Psychiatric test for suspect in NYC subway death

In this image provided by the New York City Police Department, a composite sketch showing the woman believed to have pushed a man to his death in front of a subway train on Thursday, Dec. 27, 2012 is shown. Police arrested Erica Menendez on Saturday, Dec. 29, 2012, after a passer-by on a street noticed she resembled the woman seen in a surveillance video. The attack was the second time this month that a man was pushed to his death in a city subway station. (AP Photo/New York City Police Department)

In this image provided by the New York City Police Department, a composite sketch showing the woman believed to have pushed a man to his death in front of a subway train on Thursday, Dec. 27, 2012 is shown. Police arrested Erica Menendez on Saturday, Dec. 29, 2012, after a passer-by on a street noticed she resembled the woman seen in a surveillance video. The attack was the second time this month that a man was pushed to his death in a city subway station. (AP Photo/New York City Police Department)

Commuters walk on the platform as a train enters the 40th St-Lowry St Station, where a man was killed after being pushed onto the subway tracks, in the Queens section of New York, Friday, Dec. 28, 2012. Police are searching for a woman suspected of pushing the man and released surveillance video Friday of her running away from the station. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)

Commuters watch as a train enters the 40th St-Lowry St Station, where a man was killed after being pushed onto the subway tracks, in the Queens section of New York, Friday, Dec. 28, 2012. Police are searching for a woman suspected of pushing the man and released surveillance video Friday of her running away from the station.(AP Photo/Seth Wenig)

Commuters wait on the platform as a train passes through the 40th St-Lowry St Station, where a man was killed after being pushed onto the subway tracks, in the Queens section of New York, Friday, Dec. 28, 2012. Police are searching for a woman suspected of pushing the man and released surveillance video Friday of her running away from the station. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)

NEW YORK (AP) ? A woman suspected in the death of an immigrant who was pushed off a New York City subway platform has been ordered to undergo a psychiatric evaluation.

Erika Menendez, 31, was arraigned Saturday night on a charge of murder as a hate crime. She had told police she has hated Muslims since Sept. 11 and thought the victim was one. Judge Gia Morris ordered that Menendez be held without bail and be given a mental health exam.

Menendez is charged in the death of Sunando Sen, who was crushed by a train in Queens on Thursday night. Friends and co-workers said Sen, a 46-year-old Indian immigrant, was Hindu.

"I pushed a Muslim off the train tracks because I hate Hindus and Muslims ever since 2001 when they put down the twin towers I've been beating them up," Menendez told police, according to the district attorney's office.

"The defendant is accused of committing what is every subway commuter's worst nightmare," Queens District Attorney Richard Brown said.

Menendez was incoherent at her arraignment in Queens criminal court, at one point laughing so hard that the judge told her defense lawyer, "You're going to have to have your client stop laughing."

Menendez admitted shoving Sen, who was pushed from behind, authorities said. She was arrested after a tip by a passer-by who saw her on a street and thought she looked like the woman in a surveillance video released by police.

A call to Menendez's attorney was not immediately returned Sunday.

Sen was the second man to die after being pushed in front of a New York City subway train this month. Ki-Suck Han was killed in a midtown Manhattan subway station on Dec. 3. A photo of Han clinging to the edge of the platform a split second before he was struck by a train was published on the front page of the New York Post, causing an uproar about whether the photographer, who was catching a train, or anyone else should have tried to help him.

A homeless man was arrested and charged with murder in that case and is awaiting trial. He claimed he acted in self-defense.

It's unclear whether anyone tried, or could have tried, to help Sen on Thursday.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg urged residents Friday to keep Sen's death in perspective as he touted new historic lows in the city's annual homicide and shooting totals.

"It's a very tragic case, but what we want to focus on today is the overall safety in New York," Bloomberg told reporters following a police academy graduation.

But commuters still expressed concern over subway safety and shock about the arrest of Menendez on a hate crime charge.

"For someone to do something like that ... that's not the way we are made," said David Green, who was waiting for a train in Manhattan. "She needs help."

Green said he caught himself leaning over the subway platform's edge and realized maybe he shouldn't do that.

"It does make you more conscious," he said of the deaths.

Such subway deaths are rare, but other high-profile cases include the 1999 fatal shoving of aspiring screenwriter Kendra Webdale by a former psychiatric patient. That case led to a state law allowing for more supervision of mentally ill people living outside institutions.

___

Associated Press writer Karen Matthews contributed to this report.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2012-12-30-Subway-Push-Death/id-66fc689845fa4b3eae5f3b33ed480562

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NHL, union schedule Monday meet

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NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman, right, and deputy commissioner Bill Daly speak to reporters, Thursday, Dec. 6, 2012, in New York. The NHL has rejected the players' latest offer for a labor deal, and negotiations have broken off at least until the weekend.

Photograph by: Mary Altaffer , AP Photo

NEW YORK -- The NHL and NHL Players' Association plan to meet Monday for the first formal face-to-face collective bargaining session between the two sides since talks broke down on Dec. 6.

The league and NHLPA exchanged more information Sunday on the latest offer from the owners before the union left to meet internally.

Representatives from both sides spoke in person at the league office in the morning as the NHLPA sought clarification on various aspects of the comprehensive proposal tabled earlier this week. It followed a series of conference calls between the two parties on Saturday.

The league's latest offer was emailed from commissioner Gary Bettman to NHLPA executive director Donald Fehr on Thursday night and included movement on contract rules along with the introduction of compliance buyouts for the first time during these negotiations.

It also called for US$300 million in deferred transition payments to the players, something the league had taken off the table when talks broke down over three weeks ago. The sides haven't sat across from one another and bargained since.

Time is running short to save a shortened 48-game season.

As part of the NHL's new proposal, Bettman told the union that an agreement would have to be in place by Jan. 11. That would allow training camps to open Jan. 12 and the puck to be dropped for the season on Jan. 19.

The 106-day lockout has forced the cancellation of 625 games and is now the second longest in league history. In 1994-95, the lockout lasted 103 days before an agreement was reach

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Source: http://feeds.canada.com/~r/canwest/F299/~3/4af-Cd8ekrQ/story.html

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Thousands Honor Mike Chiapperini - Rochester Home Page

The ultimate respect was shown to a man who made the ultimate
sacrifice.? Lieutenant Michael Chiapperini rode on a fire truck to
Webster Schroeder High School escorted by four members of his
department.? Thousands of first responders saluted as his casket arrived
through a sea of American flags.

Lieutenant Chiapperini was honored by Firefighter Jamie Becker's reading of the Fireman's Prayer and the Policeman's Prayer, "if according to your will, I have to lose my life, please bless with your protecting hands, my friends and my family."

Chiapperini, affectionately called, "Chip," by many was loved by the community.? He embodied the definition of service and when it came time to say goodbye, those who are usually stoic broke down in tears, "so as my remarks come to a close," said Gerald Pickering, Chief of the Webster Police Department, "Lieutenant Michael Chiapperini, car 941, 10-7, your work is done here, rest in peace my friend, god bless the Chiapperini family, god bless Webster, god bless the United States of America."
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Lieutenant Chiapperini guided students interested in exploring careers in fire fighting and law enforcement, like fallen fire fighter Tomasz Kaczowka, and he servied as a mentor to many, "I will do everything in my power to carry on where you left off, being there for future chiefs, fire fighters and explorers," said Webster Fire District Chief James Diesenroth during his eulogy, "and can only hope that someday to mean as much to others as you have meant to us."

After the service Lieutenant Chiapperini's family was presented colors and he was honored with a 21 gun salute.?

Chiapperini was sent to his final resting place with the hymn, "Amazing Grace," and the ringing of the bell, signifying a job well done.

Source: http://rochesterhomepage.net/fulltext?nxd_id=362502

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Anyone else sleep on the floor? - Health, Fitness, and Sports

1000Knives What Would Brian Boitano Do? Joined: Jul 09, 2011 Age: 21 Posts: 3613	Posted: Sat Dec 29, 2012 12:52 am?? ?Post subject: Anyone else sleep on the floor? I've been sleeping on the floor since about 8-9th grade. I like it for some reason. It's comfy. I used to sleep with a thick comforter under the floor, but now I just sleep on top of a sorta thin comforter. I don't know, I mainly like it because if I need more space or whatever, I can just move all my blankets to the side and have more space. People say I'll mess my back up with it, but it seems the opposite for me. I don't know, for some reason I just feel better sleeping on the floor. For a few years I slept on a mattress on the floor (due to DCF calling my mother terrible for allowing me to move my mattress and bed out of my room,) and for one or so, futons, but I keep going back to just the floor and a blanket, as it's just most comfortable. So anyone else like sleeping on the floor? _________________ ?When you have ruled out the impossible, then whatever remains, no matter how improbable, is the truth. ?
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1. SEC Football Recruiting Budgets 2. A New Era Begins At Texas A&M 3. All?s Qui...

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Russian FM says Assad won't go

MOSCOW (AP) ? Russia's foreign minister said Saturday that Syrian President Bashar Assad has no intention of stepping down and it would be impossible to try to persuade him otherwise.

After a meeting with Lakhdar Brahimi, the U.N.'s envoy for the Syrian crisis, Sergey Lavrov also said that the Syrian opposition risks sacrificing many more lives if it continues to insist on Assad leaving office as a precondition for holding talks on Syria's future.

Assad "has repeatedly said publicly and privately, including in his meeting with Lakhdar Brahimi in Damascus not long ago, that he does not intend to leave for anywhere, that he will stay to the end in his post, that he will, as he expressed it, defend the Syrian people, Syrian sovereignty and so forth," Lavrov said. "There's no possibility to change this position."

Brahimi warned that the country's civil war could plunge the entire region into chaos by sending hundreds of thousands of refugees into neighboring nations, but his talks in Moscow produced no sign of progress toward settling the crisis.

Brahimi and Lavrov both said after their meeting that the 21-month-old Syrian conflict can only be settled through talks, while admitting that the parties in the conflict have shown no desire for compromise. Neither official hinted at a possible solution that would persuade the Syrian government and the opposition to agree to a ceasefire and sit down for talks about a political transition.

Brahimi, who arrived in Moscow on a one-day trip following his talks in Damascus with Assad this week, voiced concern about the escalation of the conflict, which he said is becoming "more and more sectarian."

The envoy warned that "if you have a panic in Damascus and if you have 1 million people leaving Damascus in a panic, they can go to only two places ? Lebanon and Jordan," and those countries may not be able to endure half a million refugees each.

Brahimi said that "if the only alternative is really hell or a political process, then we have got all of us to work ceaselessly for a political process."

Russia has been the main supporter of Assad's regime since the uprising began in March 2011, using its veto at the U.N. Security Council along with China to shield its last Mideast ally from international sanctions.

Lavrov said Russia would continue to oppose any U.N. resolution that would call for international sanctions against Assad and open the way for a foreign intervention in Syria. And while he again emphasized that Russia "isn't holding onto Bashar Assad," he added that Moscow continues to believe the opposition demand for his resignation as a precondition for peace talks is "counterproductive."

"The price for that precondition will be the loss of more Syrian lives," Lavrov said.

Both Brahimi and Lavrov insisted that efforts to end the civil war must be based on a peace plan that was approved at an international conference in Geneva in June.

The Geneva plan calls for an open-ended cease-fire, a transitional government to run the country until elections, and the drafting of a new constitution. But it was a non-starter with the opposition because of Russia's insistence that the plan leave the door open for Assad being part of the transition process and the fact that it didn't mention possible U.N. sanctions.

Brahimi said that while some "little adjustments" could be made to the original plan, "it's a valued basis for reasonable political process."

With the opposition offensive gaining momentum in Syria, there is little hope that the initiative would have any more chance of success than it had when it was approved.

Lavrov has said that Moscow is ready to talk to the main Syrian opposition group, even though it had earlier criticized the United States and other Western nations for recognizing the Syrian National Coalition for Opposition and Revolutionary Forces as the legitimate representative of the Syrian people.

On Friday, coalition leader Mouaz al-Khatib rejected the Russian invitation for talks and urged Moscow to support the opposition's call for Assad's ouster. Lavrov said Saturday that al-Khatib's statement was surprising after his earlier contacts with Russian diplomats in Egypt during which the opposition tentatively agreed on a meeting in a third country.

Lavrov said the coalition leader should "realize it would be in his own interests to hear our analysis directly from us."

Lavrov rejected the opposition claim that Russia's continuing weapons supplies to Assad's regime make it responsible for mass killings in Syria, saying that Moscow bears no responsibility for the Soviet-era weapons in Syrian arsenals. He said that defensive weapons such as anti-aircraft missiles that Russia has continued to supply to Damascus couldn't be used in the civil war.

"We aren't providing the Syrian regime with any offensive weapons or weapons that could be used in a civil war," Lavrov said. "And we have no leverage over what the regime has got since the Soviet times."

Georgy Mirsky, a leading Mideast expert with the Institute for World Economy and International Relations, a top foreign policy think tank, said President Vladimir Putin's stand on Syria is rooted in fear that joining international calls for Assad's resignation would make him look weak at home.

"It would look like an inadmissible concession to America, a virtual surrender. The Kremlin would lose its face, look like a loser," said Mirsky.

He wrote in his blog that Putin is resigned to Assad's eventual collapse and the loss of any Russian influence in a future Syria, but firmly opposes international sanctions. That stand allows Putin to tell his domestic audience that Russia has defended its ally until the end against overwhelming odds, said Mirsky.

__

Jim Heintz contributed to this report.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/russian-fm-says-assad-wont-181145992.html

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Woman in custody in death of man pushed onto NY City subway tracks

(Reuters) - A woman who made self-incriminating statements is in custody in the death of a man pushed in front of an oncoming New York City subway train, police said on Saturday, the second such fatality this month for one of the world's busiest subway systems.

Detectives took a 31-year-old Hispanic woman into custody, a police spokesman told Reuters. Police said the woman, whom they did not name, made statements implicating herself.

The investigation is continuing, and charges are pending, the spokesman said.

Witnesses told police a woman appeared to be mumbling to herself and pacing Thursday evening before she approached an unsuspecting man from behind on the platform of an elevated station in the borough of Queens.

She then shoved him onto the subway track as the train pulled into the station, witnesses said.

Police identified the victim as Sunando Sen. It is the second death this month of a New York subway rider pushed onto the tracks of the city's more than 100-year-old subway system.

On December 3, Ki-Suck Han was killed after being shoved onto subway tracks in Manhattan as a train entered the 49th Street station near Times Square. A suspect, Naeem Davis, has been charged with second-degree murder.

Including Thursday's incident, 139 people have been struck by New York City subway trains so far in 2012, and 54 of them died, a Metropolitan Transportation Authority spokesman said on Friday. He said the tally was preliminary and subject to change.

After shoving Sen on Thursday, the woman ran from the station to the street in a scene caught on surveillance video footage that police released on Friday as they searched for her.

Police said on Friday it remained unclear whether she knew the victim, whom they initially had trouble identifying because his body had been so badly mangled by the train.

(Reporting by Colleen Jenkins; Editing by Alex Dobuzinskis and Vicki Allen)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/woman-custody-death-man-pushed-onto-ny-city-181622949.html

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'Do something!' Americans fed up with D.C. over 'cliff'

Americans from across the country express their frustration with lawmakers in Washington who have yet to reach an agreement on averting looming tax increases.

By Tracy Connor, NBC News

Tennessee Sen. Bob Corker said Friday that ?the American people should be disgusted? the nation?s leaders haven?t been able to avert the fiscal cliff.

Well, mission accomplished.

John Makely / NBC News

Abigail Holt, 17, (right), of Hartford, Conn., says Washington's inability to avert the fiscal cliff is "annoying."

Across the country, people are shaking their heads about negotiations that go nowhere and fingers that point everywhere while the nation hurtles toward the precipice of a new economic crisis.

?They should make a plan, make up their minds and do something!? Abigail Holt of Hartford, Conn., told NBC News.

She?s 17 years old and admits she?s just learning about the federal government and the fiscal cliff. But she knows this much: ?It?s annoying.?

And that's being polite.

Writing in the Daily Beast, Howard Kurtz called the nation's capital "the country?s biggest day-care center." The famous sex therapist Dr. Ruth Westheimer hit below the belt, noting on Twitter that "Members of Congress who can't compromise probably aren't good lovers."

Californian Pat Marshall said the politicians "appear to be very self-centered on making sure that they?re taken care of and the American public comes second."

After an hourlong meeting Friday with congressional leaders that he described as "constructive," President Obama acknowledged that people outside Washington were bewildered by D.C. "dysfunction" and that time -- and patience -- were running out.

Lawmakers have 'lost touch'
Indeed, with higher taxes and deep spending cuts looming without a deal, Americans? faith in Washington is dissipating by the day.

A Dec. 9 Gallup poll found that 59 percent thought it was likely the White House and Congress could hammer out a deal to avoid a slide down the cliff; by this week, that had sunk to 50 percent.

Skeptics were gaining ground, meanwhile: 48 percent think an agreement before the year-end deadline is unlikely, up 10 points from two weeks earlier.

John Makely / NBC News

Rich Dodds, 49, of Houston, Texas, says the elected officials in Washington have "lost touch" with Americans who will be affected by the fiscal cliff.

?It doesn?t feel like they?re doing much,? said Rich Dodds, 49, an energy product manager from Houston, Texas. ?I think they?ve lost touch with who the American people are. It?s a pretty elite group in Washington.?

The fact that both houses of Congress went into recess -- the Senate took a nearly week-long break, and the House is still on vacation until Sunday -- bothered some.

?This is one of the most important issues and they are not even working,? said Bill Prosser, 49, a telecommunications salesman from Clifton, Va. ?I?m very disappointed in them.?

Nicole Hayward, 28, of Brooklyn, N.Y., was so angered by the congressional recess that she posted a petition on Change.org demanding lawmakers get back to business.

?I turn on the news every day while I?m getting ready for work and I saw coverage about how Congress was going to break for the holidays and we might not have a resolution,? the marketing director said. ?I thought, who cares about their holiday vacation? It really got me going.?

Hayward got only 101 signatures on her petition. She attributed the lack of interest to cynicism.

?The reason why the average American doesn?t pay attention to this issue and the details is they think Congress will come together and pass something that just kicks the can down the road and things won?t change in [their] life,? she said.

John Makely / NBC News

Bill Prosser, 49, of Clifton, Va., says members of Congress should be locked in a room until they can make a deal.

Bipartisan blame
Inside the Beltway, Democrats are condemning Republicans and vice versa for the stalemate. But the nation?s voters are more bipartisan in their blame, with neither Republicans nor Democrats obtaining majority support.

?Essentially, right now, 25 percent of the public approves of the job the GOP congressional leaders are doing and 40 percent approves of the job the Democratic leaders are doing,? said Jocelyn Kiley, a senior researcher for the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press.

Prosser thinks there?s a time-tested way to bring the two sides together before Jan. 1 -- something akin to the old papal conclaves in which cardinals were locked in a room until they chose a new pontiff.

?Just say you?re not going to leave until you have a deal,? Prosser said.? ?Get in a room -- and get it done!?

{"contentId":"16216300","totalVotes":"90068"}

Who do you blame for the nation teetering on the edge of the fiscal cliff?

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Source: http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/12/29/16216300-do-something-americans-fed-up-with-washington-as-fiscal-cliff-deadline-looms?lite

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SEO is Not a Quick-Fix Marketing Solution | SEO Miami Search ...

While SEO, search engine optimization, is very important to websites and where they show up in search ranking for certain keyword phrases, it?s a concept that is often misunderstood by Internet marketers. They know that SEO is important but they don?t always understand why or how it works. SEO is important but it?s really only one portion of a successful online business or website.

The obsessive focus on SEO is one that is left over from an old era on the Internet- one where quality of content mattered less and funneling massive amounts of traffic to a landing page was your most powerful tool for success. That strategy is pretty much dead today as Google updates have shifted the focus to quality content and brand awareness.

But this doesn?t mean that SEO is dead- it?s still how people find you on the Web. What it means, however, is that it is not a quick-fix marketing solution and instead is just one of many tools in your toolbox for building a quality business online.

Before we look at how SEO is important, let?s look at some other important aspects of your website. Remember that SEO can drive all the traffic in the world to your website and it won?t help you one bit if that traffic is not converting.

To convert visitors to customers:

Create a solid business model- You need a strong plan of action in a proven market with a clear and profitable ROI. There is some risk involved in every business but you should be realistic with what you expect to gain from the site and the business as a whole.

Build your brand- Numerous studies have proven that consumers buy more from brands they trust. What are you doing to build brand awareness and trust with your target market? Building your brand requires consistency and honesty.

Know how to close the sale- In order to make the sale, you need to have something of value to offer, presented it an appropriate way and try not to come off as too desperate. You want your customers to buy because they need and want it, not because they feel sorry for you.

Focus on your SEO

Finally, let?s focus on your SEO. It?s meant to complement your marketing efforts, not to control them. Pictures and images you use on your site should contain SEO-friendly ALT tags and titles. You should user headers and subheaders with keywords in your content. You should have quality, natural inter-linking to and from your site. The list of SEO how-tos goes on and on but the most important thing to remember is that your SEO efforts should not be fake, bought or forced. You will hurt the three steps above when you don?t do your SEO correctly.

It?s not about how much you can fudge the numbers or ?trick? a visitor into hitting your site. Those numbers don?t mean anything when it comes to making sales and building your brand so take some time to slow down and do it correctly, efficiently and naturally.

If you need help with SEO, it is recommended you work with a professional that has a proven track record in the industry. Too often those claiming to be ?SEO experts? will come along and take some unsuspecting customer for a ride and leave them with a site that Google bans or blacklists and a lot less money in their pocket.

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Source: http://www.seodriven.com/seo-blog/seo-is-not-a-quick-fix-marketing-solution

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So who?s in for the SD06 special election? (Offthekuff)

Share With Friends: | | Politics - Top Stories Stories, RSS Feeds and Widgets via Feedzilla.

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politburo joyan: Simple Abundance Exercises Can Change Your ...

Article title: Simple Abundance Exercises Can Change Your Mindset
Article Category: Self-Improvement

When you feel more prosperous, you will lead life of improved health, happiness and prosperity. However, when most of us think about our finances, most of the time we don?t have thoughts of prosperity.
Continue reading this article?

Source: http://www.medicalguide.pro/3374/simple-abundance-exercises-can-change-your-mindset-5.html

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Death and (estate) taxes sometimes go together

9 hrs.

John Carney, CNBC.com

Because the "fiscal cliff" will not stop for death, it looks as if death's carriage may make a "kindly" stop to pick up some American millionaires this year, to paraphrase Emily Dickinson.

In 2010, after a year in which the estate tax was zeroed out altogether, Congress passed a law that set the estate tax at 35 percent and exempted all estates under $5 million, adjusted for inflation. That law expires in January 2013 when the exemption will fall to $1 million and the tax will rise to 55 percent.

Many families are faced with a stark proposition. If the life of an elderly wealthy family member extends into 2013, the tax bills will be substantially higher. An estate that could bequest $3 million this year will leave just $1.9 million after taxes next year. Shifting a death from January to December could produce $1.1 million in tax savings.

It may seem incredible to contemplate pulling the plug on grandma to save tax dollars. While we know that investors will sell stocks to avoid rising capital gains taxes, accelerating the death of a loved one seems at least a bit morbid?perhaps even evil. Will people really make life and death decisions based on taxes? Do we don our green eye shades when it comes to something this serious?

(Read More:Majority of Wealthy Support Taxing Themselves: Poll)

There is good evidence that there is some "elasticity" in the timing of important decisions about life and death.

It's well-known that people can delay death, for example, in order to live through significant dates?birthdays, holidays, anniversaries. In the first week of 2000, local New York City hospitals recorded an astonishing 50.8 percent more deaths than in the last week of 1999, according to the New York Times. Apparently, a significant number of people delayed their deaths in order to see the new millennium.

In the summer of 2004 something very strange happened in Australia. The birthrate plummeted sharply in June. Then on a single day in July more babies were born than on any other day in the prior thirty years of Australian history. July 1, 2004 was a very popular day to be born.

What caused this dip and surge in births? Seven weeks before July 1, the Australian government announced a change in the tax code that would give families a $3,000 baby-bonus starting on the first day in July. It appears that as many as 1,000 births were "moved" until after the baby bonus kicked-in, according to a 2009 studyby Joshua Gans of the University of Melbourne's Business School and Andrew Leigh of the Australian National University's Research School of Social Sciences.

"We estimate that over 1,000 births were "moved" so as to ensure that their parents were eligible for the Baby Bonus, with about one quarter being moved by more than one week," Gans and Leigh write.

(Read More:America's Most Expensive Homes 2012)

According to the researchers, most of this temporal shift was due to changes in the timing of induction and cesarean section procedures. When they looked at an increase in the baby bonus that took effect two years later, on July 1, 2006, they found that the same pattern?births moving from June to July.

Now, some of this could be due to fudging the dates, so that births occurring just prior to the eligibility date were recorded as taking place afterward. But Gans and Leigh found evidence that babies really were held-in-uteri until they were eligible for the tax break. Babies born after the eligibility date, for example, had higher birth weights than those born earlier.

An earlier paper by Gans and Leigh looked into another natural experiment. In 1979, Australia abolished its federal inheritance taxes. Official records show that approximately 50 deaths were shifted from the week before the abolition to the week after.

"Although we cannot rule out the possibility that our results are driven by misreporting, our results imply that over the very short run, the death rate may be highly elastic with respect to the inheritance tax rate," Gans and Leigh write.

This isn't just something peculiar to Australia. Economists Wojciech Kopczuk of Columbia University and Joel Slemrod of the University of Michigan studied how mortality rates in the United States were changed by falling estate taxes. They note that while the evidence of "death elasticity" is "not overwhelming," every $10,000 in available tax savings increases the chance of dying in the low-tax period by 1.6 percent. This is true both when taxes are falling, so that people are surviving longer to achieve the tax savings, and when they are rising, so that people are dying earlier, according to Kopczuk and Slemrod.

"Death elasticity" does not necessarily mean that greedy relatives are pulling the plug on the dying or forcing the sickly to extend their lives into a lower taxed period. According to a 2008 paper from University of Pittsburgh Medical Center Doctor G. Stuart Mendenhall, while tax increases give potential heirs large economic incentives to limit care that would prolong life, distressed patients may "voluntarily trade prolongation of their life past the end [a low tax period] for large ?nancial implications for their kin.

"Whether these incentives are explicitly speci?ed in wills or communicated to their power of attorney over the dinner table, they are clearly present and affect the ability of all involved parties to make unbiased decisions," Mendenhall writes.

We had something of a natural experiment in death and taxes in 2010, when the estate tax was eliminated for one year. Many predicted that this would result in many fewer deaths at the end of 2009 and a surge in deaths prior to taxes rising in 2011.

(Read More: Forget the 'Fiscal Cliff,' Look at These Cliffs)

My own research hasn't uncovered any formal academic work on this period. Perhaps it is too recent. Or perhaps the setting of the exemption at $5 million made the sample size of those that could achieve significant tax savings by dying in 2010 rather than 2011 too small.

But based on past reactions to changes in taxes, it at least seems likely that some deaths that might otherwise have occurred shortly after January 1 will occur shortly before. Death may slip in ahead of the tax man for some with estates worth over $1 million.

Source: http://www.nbcnews.com/business/economywatch/death-estate-taxes-sometimes-go-together-1C7753893

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Diet + Weight loss

This year one of the changes I made was around my eating and exercise habits. I managed to lose 30lbs in just under 3 months. I wanted to share how I did this because it seemed much easier than I thought it would be.

Internet-enabled TVs aren't being used to browse the internet

The notion of using an internet-enabled TV for anything other than accessing video services is failing, that?s according to NPD?s John Buffone.

Activities like checking Facebook or Twitter, shopping online and general browsing are performed only by a tiny fraction of internet-enabled TV owners, most opting instead for devices of increased convenience, such as a smartphone, tablet, or laptop.

?HDTVs, gaming consoles, Blu-ray Disc players, and other connected devices offer an array of applications, ranging from Twitter and Facebook to web browsing. But, in general, these have failed to resonate with the audience, not least because there are better platforms, such as the PC, tablet, or smartphone, for such services.? ? comments Buffone.

While only 15% of HDTVs are connected directly to the internet, the number of internet-enabled HDTVs increases to 29% when considering peripheral devices like gaming consoles, Blu-ray players, and set-top boxes, among others, that act as a bridge between a TV and the internet.

Around 60% of internet-enabled TV application usage is spent using video streaming services like Netflix. Apart from audio streaming services like Pandora, which accounts for around 15% of application usage on connected TVs, all other activity such as social networking and general browsing accounts for significantly less, between 2-9%.

These findings aren?t surprising. Streaming movies and listening to music in a home?s entertainment room are shared activities, generally. Checking one?s Facebook stream or shopping online are personal activities, much more suited to personal devices.

Source: http://sociable.co/technology/internet-enabled-tvs-arent-being-used-to-browse-the-internet/

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claudian herero: Ovarian Cervical Uterine Cancer - dadanape

Ovarian Cervical Uterine Cancer

Often called as a silent-killer, ovarian cervical uterine cancer claims a number of lives every year. This particular cancer is prevalent amongst females of all ages. People who have an ancestral history of this disease are at a higher risk. It is thus significant to be knowledgeable about the disease and the different degrees of its intensity.

Symptoms of ovarian cervical uterine cancer

Ovarian cervical uterine cancer symptoms are often misinterpreted as the indications for some other fatal diseases. However, a few of the general symptoms which become perceptible at the initial stages consist of abdominal uneasiness which is lead towards bloating. These intensify with time.

Moreover, there is a pattern of irregular urinary condition even though there is no infection. Digestion and nausea problem also encompass together with inflation and inexplicable pain in pelvic area.

Detection and determination

Screening is the top method for detecting this disease. The detection comprises of pelvic exam including the vagina check up as well as the uterus check up which is performed by a medical expert. The latest technology in the field of examining this condition includes an annual blood-test. Despite the rare detection in the inceptive phases, early diagnosis contributes towards the success percentage of the termination this cancer.

Treatment of ovarian cervical uterine cancer

Ones the certification of this particular cancer is done along with its dispersion all over the patient, the treatment is carried on via surgery to eliminate the malicious tissue. It depends on the grade of the cancer, though the complete elimination from the uterus as well as the ovaries is unavoidable. Post-surgery the radiotherapy gets into effect as it destroys the remaining cancer cells. Another option that is well accepted and is helpful is chemotherapy.

Like other organs of the body, there could be cancer in the cervix as well. It is considered to be the second most prone organ to develop cancer, the first being the breast cancer. The cervix cancer does not have a characteristic of developing quickly. It develops gradually it is only noticeable when a person goes for a physical or screening exam. There are a number of options for cervical cancer treatment.

Different options of cervical cancer treatment

The medical industry has multiple options for treating this category of cancer. Hysterectomy is the most accepted method where the uterus is removed through a surgery. The lymph nodes are also removed together with the uterus if it is observed that the cancer has reached an advanced stage. Women undergoing hysterectomy treatment loose their capability of giving birth to children.

Though there are a number of gentle ways for treating cervical cancer, keeping the maternal capabilities unharmed. For women who want to remain fertile have a number of options to choose for cervical cancer treatment. Loop electrosurgical excision or LEEP is an established process. There are a number of benefits of this kind of treatment, inexpensive, a high degree of success rate, no major surgeries required, and application of local anesthesia are a few to name.

Cone biopsy is another option for cervical cancer treatment. Another method is cone biopsy. The surgical procedure includes eliminating only the cone shaped samples out of the mucous membrane, followed by radiation therapy.

Trachelectomy, a treatment for those on who the Cone biopsy does not show positive results. In this kind of surgery only the effected area is treated, the veracity of the ovaries as well as the uterus is maintained. However, it can only be performed if the cancer has not spread to the other parts of the uterus. There are a very few surgeons who are specialized in performing such intricate and complicated process.

Author?s Bio:

?

Jeffrey Eugenides is an experienced medical practitioner who has been writing a lot of posts related to various medical advancements. You will also find his posts on cord blood banking to be very informative to you.

Ovarian Cervical Uterine Cancer ? Latest Technologies to Eliminate the Silent Killer

Source: http://globehealth.net/ovarian-cervical-uterine

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Source: http://acioapy.posterous.com/ovarian-cervical-uterine-cancer-latest-techno

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$1 billion deal major step in Toyota legal trouble

FILE - In this photo taken June 25, 2011, file photo, Toyota keys sit in a fish bowl at the Toyota of Tampa Bay dealership in Tampa, Fla. A plaintiffs' attorney on Wednesday, Dec. 26, 2012, says Toyota Motor Corp. has reached a settlement in a case involving hundreds of lawsuits over accelerations problems. Steve Berman said Wednesday the settlement, which still needs a federal judge's approval, was worth more than $1 billion and is the largest settlement in U.S. history involving automobile defects. (AP Photo/Chris O'Meara, File)

FILE - In this photo taken June 25, 2011, file photo, Toyota keys sit in a fish bowl at the Toyota of Tampa Bay dealership in Tampa, Fla. A plaintiffs' attorney on Wednesday, Dec. 26, 2012, says Toyota Motor Corp. has reached a settlement in a case involving hundreds of lawsuits over accelerations problems. Steve Berman said Wednesday the settlement, which still needs a federal judge's approval, was worth more than $1 billion and is the largest settlement in U.S. history involving automobile defects. (AP Photo/Chris O'Meara, File)

In this Thursday, Nov. 8, 2012, photo, a Toyota dealership signs glows over a car lot in Tustin Calif. A plaintiffs' attorney on Wednesday, Dec. 26, 2012, says Toyota Motor Corp. has reached a settlement in a case involving hundreds of lawsuits over accelerations problems. Steve Berman said Wednesday the settlement, which still needs a federal judge's approval, was worth more than $1 billion and is the largest settlement in U.S. history involving automobile defects. (AP Photo/Chris Carlson, File)

LOS ANGELES (AP) ? With a proposed payout of more than $1 billion, one major chapter of a nearly four-year legal saga that left Toyota Motor Corp. fighting hundreds of lawsuits and struggling with a tarnished image has ended, though another remains.

The settlement ? unprecedented in its size according to a plaintiff's attorney ? brings an end to claims from owners who said the value of their vehicles plunged after recalls over sudden and unintended acceleration.

Lawsuits claiming that the defects caused injury or death remain, with the first trial beginning in February unless another major deal comes first.

Steve Berman, a lawyer representing Toyota owners, said the settlement is the largest in U.S. history involving automobile defects.

"We kept fighting and fighting and we secured what we think was a good settlement given the risks of this litigation," Berman told The Associated Press.

The courtroom claims began with a highway tragedy. A California Highway Patrol officer and three of his family members were killed in suburban San Diego in 2009 after their car, a Toyota-built Lexus, reached speeds of more than 120 mph, hit an SUV, launched off an embankment, rolled several times and burst into flames.

Investigators determined that a wrong-size floor mat trapped the accelerator and caused the crash.

That discovery, and the accident's grisliness, spurred a series of recalls involving more than 14 million vehicles and a flood of lawsuits soon followed, with numerous complaints of accelerations in several models, and brake defects with the Prius hybrid.

The Japanese automaker has blamed driver error, faulty floor mats and stuck accelerator pedals for the problems.

The runaway Lexus case was settled separately for $10 million in 2010, before the cases were consolidated by U.S. District Judge James Selna.

Selna divided them into two categories: economic loss and wrongful death. He needs to approve Wednesday's settlement, which only applies to the first group of lawsuits. The deal was filed Wednesday and Selna is expected to review it on Friday.

Toyota said it will take a one-time, $1.1 billion pre-tax charge against earnings to cover the estimated costs of the settlement. Berman said the total value of the deal is between $1.2 billion and $1.4 billion.

As part of the economic loss settlement, Toyota will offer cash payments from a pool of about $250 million to eligible customers who sold vehicles or turned in leased vehicles between September 2009 and December 2010.

The company also will launch a $250 million program for 16 million current owners to provide supplemental warranty coverage for certain vehicle components, and it will retrofit about 3.2 million vehicles with a brake override system. An override system is designed to ensure a car will stop when the brakes are applied, even if the accelerator pedal is depressed.

The settlement would also establish additional driver education programs and fund new research into advanced safety technologies.

"In keeping with our core principles, we have structured this agreement in ways that work to put our customers first and demonstrate that they can count on Toyota to stand behind our vehicles," said Christopher Reynolds, Toyota vice president and general counsel.

Current and former Toyota owners are expected to receive more information about the settlement in the coming months.

Plaintiffs' attorneys have spent the past two years deposing Toyota employees, poring over thousands of documents and reviewing software code, but the company maintains those lawyers have been unable to prove that a design defect ? namely Toyota's electronic throttle control system ? was responsible for vehicles surging unexpectedly.

Both the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and NASA were unable to find any defects in Toyota's source code that could cause problems.

The company has been dogged by fines for not reporting problems in a timely manner.

Earlier this month, NHTSA doled out a record $17.4 million fine to Toyota for failing to quickly report floor mat problems with some of its Lexus models. Toyota paid a total of $48.8 million in fines for three violations in 2010.

Toyota President Akio Toyoda appeared before Congress last year and pledged to strengthen quality control. Recent sales figures show the company appears to have rebounded following its safety issues.

___

Online:

Settlement website: http://www.ToyotaELsettlement.com

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2012-12-27-Toyota%20Lawsuits/id-31ebf882530d4d8cb87cd3a57b94d593

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Former Braves player arrested on battery charge

This booking photo provided by the Gwinnett County Sheriff's Department on Tuesday, Dec. 25, 2012, shows former Atlanta Braves center fielder Andruw Jones. Jail records show that Jones is free on bond after being arrested in suburban Atlanta on a battery charge. (AP Photo/Gwinnett County Sheriff's Department)

This booking photo provided by the Gwinnett County Sheriff's Department on Tuesday, Dec. 25, 2012, shows former Atlanta Braves center fielder Andruw Jones. Jail records show that Jones is free on bond after being arrested in suburban Atlanta on a battery charge. (AP Photo/Gwinnett County Sheriff's Department)

DULUTH, Ga. (AP) ? Former Atlanta Braves star center fielder Andruw Jones was free on bond after being arrested in suburban Atlanta early Tuesday on a battery charge, according to jail records.

Around 1:30 a.m. Tuesday, police responded to a call for a domestic dispute between Jones and his wife in Duluth.

Gwinnett County Detention Center records say Jones was booked into the jail around 3:45 a.m. and had been released on $2,400 bond by 11 a.m.

Once one of the premier players in the big leagues, Jones broke into the majors with the Atlanta Braves in 1996 and won 10 consecutive Gold Gloves from 1998-07 as their center fielder. He has 434 career home runs over the span of 17 seasons in the majors.

Jones earlier this month signed a $3.5 million, one-year contract with the Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles of Japan's Pacific League.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2012-12-25-Andruw%20Jones-Arrest/id-77f2a2de0e7047ef9508d477cff7d1e7

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jonfinchy: medicate sophi: charlesmurra8: Speed reading apps for

23 Dec

I installed some speed reading apps and tested them. I?ve so far notices a few ?categories? or groups of equals:

• One kind exists mostly from showing a text word by word in the middle of the screen. Showing each word a very short time and so you can read at a high wpm because you never need to move your eyes.
• Another kind is merely a speed reading article disguised as app.
• Another kind is no speed reading app but just a reading app with a fancy name.
• Yet another kind is training in the form of news/actually.
• And the last kind is a training app, not for your own stuff but purely for training.

I only tested them quickly and unions talked the non-interesting. But they aren?t quite what I?m looking for. Maybe I should write one myself for training and guided reading.

This entry was posted in Other and tagged Android, Self Improvement, Speed Reading. Bookmark the permalink.

Source: http://www.tjenwellens.eu/other/speed-reading-apps-for-android/

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Syrian interior minister leaves Beirut hospital

BEIRUT (AP) ? Officials at Beirut's Rafik Hariri International Airport say Syria's interior minister has been released from a hospital and is flying home aboard a private jet.

The officials said Mohammed al-Shaar left Beirut on Wednesday and is on his way to Damascus. They spoke on condition of anonymity in line with regulations,

Al-Shaar was wounded on Dec. 12 when a suicide bomber exploded his vehicle outside the Interior Ministry, killing five and wounding many, including the minister.

The Syrian government denied at first that al-Shaar was wounded. Then it emerged that he was brought to a Beirut hospital last week for treatment.

The same minister was wounded when a bomb went off on July 18 during a high-level crisis meeting in Damascus, killing four top officials.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2012-12-26-Syria/id-7632e813e7f64bd8bb4e7d148e8dec3c

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How does a traffic cop ticket a driverless car?

Rapid progress means self-driving cars are in the fast lane to consumer reality. Is the law up to speed too, asks legal expert Bryant Walker Smith

EVER since the 1930s, self-driving cars have been just 20 years away. Many of those earlier visions, however, depended on changes to physical infrastructure that never came about - like special roads embedded with magnets.

Fast forward to today, and many of the modern concepts for such vehicles are intended to work with existing technologies. These supercomputers-on-wheels use a variety of onboard sensors - and, in some cases, stored maps or communications from other vehicles - to assist or even replace human drivers under specific conditions. And they have the potential to adapt to changes in existing infrastructure rather than requiring it to alter for them.

Infrastructure, however, is more than just roads, pavements, signs and signals. In a broad sense, it also includes the laws that govern motor vehicles: driver licensing requirements, rules of the road and principles of product liability, to name but a few. One major question remains though. Will tomorrow's cars and trucks have to adapt to today's legal infrastructure, or will that infrastructure adapt to them?

Consider the most basic question: are self-driving vehicles legal today? For the US, the short answer is that they probably can be (the long answer runs to nearly 100 pages). Granted, such vehicles must have drivers, and drivers must be able to control their vehicles - these are international requirements that date back to 1926, when horses and cattle were far more likely to be "driverless" than cars. Regardless, these rules, and many others that assume a human presence, do not necessarily prohibit vehicles from steering, braking and accelerating by themselves. Indeed, three US states - Nevada, Florida and most recently California - have passed laws to make that conclusion explicit, at least to a point.

Still unclear, even with these early adopters, is the precise responsibility of the human user, assuming one exists. Must the "driver" remain vigilant, their hands on the wheel and their eyes on the road? If not, what are they allowed to do inside, or outside, the vehicle? Under Nevada law, the person who tells a self-driving vehicle to drive becomes its driver. Unlike the driver of an ordinary vehicle, that person may send text messages. However, they may not "drive" drunk - even if sitting in a bar while the car is self-parking. Broadening the practical and economic appeal of self-driving vehicles may require releasing their human users from many of the current legal duties of driving.

For now, however, the appropriate role of a self-driving vehicle's human operator is not merely a legal question; it is also a technical one. At least at normal speeds, early generations of such vehicles are likely to be joint human-computer systems; the computer may be able to direct the vehicle on certain kinds of roads in certain kinds of traffic and weather, but its human partner may need to be ready to take over in some situations, such as unexpected road works.

A great deal of research will be done on how these transitions should be managed. Consider, for example, how much time you would need to stop reading this article, look up at the road, figure out where you are and resume steering and braking. And consider how far your car would travel in that time. (Note: do not attempt this while driving your own car.)

Technical questions like this mean it will be a while before your children are delivered to school by taxis automatically dispatched and driven by computers, or your latest online purchases arrive in a driver-less delivery truck. That also means we have time to figure out some of the truly futuristic legal questions: How do you ticket a robot? Who should pay? And can it play (or drive) by different rules of the road?

Data protection is a more pressing issue. Many cars and trucks available today already collect driving data through onboard sensors, computers and cellular devices. But imagine taking a dozen smartphones, turning on all of their sensors and cameras, linking them to your social media accounts, and affixing them to the inside and outside of your vehicle. That is an understatement of a self-driving vehicle's potential data collection. Because consumer versions of such vehicles do not yet exist, we don't know what data will actually be collected or how it will be transmitted and used. However, legal issues related to disclosure, consent and ownership will mix with important policy questions about the costs and benefits of data sharing. Indeed, some research vehicles in Germany already have privacy notices printed on their sides to warn other road users.

Finally, what happens when things go wrong - or at least not as right as they might? Given that the vast majority of crashes are caused at least in part by human error, self-driving vehicles have huge potential to save lives. But they will not be perfect; after all, humans will remain in the design loop even after they are out of the driving loop. To what standard, then, should these vehicles be held? Must they perform as well as a perfect human driver for any conceivable manoeuvre? Or must they perform merely as well as an average human in a statistical sense? In any case, how should that performance be measured?

These questions will be considered explicitly or implicitly by the regulators who create new standards, the judges and juries that decide who should pay for injuries, and how much, and the consumers who decide what kind of car to buy. The uncertainty that surrounds the answers will affect the speed and price at which these new technologies are introduced.

Why do these questions matter so much? Because ultimately their most meaningful answers will, one hopes, be expressed in terms of lives saved.

Bryant Walker Smith is a fellow at the Center for Internet and Society at Stanford Law School and the Center for Automotive Research at Stanford University, California. His analysis of the legality of self-driving vehicles in the US came out in November (bit.ly/SVCe32)

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