COLCHESTER, Vt. (AP) -- Vermont's lone member of the U.S. House of Representatives is going to be working with a bipartisan group of his colleagues to reform a federal law that requires corn-based ethanol in motor vehicle fuels.

U.S. Rep. Peter Welch, a Democrat, argues the requirement that ethanol, which is made from corn, drove up the price of corn and increased the costs for Vermont dairy farmers.

And he argues ethanol can harm some small engines.

He says the mandate was well intentioned, but it had unintended consequences that hurts dairy farmers and the motors used on boats, chain saws and snowmobiles across Vermont.

Welch's proposal would repeal the mandate on corn ethanol production.It would also prevent the federal government from increasing the requirement on the amount of ethanol blended into gasoline.

No more constant questions about his uncertain role with the Jets. No more criticism of the mostly non-existent wildcat offense. No more shirtless jogs in the rain after practice.

Now, the popular but polarizing quarterback is left to wonder what's left of his NFL career.

Tebow was waived by the Jets on Monday morning when he showed up at the team's facility ready to work out, the end of an embarrassingly unsuccessful one-season experiment in New York that produced more hype and headlines than production on the field.

"Unfortunately," coach Rex Ryan said in a three-paragraph news release issued by the team, "things did not work out the way we all had hoped."

It also left Tebow's football future very much in doubt.

"If he were to happen to call me, I would say, 'Look, you're starting over,'" former NFL GM Ted Sundquist said. "Tim Tebow needs to redefine who Tim Tebow is, in my opinion. He's no longer a first-round quarterback."

That's quite a fall for a player who came to New York in March 2012 as perhaps the biggest thing to hit Broadway since Joe Namath himself.

There were billboards outside the Lincoln Tunnel in New Jersey welcoming Tebow, and sandwiches named after him at Manhattan delis. He also had a legion of fans who followed him because of his strong Christian beliefs, and in New York, he would be able to take advantage of countless media and marketing opportunities.

And then, it all went terribly wrong.

Or, more like it, the whole idea was completely flawed from the start. For Tebow. And for the Jets.

"I think it's fair to say," Tebow said at the end of last season, "that I'm a little disappointed."

A year after he threw a TD pass to win a playoff game in overtime for Denver, the Heisman Trophy winner with two championships at Florida and a nationwide following may have suited up for the last time.

"I don't see any team giving him a chance because teams don't want to deal with the following that comes with Tebow," ESPN analyst and former NFL offensive lineman Damien Woody said. "Maybe Canada."

No NFL team has made a pitch to get him. The only nibble so far came from the Montreal Alouettes. They hold his rights in the Canadian Football League and said he could come compete for a job as a backup.

Tebow took to Twitter a few hours after being waived, citing a bible verse: "Proverbs 3:5-6: Trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding," Tebow wrote, "in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight."

The Jacksonville Jaguars have already ruled themselves out of giving Tebow a happy homecoming. But maybe the Chicago Bears, whose new head coach Marc Trestman tutored Tebow before the NFL draft in 2010, could give him a look as their backup.

Perhaps the San Diego Chargers would take a chance on him, adding to the circus-like atmosphere they'll likely endure after drafting Manti Te'o. New coach Mike McCoy was Tebow's offensive coordinator in Denver during the 2011 season, when the quarterback took over the offense and led the Broncos to comeback after comeback.

What about Bill Belichick and the New England Patriots? It would certainly give Belichick another chance to tweak the Jets.

As far as the CFL, it's anyone's guess as to whether Tebow would even be open to a move north of the border.

"If you can find a club that's mature enough to handle it as an organization, then you're going to find the right spot for him," Sundquist said. "What I mean by that is all the media mania and that sort of thing."

Tebow was brought to New York to be a dynamic addition to the offense, a complement to Mark Sanchez and a merchandising touchdown for the Jets. Instead, he attempted just eight passes for 39 yards and rushed 32 times for 102 yards and stunningly had no touchdowns.

The move to part ways had been expected for months, and the decision was sealed when new general manager John Idzik took former West Virginia star Geno Smith in the second round of the NFL draft Friday, giving New York six quarterbacks on its roster at the time and creating uncertainty about Sanchez's future, as well.

"Had this happened back in February, Tim might have had a chance to at least participate in free agency," said 2002 NFL MVP quarterback Rich Gannon, now an analyst for CBS Sports and SiriusXM NFL Radio. "I don't think there would have been a strong market for him, but at least he would've had that opportunity."

Gannon added that it's an even tougher situation for Tebow now because more than 20 quarterbacks were either drafted or signed as undrafted free agents in the last few days.

"Look, it's a two-way street, though," Gannon said. "It's a business. The Jets were trying to find somebody, a dance partner. Sometimes that goes into the draft and teams are calling around. I'm sure the Jets were trying to shop Tebow, and I'm sure they kept getting denied."

This is the same guy who led the Broncos to the postseason in 2011, but became expendable when Denver signed Peyton Manning as a free agent. Tebow was acquired by the Jets for a fourth-round draft pick and $1.5 million in salary. He was introduced at the Jets' facility to plenty of fanfare at a lavish news conference, with Tebow repeatedly saying he was "excited" to be in New York.

It turned out to be one of the few high points in Tebow's stay with the Jets. Along with that shirtless jog from the practice field in the rain during training camp, of course.

The Jets never figured out a way to use Tebow effectively, and he never forced the issue by being a good enough player in practice to make Ryan and his coaches put him on the field more in games.

"He seems like a great kid," Sundquist said, "and it seems like he could bring some positives to a club if he can just bury this whole thing about him being in your quarterback mix and just let him be No. 39 on your roster, one of your back-end guys who can go somewhere and help you win."

Among other requirements, therequires that entities manufacturing and importing air conditioning and refrigeration units transition to either fluorocarbon-free refrigerants or low global warming fluorocarbons by certain target years. Although Japan has been a consistent supporter of a global phase-down of the HFCs at the Montreal Protocol, with this revision of its fluorocarbon regulations, Japan has joined the European Union and Australia in reducing the use of these potent gases domestically.

This progressive step from Japan is a great news for the global climate. However, all the good it does, could be undone if Japan allows offset credits in its domestic carbon market based upon the capture and destruction of HFC-23 by companies in developing countries. HFC-23, a byproduct in the manufacture of the refrigerant hydrochlorofluorocarbon-22 (HCFC-22), is a powerful greenhouse gas with a global warming potential that is 14,800 times that of CO2. HFC-23 destruction credits were allowed under the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) of the Climate Treaty (UNFCCC). However, since the cost of destruction was a tiny fraction of the value of the credits, HFC-23 destruction led to billions of dollars in profits for a handful of plants mostly concentrated in China and India. Additionally, HFC-23 credits resulted in gaming and fraud in the production of HCFC-22 and diverted almost half of the CDM funds from renewable energy and conservation to bogus destruction of HFC-23. Destruction of HFC-23 paid on a CO2 equivalent tonne basis does not represent real emissions reductions.

Due to concerns on "non-additionality, environmental merit, cost-effectiveness and competitive distortions of HFC-23 credits" the European Union agreed to ban the use of HFC-23 credits from the European Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) starting in 2013. Led by the Danish Government, most E.U. member states have also voluntarily extended the ban to their national carbon credit registries for non-traded sectors. CERs from HFC-23 destruction projects have been banned in the Australian and the carbon markets as well.

"Japan is the only major carbon market to remain silent on the use of HFC-23 offset credits and the only place that has the potential to recapitalize these 'toxic' credits, this discredited industry and this failed mechanism for climate mitigation" says Mark W. Roberts, International Policy Advisor for the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA).

The Environmental Investigation Agency, has sent , urging him to ensure that Japan's new carbon trading scheme, the Bilateral Offset Credit Mechanism (BOCM) does not use HFC-23 credits.

"If Japan needs additional offset credits due to its decisions concerning nuclear power or to otherwise meet its promised mitigation targets, it should use the money to jumpstart the phase-out of all HFCs including HFC-23 for incremental costs. Japan must not continue the perverse incentives that the world has worked so hard to eliminate" said Avipsa Mahapatra, Climate Policy Analyst for the EIA.

EIA congratulates the Japanese Cabinet for taking this landmark step forward but at the same time urges Japan once again, to join the European Union, Australia, and New Zealand in declaring that they will not use, or allow Japanese companies to use, the bogus carbon offsets from the destruction of HFC-23, that do more harm than good for the climate.

For More Information Contact:

Mark W. Roberts

Avipsa Mahapatra

+1 (978) 298-5705

+1 (202) 483-6621

Spanish doctor Eufemiano Fuentes, the central figure in the trial, was given a one-year prison term for endangering public health on Tuesday.

The case attracted international attention because of the high-profile of some of his clients in Spain and beyond and his claim early in the trial that he treated a host of athletes in sports other than cycling.

However, the judge prompted widespread disbelief and condemnation when she also ordered the evidence, including code-named bags of blood, to be destroyed, rejecting a request for access from anti-doping authorities and dashing hopes that others involved in illegal activity could be identified.

She justified her decision by saying that evidence collected in a criminal investigation could not then be used in an administrative process such as a doping probe by a sporting body as it would infringe the rights of those implicated.

Spain's anti-doping agency (AEA) has said it will appeal, raising the prospect of the case, which has already lasted more than seven years since the initial police raids, dragging on towards September when the decision on the 2020 Games is due.

"The bid will be affected by both the good and the bad but we cannot be made responsible now for Operation Puerto," Blanco, who is also the president of Spain's Olympic Committee (COE), said in an interview with As sports daily published on Friday.

"We cannot correct the past but we can the future and that is our concrete commitment, nobody can doubt that," he added.

"The problem is that Operation Puerto has been a mistake and a disaster for Spanish sport from the start.

"The legal process has a timescale that is not the same as that in sport, where you have to decide things immediately.

"Now there will be appeals and the case will continue to drag on. It has been seven years already and that's a whole career for many athletes."

OTHER SPORTS

The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) also voiced its disappointment with the judge's decision to destroy the evidence and said it is considering an appeal.

WADA, the AEA, the Spanish cycling federation (RFEC), the International Cycling Union (UCI) and the Italian Olympic Committee (CONI) were all represented in the three-month trial in Madrid.

Fuentes, who denied doping, said in his opening testimony that he had clients in cycling but also in sports including soccer, tennis, athletics and boxing.

He offered to name them in court but the judge ruled that would have infringed the rights of those implicated.

"The verdict does not help the country's image," secretary of state for sport Miguel Cardenal told As on Friday.

"We will continue to devote all our efforts to find out these names and we will continue to explain that the outcome of a trial is one thing and another is our commitment as a nation," he added.

"They need to see that we are in the same boat in the fight against doping and that we feel the same frustration and the same disappointment."

Spanish tennis player Rafa Nadal, the world number five, added his voice to the criticism of the verdict on Friday, saying "the only people who benefited were the cheats".

"With something that damages the image of sport so severely, the ones who are affected are us the Spanish athletes and sport in general," he told a promotional event in Madrid.

"I think the best thing that could happen is that we stop talking about the issue."

Madrid is competing with Istanbul and Tokyo for the 2020 Games and International Olympic Committee (IOC) members are due to vote on the bids at a meeting in Buenos Aires in September.

(Reporting by Iain Rogers, editing by Martyn Herman)

TORONTO (Reuters) - The playoffs for a National Hockey League (NHL) season that nearly never was open on Tuesday with memories of a bitter labor dispute all but forgotten in favor of an intriguing race for the Stanley Cup.

A compacted 48-game schedule that began in January with NHL players and owners apologizing to disgruntled fans and promising a season packed with unpredictable results delivered in spades, setting the stage for an equally fascinating playoffs.

The top-ranked Pittsburgh Penguins in the Eastern Conference and Chicago Blackhawks in the Western Conference begin as clear favorites to meet in a best-of-seven games Stanley Cup final that will be played in steamy late-June temperatures.

But if there are any lessons to be taken from past years, it is that anything can happen. The Los Angeles Kings proved this just last season by sneaking in as an eighth seed and upsetting the Western Conference's top three teams before defeating the New Jersey Devils to claim the franchise's first Stanley Cup.

The Kings are back in the postseason ready to open defense of their crown against the St. Louis Blues as part of a 16-team playoff for hockey's 'Holy Grail.'

To get their names engraved on Lord Stanley's famous mug, however, players must survive one of sports' ultimate tests of endurance and win four punishing best-of-seven series before finally hoisting the silver Cup.

No team knows more about the playoff grind than the Detroit Red Wings, who are in the postseason for a 22nd consecutive year while the Toronto Maple Leafs snapped what had been the longest active playoff drought by returning to the postseason for the first time since 2004.

The Red Wings, who needed a win in their final regular season game to extend their streak, open against the Anaheim Ducks on Tuesday while the Maple Leafs face the Boston Bruins in an Original Six matchup starting on Wednesday.

For hockey purists, the playoffs will provide a blast of nostalgia with all six original NHL franchises (Boston, Toronto, Detroit, Chicago, Montreal Canadiens and New York Rangers) competing for the first time since 1996.

The opening round will also feature the first playoff clash between clubs from Montreal and rival Ottawa since the Montreal Maroons and the original Senators franchise faced off in 1928.

Not since the Canadiens celebrated the last of their 24 Stanley Cups in 1993 has the treasured trophy been paraded through the streets of a Canadian city and the country is thirsting to see that drought end.

PLENTY OF FIREPOWER

Canadian attention will be focused on Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa and the Vancouver Canucks, who will all carry the hopes of a hockey-mad nation into the playoffs and try to return the Cup to its spiritual home.

Pittsburgh and Chicago enter the playoffs as the betting favorites with good reason after record-smashing seasons.

The Blackhawks, who open against the Minnesota Wild, spent the entire campaign atop the West standings earning points in each of their first 24 games to shatter the longest previous season-opening streak of 16 games set by Anaheim.

With plenty of firepower, led by Patrick Kane and Jonathan Toews, the league's stingiest defense and spectacular play from journeyman netminder Ray Emery, Chicago lost just seven times in regulation to claim the franchise's second Presidents' Trophy, as the NHL team with the best regular season record.

In the East, the Penguins also took a run at the NHL record book reeling off 15 consecutive win in March to become the first team to post a perfect calendar month (minimum, 10 games).

Already with a star-studded lineup featuring league most valuable players Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin, the Penguins loaded up for a Stanley Cup run at the trade deadline by adding former scoring champion Jarome Iginla from Calgary, Dallas forward Brenden Morrow and San Jose defenseman Douglas Murray.

Crosby, who was putting together another MVP campaign, missed the last month of the schedule with a broken jaw but is expected to be on the ice when the Penguins open against the New York Islanders on Wednesday.

With Crosby fit and Washington Capitals forward Alexander Ovechkin back in top form fans are anticipating a potential showdown between the league's two marquee players.

Ovechkin opened the season in a funk but finished in a flurry by scoring 23 goals in his final 23 contests to capture the Rocket Richard trophy as the league's top goal scorer.

The Capitals and Rangers will meet in the playoffs for the fourth time in five seasons with Ovechkin going up against Henrik Lundqvist, the NHL's reigning Vezina Trophy winner as top netminder.

(Editing by Frank Pingue)

A Las Vegas-based casino subsidiary launched the first fully legal poker website in the United States on Tuesday morning.

The site, run by Ultimate Gaming, is only accepting wagers from players in Nevada for now, but likely represents the next chapter in gambling nationwide.

Internet poker, never fully legal, has been strictly outlawed since 2011, when the Department of Justice seized the domain names of the largest offshore sites catering to U.S. customers and blacked them out.

This crackdown, dubbed "black Friday," left poker fanatics with two options: They could either get dressed and visit a card room, or break the law and log into an offshore site.

More recently, the federal government softened its stance on Internet betting, and three states New Jersey, Delaware and Nevada have legalized some form of online wagering within their borders.

With Tuesday's launch, Nevada wins the race to bring Texas Hold 'em back to the Internet.

"There was black Friday, and now we're going to have 'trusting Tuesday,'" said Ultimate Gaming CEO Tobin Prior. "Players won't have to worry if their money is safe. They are going to be able to play with people they can trust and know the highest regulatory standards have been applied."

About 20 other companies including Zynga, the creator of FarmVille are preparing to open their virtual doors in the Silver State.

UltimatePoker.com will look familiar to anyone who participated in the poker craze of the 2000s. Only the account setup and login process have changed. Instead of checking a box certifying they are older than 18, players will click through a lengthy setup process involving Social Security and cell phone numbers. Only those older than 21 will be allowed to play.

Ultimate Gaming hopes to win the trust not only of players, but of regulators and politicians.

"It's an opportunity to show the world how to properly run online poker," Ultimate Gaming chairman Tom Breitling said.

Several cash-hungry states are weighing legislation that would allow them to tap into what is expected to be a multibillion-dollar market. Some bills would legalize only poker, as Nevada has, while others would throw open the gates to all casino games, including slots, as New Jersey and Delaware have done.

Earlier this year, Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval approved legislation that gives him the ability to sign interstate Internet gambling deals with other governors.

Players around the world currently wager an estimated $35 billion online each year, according to the American Gaming Association. A fully realized U.S. online poker market could generate $4.3 billion in revenue its first year, and $9.6 billion by year five, according to London-based research firm H2 Gambling Capital.

Still, with federal efforts to legalize Internet poker stalled, it may be a while before a critical mass of states link together to lure professional players back from overseas and drive up jackpots.

Nevada, a state of just 2.8 million, attracts 52 million visitors a year more than the population of California. But who wants to go on vacation just to fire up their laptop and play some virtual cards?

"I think the real excitement will be when we get a very populous state like a California or a New York allowing these companies to expand," ITG casino analyst Matthew Jacob said. "But these changes often take longer to occur than people assume. It requires a change in law and then it takes a while from when the law passes until the sites are up and running."

Prior says he intends to make Ultimate Poker profitable within a matter of years, in part through cross-promotion with mixed martial arts giant Ultimate Fighting Championship. Both companies are owned by brothers Frank and Lorenzo Fertitta, who also control Station Casinos Inc., a chain that caters to locals in Las Vegas.

The Ultimate Poker logo has enjoyed prime placement in the UFC fight octagon for months. The Ultimate Poker Facebook page, which steers fans to a zero-stakes version of the site, features a mix of UFC glamour shots and stock images of guys in hoodies staring into laptop screens.

"When you look at the demographic of the UFC fan and the online poker player, it's almost a perfect overlap," Breitling said.

In the coming months, Ultimate Gaming will have to prove that its technology and 111 employees can prevent minors and out-of-state players from wagering real dollars, and guard against money laundering. The site will use several factors to track location, including the virtual customer's mobile phone and their IP addresses, the strings of numbers that identify computers on the Internet, according to chief technology officer Chris Derossi.

It will also have to pay 6.75 percent of its revenue in Nevada state taxes.

It's unclear how much of a boon the new market will be to the cash-strapped state. In 2012, the Pew Center on the States analyzed 13 states that had recently legalized new types of gambling, and found that more than two-thirds of "failed to live up to the initial promises or projections."

The gambling industry is hoping the return of Internet poker will revitalize interest in the game and help brick and mortar casinos capture a younger market.

The rise of Internet poker is generally credited with helping spark the poker fad of the last decade. The end of online gambling is thought to have helped quash interest in the game.

In the coming months, the industry will be watching closely to see if poker players come flocking back from their new hobbies, replacement computer games and illegal offshore gambling sites.

"This is a really huge moment for our company, the state of Nevada and the gaming community," Breitling said. "We're hoping to make poker fun again."

___

Hannah Dreier can be reached at http://twitter.com/hannahdreier

SEATTLE (Reuters) - Paul Allen, the lesser known co-founder of Microsoft Corp, has struggled for decades to make his mark as a business mogul beyond the software company he started with Bill Gates.

Since he quit Microsoft in 1983, the quiet Seattle native has lost billions of dollars on ill-conceived or mistimed technology investments, and he has been mocked as a juvenile playboy manqu for spending lavishly on giant yachts and off-beat projects like a Frank Gehry-designed rock museum.

But in recent years, Allen's ventures in decidedly low-tech sectors sports teams, commercial real estate and energy pipelines have come to look prescient.

Together with a new round of tech investments and an ambitious philanthropy program, they may yet establish Allen as much more than Gates' lucky junior partner.

Allen's NBA Portland Trail Blazers and NFL Seattle Seahawks, both purchased years ago for what appeared to be non-business reasons, are now worth many times what he paid for them. Even his part-ownership of the Seattle Sounders soccer team, which draws more fans than any other franchise in its league, is looking like a good bet.

At the same time, Allen has all but single-handedly transformed the once-shabby South Lake Union district near downtown Seattle into the Pacific Northwest's hippest tech outpost, anchored by Amazon.com Inc.

And a recent foray into the energy business yielded a $2.25 billion return from a $200 million investment in Plains All American Pipeline.

These wins are changing the perception of the shy 60-year-old, a two-time cancer survivor who rarely appears in public.

"He is under-appreciated in Seattle," said David Brewster, long-time civic leader, publisher of local news website Crosscut.com and founder of the Seattle Weekly newspaper. "He's remote and reclusive. There's too much Howard Hughes in the way he behaves for Seattle truly to appreciate a lot of the good that he does."

Allen was not available for an interview.

GATES FRICTION

The owner of 42 U.S. patents, Allen likes to cast himself as a tech visionary who saw the future of connected computing long before the Internet. His 2011 memoir, "Idea Man," recounts plans from the late 1970s to create and invest in a computerized society linked by phone lines and fiber optic cables, which he later christened 'the Wired World'.

Yet his post-Microsoft career doesn't offer much evidence to support that self-perception. Allen lost $8 billion in the cable television industry, chiefly with a catastrophic bet on Charter Communications. His pre-internet communications and computing firms Metricom, Asymetrix and SkyPix were all costly disasters.

His Interval Research idea lab, designed to emulate the famously inventive Xerox PARC, left nothing behind but $300 million in losses and a lengthy patent lawsuit. Even when he made money, as he did when he sold a 25 percent stake in America Online in 1994, he looked silly for getting out too early. His shares would have been worth $40 billion at the height of the tech stock boom.

Despite those setbacks, Allen is still one of the world's richest people, with a fortune that Forbes magazine pegs at $15 billion. And he may finally have found his calling as an old-style civic investor, motivated only in part by the money.

Allen's first big splurge after Microsoft's 1986 initial public offering made him a multi-millionaire was the Portland Trail Blazers basketball team. An ardent fan and sports' numbers geek - but not much of a player - Allen paid $65 million for the team, using a loan backed by Microsoft shares.

After investing more than $150 million in the city's Rose Garden arena, which he now owns outright, Allen's franchise is worth $457 million, according to Forbes.

A decade later, Allen scooped up the Seattle Seahawks football team for $194 million, responding to a direct appeal from city officials and then-Washington governor Gary Locke to prevent the team from moving to Southern California.

"If I entered the NBA out of passion, I was called to the National Football League out of civic duty," Allen says in his memoir.

Allen kicked in another $140 million to help build one of the country's best sports stadiums - and is now sitting on a team estimated to be worth more than $1 billion, buoyed by the massive sums television networks are willing to pay for live sports.

TOUCHDOWN

Making money off of football's transformation into America's top spectator sport has largely been a matter of dumb luck, said Michael Cramer, director of the program in sports and media at the University of Texas. But he gives Allen his due nonetheless.

"All the owners are lucky. None of them 15 years ago would have believed the TV contracts are what they are. Not one," said Cramer. "But they all felt comfortable that that NFL revenue stream was solid, so you've got to give him credit for that."

Allen is perceived as the "savior" of the Seahawks, said Larry Brown, a 30-year, season-ticket holder who works for the IAM union representing hourly workers at Boeing Co's plants.

Early doubts about the team being a rich man's plaything were swept away during the victorious NFC Championship game in 2005, the first such win in the Seahawks' history. Allen raised the 12th man flag in the stadium, a symbol of Seattle's famously vocal hometown crowd.

"People went nuts," said Brown. "They see him as committed to winning, and that's ultimately what a sports fan wants."

The Blazers have been less successful on the court. Still, at a time when smaller cities risk losing their franchises - as Seattle did a few years ago and Sacramento might in the very near future few are complaining about Allen.

"This is not an owner that's going to say, I'm going to sell the team tomorrow," said David M. Carter, principal at the Sports Business Group advisory firm. "There's more of a steady hand there."

SLU WIN

Allen's other big success is still gathering pace. His Vulcan Inc investment vehicle has led the transformation of Seattle's South Lake Union from a rotting patchwork of light industry and vice to a gleaming high-tech center.

Allen first gave $30 million to a non-profit in the early 1990s for green space in the area. After Seattle voters twice rejected taxes to fund the project, Allen went it alone, shifting the vision toward a thriving business district.

Today, the half-square-mile district buzzes with about 35,000 workers, most from Amazon, whose sprawling campus dominates the main drag.

Vulcan representatives say Allen has spent about $2.5 billion on South Lake Union since 2004. Amazon arrived as a tenant in the spring of 2010, and two years later bought 11 buildings for $1.16 billion - the largest U.S. commercial real estate deal of 2012.

"It's a high price for the West Coast" said Dan Fasulo, managing director at Real Capital Analytics, a real estate advisory firm. "The only other markets that even come close (to matching New York prices) are San Francisco, some parts of Silicon Valley and west L.A."

The surge in SLU real estate values has helped the broader Seattle property market, which grew about 11 percent between 2004 and 2014, and cushioned the blow of the real estate crash of 2007-2008.

After the Amazon sale and several smaller ones, Vulcan values its total real estate portfolio - made up predominantly of SLU holdings - at about $1.5 billion. That means it has already broken even on its investment and has pocketed hundreds of millions of dollars in rents over the past few years. And Vulcan still owns 43 of its original 60 acres in the area.

"We've taken some chips off the table, but we're going to be there a long time. Decades," said Paul Ghaffari, chief investment officer for Vulcan Capital.

BACK TO THE FUTURE

At the height of the tech stock bubble in 2000, Allen had stakes in more than 140 firms, most of which ended up worthless. In 2003, Allen says he drank some "castor oil" and pruned his portfolio down to about 40 investments, firing his main adviser Bill Savoy. Since then, Allen has taken on more professional advisers such as Ghaffari, a former portfolio manager at Soros Fund Management and Morgan Stanley.

Recent investments include Audience Inc, which makes audio software for smartphones and went public in May 2012; online real estate broker Redfin; and Decide.com, which uses aggregated data to help tech consumers shop wisely.

These investments are handled by Vulcan Capital - a combination of private equity firm and money manager for Allen's funds - which just set up an office in Silicon Valley.

Vulcan employs about 200 people, but Allen gets directly involved in detail when the mood takes him.

"He'll ping us with an idea and it'll prompt a search to see if it's an investable idea. Or we go to him with ideas, it really works both ways," said Ghaffari.

On the philanthropic side, Allen's sister Jo Lynn - better known as Jody - is co-founder and president of the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation. Together, people close to Allen say, the goal is for both the for-profit and non-profit activities to benefit Seattle and the Pacific Northwest.

"Bill Gates' public image is better than Paul Allen's -- Allen can come off as a reclusive man who spends too much time on his huge yacht," said Brewster at Crosscut. "But if you look at the benefit locally, Allen's foundation is the leader."

(Reporting by Bill Rigby. Editing by Jonathan Weber, Tiffany Wu, Leslie Gevirtz)

The Delphi Academy of Los Angeles, a nondenominational school that offers preschool through high school, lives up to the standards the President calls for.

Academically, the school excels, with SAT scores 320 points above the national average, an average senior class GPA of 3.87 and an average schoolwide exam score of 94.8 percent.

The California Interscholastic Federation (CIF)—the largest high school sports league in California—awarded Delphi Los Angeles their “CIF Academic Challenge Award” for the school’s varsity soccer team, which had the highest Grade Point Average of any CIF school in California.

Providing a drug-free environment is another area where the school excels. The 2012 back-to-school teen survey by the Columbia University Center on Addiction and Drug Abuse revealed that 86 percent of American high school students say that some classmates are taking drugs, drinking and smoking during the school day and almost half know a student who sells drugs at their school. In sharp contrast to that national norm, for this year’s National Red Ribbon Week, the high school student government challenged middle and Delphi L.A. high school students to participate in voluntary drug testing. All high school students and 93 percent of the middle school students participated. (The only middle school students who did not were simply not able to obtain parental permission.) Every one of them tested drug free.

One family, worried because their seven-year-old had not yet started to read in public school, enrolled their son at Delphi L.A. After just one month, the child had read 19 books. In the video “A Day in the Delphi Academy Lower School,” which appears on the school’s website, another seven-year-old proudly displays the 700 books she has read since starting at Delphi in preschool.

The Delphi Academy of Los Angeles is licensed to use the educational services and materials of , a fully independent, nondenominational organization supported by the Church of Scientology and by Scientologists who are dedicated to raising educational standards throughout the world. Applied Scholastics works with hundreds of affiliated schools and educational programs, providing the effective learning tools developed by L. Ron Hubbard.

The Church of Scientology has published a new brochure, , one of a series of publications presented to meet requests for more information about the Scientology religion and its support of global humanitarian initiatives and social betterment programs. For more information, visit the Scientology website at .

Applied Scholastics International is a secular nonprofit public benefit corporation that addresses head-on the problem of illiteracy by making L. Ron Hubbard’s discoveries in the field of education and literacy broadly available. It has trained nearly 140,000 educators and has helped millions with Study Technology. The organization works with hundreds of affiliated schools and educational programs throughout the world, providing the effective learning tools developed by .

Press Contact: Karin Pouw

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The 154-foot-long (47-meters) external tank, one of the shuttle program's original test articles that for years was displayed at Kennedy's visitor complex,at the Keystone Heights Airport in Starke, Fla., about an hour southeast of Jacksonville.

"It is the last one," Bob Oehl, the executive director and co-founder of the Wings of Dreams, told collectSPACE about the tank. "So it is quite a historic artifact in its own right." []

Known as the Structural Test Article (STA), the external tank was built in 1977 and used for loading and stress analysis tests. It was then exhibited at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama. In 1987, it was shipped to the Stennis Space Center in Mississippi for display where it remained for 10 years, prior to its transfer to Kennedy.

Theuntil November of last year, when it was moved to make way for the retired space shuttle Atlantis and its new exhibition facility. A mock external tank is set to benext month.

The displaced real tank, along with several other large shuttle artifacts including a nose cone and aft skirt of a solid rocket booster, as well as the crew transport vehicle that astronauts rode in after landing the shuttle at Kennedy, were making the first leg of their journey to the Wings of Dreams by water, before embarking on a still-to-be-scheduled 55-mile (88.5 kilometers) road trip to the museum.

"This will be the largest aviation article that has beensince Howard Hughes moved the Spruce Goose," Oehl said.

Leaving the turn basin located opposite the 52-story Vehicle Assembly Building where external tanks were once mated with the shuttle orbiters they would help launch, the artifact-laden barge set sail by tugboat to the Intracoastal Waterway. It was then to head down the St. Johns River to end up in Green Cove Springs in about 30 hours time, where the shuttle parts will be offloaded for eventual delivery to the Wings of Dreams.

Before the artifacts can be trucked to the museum, however, miles of power and telephone lines, as well as street signs and traffic signals need to be cleared from the route's rural highways.

"It is a tremendous, tremendous effort and what is really unique about Wings of Dreams is that everything you see, the cranes, the tug boats, the barge, the huge trucks, the electricians, the welders, they are all donated," Oehl said. "This is not a government project."

"We have no major sponsor," he added. "We're looking for one because we have to house all of this."

The Wings of Dreams has already received from NASA more than 40 artifacts from , including the guidance and navigation "single system" trainer, or simulator, that the astronauts used to prepare for missions at Johnson Space Center in Houston. The museum is also receiving the full-size mockup of the Hubble Space Telescope that shuttle crew members used to practice servicing the orbital observatory while floating underwater.

Established in 2005 to showcase aviation history from World War I through the , the Wings of Dreams has plans for three sprawling hangars for a total exhibit space of 50,000 feet (15,240 meters). Until the museum can find the funding to erect the buildings, the artifacts are being stored in temporary warehouses and, if too large like the tank, outside.

Still, Oehl says, the public is welcome to come and see what they have just be sure to call ahead first.

"Right now, it is by appointment," he said. "We're planning a partial opening of our field headquarters on May 4. Then it will be progressing through the year, building up from the there."

NASA is inviting members of the public who "Spot the Tank" and the other shuttle artifacts on their way to the Wings of Dreams Aviation Museum to share any photos they take with the Kennedy Space Center through social media.

for a photo gallery of the external tank and other space shuttle artifacts on their way to the Wings of Dreams Aviation Museum.

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