মঙ্গলবার, ৩০ এপ্রিল, ২০১৩

Sources: FBI questions link between Va. gov, donor

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) ? The FBI has begun examining the relationship between Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell and his wife Maureen and the chief executive of a nutritional supplements manufacturer that is the subject of a federal investigation, two people with knowledge of the review said Monday.

Federal authorities began questioning people close to the McDonnells as an outgrowth of a securities probe of Virginia-based Star Scientific Inc., said the two people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because their roles in the case preclude them from speaking publicly.

They said FBI agents have asked questions about gifts the McDonnells have received from company CEO Jonnie Williams and whether the Republican governor or his administration aided the company in return.

The review was first reported Monday by The Washington Post.

Earlier in the day, Todd Schneider, the ex-chef for the governor's mansion who faces four felony counts alleging he stole from the mansion, alleged in court papers that he gave FBI and state police investigators evidence a year ago of wrongdoing and abuse by McDonnell and his family. This included documents showing Williams paid $15,000 to help cover the costs of catering done by Schneider's private company for a June 2011 mansion wedding reception for McDonnell's daughter Cailin, court papers show.

McDonnell did not disclose the gift on his January 2012 statement of economic interests, noting that state law requires only that gifts to elected officials themselves, not family members, be reported.

An FBI spokeswoman refused to comment Monday evening, as did the office of U.S. Attorney Neil McBride.

There was no reply late Monday night to email and telephone messages left for McDonnell's chief spokesman, J. Tucker Martin, about the FBI review. Earlier Monday, Martin said Schneider's allegations were part of "an inquiry for the prosecution as it involves a pending matter in the upcoming embezzlement trial of the former Mansion chef, and we will not comment on it."

Jerry W. Kilgore, an attorney for Williams, said his client would have no comment.

The two people close to the review said questions about the McDonnells arose from the securities investigation into Star Scientific, which the company disclosed last month. They said federal investigators want to know the extent of gifts to McDonnell's family and what the governor or the administration may have done to promote a Star Scientific food supplement marketed as Anatabloc.

McDonnell's administration said the governor's efforts to assist Star Scientific are no different than what the governor has done to help hundreds of Virginia-based businesses grow and prosper.

According to the Virginia Public Access Project, a nonprofit tracker of money in Virginia politics, Williams has given McDonnell's political action committee nearly $80,000 and gave his 2009 campaign for governor $28,584. It also shows McDonnell receiving personal gifts totaling $7,382 from the company in 2012.

Monday's reports of FBI interest in the case along with the motions filed in Schneider's case are the first to directly allege misconduct by Virginia's governor and his family in the continuing criminal investigation arising from kitchen operations at the 200-year-old Virginia Executive Mansion, the official home of the state's governors and the longest-serving gubernatorial residence of any state.

The ex-chef's case has tarnished the rising GOP star that McDonnell had been a year ago. McDonnell, a former prosecutor, was considered a potential running mate for Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney last year.

Schneider had headed the kitchen operations from 2010, when McDonnell moved in, until last year, when he was dismissed after a state police inquiry began into alleged improprieties in the mansion's kitchen.

Schneider is facing four counts of taking state property worth $200 or more in the last half of 2011 and early 2012. Monday's filings came as part of a motion seeking to dismiss charges against Schneider at a hearing in the case scheduled for Thursday.

The motion alleges Schneider told investigators that the mansion staff and other state employees had witnessed him being instructed to take state-purchased food as payment for personal services, and that they saw others "openly taking cases of food and other supplies from the Governor's Mansion."

It also accuses Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, the Republican candidate for governor this year, of prosecuting Schneider in an attempt to protect his political interests in his gubernatorial bid ? "a campaign for which he needs substantial political donations and the support of the current Governor of Virginia."

He alleges that Cuccinelli ignored evidence that Schneider provided about McDonnell's ties to Williams because the attorney general had also received thousands of dollars in gifts from the same business executive.

"Ken Cuccinelli's personal and financial involvement with Williams and Star Scientific and his political involvement and endorsement by the governor of Virginia conflicted with his duty to investigate information provided by Todd Schneider to determine whether Williams used the Mansion and his relationship with the governor and first lady to promote a scheme to defraud," the motion contends.

Cuccinelli filed a motion last week to recuse his office from prosecuting Schneider, citing conflicts of interest. But the motion says Cuccinelli should have recused his office from the case a year ago.

Cuccinelli's campaign said in a release: "Todd Schneider is facing multiple indictments for stealing. Ultimately he will face a jury of his peers."

Political and official aides to Cuccinelli dismissed the motion by Schneider's attorney, Steven D. Benjamin of Richmond, as a further effort to politicize and sensationalize a criminal trial.

Cucinelli's top campaign adviser, Christopher J. LaCivita, called it "the defense counsel's Gloria Allred moment," referring to the famous celebrity lawyer. Brian Gottstein, a spokesman for the Virginia attorney general's office, said the case "will be tried in court and not in the media."

The Virginia State Police, in a news statement, noted its policy of neither confirming nor denying investigations of elected officials.

In support of the motion to dismiss, Benjamin provides a chronological list of lapses that he says not only compromised Cuccinelli in prosecuting the case but also concealed how deeply obligated the attorney general had become to Williams over four years until belatedly amending his economic interest forms and making them public late Friday.

Just before Schneider's indictment last March, the motion said, defense lawyers objected to Cuccinelli's office ignoring Schneider's information "concerning the use of the Mansion by Williams, the promotion of Williams' food supplement by the governor and first lady" as a result of his conflict of interest.

Benjamin noted that Cuccinelli sold 1,500 shares of Star Scientific stock at near-record prices for the stock last summer at a profit of $7,000. He also noted Cuccinelli's free use of Williams' Smith Mountain Lake vacation lodge for a summer 2012 vacation worth $3,000 and another stay there for Thanksgiving 2010 complete with a catered holiday dinner worth $1,500, none of which Cuccinelli disclosed until last week.

Cuccinelli asked Richmond Circuit Court last week to turn the prosecution over to Prince William County Commonwealth's Attorney Paul Ebert. Earlier this month, Cuccinelli also recused his office from defending the Virginia Department of Taxation in a lawsuit Star Scientific filed challenging $700,000 in disputed state taxes.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/sources-fbi-questions-between-va-gov-donor-033437729.html

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What the Internet shares about you via 'secondary use'

As Rebecca Martinson knows, there?s no privacy on the Internet. When a profanity-laden rant she emailed to only her Delta Gamma sorority sisters made its way onto Gawker and into viral history, she was publicly mocked and forced to resign from the sorority. But the Internet is not only a place to be humiliated. It's also a place for people or companies to pick up even more information about you. That includes your address, gender, date of birth and, with a little sleuthing, your Social Security number and credit history.

That's been made clear in a recent spate of "doxing" (document tracing) of celebrities that revealed, for example, that Microsoft CEO Bill Gates had an outstanding debt on his credit card. But none of this information comes from hacking. It's either already public or accessible by, for example, paying an online people-finding service to get a Social Security number, and then running a credit check.

Then there's all the data you pour into social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Instagram, Foursquare and others. Now employers can fire workers for expressing opinions they don?t like, strangers can stalk you with mobile apps and college administrators can judge the quality of applicants by the number of drinking photos posted to their account.

Aleecia L. McDonald, director of privacy for the Center for Internet and Society at Stanford University, said people are grappling with the idea that their information has a secondary use.

"The issue isn?t so much that information is out there and people can see it," she said. "On Facebook, that?s the point. But it?s when that information gets used in a new and different way." [See also: That's an Order! 10 Facebook Privacy Tips from the Marines]

It's all public
Many gun owners felt that secondary use of private information when they saw an interactive map published by the Journal News of White Plains, N.Y., that listed the name and addresses of everyone in two New York state counties with a gun permit. A map listing the names, addresses, phone numbers and social media accounts of Journal News reporters, including the author of the original story, was circulated online in retaliation. At least one county refused to turn over pistol permit records, citing the possibility of ?endangering citizens.?

However, the records are all public. There is no law against publishing them either in print or online, even if it makes some uncomfortable.

?I can use Zillow.com and see home prices for everything up and down the neighborhood,? McDonald said. ?Sure, all that information was available at City Hall, but I wasn?t going to look it all up [in person] because that takes effort.?

When real estate search site Zillow first came out, many people were shocked at the amount of information on it ? including the price paid for homes and names of owners. Zillow has since backed down from publishing names, but last year, it began listing homes going through the foreclosure process, which caused another firestorm of people looking to opt out. But all the information comes from public records. Zillow says it doesn?t list names, only properties; and it does not allow those with foreclosed property to opt out of being published.

Other sites, such as Arrests.org, list mug shots by state. And some local police departments are now posting photos of recent arrests on Facebook. Now with the Internet and databases, public records are easy to distribute and see.

Social oversharing
Adi Kamdar of the Electronic Frontier Foundation cautions about the use of Facebook Graph Search, which allows users to search information from news feeds of friends and those users with settings set to public on Facebook. Now anyone can look for, for example, single women living in San Francisco who share their taste for tapas and perhaps find a phone number and email address. Who needs Match.com anymore?

Facebook has also reportedly been working for the past year on a socially ambient mobile app ? one that lets you literally track people or friends via a map and GPS. While the socially ambient aspect hasn?t appeared yet, it?s expected to surface, according to Bloomberg News, likely in a new version of the Facebook Home interface.

?There?s nothing you can do in the electronic world that your boss can?t find and you can?t be fired for,? said Lewis Maltby, president of National Workrights Institute. ?I got a call today from someone who got fired because he was writing short stories on his own time (online) and apparently they were a little kinky.?

Maltby, whose organization fights for human rights in the workplace, said that today, people?s futures are in peril every time their boss or college admissions office looks on the Internet. That means users shouldn?t post photos of themselves with an alcoholic drink in their hand or espouse political views, because it can lead to a value judgment.

?You can still go online and say what you want, but you?re crazy if you do,? Maltby said.

Another problem today is social networks becoming a larger part of one?s life. To comment on articles, people frequently log into a Facebook account first. Others are finding that their Google+ social account is being attached to their Gmail account and will be needed to comment on apps or games on Google Play. Google+ accounts are also used to sign into YouTube and other Google sites. Many social networks are seemingly trying to end anonymous posting.

To preserve privacy, a person would have to walk away from Google or Facebook. ?It?s a trade-off to some extent,? Kamdar said. "The more these services get adopted, the more you have to think, 'My entire online presence depends on this corporation or this service I don?t want to opt into.' "

Recently Facebook Home was launched on Android devices, and many noticed that the interface logged online purchases and visits, although Facebook said that it doesn?t assign names to the information. Facebook is using customer loyalty cards' information and public records to sell to advertisers and marketers. However, Facebook Home isn?t hunting anyone down to do this; people themselves are opting to use an Android phone with the Facebook skin on it. [See also: How Facebook Home Undermines Your Security]

What you can do
Long-term solutions could be legal, regulatory or even codes of conduct for companies, said McDonald. The White House is now working on a Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights, but there is still not a working draft of the bill, according to the New York Times.

Meanwhile, users can save themselves some headaches by understanding that whatever they place online will stay online. Nothing online is temporary; instead, it's more like an Internet tattoo. Martinson?s online (and likely late-night) outburst will follow her throughout college and possibly the workforce, according to CNN.

Keep all social networks set to the highest privacy settings even if you have to manually approve follow requests.

If posting to a forum or other online database, don?t use your real name or email address (or at least one you don?t mind people seeing).

Never give out your date of birth, phone number or physical address if you can help it.

Never give out your Social Security number. Many colleges, banks, brokerage houses and other companies now have alternative login IDs to use provided you ask for one. (However, not even colleges or banks are immune to hackers, so always monitor your credit for suspicious activity.)

Remember that what you post can be seen by others. Be careful of what you say and which photos are posted because it could potentially be seen by millions of people.

?A lot of data is coming from people directly,? McDonald said. ?Lock down [social media] accounts to only friends. Being more mindful is the first step we can take before looking for other solutions.?

Follow Barbara E. Hernandez @bhern. Follow us @TechNewsDaily, on Facebook or on Google+.

Copyright 2013 TechNewsDaily, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Source: http://feeds.nbcnews.com/c/35002/f/653377/s/2b5281e8/l/0L0Snbcnews0N0Ctechnology0Ctechnolog0Cwhat0Einternet0Eshares0Eabout0Eyou0Esecondary0Euse0E6C9644968/story01.htm

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সোমবার, ২৯ এপ্রিল, ২০১৩

Chrysler profit falls 65 pct. on lower shipments

FILE - In this Thursday, Feb. 28, 2013, file photo, Jordan Kenyon works on the assembly line during a media tour before an investment and jobs announcement event at the Chrysler transmission plant in Kokomo, Ind. Chrysler reports quarterly earnings on Monday, April 29, 2013. (AP Photo/AJ Mast)

FILE - In this Thursday, Feb. 28, 2013, file photo, Jordan Kenyon works on the assembly line during a media tour before an investment and jobs announcement event at the Chrysler transmission plant in Kokomo, Ind. Chrysler reports quarterly earnings on Monday, April 29, 2013. (AP Photo/AJ Mast)

DETROIT (AP) ? Chrysler says its first-quarter net profit fell 65 percent as it shipped fewer older vehicles in preparation for several key product launches.

The company earned $166 million in the January-March quarter, compared with $473 million a year ago. Revenue fell 6 percent to $15.4 billion.

Chrysler says vehicle shipments fell 6 percent to 574,000. That's mainly because it ended production of the Jeep Liberty midsize SUV last year. Chrysler is preparing a Toledo, Ohio, factory to make the Jeep Cherokee, which will replace the Liberty later this year.

Launches of the 2014 Grand Cherokee and 2013 Ram Heavy Duty trucks also cut into shipments.

The profit decline comes even though Chrysler's sales were up 8 percent worldwide in the first quarter. Chrysler predicted a strong performance in the second half.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/f70471f764144b2fab526d39972d37b3/Article_2013-04-29-Earns-Chrysler/id-828305ddf68a4fbc872857cd6b6a82b2

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Engaging online crowds in the classroom could be important tool for teaching innovation

Apr. 29, 2013 ? Online crowds can be an important tool for teaching the ins and outs of innovation, educators at Carnegie Mellon University and Northwestern University say, even when the quality of the feedback provided by online sources doesn't always match the quantity.

In a pilot study that invited the crowd into their classrooms, Carnegie Mellon and Northwestern instructors found that input from social media and other crowdsourcing sites helped the students identify human needs for products or services, generate large quantities of ideas, and ease some aspects of testing those ideas.

Finding ways to incorporate online crowds into coursework is critical for teaching the process of innovation, said Steven Dow, assistant professor in Carnegie Mellon's Human-Computer Interaction Institute. He and his co-investigator, Elizabeth Gerber, the Breed Junior Professor of Design at Northwestern University, will present their findings April 29 at CHI 2013, the Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, in Paris.

"Educating students about innovation practices can be difficult in the classroom, where students typically lack authentic interaction with the real world," Dow explained. "Social networks and other online crowds can provide input that students can't get otherwise. Even in project courses, feedback is limited to a handful of individuals, at most."

At the same time, tapping the power of online communities has itself become part of the innovation process, Gerber said, with many entrepreneurs turning to sites such as Kickstarter and IndieGoGo to get initial support.

"The Internet affords access to online communities to which we might not ever have access," she said. "Future innovators need to know how to find and respectively engage with these communities to get the resources they need."

Dow and Gerber have received a National Science Foundation grant to study the use of crowd technologies in the classroom. They have created a website, http://crowddriveninnovation.com/, to share ideas and resources regarding the use of crowd-based resources in innovation education.

In the pilot study, they explored the use of crowds with 50 students enrolled in three innovation classes offered by Carnegie Mellon and Northwestern. Students worked in groups of 3-4 on projects.

Students found online forums, such as Reddit, were very helpful in discovering unmet needs. A group working on public transit, for instance, found lots of people talk about transit on social media, Dow said. "It also helps them figure out what questions to ask users in more traditional interviews," he added.

An attempt to generate ideas through Amazon Mechanical Turk, which pays workers small fees for performing micro-tasks, produced little of use. "Understanding context is critical for ideation and this is difficult to do in a micro-task work environment," Gerber said. What did work effectively, she said, was asking people from the user research site Mindswarms to reflect on students' storyboard concepts.

In the final class assignment, to help students learn how to pitch ideas, the teams created a crowdfunding campaign through Kickstarter or IndieGoGo. But that made many students uncomfortable.

"The main problem with the crowdfunding piece of the class was that few students, as far as I could tell, actually wanted to raise the money," one student explained. "Most students in the class have other plans and weren't planning to continue working on their idea."

"In a strange way, this discomfort validated our hypothesis that engaging external crowds would bring the reality of innovation practices into the classroom," Dow said. "It was almost too real."

One solution, Dow and Gerber said, may be to have students prepare a crowdfunding campaign, but not launch it.

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Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/most_popular/~3/N2RtpZnvZVw/130429130520.htm

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Oil above $94 on US data, hope of EU rate cut

NEW YORK (AP) ? The price of oil rose above $94 per barrel Monday as positive U.S. economic data added to optimism for a rate cut in Europe.

Benchmark crude for June delivery gained $1.50 to finish at $94.50 a barrel in New York. Oil hadn't finished above $94 since April 10.

The U.S. government said Americans spent more in March as their incomes went up. And pending home sales hit their highest level in three years. Traders also think the European Central Bank will cut its benchmark interest rate from the current record low of 0.75 percent to 0.50 percent, in a further attempt to turn around the economy there.

A weaker dollar also helped boost oil prices by making crude priced in dollars cheaper for traders using other currencies. On Monday, the euro was up to $1.3100 from $1.3065 late Friday in New York.

Drivers are still shelling out fewer dollars at the gas pump compared with a year ago. The national average for a gallon of regular is $3.50, compared with $3.82 on this date last year.

Brent crude, which is used to price oil from the North Sea used by many U.S. refiners, rose 65 cents to end at $103.81 on the ICE Futures exchange in London.

In other energy futures trading on Nymex:

? Wholesale gasoline was up almost a cent to finish at $2.83 a gallon.

? Heating oil was flat at $2.90 a gallon.

? Natural gas added 17 cents to end at $4.39 per 1,000 cubic feet.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/oil-above-94-us-data-hope-eu-rate-163039674.html

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Spotify May Need To Be More ?Asian' To Dominate Region

asian woman with headphonesAsia’s fragmented music fanbase and subscription habits may stand between Spotify and its total domination of the region, or at least so its competitors hope. The music streaming service recently launched in the Asian countries of Singapore, Malaysia and Hong Kong.?When we spoke to Spotify?s head of new markets in Asia-Pacific, Sriram Krishnan, he was evasive on how extensive the company’s Asian catalog was, saying that the company is working with labels here and does feature local music, but emphasized that “mainstream” (read: US-originated) music is big here, and that catalog Spotify has plenty of. But several Asian-originated competitors say that their experiences here have been quite different. Taiwan-based KKBOX was launched in the region in 2005, and is available in its home country, as well as Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia and Japan, with plans for other Asian countries, said representative, Inman Lin. “The Asian market is very fragmented in terms of (each country’s) culture and preference in music. In Japan, Taiwan, Thailand, local artists and songs usually (dominate) with over 70 percent to 85 percent market share, and Western artists are the minority,” he said. Hong Kong carrier, CSL, has a streaming music service called Musicholic. It’s one of the country’s larger telcos, and has over three million subscribers, as at end-2012. It said the Musicholic service, launched in 2009, has a “double digit percentage” of its user base, and that a whopping 92 percent of its catalog is made up of Chinese songs. Some Asian consumption habits dominate as well. Rolling lyrics karaoke-style is a feature on KKBOX, but not on Spotify or other Western-based services, for example. And it has a different take on the music discovery process, as well. Where Spotify and Twitter just rolled out discovery functions, Lin said Asian music artists have been using KKBOX to communicate directly with users here. Spotify’s discover service was released earlier today to UK and Nordic users, but hasn’t arrived in Asia yet. KKBOX has about 10 million users, with one million of those paying subscribers?the majority on the mobile. That’s another big difference between Spotify and KKBOX, in that KKBOX does its billing through carrier tie-ups. In many markets in Asia, where credit card payment isn’t as common as it is in the US, carrier billing helps remove a lot of the friction in signing up. In Singapore, KKBOX will relaunch in May on StarHub, one of

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/8q8RFGUHPUk/

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শনিবার, ২৭ এপ্রিল, ২০১৩

50 million customers hit in LivingSocial cyber attack

By Alistair Barr

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - LivingSocial, the second-largest daily deal company behind Groupon Inc, said on Friday it was hit by a cyber attack that may have affected more than 50 million customers.

The company said the attack on its computer systems resulted in unauthorized access to customer data, including names, email addresses, date of birth for some users and "encrypted" passwords.

LivingSocial stressed customer credit card and merchants' financial and banking information were not affected or accessed. It also does not store passwords in plain text.

"We are actively working with law enforcement to investigate this issue," the company, part-owned by Amazon.com Inc, wrote in an email to employees.

LivingSocial does not disclose how many customers it has. However, spokesman Andrew Weinstein said "a substantial portion" of the company's customer base was affected. LivingSocial is also contacting customers who closed accounts, because it still has their information stored in databases, he added.

The attack hit customers in the United States, Canada, the U.K., Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, Malaysia, Southern Europe and Latin America. Customers in South Korea, Indonesia, Philippines and Thailand were not affected, Weinstein said.

"In light of recent successful widespread attacks against major social networking sites, it's obvious that these providers are simply not doing enough to protect their customers' information," said George Tubin, senior security strategist at Trusteer, a computer security company.

The attack comes as LivingSocial struggles to handle a decline in consumer and merchant demand for daily deals. The company raised $110 million from investors, including Amazon earlier this year, but was forced to make large concessions to get the new money.

Amazon invested $56 million in LivingSocial in the first quarter, according to a regulatory filing on Friday, which also revealed the company had a first-quarter operating loss of $44 million on revenue of $135 million.

LivingSocial said on Friday it was beginning to contact more than 50 million customers whose data may have been affected by the cyber attack.

LivingSocial told customers in an email that they should log on to LivingSocial.com to create a new password for their accounts.

"We also encourage you, for your own personal data security, to consider changing password(s) on any other sites on which you use the same or similar password(s)," LivingSocial Chief Executive Tim O'Shaughnessy wrote in the email.

"We are sorry this incident occurred."

All Things D reported the cyber attack earlier on Friday.

(Reporting by Alistair Barr; Editing by Tim Dobbyn, Bernard Orr and Andre Grenon)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/livingsocial-says-cyber-attack-affects-millions-customers-205938910.html

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শুক্রবার, ২৬ এপ্রিল, ২০১৩

Liberia police: 3 dead, others missing in fire

MONROVIA, Liberia (AP) ? Liberian police say that at least three bodies have been retrieved and more than 10 people are feared trapped under the rubble of a building that was gutted by fire and came down in the Waterside commercial district of Monrovia.

Police Senior Inspector Gregory Coleman told the Associated Press "half of the building collapsed" over people who were helping to put out the fire, which started Wednesday night.

The United Nations radio station, UNMIL Radio, confirmed two of the dead were from the Liberia Fire Service.

Grief-stricken family members have continued to pour into the area in search of missing their relatives.

Some eyewitnesses put the figure of those killed higher and say those trapped are more than 20.

Police are investigating the incident.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/liberia-police-3-dead-others-missing-fire-163246780.html

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Helping youngsters to gain financial skills will help us all | Simon ...


Source: http://blogs.independent.co.uk/2013/04/24/helping-youngsters-to-gain-financial-skills-will-help-us-all/

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বৃহস্পতিবার, ২৫ এপ্রিল, ২০১৩

South Coast Elevenses - Local Business Networking, Russells ...

Every 2 weeks in Russells Garden Centre Cafe Restaurant from 11am til 12.30pm.

Ideal for home businesses, shops, SMEs, salons etc.

FREE & RELAXED (Just pay for your own refreshments)

Networking Address:

Russells Garden Centre

Restaurant/Deli, Main Rd, Birdham, Chichester

West Sussex, PO20 7BY.

Free Parking & Wheelchair Access

Includes: Birdham, Bracklesham, Chichester, Earnley, East Wittering, Havant, Pagham, Selsey, Sidlesham, West Itchenor, West Wittering and surrounding areas.

Event Organised By

JK Accountancy & Bookkeeping

www.jkab.co.uk

We are based in Crookham Village, Church Crookham, Fleet, Hampshire and West Wittering, West Sussex.

JKAB is the answer to all of your Accountancy and Bookkeeping needs, wherever you may be in the UK.

Attending this event or want to share it on Facebook? Comment below!

Source: http://www.findnetworkingevents.com/events/index.cfm?action=eventdetail&eventid=56601&utm_source=sitefeeds&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=regionfeed

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Samsung Galaxy S4 available from RadioShack April 27 for Sprint and AT&T

Samsung Galaxy S4

RadioShack is ready and waiting to give you your Galaxy S4 this coming Saturday

The Samsung Galaxy S4 will be available for purchase for Sprint and AT&T at RadioShack this Saturday, April 27th. The highly anticipated device has been garnering a lot of attention recently now that we've finally received solid release dates.

RadioShack has also announced that it will offer accessories for the S4 and a deal that specifies if you spend at least $30, you will get a $10 off coupon for future purchases. This is pretty much guaranteed if you purchase a new S4. It also offers a trade in policy for past devices, so you can get some money towards your new purchase.

If you're on Sprint or AT&T, you'll soon be able to purchase a S4 at RadioShack. Who will be be in line this Saturday? Tell us in the Samsung Galaxy S4 Forum!

    


Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/androidcentral/~3/uqz9wxh-qmM/story01.htm

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PFT: Several teams in top 12 look to move down

RadioCityGetty Images

There will be ?enhanced? security guidelines for the NFL Draft at Radio City Music Hall in New York, the league said Tuesday.

According to the NFL, those entering Radio City Music Hall for the draft must consent to searches by security personnel, with pat-downs and metal detectors among the measures that can be employed.?What?s more, all items brought into the building will be inspected, the league said.

The draft begins Thursday and runs through Saturday in New York.

The league, along with Radio City Music Hall and New York City police, are recommending those attending the draft to limit the number of objects brought into the building.?No containers will be allowed inside, with backpacks among the excluded items.?The NFL?s statement on the security measures has a list of banned items.

?Fans are urged to bring nothing larger than a very small purse,? the league said.

The league noted it already had security procedures in place before these additions.

?The NFL and its clubs have operated with a very high level of security since 9/11 for all of our games and events,? said Jeffrey Miller, NFL vice president and chief security officer in the league-issued statement. ?With the help of the FBI, New York Police Department, Radio City and our private security partners, we will enhance our already comprehensive plans for the safety of our fans and other attendees.?

A noticeable security presence at major sporting events doesn?t figure to go away anytime soon, and the NFL?s enhancements make sense, considering recent events.

Source: http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2013/04/23/report-five-teams-in-top-12-want-to-move-down/related/

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Counting on black crows to help us adapt to stressful situations

Apr. 23, 2013 ? It's hard not to catch sight of at least one black crow in the pursuit of our daily lives. For most of us, however, that is where the interaction ends. For Binghamton University Associate Professor of Biological Sciences Anne Clark, that single sighting is the open door to hours of observation.

Yes, Clark is a bird watcher but her interest in watching crows is much more than just a way to pass time. It is an important research tool in her role as a behavioral ecologist and she believes the birds can teach us humans a thing or two about adapting to our environment, including how to better manage stress.

"Crows do a lot of things the way people do," says Clark, noting that like humans, the birds are cooperative, simultaneously family and group oriented, and have a high capacity for adaptation.

Clark has spent the past decade of her research career deciphering the biological and social relationships among a population of some 2,000 American crows in the Southern Tier of New York.

According to Clark, behavioral ecologists study Corvus brachyrhynchos (American Crows), almost as often as primates, to gain insight into the evolutionary underpinnings of social relationships. The black birds, which seem to be everywhere, mate for life, can survive nearly two decades in the wild and collaborate in extended family groups to rear their young.

Clark and nearly a dozen Binghamton University graduate students spend many hours not just keeping an eye on the birds; they actually climb into the trees and collect nestlings in a bucket. The baby birds are then lowered to the ground where they are tagged and banded. A sample of blood is also taken from each chick before it is returned to the bucket and then the nest.

What will be done with all of this information? The next chapter for Clark and her team of researchers is to try to determine how the birds cope on a molecular level with stress. This is information humans could certainly appreciate.

"We're pretty sure that it involves some changes in genes associated with responses to stress, especially social stressors," Clark explains. "This includes things having to do with learning and memory."

Currently Clark is looking into variations in DRD4, a dopamine receptor gene that, in people, is associated with responsiveness to environmental cues. One of her first projects will aim to determine which crows thrive in suburban areas where life is more crowded. Clark says that through her observations, she knows that crows learn to put up with noise and crowding. She says they even learn to open a McDonald's bag in order to get food. Now she just wants to find out if it is indeed their genes that help them adapt.

Crows by the Numbers ?

  • 31: estimated worldwide population of Corvus brachyrhynchos, in millions
  • 2,145: number of crows tagged by Anne Clark, Kevin McGowan and their team
  • 19: years lived by the oldest crow in McGowan and Clark's study
  • 4-6: average lifespan, in years, of a wild American crow
  • 59: age in years of the oldest captive of the species
  • 7: days the West Nile virus takes to kill an infected crow
  • 0: number of crows resistant to the virus
  • 45: percentage decline in crow populations since the West Nile virus came to the United States from Uganda in 1999
  • 1: average weight in pounds of a mature American crow
  • 36: length, in inches, of a crow's wingspan
  • 1822: year in which the American crow received its Latin name
  • 31: species of crows worldwide 4: subspecies of American crow: Eastern, Western, Florida and Southern
  • 25: miles a crow will fly in a day while collecting food
  • 30-60: speed, in miles per hour, of a crow in flight
  • 100: feet, in height, that researchers climb to reach nests
  • 3-9: number of eggs in a clutch
  • 50: percent mortality of crows in their first year of life
  • 16-18: number of days until chicks hatch
  • 35: days from hatching for a chick to leave the nest
  • 15: maximum number of extended relations who help rear the young
  • 100: years crows have been known to roost in Auburn, N.Y.
  • 63,000: number of crows in the Auburn roost at its peak
  • 1,061: number of crows shot in the 2004 Auburn crow hunt
  • 7: months in New York's crow hunting season
  • 0: number of crows kept legally as pets
  • ?

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Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Binghamton University, State University of New York, via Newswise.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.


Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/top_environment/~3/X_JhT_gE2ak/130423134034.htm

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Adobe Updates Its Social Marketing Tools To Predict The Popularity Of Your Facebook Post

adobe logoAdobe is announcing new predictive capabilities for Adobe Social ? capabilities that should be particularly helpful to marketers wondering why some social media posts take off while others fall flat. Bill Ingram, vice president for Adobe Analytics and Adobe Social, walked me through the new features earlier today in advance of the Adobe Summit in London. Adobe is using historical data ? both in aggregate and at the customer-specific level ? to predict the likely engagement level and sentiment around a specific Facebook post, and it can recommend keywords, content types and timing that might lead to a better response.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/EJWCtz1dCAY/

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Less prison and more treatment: Drug czar to lay out reform

ANNAPOLIS, Md. (AP) ? President Barack Obama's new strategy for fighting the nation's drug problem will include a greater emphasis on using public health tools to battle addiction and diverting non-violent drug offenders into treatment instead of prisons, under reforms scheduled to be outlined by the nation's drug czar Wednesday.

Gil Kerlikowske, director of the National Drug Control Policy, is scheduled to release Obama's 2013 blueprint for drug policy at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in Baltimore.

Millions of people in the United States will become eligible in less than a year for treatment for substance abuse under the new health care overhaul.

"We know that if drug treatment is done early it is usually more effective, and it's usually less costly than longer term, because drug addiction is a progressive disease," Kerlikowske told The Associated Press in an interview ahead of Wednesday's announcement.

The strategy also includes a greater emphasis on criminal justice reforms that include drug courts and probation programs aimed at reducing incarceration rates. It also will include community-based policing programs designed to break the cycle of drug use, crime and incarceration while steering law enforcement resources to more serious offenses, according to details of the strategy released by Kerlikowske's office.

"I think the important part is that a lot of criminal justice experts and police chiefs and sheriffs ? my colleagues for many years and myself included ? recognize that with a drug problem you can't arrest your way out of the problem, and so we really need to be smart on the drug problem," Kerlikowske, a former Seattle police chief, said.

Kerlikowske will be joined by Dr. Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, Tony Batts, Baltimore's policy commissioner, and Dr. Eric Strain, director of the Center for Substance Abuse Treatment and Research at Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/nations-drug-czar-outline-drug-policy-reform-100716010.html

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Anatomy of a blast: Researchers develop sensor system to assess the effects of explosions on soldiers

Apr. 22, 2013 ? Improvised explosive devices (IEDs) are becoming a global problem for the U.S. armed forces. To prevent injuries to soldiers and provide better care to those who are injured, the U.S. military is striving to better understand how blasts impact the human body.

In 2011 the Army's Rapid Equipping Force (REF) approached the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI) to develop a system that measures the physical environment of an explosion and collects data that can be used to correlate what the soldier experienced with long-term medical outcomes, especially traumatic brain injury. The solution: the Integrated Blast Effect Sensor Suite (IBESS). IBESS is the first system to acquire integrated, time-tagged data during an explosive event -- whether soldiers are on the ground or riding in a vehicle -- and can later help recreate a holistic picture of what happened.

System of systems

There are two parts to a blast: a shock wave that travels at supersonic speed, and compressed air, which travels in front of the shock wave. Both can cause considerable damage to the human body, but the exact effects are unclear.

"No one knows to what extent overpressure or acceleration causes injuries," said Marty Broadwell, a principal research scientist at GTRI who manages the institute's projects with REF. "Nor do we know how quickly an injury will show up, how long it will last or which soldiers are more resistant to harm than others. The only way to understand the impact of a blast is to collect data, which is precisely what IBESS does."

How it works

IBESS features two major subsystems: a unit worn by the soldier and a vehicle sensor suite. The soldier system is contained in a canvas pouch, which attaches to a soldier's armor between his or her shoulder blades. A recorder in the pouch connects to four pressure sensors, two on the back and two on straps that hang over the front of the shoulders. Because these sensors face different quadrants, the unit captures directionality and more information than previous blast gauges.

"Soldiers already carry considerable gear, so reducing the weight of the body unit and power consumption of its batteries drove many design decisions," said Brian Liu, a GTRI research engineer who served as technical lead on the project. For example, the recorder in the soldier body unit remains in sleep mode until pressure or shock waves hit a certain threshold, causing it to wake and begin recording data. This allows the system to have longer battery life and remain relatively transparent to the wearer.

The vehicle system serves a dual purpose: It records blast events that affect the vehicle, but also interacts and automatically links with the soldier system. When a soldier enters a vehicle, a base station installed in seats transmits RFID signals. If the soldier system has stored any data, these signals initiate a Bluetooth connection that enables two-way communication and data transfer. This semi-passive RFID technology is proximity based; transmission and reception occur only at very close range, so IBESS can identify a soldier's precise location in the vehicle.

Sensors are also installed on the vehicle's interior frame and seats. If an explosion or rollover occurs, these sensors collect linear acceleration and angular rotation data. The soldier system also wakes up and begins to record and transmit data. A single board computer aggregates data from both the vehicle and soldier systems and then passes it on to a rugged black box for final storage.

IBESS is specifically designed to withstand tremendous forces of an IED explosion.

"Materials, mounting strategies and mechanical isolation strategies have been used to ensure the devices successfully capture data in 'survivable' events," Liu explained. "We first conducted research on what kinds of magnitudes of blasts were survivable for mounted and dismounted operations and then performed many tests at those levels for verification."

IBESS is innovative on many fronts:

? Synchronized data: Unlike earlier generations of blast gauges, all data in IBESS is time-tagged, using GPS time as common time source. "Using this data we can rebuild an event," Liu explained. "Even though soldiers aren't wired together, we'll know they were in the same vehicle and experienced the same event -- and can assess how an event propagated through."

? Scalability: GTRI researchers used as many off-the-shelf and standard components as possible. "This open architecture makes it easier to expand the system," observed Douglas Woods, GTRI research scientist and IBESS program manager.

? Anonymity: By leveraging the Department of Defense's Common Access Card (CAC) system's Personal Key Identifier (PKI), IBESS can collect information uniquely tied to individual soldiers. Use of the PKI makes the data virtually anonymous so other researchers can study it without compromising privacy or containing personally identifiable information.

Another hallmark of the project was its rapid completion schedule. REF awarded the contract to GTRI in July 2011. Researchers wrapped up preliminary designs in September, and by early 2012 they were testing and refining the system. IBESS units began to ship overseas in August, and now the system has been issued to more than 650 troops and will be installed on 42 vehicles in Afghanistan.

"Our work with GTRI has been outstanding," said Joe Rozmeski, REF's deputy chief of technology management. "Originally chosen for its sensor expertise, GTRI has proven to be an ideal partner for us. They understand their role perfectly and are in tune with the REF's objectives for integrated blast effect research and collection."

Understanding the challenge

At its peak, the project involved more than 50 researchers with expertise ranging from electronics to mechanical engineering to health systems. This diversity in disciplines was critical to IBESS' success.

"If you don't understand the context in which a device will be used, you won't be collecting the right information, said Shean Phelps, M.D., a principal research scientist who joined GTRI in 2011. A retired Army officer, Phelps was a Special Forces (Green Beret) weapons, medic and team sergeant before becoming a physician and was instrumental not only in initiating the IBESS project but also in providing both operational and medical perspectives.

Traumatic brain injury has become a greater concern in recent years. "Because of improved equipment and medical services, people are surviving severe explosions," Phelps explained. "Yet we lack a clear understanding of blast-induced injuries on the human nervous system. Mild traumatic brain injury is a particular concern because it has a wide range of symptoms and doesn't show up reliably in tests, so we can't effectively diagnose, treat and manage its long-term effects."

With IBESS, complex contextual data can be collected to link soldiers' experiences with their medical records and later correlate a blast event to traumatic brain injury. IBESS is a major step forward for both the medical and engineering communities, Phelps said: "We now have a platform that's dramatically different from previous efforts to collect blast data because it's time-tagged, fully integrated between humans and vehicles, able to pinpoint an individual's location in a vehicle -- and able to accept data from any sensor."

What's ahead

Ongoing work is being conducted by a team of GTRI research engineers led by Allesio Medda, who are building a structured database and analytical tools for the data that IBESS collects. Other GTRI researchers are installing sensors in the ear-cup of communications headsets worn by soldiers, which measure linear and rotational acceleration on six axes. After testing, these headsets will be issued to 200 Army Rangers.

Currently IBESS only captures environmental data. Yet because of its open architecture, other diagnostic capabilities can be easily integrated. For example, sensors could be added to monitor heart rate, blood pressure, oxygen and hydration levels, body temperature and EKG activity.

With such biometric sensors, IBESS could evaluate soldiers' physical condition in training or on the battlefield for triage purposes or to assess their ability to do a certain job. Data from the system could be used to improve equipment and vehicle design. For example, gear might be developed to divert a shock wave or change its frequency if a particular frequency is shown to damage the brain. IBESS could also be adapted for non-military applications, such as monitoring construction workers, race car drivers or elderly people in their homes.

"Collecting physical data on the blast environment is the critical first step before the system can be made medically predictive," stressed Woods. "An explosion is a physical phenomenon. In order to understand the extent of injuries and how to prevent them, you must first understand the physics."

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Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Georgia Institute of Technology, Research Communications. The original article was written by T.J. Becker.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.


Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/top_technology/~3/YbiBHbg5L-M/130423102135.htm

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Earthquake rocks Afghanistan, felt in Pakistan and India

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - A moderate earthquake hit Afghanistan on Wednesday and was felt as far away as the Indian capital of New Delhi, the latest in a string of tremors to shake Asia in the past week.

The 5.7 magnitude quake was 40 miles deep with an epicenter 16 miles northwest of Jalalabad, Afghanistan, the U.S. Geological Survey said on its website. There were no immediate reports of damage or casualties.

Buildings swayed in the Indian capital New Delhi and people ran into the street in the disputed northern region of Kashmir, where an earthquake killed about 75,000 people in 2005, most on the Pakistan side. Wednesday's tremor was also felt in Pakistan's capital, Islamabad.

Last week, a 6.6 magnitude earthquake killed nearly 200 people in southwest China, a few days after another powerful tremor killed 35 people in Pakistan near the border with Iran.

(Reporting by Satarupa Bhattacharjya in NEW DELHI, Fayaz Bukhari in SRINAGAR and Kathryn Houreld in ISLAMABAD; Editing by Nick Macfie; Writng by Frank Jack Daniel)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/earthquake-felt-indias-delhi-kashmir-witnesses-094113969.html

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মঙ্গলবার, ২৩ এপ্রিল, ২০১৩

Real Estate: Why Investors are Buying REIT ETFs | ETF Trends

April 22nd at 1:00pm by Paul Weisbruch, Street One Financial

The REIT space thus far in 2013 has impressed in terms of garnering new assets, with the two largest products in the category, VNQ (Vanguard REIT, Expense Ratio 0.10%) attracting greater than $2 billion YTD, and IYR (iShares DJ U.S. Real Estate, Expense Ratio 0.48%) taking in north of $500 million.

These ETFs have more of a mid-cap/large cap slant in terms of portfolio composition, and today we would like to focus on a particular small cap oriented fund in the REIT space that saw an uptick in trading action last week.

ROOF (IndexIQ Real Estate Small Cap, Expense Ratio 0.69%), after climbing steadily throughout 2013, has recently seen its trading volume tick up (average daily volume is about 30,000 shares) and the fund has attracted more than $30 million year to date in terms of net inflows (total asset base is $50 million now).

The fund debuted in June of 2011, so we are still shy of the ETF?s two year anniversary of live performance, but the recent traction in terms of fund is growth is certainly encouraging.

The entire portfolio is dedicated to investing in small and microcap names in the U.S. Real Estate space, with top holdings in lesser known REIT names such as IVR (Invesco Mortgage Capital) 5.02%, ARMOUR Residential REIT (4.33%) and Newcastle Investment Corporation (NCT, 4.30%). Currently forty nine individual companies in the space are owned within ROOF, and the fund has a yield of 4.48% which likely has its appeal to yield oriented investors (compared to IYR?s 3.52% yield and VNQ?s 3.37% yield).

IndexIQ Real Estate Small Cap

reit-etf

For more information on Street One ETF research and ETF trade execution/liquidity services, contact Paul Weisbruch at pweisbruch@streetonefinancial.com.

Source: http://www.etftrends.com/2013/04/real-estate-why-investors-are-buying-reit-etfs/

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IMF, Egypt say working to reach loan deal in 'coming weeks'

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The International Monetary Fund and Egyptian officials said on Sunday they were working to reach a deal on a proposed $4.8 billion loan in "coming weeks," citing progress in weekend talks in Washington.

"Work will continue with the objective of reaching agreement on an IMF stand-by arrangement to support the authorities' national economic program in the coming weeks," IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde and Egyptian finance officials said in a joint statement.

The talks, held on the sidelines of twice-yearly meetings of the IMF and World Bank, included Egypt's central bank governor, Hisham Ramez, Finance Minister Al-Mursi al-Sayed Hejazy, and Planning Minister Ashraf El-Araby.

The statement said Egypt was "firmly committed to addressing its economic and financial challenges with the objective of restoring sustained and socially balanced growth, and they are already taking encouraging actions in this direction".

Egypt's economy has deteriorated since street protests in 2011 led to the overthrow of former President Hosni Mubarak. Tourism and investment have shriveled and the budget deficit has risen sharply, while foreign currency reserves have shrunk.

An IMF deal would help shore up investor confidence and ensure the country is tackling problems in its economy. The deal would include the gradual reforms of costly fuel subsidies, that swallow about 21 percent of the budget or 12 percent of gross domestic product.

Lagarde told a news conference last week that IMF and Egyptian officials were working to "align" more economic data.

(Reporting by Lesley Wroughton; Editing by Sandra Maler)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/imf-egypt-working-reach-loan-deal-coming-weeks-232354767--finance.html

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Guerilla Art Isn?t All Dark: This Protest Is Made of Pansies (VIDEO)

The most popular forms of protest usually include marching, bullhorns and shouted messages of defiance. And for participants, those can be cathartic and empowering. No matter the cause?same-sex marriage, equal pay, climate change?a good old-fashioned angry protest can give a voice to those who otherwise feel ignored.

But there?s also another kind of protest?a quieter kind, that?s perhaps a little more elegant in its approach, but no less effective. The Pansy Project is among the latter category, and despite it being more subdued than bullhorns and shouting, the project is no less moving for those lucky enough to witness it.

Started by artist Paul Harfleet several years ago, The Pansy Project plants a flower at any site where homophobic abuse has occurred.

?

?

Harfleet was inspired to start the project some years ago after he heard the word ?fag***? shouted at him a handful of times in a single day.

He explained to FastCo.Exist, ?Roadside memorials were becoming popular at the time, and I liked the way they made you think about what had happened at that location,? he says. ?Planting pansies was more gentle and low-key than an actual memorial. I liked the idea of queering the street, in some way.?

After photographing his plants, he places the pictures on his website, usually titled with words related to the specific act of abuse that flower represents,? such as ?'I think he?s a queer, let?s kill him' in St Ann?s Street in Manchester.?

"Queer!" Hill Street, Belfast, for Vincent

Since its beginning, Harfleet estimates he?s planted over 10,000 flowers in the names of people who were verbally or physically abused for being gay. Though he started in his native U.K., Harfleet has since left his pansy stamp on streets in the U.S., Europe and the Middle East.

Liverpool, for Michael Causer (a gay teen who was murdered)

What seems especially poignant about the project is that the artist doesn?t ask permission to plant his flowers in these public spaces, but simply finds an innocuous spot of dirt nearby, plants the pansy and photographs it. It?s still an act of defiance, but a particularly touching one, as evidenced by his pictures.

"What the fu** are you looking at? Fa**ot!" Upper Brook Street, Manchester

Now that the project is gaining in popularity, Harfleet?s hope is that others will start planting the flowers on their own and sending him pictures to add to the collection.

If you'd like Harfleet to plant a flower in the name of someone who's experienced homophobic abuse, he often takes requests through the Pansy Project Facebook page. And to view more of his previous memorials, feel free to visit his website.

Do you think quiet protests like the ones from The Pansy Project are as effective in calling attention to social issues? Let us know in the Comments.

Related Stories on TakePart:

? Guess Who Used ?Mrs. Doubtfire? to Illustrate a Story on Transgender Healthcare

? LGBT Immigrants: ?Don?t Let Us Lose This DREAM?

? Tenn. High School Principal Assaults Student Over Gay Rights T-Shirt (VIDEO)


A Bay Area native, Andri Antoniades previously worked as a fashion industry journalist and medical writer.??In addition to reporting the weekend news on TakePart, she volunteers as a webeditor for locally-based nonprofits and works as a freelance feature writer for?TimeOutLA.com. Email Andri | @andritweets?| TakePart.com

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/guerilla-art-isn-t-dark-protest-made-pansies-211819543.html

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More than 40 million watch end of manhunt

NEW YORK (AP) ? Nearly 42 million people watched the last hour of Friday's manhunt for the Boston Marathon bombing suspect on television.

That was the Nielsen company's estimate Monday of the number of people watching ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, Fox News Channel or MSNBC during the hour that ended at 9 p.m. on the East Coast. That's when police announced that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev had been taken into custody after hiding in a boat.

The real-life drama clearly captured the interest of TV viewers. Nielsen said the coverage had roughly double the amount of people who usually watch those networks on Friday night, typically a light night for TV viewing.

The channels all devoted their full prime time to story. For the three hours of prime time, the channels had 35.9 million viewers, compared to 21.9 million they would get on a typical Friday.

During the 8 p.m. hour, NBC's coverage had 10.7 million viewers ? up from the 2.9 million people who watched "Fashion Star" on that network at that time the previous Friday.

ABC had 7.8 million viewers for that hour, Fox News Channel had 7.6 million, CBS had 6.9 million, CNN had 6.8 million and MSNBC 1.7 million.

As is often the case during big news stories, CNN saw the biggest jump among cable news networks. CNN, normally third behind Fox and MSNBC in prime time, even won among the 25-to-54-year-old demographic most sought by advertisers.

Excluding nights of political coverage, it was CNN and Fox News Channel's most-watched night since the Iraq war.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/more-40-million-watch-end-manhunt-175812964.html

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Experimental therapy saves child born 'without bones'

Apr. 22, 2013 ? Four years ago, Janelly Martinez-Amador was confined to a bed, unable to move even an arm or lift her head. At age 3, the fragile toddler had the gross motor skills of a newborn and a ventilator kept her alive.

She was born with thin, fragile bones, and by 3, she had no visible bones on X-rays. Initially, doctors weren't sure she would survive her first birthday. In May, Janelly will turn 7, and is developing bone with the help of an experimental drug therapy and her care team at the Monroe Carell Jr. Children's Hospital at Vanderbilt.

Janelly has a rare genetic disorder called hypophosphatasia (HPP), a metabolic disease that affects the development of bone and teeth. An enzyme deficiency causes the bones to become soft because they can't absorb important minerals such as calcium and phosphorus, increasing the risks for pain, broken bones and bone deterioration.

"Imagine your child laying all the time in bed, not being able to lift herself, not being able to move herself, making sure she is not falling or tripping on things," her father, Salvadore Martinez, said through a Spanish interpreter.

"The treatment has worked very well but it has been a compilation of doctors, nurses, assistants ? everyone that has been a part of her care that has helped her make a meaningful recovery."

HPP affects about one in 100,000 babies born in the United States. While there are varying degrees of severity, the most severe forms of HPP occur before birth and early infancy. More than half of babies born with the disease don't survive beyond their first birthday. Janelly has the more severe form of the disease, which was diagnosed when she was 3 months old after failing to grow and gain weight. Doctors initially thought she might have cancer. With a thorough blood analysis at Children's Hospital, they diagnosed her with HPP.

"If you saw her in 2009 and see her now, it's not the same Janelly," said her mother, Janet Amador. "She used a ventilator, an oxygen mask -- many machines to help her breathe."

Janelly is one of 11 children, age 3 years and younger, to participate in a clinical trial to receive an enzyme-replacement drug therapy, asfotase alfa, for the life-threatening form of HPP. She had the worst case of the group.

Michael Whyte, M.D., the lead investigator of the study, which published results in March, 2012, in the New England Journal of Medicine, visited Janelly and her family at Children's Hospital last week. It was the first time he had met the family and her physician, Jill Simmons, M.D., a pediatric endocrinologist at Vanderbilt.

"It's wonderful that you had the faith that a treatment might come along. For many years, it seemed there was nothing that was very helpful for this disorder," said Whyte, medical-science director of the Center for Metabolic Bone Disease and Molecular Research at Shriner Hospitals for Children in St. Louis.

"We were fearful that her bone disease was so terribly severe that it might not work. But by looking at the X-rays and hearing about her visits, we were thrilled to hear about her progress."

About eight months into the treatment, Janelly's parents felt her fingers -- which had been completely soft and boneless -- and they could feel traces of developing bone. Her head also began to develop bone. At 18 months into therapy, X-rays showed, for the first time, the visible development of her rib cage.

Janelly now sits in a wheelchair. Recently, dressed in her Easter best and bright pink bows, she was able to turn her head to gaze at a room of onlookers.

She smiled and waved her hand excitedly, a feat she never would have accomplished before the drug therapy. She is also able to attend school at Harris-Hillman Special Education School, not far from Children's Hospital.

This spring, doctors hope to be able to remove her tracheostomy tube, which has prevented her from speaking. Her developmental and cognitive abilities will be tested in July. Improvement continues each day, each week for Janelly.

"This is why we get into medicine in the first place: to truly make a difference in the life of a child," said Simmons, her physician. "My goodness, to go from no bones to bones. That's the most impressive thing I have seen as a physician. It's incredible."

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Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Vanderbilt University Medical Center, via Newswise.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.


Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/strange_science/~3/iOUoTh1m38E/130422111107.htm

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