable, to spur action and focus on aiming higher in health industry,” said Cathy Schoen, the fund’s senior vice president, in a conference call Wednesday.
The 2009 scoreboard includes 38 indicators grouped into five dimensions of health care performance – access, prevention and treatment, avoidable hospital use and costs, equity and healthy lives.
According to the report, Connecticut ranks first in insurance coverage, having improved its position by three places since 2007.
“Insurance is also critical, because it is the way we pay for care,” Schoen said, adding that even in Connecticut there is still room for improvement, especially regarding the increasing numbers of uninsured adults in the state.
Connecticut also improved in the coverage of low-income adults, moving up 18 places since 2007 to 9th in 2009.
“We need hospitals to have all patients that come in their door be ’paying patients’ and pay in a similar way,” Schoen said. “Otherwise we try to run different care systems within the hospital to collect money.”
She added that the nation spends a lot of money on medical debt collection. “No other country has this, and it is a hidden cost of a very fragmented insurance system that has multiple people racing to catch up,” she said.
Connecticut ranked third in access to health care and healthy lives, sixth in equity, 11th in prevention and treatment and 32nd in avoidable hospital use and costs.
“Unless people are securely insured – meaning that they don’t lose their coverage on a frequent basis and they have coverage that covers their health care needs and protects them financially – they don’t stay in the health care system, they come in and out,” Schoen said.
New England states ranked high in the report. Vermont ranked at the top of the list and Maine, New Hampshire, Connecticut and Rhode Island are all in the top 25 percent. Mississippi is ranked last of all the states.
The fund is a private foundation that supports independent research on health policy reform and performance.
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Long Island Sound Restoration Asks for More Federal Aid
SOUND BRIEF
New London Day
Jeanne Amy
Boston University Washington News Service
10/06/09
WASHINGTON—Long Island Sound will need more federal aid and more formalized public education to continue to make it cleaner and safer for fishing, a panel of officials and activists from Connecticut and New York told a House subcommittee Tuesday.
In addition to money, the panel told members of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Subcommittee on Water Resources and Environment, efforts to restore the Sound would require a federally led multi-state approach and more guidance from Washington in educating people about their impact on the Sound.
The subcommittee was meeting to discuss legislation to reauthorize the Long Island Sound Restoration Act. The law, enacted in 2000 and renewed in 2005, expires next year.
“When those pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock, you don’t think they survived on turkeys they found on the beach that winter, they were lobsters,” said Nicholas Crismale, president of the Connecticut Commercial Lobstermen’s Association of Guilford.
Crismale told the subcommittee about the struggles lobstermen face in the region today and about the Sound’s diminishing habitat for shellfish.
The water, experts on the Sound say, is being sapped of oxygen because of excessive amounts of nitrogen from wastewater treatment plant discharges, from urban area runoff and from the natural settling of the element on the water’s surface.
Officials became more aware of the nitrogen problem in 2001, when a study of the water in the Sound was completed, and began working on extracting the nitrogen from the Sound. They hope a new study set to be released in the next year will help them assess the effect of their efforts.
“Sometimes signs of progress come in unusual ways,” said Amey Marrella, commissioner of the Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection. “This past June a pod of nearly 200 bottlenose dolphins passed through the Sound for the first time in at least 30 years. We think this is an important symbol of the Sound’s improved water quality.”
Even with some measurable progress, some organizations believe there is still work to be done.
“Give us more, you’ll get more,” said Adrienne Esposito, executive director of Citizens Campaign for the Environment, testifying on behalf of its members in New York and Connecticut.
Esposito wants more funds, but she is also looking for more systemic change. Rather than yearly allocations of government funds, she said, “we need it in three-to-five-year increments, not year-to-year, because that has acted as a roadblock to the larger holistic programs that need to be implemented.”
Educating residents of the watershed area is important, she and many other panelists testified. Esposito suggested a marketing campaign. “I can tell you that the most challenging thing to do is to change public behavior; it’s very difficult,” she said. “However, it also reaps the best and the biggest rewards because then you have sustained change.”
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Connecticut Dairy Farmers may see Relief
DAIRY
New London Day
Jeanne Amy
Boston University Washington News Service
10/01/09
WASHINGTON – Members of the Congressional Dairy Farmer Caucus met withAgriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack on Thursday in the wake of congressional negotiators’ approval a day earlier of $290 million in direct payments to dairy farmers and $60 million in indirect support.
The money, which House and Senate conferees inserted into the department’s appropriations bill for the new year, is intended to aid ailing dairy farmers across the country through the Milk Income Loss Contract (MILC) federal subsidy program.
The subsidies go to dairy farmers when the price of milk falls below a value that can be adjusted month-to-month for variations in feed costs.
U.S. Rep. Joe Courtney (D- 2nd District), a co-chairman of the recently revived caucus, said at a press conference following the caucus’s meeting with Vilsack that Connecticut dairy farmers need help immediately.
“It’s as bad as anyone can remember,” Courtney said. “Every day dairy farmers are getting up and going to work and losing money.”
In addition to the $290 million set aside for direct payments, the Agriculture Department will buy $60 million worth of surplus dairy products, which would go to food banks and similar programs.
The dairy industry has also taken a hit from imports in the past year, Courtney said.
Most of the 151 dairy farms in Connecticut are small, Courtney said. The subsidy program is intended to help smaller farms.
“There was an immediate short-term cash-flow problem, [and] an allocation of the new money towards the MILC subsidy program is the most effective way to get help out quickly,” he said.
The Agriculture Department will determine how the direct payments will be divided among the states. No breakdown of funds is available yet.
Many large dairy-producing states such as California, New Mexico and Wisconsin also seek support for their dairy farmers. A majority of the 88-member caucus supports the subsidy program, Courtney said.
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Norwalk-Native Author Takes Part in National Book Festival
BOOKS KELLOGG
Norwalk Hour
Katerina Voutsina
Boston University Washington News Service
09/26/2009
WASHINGTON – The rainy weather Saturday did not stop more than 130,000 people from flocking to the National Mall in downtown Washington for the 9th annual National Book Festival. Adults and children pushed into the Children’s Pavilion where on the podium Steven Kellogg, 67, the author and illustrator of nearly 90 children’s books sketched quickly a strange creature on a paper board.
“It is a guy whose head is on his toes and he talks with his rear end,” Kellogg, who was born in Norwalk in 1941, explained. The crowd burst into laughter. Young kids giggled and flocked around him to see the drawing.
“And this guy is going to be in my story,” Kellogg said.
Kellogg’s gag was part of the presentation of the “Exquisite Corpse Adventure,” a serial story written online by children’s book authors and hosted at the website of the Library of Congress. Every two weeks a new episode will be added in the story by a different writer.
More than 70 authors and illustrators made appearances during the day at one of the six pavilions representing different categories of books and later autographed copies of their books at the book signing area. The festival, sponsored by the Library of Congress and held on the National Mall between the Capitol and the Washington Monument, was started in 2001 by First Lady Laura Bush.
A teacher from suburban Maryland stopped Kellogg as he was on his way to the book signing area and told him her students try to imitate his style. “Your illustrations are amazing,” she said.
Kellogg, in an interview later in the day, said that he left Norwalk at the age of seven when his parents moved to the town of Darien. Today, Kellogg lives in an old farmhouse at the town of Essex, N.Y., overlooking Lake Champlain. He said his studio is in the old barn behind his house.
“One of my warmest and most satisfying memories,” Kellogg said of his childhood, were the hours before bedtime when his parents and grandparents read aloud to him. He said he soon began creating his own stories and shared them with his sisters, Patti and Martha.
He remembers growing up always having a stack of paper on his lap scribbling illustrations. “It amuses me to look back over my life, because I realize that I made very little progress,” he said laughing. “I am still telling stories on paper and at the age of 67 I am having as much fun doing it now, as I did when I was six."
Kellogg said he loves drawing animals and was very much inspired by Beatrix Potter, the British artist and author best known for her Peter Rabbit character. He said he loves the intimacy of her writings and the gentle sense of her humor.
“The illustrations of Beatrix Potter were very naturalistic and very appealing to me,” Kellogg said. “Her writing was so accessible. It draws the young reader in.”
Kellogg, a graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design, said early in his career he started illustrating books written by other authors. He was living in Washington, D.C., teaching etching at American University and exhibiting his paintings at a gallery in Georgetown, when he started submitting a story idea to publishing houses every few months. But it took him a year to pitch his first full book to a publisher, he said.
Kellogg said that large children’s books – like his own – create a theater on your lap. “When you turn the page it is like you are raising the curtain; you introduce your children to a new world,” he said.
Kellogg—who married Helen Hill, a divorced mother of six children—said as the children were growing up he used their feedback when he was writing his stories. Kellogg said the children they raised together are now in their 40s and he has grandchildren. One of his grandsons lives in Washington and Kellogg said he planned to have dinner with him Saturday night.
The National Book Festival is a great opportunity, Kellogg said, “for parents, children, authors and publishers to celebrate the joy of reading.”
When autographing books, Kellogg said, it is very moving to see books that have been read many times. “You write the books, the audience absorbs them and bring them back to you. The cycle is complete.”
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