LG Optimus L3 II hands-on: Jelly Bean comes in a pebble (video)

The blink-and-you-miss-it phone you see above is the LG Optimus L3 II, the smallest in the Korean manufacturer's trio of style-driven devices. Much like its predecessor, the L3 II is a 3.2-inch Android handset; the difference this time is the fact that it's running Jelly Bean, a firmware version that way too many larger smartphones -- even some new ones -- are still lacking. The twist here is that only Android fans with small hands and no need for raw processing power need apply, as there's only a Qualcomm Snapdragon S1 chipset (MSM7225) and 512MB RAM running the magic behind the show. Additionally, we were greeted by a QVGA (320 x 240) resolution, 3.15MP rear camera and 1,540mAh battery.

The fact that such a small phone with rather "budget-friendly" specs can run Jelly Bean without too much concern is a fact-check to manufacturers that claim their older devices can't be upgraded to it due to fears that it won't perform properly. Granted, the device was slower than we're accustomed to seeing on other Android 4.1 phones, but we have a feeling that it wouldn't be that much different a story if it were using Ice Cream Sandwich.

When it comes to the fit and feel of the L3 II, you probably won't be terribly surprised to learn that it wasn't terribly comfortable, though admittedly we're now conditioned to do hands-ons with phones as large as 5.5-inch (and even 6.1-inch). That said, its pebble-like form factor nearly got buried in our hands and it was difficult to see even the most trivial of apps, thanks to the vastly limited screen real estate. Still, we recognize that this particular size is designed to fit a very specific demographic, and it will likely delight anyone who is in the market for a smaller handset. Regardless of its size, the L3 II at least feels as if it's made with solid build quality. The white version offers a matte finish, while the black remains glossy -- and yes, a massively annoying fingerprint magnet.

Gallery: LG Optimus L3 II hands-on

Filed under: Cellphones, LG

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Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/CWK1j7jdWRs/

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Dot Earth Blog: Can Humans Do Better Than Dinosaurs When it Comes to Incoming Space Objects?

Can humans do better than the dinosaurs?

This is one of a string of questions I posed in a Skype chat on Sunday with Russell L. Schweickart, the Apollo 9 astronaut who has become a leading proponent of investing in tools that can spot and deflect earthbound asteroids and other orbiting threats. We spoke shortly after the cosmic coincidence on Feb. 15, when a long-projected close flyby by the DA14 asteroid was upstaged by the meteor that disintegrated over Siberia.

Schweickart, along with former space shuttle astronaut Edward Lu and others, has for years pursued the goal of creating the technological capacity (through a privately financed Sentinel space telescope mission) and encouraging governmental responsibility (through discussions with NASA, the United Nations and other relevant entities) to address this long-understood, but largely discounted, threat.

My first question was whether Schweickart saw the cosmic events last week as changing the equation. He was hopeful but doubtful.

Below you can read transcribed portions of our conversation, including Schweickart?s views on why developing a system for spotting and deflecting near-Earth objects has been a tough sell both at NASA and in Congress.

For a closer look at the planetary-protection efforts of Schweickart, Lu and their allies, I encourage you to read William J. Broad?s recent feature, ?Vindication for Entrepreneurs Watching Sky: Yes, It Can Fall.?

I also recommend Lu?s TEDx talk on the Sentinel space telescope project, and explore background posted by the B612 Foundation, the group co-founded by Lu, Schweickart and others, first to explore deflection options and, since 2011, focused on the telescope mission.

My central question for Schweickart was:

Can we be smarter than the dinosaurs? We clearly have the foresight to recognize this is possible but now can we actually be smarter? Intelligence is taking knowledge and doing something with it.

He replied:

We clearly have both the knowledge and the capability to protect the Earth from these impacts. The bigger question is will we really recognize our shared interest in survival to cooperate internationally to make decisions and protect life on earth?. We?re broken into nations and tribes of all kinds and sizes and whether we can recognize our common humanity to the point where we do better than the dinosaurs, there?s not a clear answer to that.

He laid out the three-pronged approach that?s required:

There are three fundamental elements to protecting the Earth from these things.

Number one is having adequate early warning. That?s what our Project Sentinel infrared telescope is all about.

The second one is once you know something?s coming at you, you have to have a way to prevent it, and that?s deflection. And right now, while we know how to deflect ? and the B612 Foundation was a major cohort in developing those capabilities ? nevertheless it?s never been demonstrated?. Public safety is a fundamental responsibility of government everywhere. And to me NASA needs to be given the clear responsibilty to protect the earth from a predicted impact.

And the third is the most challenging issue: the international coordination?. The easiest way to state it is that you can?t deflect an asteroid without putting temporarily at risk other nations and people who were not initially threatened? that international complexity says there has to be some ultimately we may watch ourselves get hit with the first one that threatens, hopefully in the ocean, while everybody is still debating at the U.N. But hopefully that will only happen once.

I recalled how, in 2004, Schweickart described a Senate hearing on strategies for spotting and deflecting near-Earth objects as a sad affair in which lawmakers were concerned publicly, but privately said there was no way to get the money for an ambitious program. Why is planetary protection seen as a boondoggle, I asked?

He replied:

It?s not officially on anybody?s to-do list in terms of legal requirements. NASA does have a legal requirement to discover asteroids and to do certain research work, track them and catalog them, etc., but NASA does not have responsibility nor does anyone else, to protect the Earth from potential impacts. This is really public safety. This is not science or exploration. It?s always been a sad sister.

He said the Siberian meteor blast might boost prospects, but was doubtful it would have a lasting effect on spending, particularly given other pressures in Washington:

Given the financial situation in the federal government, not to mention the tremendous partisan contention going on, and the sequestration and everything else, this is a tough time for anybody to propose spending money that isn?t already committed.

Schweickart added that?s where the Sentinel mission, for which the nonprofit B612 Foundation is trying to raise $450 million, comes in:

It?s one of the nice things about being a private entity. We can focus on something that?s of very great importance and we can see it through, notwithstanding the rapidly changing political environment.

He concluded by describing how the Sentinel mission could, within a decade, identify a huge number of orbiting objects that cannot be detected now but could have the destructive power of the Tunguska object, which exploded over Siberia in 1908, flattening hundreds of square miles of forest.

If we can get our B612 telescope into orbit by 2018, by the time we get to 2020, 2022, we?ll have something like 50 percent of the Tunguska-size objects ? things like DA14 [the 50-meter-diameter asteroid that passed between Earth and some satellites on Friday]. Having 50 percent is a lot better than what we have now which is less than one half of one percent of objects that size. These are not panic situations, but they can hit any day, as we found out last Friday.

Source: http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/02/20/can-humans-do-better-than-dinosaurs-when-it-comes-to-incoming-space-objects/?partner=rss&emc=rss

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Higgs may spell doom, unless supersymmetry saves us

Lisa Grossman, physical sciences reporter

(Image: CERN)

Is the Higgs boson a herald of the apocalypse? That's the suggestion behind a theory, developed more than 30 years ago, that is back in the headlines this week. According to physicists, the mass of the Higgs-like particle announced last summer supports the notion that our universe is teetering on the edge of stability, like a pencil balanced on its point.

"It may be that the universe we live in is inherently unstable," Joseph Lykken, of the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Batavia, Illinois, said on Monday at a meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. "At some point, billions of years from now, it's all going to be wiped out."

Physicists have been wringing their hands about this scenario since 1982, when theorists Michael Turner and Frank Wilczek published a paper about it in Nature, NBC News points out. The pair showed that the vacuum of space can be in different energy states, and it will be most stable at its lowest energy. Trouble arises if we're not there yet, and we're inhabiting a temporarily stable state that should ultimately collapse.

"The universe wants to be in a different state, so eventually to realize that, a little bubble of what you might think of as an alternate universe will appear somewhere, and it will spread out and destroy us," Lykken said at AAAS.

Enter the Higgs boson, the particle form of the field that gives mass to several fundamental particles. The Higgs field permeates the vacuum of space, which means the mass of the boson and the stability of the vacuum are closely intertwined. Theory predicted that if the Higgs boson is heavier than about 129 gigaelectronvolts (GeV), the universe should be on safe footing.

But in July 2012 physicists at CERN, near Geneva, Switzerland announced that a particle closely matching the Higgs had been found by experiments in the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). The much celebrated particle has a mass of about 126 GeV - light enough to raise fears of instability.

There is still hope for the universe as we know it. Some theorists pointed out that the relationship between the Higgs mass and the vacuum of space depends on the mass of a particle called the top quark. If the top quark's mass is different than we think it is, stability might reign.

There are also anomalies with the Higgs measurement, like the fact that it decays into photons more often than predicted. That hints we may yet find particles from the theory of supersymmetry, which says each ordinary particle has heavier "superpartners". If the Higgs has such a relative, it might save us from destruction. But some of these predicted particles, particularly the superpartners of the top quark, can push the universe back into instability.

The worries may remain unconfirmed for a while. The LHC is shutting down for a two-year break so engineers can prepare the machine to shoot higher-energy particle beams, which are needed to probe for superpartners.

Source: http://feeds.newscientist.com/c/749/f/10897/s/28c7b5e6/l/0L0Snewscientist0N0Cblogs0Cshortsharpscience0C20A130C0A20Chiggs0Emay0Espell0Edoom0Eunless0Ea0Bhtml0Dcmpid0FRSS0QNSNS0Q20A120EGLOBAL0Qonline0Enews/story01.htm

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Pandigital Handheld Wi-Fi Wand Scanner (S8X1102WH)

The Pandigital Handheld Wi-Fi Wand Scanner (S8X1102WH) isn't the first wand scanner with Wi-Fi, but it is the first with both Wi-Fi and the ability to scan impressively quickly, making it unlikely that you'll wind up with a scan error because you swept across the page too fast. The combination makes it a potentially attractive choice, but less attractive than it would be if it came with more robust software. As with other Pandigital scanners, including, for example, the Pandigital Handheld Wand Scanner (S8X1101BK)) it will be most appealing to people who already have all the scan-related programs they need.

Like all wand scanners, the S8X1102WH offers the advantage of scanning without a computer. It saves the scan to its 128MB internal memory or to a microSD card if you choose to plug one in. Unlike most?with the notable exception of the Editors' Choice VuPoint Solutions Magic Wand Wi-Fi PDSWF-ST44-VP?the S8X1102WH also gives you a way to check the scan while you're still near the original and can rescan if you have to.

Connect by Wi-Fi to your smartphone or tablet, and you can see the scan to confirm its quality. The Wi-Fi feature is less useful than it could be, since you can't scan while you're connected, and it takes a substantial amount of time to connect. That leaves you with no easy way to check each page immediately after scanning. However, you can scan some number of pages, and then connect by Wi-Fi to check them all at once. I'd call that a second-best workaround, but it's still a lot better than having to wait till you get back to a computer to check scan quality.

Basics and Setup
The S8X1102WH is a touch bigger and heavier than the PDSWF-ST44-VP, at 1.3 by 10.2 by 1.6 inches (HWD) and 9.2 ounces, but still eminently portable. As with most wand scanners, it includes two sets of rollers on the bottom, and lets you scan by starting either at the top or side of a page, and then scanning down or across in a single sweep. Unlike some wand scanners, it has no problems scanning across thick 4 by 6 originals.

As is typical, set up is trivial. Simply insert the rechargeable battery it comes with, connect the scanner to a computer by the supplied USB cable or connect its power block and plug into a power outlet. While you're waiting for the battery to charge, you can install the programs the scanner comes with, including NewSoft Presto! PageManager for document management, Magix Photo Designer 7 for photo editing, and Magix Video Easy SE, which will let you convert scans into a video.

Scanning
Using the S8X1102WH is simple. The top panel offers four buttons. One turns the scanner on and doubles as a Scan button; one chooses between color and black and white mode; one chooses between 300 pixels per inch (ppi), 600 ppi, and 1200 ppi; and one chooses between JPG format, PDF format, and JPG format for stitching multiple scans into a single image. The last choice creates a new folder for each set of files to stitch together. The default whenever you turn the scanner on is color, 300 ppi, and JPG. Simply change one or more settings if you want to, press the Scan button to start the scan, sweep over the page, and hit the Scan button again to end the scan.

As is typical with wand scanners, I didn't have any trouble getting good scans from the start at 300 ppi. Less typical is that I didn't have any trouble at 600 ppi or 1200 ppi either. With most wand scanners it's easy to go too fast and get an error message at higher resolutions. With the S8X1102WH, I had to get up to an unusually fast speed to get a blinking error light at 1200 ppi. At 300 ppi I couldn't make the error light show up even with unreasonably fast sweeps. The resulting scans with the fastest sweep speeds were a little shortened in the sweeping direction, but still usable.

Scan Results
The software that comes with the S8X1102WH was suitable for just three tests from our standard suite: for photos, optical character recognition (OCR), and document management. The S8X1102WH didn't score particularly well in any of these categories, but except for photos, the issues are mostly due to the software it comes with.

The Magix photo editing software is fairly capable. However, any scanner with rollers loses points for the damage it can do to the originals. In addition, I saw a noticeable loss of detail in both dark and light areas of an image, and a slight, but noticeable color shift. Overall, the photo scans qualified as acceptable for what you might think of as snapshot quality, but nothing more than that.

For both OCR and document management applications, the combination of scanner and PageManager did reasonably well recognizing text. When sending the result to a text file, however, PageManager did such a poor job with formatting that I couldn't tell whether it read all the words in any given font size on our test pages without a mistake. In addition, although PageManager can combine multiple scanned pages into a single PDF file, it won't do the same for text files. Each page goes to a separate file, leaving it to you to copy and paste the pages into a single file.

I also ran one additional test, with the stitching module in PageManager. Stitching lets you do multiple partial scans of originals that are bigger than the scanner's 8.5-inch width, and then stitch the pieces together into a single image. In some cases the stitching worked as promised. However, the software is a little fussy about the originals, and in some cases simply refused to work. Worse, in those cases it gave me an uninformative error message, leaving it to me to guess what the problem was.

Ultimately, the Pandigital Handheld Wi-Fi Wand Scanner (S8X1102WH) consists of an attractive piece of hardware held back by less than impressive software. As shipped, it's best described as usable, but limited. If you already have better OCR and document management software than in comes with, however, or you're willing to buy some additional programs, it's potentially a highly attractive choice.

More Scanner Reviews:
??? Pandigital Handheld Wand Scanner (S8X1101BK)
??? Pandigital Handheld Wi-Fi Wand Scanner (S8X1102WH)
??? Pandigital Personal Scanner (S8X1100)
??? Epson WorkForce Pro GT-S55
??? Epson WorkForce Pro GT-S85
?? more

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ziffdavis/pcmag/~3/UaEjm1qMX0I/0,2817,2415595,00.asp

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Public's View of Marco Rubio Mixed

The public's view of Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., is mixed, according to a new poll conducted in the days after the Florida senator delivered the Republican response to President Obama's State of the Union address.

A Pew Research Center poll released today shows 26 percent of those polled viewed Rubio favorably, while 29 percent held an unfavorable opinion of the Florida senator. Forty-six percent said they were unable to offer a rating for Rubio.

Rubio, 41, garnered a higher favorability rating - 49 percent - from those who identified as Republican, while GOPers who align themselves with the Tea Party gave him a much higher favorability rating: 70 percent.

The poll was conducted Thursday through Sunday, days after the Feb. 12 State of the Union.

Rubio has gained plenty of attention since his response to the address, in large part because of the sip of water he took mid-speech. While he has served as fodder for the late-night comedy circuit, Rubio was able to turn the mishap into a financial boon, raising $160,000 by selling more than 5,000 Rubio water bottles through his PAC, Reclaim America, in just one week, a source close to Rubio said.

The Florida senator, who many consider to have presidential ambitions for 2016, has also played a large role in the Senate's push for immigration overhaul. Over the weekend, Rubio described Obama's leaked draft on immigration overhaul as "dead on arrival."

Rubio recently criticized the White House for not reaching out to him to discuss immigration, but the president called Rubio and other Republican senators who are working on an immigration plan Tuesday.

Also Read

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/publics-view-marco-rubio-mixed-poll-shows-183656348--abc-news-politics.html

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Men's Golf - Mobile Bay Intercollegiate

2/19/2013, All Day

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Source: http://calendar.vanderbilt.edu/calendar/2013/02/19/mens-golf-mobile-bay-intercollegiate.176292

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Say Hello to a Chinese Hacker from China?s Military

By Star Chang, posted Feb 18, 2013 at 1:40 PM, 108 views,

Say Hello to a Chinese Hacker from China?s Military

Bloomberg Business Week reported that a network security expert from Dell has revealed a hacker?s military identity in China. The hacker, named Zhang Changhe, can freely hack into the website of the US embassy in China, foreign governments and companies in China. The report said that the Dell?s expert has found several hackers used the same set of Malware last year. The IP addresses used by these hackers are all registered and belong to China Unicom, one of the China?s largest Internet service providers. One hacker came from Zhengzhou in Henan Province in China, his real identity and email address had been traced. Zhang?s profile was finally publicized, including photos of him with his wife and child. Zhang currently serves as an assistant lecturer at a university, which is a military research institution controlled by the national PLA (People?s Liberation Army) ?

Computer attacks from China occasionally cause a flurry of headlines, as did last month?s hack on the New York Times. According to Bloomberg?s report, there is a tremendous amount of manpower being thrown into cyber-attacking in China. Investigators suspect many if not most of those hackers either are military or take their orders from some of China?s many intelligence or surveillance organizations. The attacks are too organized and the scope too vast to be the work of freelancers. More and more security experts are now hunting for Chinese Internet spies. Outing one person involved in the hacking teams properly won?t stop computer intrusions from China, but showing some evidence will eventually make the Chinese government can?t deny its role. For more inside story, you can head to Bloomberg?s page for more details, it?s a suspenseful story.

Dell?s security expert revealed the Chinese hacker?s military identity.

SOURCE: Bloomberg Businessweek

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TAGS: China Tech, Internet Censorship, China Unicom, Chinese Military, cyber attack, Dell, hacker

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Colorado College Advises Vomiting Or Urinating To Stop Rapists After Lawmakers Pass Gun Control Bills

The advisory was updated online just hours after the Colorado state House of Representatives passed a package of gun control bills that includes one that would make it illegal for people with concealed weapons permits to carry guns on the campuses of public universities. The bills still have to go to the state Senate and governor.?

Some of the bits of advice which were updated Monday evening on the university's public safety website are ones that many would find familiar, from running away without looking back to "yelling, hitting or biting" your attacker.

But the following two suggestions are a little stranger and are?already causing quite the outcry on social media: "Tell your attacker that you have a disease or are menstruating," and "Vomiting or urinating may also convince the attacker to leave you alone."

These less-conventional methods for fighting off a would-be rapist are apparently part of Rape Aggression Defense Systems, a class that the school's public safety promotes as a means for female students to boost their self-defense skills.

But the fact that the site providing the pointers was updated at 6:30 p.m. Monday suggests that the move may have been motivated by?the Colorado House's passage?on Monday of?HB 1226, which would ban all people -- including concealed-weapons permit holders -- from carrying guns on the campuses of the state's public universities.

The House passed the bill?on Monday by a vote of 34-31, but not before it became the center of a major controversy when?Democratic state Rep. Joe Salazar made comments during Friday's debate arguing that students should not have access to guns to protect themselves from being raped.

?It?s why we have call boxes, it?s why we have safe zones, it?s why we have the whistles," Salazar said,?according to KDVR News. "Because you just don?t know who you?re gonna be shooting at. And you don?t know if you feel like you?re gonna be raped, or if you feel like someone?s been following you around or if you feel like you?re in trouble when you may actually not be, that you pop out that gun and you pop -- pop around at somebody.?

The comments drew the ire of a number of conservative pundits, as well as several Republican Colorado lawmakers who were offended by the insinuation that would-be rape victims should rely on rape whistles and safe zones rather than arm themselves against potential attackers.

Salazar eventually apologized for any offense he may have caused, but he did not back down from his premise that guns are not needed to protect women from attacks on the campuses of Colorado's public universities.

?I?m sorry if I offended anyone. That was absolutely not my intention,? Salazar said, according to KDVR News. ?We were having a public policy debate on whether or not guns makes people safer on campus. I don?t believe they do. That was the point I was trying to make. If anyone thinks I?m not sensitive to the dangers women face, they?re wrong. I am a husband and father of two beautiful girls, and I?ve spent the last decade defending women?s rights as a civil rights attorney. Again, I?m deeply sorry if I offended anyone with my comments.?

Meanwhile, the Democratic-led Colorado House of Representatives passed the final two gun measures brought to a vote Monday, the?Denver Post reported.

After previously passing measures?limiting gun magazines to 15 rounds?and requiring?universal background checks?on private firearms purchases, the House approved two more bills: the ban on concealed weapons on public college campuses and a bill requiring gun buyers to pay the cost of their state background checks.?

The bills will now go to the state Senate, which is also controlled by the Democrats.

The entire text of the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs Public Safety Department's advisory is posted below:

"Updated message from February 18, 2013 at 6:30pm from the Department of Public Safety:

The ten points of information below were used in a context supplemented with additional information during the?in-class?training covered in the Rape Aggression Defense (RAD) class.? The R.A.D. class is offered free of charge as a public service to women who are part of the greater UCCS community.?

Rape Aggression Defense Systems (RAD Systems) is a hands-on, women only self defense and risk reduction education program designed to teach women realistic ways to defend and protect oneself from sexual and abductive assaults. ?RAD is an international organization of certified law enforcement instructors.

For more information regarding the RAD class, classes scheduled for the spring semester, or any other crime prevention programs, please visit the following pages:

http://www.uccs.edu/pusafety/police/prevention/spring-2013.html

http://www.uccs.edu/pusafety/police/prevention/rape-aggression-defense-program-.html

http://www.coloradoconnection.com/m/news/story?id=849357#.USLUUaWvN8F

What To Do If You Are Attacked

These tips are designed to help you protect yourself on campus, in town, at your home, or while you travel.? These are preventative tips and are designed to instruct you in crime prevention tactics.

1. Be realistic about your ability to protect yourself.

2. Your instinct may be to scream, go ahead!? It may startle your attacker and give you an opportunity to run away.

3. Kick off your shoes if you have time and can't run in them.

4.?Don't take time to look back; just get away.

5. If your life is in danger, passive resistance may be your best defense.

6. Tell your attacker that you have a disease or are menstruating.

7. Vomiting or urinating may also convince the attacker to leave you alone.

8. Yelling, hitting or biting may give you a chance to escape, do it!

9. Understand that some actions on your part might lead to more harm.

10. Remember, every emergency situation is different.? Only you can decide which action is most appropriate."

Source: http://www.ibtimes.com/colorado-college-advises-vomiting-or-urinating-stop-rapists-after-lawmakers-pass-gun-control-bills

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Health insurance: What the Postal Service has in mind ? Fedline ...

February 18th, 2013 | Office of Personnel Management OPM Pay & Benefits Postal Service | Posted by Sean ReillycloseAuthor: Sean Reilly Name: Sean Reilly
Email: sreilly@atpco.com
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About: See Authors Posts (299)

Lest anyone forget, Postmaster General Pat Donahoe remains keenly interested in creating a stand-alone health insurance plan for about 1.1 million U.S. Postal Service employees and retirees.

The latest reminder came at last week?s Senate hearing on the USPS?s financial crisis. Although lawmakers? attention was predictably focused on the agency?s decision to unilaterally end Saturday mail delivery, Donahoe also stressed the urgency of pulling out of the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program.

?An astonishing 20 cents of every revenue dollar the Postal Service takes in must go toward health care costs,? Donahoe said in prepared testimony. ??By moving away from the federal system, nearly all of our employees and retirees would reap the benefits of getting equivalent or better healthcare coverage and paying less for it.?

Creation of a new health plan was a major stumbling block in contract talks with the National Association of Letter Carriers; although labor and management couldn?t reach a deal, a joint task force will keep discussing the issue, according to an arbitration panel?s recent decision.

But the Postal Service hasn?t furnished many details about what it has in mind. And employees may understandably be skeptical of any promises to provide comparable (or better) benefits at lower cost. Fortunately, the USPS inspector general took a look at the subject last year that fleshes out some specifics.

The inspector general?s report, whose conclusions drew a vigorous dissent from Postal Service management, can be read here. It?s of course possible that the USPS human resources team has since made changes to their plan; if so, however, those changes haven?t been made public.

In the meantime, here are a few takeaways from the IG?s review. By the Postal Service?s reckoning, creation of a stand-alone plan would save $52 billion. (The original total was $62.1 billion, but the agency then dropped the idea of freezing its contributions for retiree health insurance, according to the report.) Although the IG doesn?t say over what period of time those savings would occur, the key is requiring employees and retirees to move to Medicare, the taxpayer-funded medical benefits program for people aged 65 and older.

That step alone would save some $37 billion; for older employees and retirees, the Postal Service?s health plan (whatever it turns out to be) would become the back-up insurer to Medicare.? The Postal Service would also be freed of much, if not all, of the obligation to set aside billions of dollars now for future retiree care.

But from the employee/retiree perspective, there?s one immediate concern. By law, anyone eligible for Medicare Part B (which covers things like doctors? visits and lab tests) is?supposed to sign up after turning 65 or else face a 10 percent, per year, enrollment penalty.

According to the IG, there were about 88,000 USPS retirees over 65 who hadn?t signed up. Those folks would thus face late-enrollment penalties totaling $53 million per year, or an average of $625 per person. The Postal Service needs to settle that issue, the inspector general said, either by ensuring that the penalties will be waived or by deciding who?s going to foot the bill.

USPS workers and retirees could also pay more under another proposed change that would require anyone retiring after the end of this year to pay a standard deductible before the Postal Service picks up any cost not covered by Medicare. But the Postal Service would also expand coverage options from the two currently offered by the FEHBP to four. In some instances, employees could pay less than they do now. (Check out p. 11 of the IG report for a side-by-side comparison.)

The overall goal here is simple. The Postal Service, like any other money-losing enterprise, is trying to tamp down costs wherever it can. And postal workers generally pay less for their health benefits than other federal employees.

But because congressional approval is required, the Postal Service?s plans need political traction that so far appears to be lacking. At a September 2011 congressional hearing, for example, Office of Personnel Management Director John Berry was notably unenthusiastic about letting the Postal Service leave the FEHBP. A fuller analysis of the potential effects was needed, Berry said, adding that he thought postal employees were ?well-served? by the status quo.

In last year?s report, the inspector general recommended that USPS officials lay out to affected employees and retirees, as well as the government, ?all potential cost increases, cost savings and cost shifts that would result from a transition to a Postal Service-proposed alternative health care plan.?

In their strongly worded response attached to the report, postal executives both disputed key findings and objected to what they called its ?negative tone.? The Postal Service, for example, has proposed relief from the Medicare late enrollment penalties, they wrote. A draft of the report, they added, ?totally ignores the fact that total costs will decrease substantially and that out-of-pocket costs for most employees and retirees will decrease.?

The Postal Service has yet, however, to make the kind of detailed disclosure urged by the IG. Until it does, its plan is likely to present a tough sales job.

Tags: Federal Employees Health Benefits Program, John Berry, Pat Donahoe

FedLine Home | Permalink | February 18th, 2013

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Source: http://blogs.federaltimes.com/federal-times-blog/2013/02/18/health-insurance-what-the-postal-service-has-in-mind/

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Join the world's smallest luxury cruise line at Buckingham Palace ...

Hebridean Island Cruises, operators of the world?s smallest luxury cruise ship, Hebridean Princess, will be exhibiting at the prestigious Coronation Festival at Buckingham Palace this summer.

Hebridean Island Cruises will join over 200 other Royal Warrant holders for the one off event held in the gardens of the Palace between Friday 12th and Sunday 14th July 2013.

Hebridean Island Cruises? Chief Operating Officer, Ken Charleson, comments:
? ? ? ?
?It?s a real honour to join our fellow Royal Warrant holders for this very special event. We will be showcasing the very best of Hebridean Island Cruises and highlighting our unique offering on our stand, designed to capture the home-from-home ambiance on board Hebridean Princess. In addition we will be offering visitors a tasting of our own labelled Single Malt whisky to pay homage to our Scottish heritage?.

Hebridean Island Cruises was awarded its Royal Warrant in January 2012.

The Coronation Festival is open to members of the public from Friday 12th until Saturday14th July 2013 with a special preview on Thursday 11th July 2013 for special guests including members of the Royal family. Each evening the Gardens will also play host to magnificent performances of music and dance at The Coronation Gala.

Source: http://www.breakingtravelnews.com/news/article/join-the-worlds-smallest-luxury-cruise-line-at-buckingham-palace/

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WVU basketball: K-State program shows strength against old coach

WVU coach Bob Huggins returned to Kansas State on Monday night, but the Mountaineers left with a loss and the Wildcats moved into first place in the Big 12.

MANHATTAN, Kan. - At the root of what happened here Monday night, which was West Virginia's 10th consecutive loss to a ranked team and the 10th loss in 11 tries this season against an opponent in the RPI's top 100, was an awakening that occurred close to seven years ago.

Bob Huggins, who'd been bounced from the basketball court after an unhappy ending at Cincinnati and spent the 2005-06 season as a spectator, was hired to coach basketball at Kansas State.

Back then, this was a place with some history and plenty of potential, but a place that wasn't producing on the level Huggins projected. He believed in a return to glory, the sort of thing these Wildcats are pursuing with the best record in the Big 12 Conference after the 71-61 win against the Mountaineers before a crowd of 12,329 at Bramlage Coliseum.

His plan did not merely impress his audience that one day in the spring of 2006. It matched the vision of then-athletic director Tim Weiser, associate athletic director Casey Scott and former college coach Eddie Fogler, who was running the coaching search.

"At the end of the day I walk out saying, 'Wow. These guys understand. These guys are committed to doing the right things,'" Huggins recalled.

Huggins was wowed again in his first game back at the school he led to a 23-12 record and a NIT bid in the 2006-07 season to end an eight-year postseason drought. The Wildcats (21-5, 10-3 Big 12) led by a lot very early, made 10 of their first 16 shots and were never in danger with a lead as large as 22 points. The Mountaineers scored the game's final 10 points.

WVU (13-13, 6-7) inspired awe in other ways. Huggins, who was met with newspaper banners in the student section that read "There's no Huggin' in basketball," wasn't named when the arena's public address introduced teams and starters, a customary practice in the building that not even Huggins could transcend.

And then the game started and things got worse. Huggins pulled starter Kevin Noreen after 47 seconds. Eron Harris and Deniz Kilicli, the only two consistent scorers of late, joined him on the bench with two fouls before the second media timeout. A three-point play from Thomas Gipson gave KSU a 16-4 lead after 7:16 and put Kilicli on the sideline. He'd ultimately lead the team with 16 points and was the only player in double figures.

After 13 minutes, WVU had 13 shots, seven turnovers, 10 points and a 14-point deficit even as Huggins burned two timeouts to manage the disaster.

Kansas State already has its seventh straight 20-win season. There were none in the seven seasons before Huggins arrived. He started what his successor Frank Martin continued the next five years and what Bruce Weber has extended in his first season in the Little Apple.

The Wildcats are 14-1 at home, are two wins away from their best performance in the Big 12, very much alive for their first conference championship and a lock for their fourth straight NCAA Tournament bid and the fifth in six years. The Wildcats went 11 years without a NCAA bid before breaking through in 2008, the year Huggins left the cupboard stocked.

"He definitely changed the mindset and the culture of Kansas State basketball and helped energize it and Coach Martin took it to another level," Weber said. "We're hoping to continue that."

Huggins thought he might do that here, that he might be wearing purple inside the rowdy Octagon of Doom. Everyone was all smiles during his one season here. Huggins watched season tickets go from 6,500 the year before he arrived to 13,000 his first season - and the capacity is 12,528. He then landed the nation's top recruiting class with Mike Beasley, Will Walker and Jacob Pullen.

MANHATTAN, Kan. - At the root of what happened here Monday night, which was West Virginia's 10th consecutive loss to a ranked team and the 10th loss in 11 tries this season against an opponent in the RPI's top 100, was an awakening that occurred close to seven years ago.

Bob Huggins, who'd been bounced from the basketball court after an unhappy ending at Cincinnati and spent the 2005-06 season as a spectator, was hired to coach basketball at Kansas State.

Back then, this was a place with some history and plenty of potential, but a place that wasn't producing on the level Huggins projected. He believed in a return to glory, the sort of thing these Wildcats are pursuing with the best record in the Big 12 Conference after the 71-61 win against the Mountaineers before a crowd of 12,329 at Bramlage Coliseum.

His plan did not merely impress his audience that one day in the spring of 2006. It matched the vision of then-athletic director Tim Weiser, associate athletic director Casey Scott and former college coach Eddie Fogler, who was running the coaching search.

"At the end of the day I walk out saying, 'Wow. These guys understand. These guys are committed to doing the right things,'" Huggins recalled.

Huggins was wowed again in his first game back at the school he led to a 23-12 record and a NIT bid in the 2006-07 season to end an eight-year postseason drought. The Wildcats (21-5, 10-3 Big 12) led by a lot very early, made 10 of their first 16 shots and were never in danger with a lead as large as 22 points. The Mountaineers scored the game's final 10 points.

WVU (13-13, 6-7) inspired awe in other ways. Huggins, who was met with newspaper banners in the student section that read "There's no Huggin' in basketball," wasn't named when the arena's public address introduced teams and starters, a customary practice in the building that not even Huggins could transcend.

And then the game started and things got worse. Huggins pulled starter Kevin Noreen after 47 seconds. Eron Harris and Deniz Kilicli, the only two consistent scorers of late, joined him on the bench with two fouls before the second media timeout. A three-point play from Thomas Gipson gave KSU a 16-4 lead after 7:16 and put Kilicli on the sideline. He'd ultimately lead the team with 16 points and was the only player in double figures.

After 13 minutes, WVU had 13 shots, seven turnovers, 10 points and a 14-point deficit even as Huggins burned two timeouts to manage the disaster.

Kansas State already has its seventh straight 20-win season. There were none in the seven seasons before Huggins arrived. He started what his successor Frank Martin continued the next five years and what Bruce Weber has extended in his first season in the Little Apple.

The Wildcats are 14-1 at home, are two wins away from their best performance in the Big 12, very much alive for their first conference championship and a lock for their fourth straight NCAA Tournament bid and the fifth in six years. The Wildcats went 11 years without a NCAA bid before breaking through in 2008, the year Huggins left the cupboard stocked.

"He definitely changed the mindset and the culture of Kansas State basketball and helped energize it and Coach Martin took it to another level," Weber said. "We're hoping to continue that."

Huggins thought he might do that here, that he might be wearing purple inside the rowdy Octagon of Doom. Everyone was all smiles during his one season here. Huggins watched season tickets go from 6,500 the year before he arrived to 13,000 his first season - and the capacity is 12,528. He then landed the nation's top recruiting class with Mike Beasley, Will Walker and Jacob Pullen.

"From the minute I got here, they embraced me," Huggins said. "The people here are very much like West Virginia's people. I felt very much at home here."

That compliment was something of a conflict, too, because fate soon intervened like an official waving off a buzzer-beater in March Madness.

"I think I've said this a thousand times now," Huggins said, "but I would have never left Kansas State for any place other than coming back home to West Virginia."

He's headed for a second straight season with fewer than 20 wins, something that happened only three times in his first 26 seasons as a Division I coach, and might miss a postseason bid for the first time since 1988.

WVU has been in the postseason every season since 2004, but has five more games left against teams in the RPI top 55 that have already beaten WVU once this season. Monday night's performance didn't foster much faith.

There was a brief push at the end of the first half, which ended with WVU on a 10-5 run and down 33-20, but Kansas State opened the second half with a 13-2 run with help from a technical foul against Huggins as he finally protested too much about officiating that was sometimes interrupted by basketball. There were 49 fouls called.

"I thought the really frustrating thing was we couldn't make a damn shot," Huggins said.

The Mountaineers kept pushing and would get as close as 14 points a few times, but the game finally got away in one sequence. Harris fouled out with a personal foul and a technical foul for knocking over Will Spradling outside the 3-point line. Spradling made four free throws at the 9:24 mark on his way to a game-high 19 points. A three-point play from Rodriguez after a WVU turnover would put the Wildcats up 61-42.

KSU has arguably its best team since Lon Kruger coached Mitch Richmond to the Midwest Regional final in 1988. That was the school's third trip to the Sweet Sixteen or Elite Eight since 1981, when Rolando Blackman led the Wildcats to the first of back-to-back trips.

Weber's first season has dusted off the aged memories of Final Four appearances in 1948, 1951, 1959 and 1964 and the sideline leadership of Hall of Famers like Jack Gardner and Tex Winter and eventual NBA general like Cotton Fitzsimmons.

"The great thing is when you build a program that's built to last," Huggins said. "I think that's what was done, but that's done not because of me or Frank Martin or anybody else. It's done because you have a university that's committed to winning and committed to doing things the right way."

Contact sportswriter Mike Casazza at mi...@dailymail.com or 304-319-1142. His blog is at blogs.dailymail.com/wvu.

Source: http://dailymail.com/rssFeeds/201302190004

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Shedding new light on infant brain development

Feb. 18, 2013 ? A new study by Columbia Engineering researchers finds that the infant brain does not control its blood flow in the same way as the adult brain. The paper, which the scientists say could change the way researchers study brain development in infants and children, is published in the February 18 Early Online edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

"The control of blood flow in the brain is very important" says Elizabeth Hillman, associate professor of Biomedical Engineering and of Radiology, who led the research study in her Laboratory for Functional Optical Imaging at Columbia. "Not only are regionally specific increases in blood flow necessary for normal brain function, but these blood-flow increases form the basis of signals measured in fMRI, a critical imaging tool used widely in adults and children to assess brain function. Many prior fMRI studies have overlooked the possibility that the infant brain controls blood flow differently."

"Our results are fascinating" says Mariel Kozberg, a neurobiology MD-PhD candidate who works under Hillman and is the lead author of the PNAS paper. "We found that the immature brain does not generate localized blood-flow increases in response to stimuli. By tracking changes in blood-flow control with increasing age, we observed the brain gradually developing its ability to increase local blood flow and, by adulthood, generate a large blood-flow response."

The study results suggest that fMRI experiments in infants and children should be carefully designed to ensure that maturation of blood-flow control can be delineated from changes in neuronal development. "On the other hand," says Hillman, "our findings also suggest that vascular development may be an important new factor to consider in normal and abnormal brain development, so our findings could represent new markers of normal and abnormal brain development that could potentially be related to a range of neurological or even psychological conditions."

Functional magnetic resonance imaging, or fMRI, is one of several brain-imaging methods that measure changes in blood flow to detect the presence and location of neuronal activity. In adults, blood-flow increases occur in specific regions of the brain during a particular task like moving your hand or reacting to a stimulus. FMRI relies upon measuring decreases in deoxygenated hemoglobin resulting from this blood-flow increase to understand which parts of the brain are responsible for different actions and emotions. FMRI and other brain-imaging methods are currently being widely used to explore brain development, and to understand disorders in infants and children including autism and ADHD.

"Until now, we had been studying blood flow in the adult brain," Hillman notes, "but we became interested in several studies that reported odd, sometimes negative, blood-flow responses in newborn and premature infants and decided to carefully explore what was different about the immature brain compared to the adult. Initially, I saw these studies as a way to watch how the adult system assembled itself during development. Then we realized how important our findings were to those using brain imaging to study child development and developmental disorders."

The team used a unique multispectral optical intrinsic signal imaging system (MS-OISI) built in Hillman's lab to perform the research. MS-OISI is a high-speed, high-resolution imaging approach that takes advantage of the different absorption spectra of deoxygenated and oxygenated hemoglobin in order to determine changes in the concentrations of each. The researchers found that, with increasing age, there was a gradual development of a localized increase in blood flow, while a strong, delayed decrease in flow was consistently present. Only by adulthood was the positive increase able to balance the decrease in flow.

"Our results suggest that the infant brain might not be able to generate localized blood- flow increases, even if there is neuronal activity occurring, and that the development of blood- flow control occurs in parallel with early neuronal development," says Kozberg. "This could suggest that fMRI studies of infants and children may be detecting changes in both vascular and neuronal development -- in fact, vascular development may be an important new factor to consider in normal and abnormal brain development."

The team also found that the younger age groups were highly sensitive to blood pressure increases in response to stimulation and that these increases can cause large increases in blood flow across the brain. "This finding indicates that the newborn brain is also unable to regulate its overall blood-flow levels," Kozberg explains. "This could explain earlier fMRI results in infants and children that were sometimes positive and sometimes negative, because it is difficult to tell whether blood pressure increases are occurring in infants and children. This result suggests that great care should be taken in setting stimulus thresholds in young subjects."

The researchers add that, since the newborn brain appears to be able to sustain itself without tightly controlled blood flow, their findings suggest that the infant brain may be intrinsically more resistant to damage due to a lack of oxygen than the adult brain. "This could be an important property to understand, both in terms of understanding how best to treat blood-flow problems in the newborn infant brain, which can cause lifelong problems such as cerebral palsy, and to potentially better understand how to treat the adult brain in conditions such as stroke," Hillman observes.

"Our lab operates at the intersection of neuroscience and engineering," continues Hillman." Not only do we develop the imaging systems that let us investigate the living brain in new ways, but like all engineers, we're fascinated with figuring out 'how things work,' and the brain is no exception."

Next steps for Hillman and her team include further defining the cellular mechanisms underlying the developing hemodynamic response at a cellular and microvascular level, using methods such as high-speed and multi-plane in-vivo two-photon microscopy, another technique developed in the lab. They're particularly interested in tracking changes in neuronal activity, microvascular architecture and connectivity, and the distribution and activity of other cellular populations thought to be associated with neurovascular coupling as a function of development.

"This will help us understand how the neonatal brain is different, and better understand how mature blood-flow control mechanisms in the adult brain work," says Kozberg. Adds Hillman, "We are also keen to take this research into the clinic and explore whether our findings could improve diagnosis and monitoring of newborn infants. Our findings so far feel like just the tip of the iceberg. There is so much more for us to do now to understand why the infant brain is so different, and how we can use our findings to improve understanding of a wealth of devastating childhood and developmental conditions."

This research was supported by grants and student fellowships from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, the National Eye Institute, the National Science Foundation, the National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate Fellowship, the Medical Scientist Training Program, and the Human Frontier Science Program. Hillman is also a member of the Columbia University graduate program in Neurobiology and Behavior and the Kavli Institute for Brain Sciences.

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Columbia University School of Engineering and Applied Science. The original article was written by Holly Evarts.

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Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/most_popular/~3/B4IRQuFo-wI/130218164126.htm

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IRS Calls On Snoop Lion To Pay $500K Tax Debt

Snoop Lion, formerly Snoop Dogg, will have to clear up his finances with the IRS after the agency filed a massive tax lien against the rapper. The lien claims that Snoop still owes taxes from both 2009 and 2011 amounting to $546,270.29.

Snoop has previously been called out by the IRS back in 2008 when a lien was filed calling for the rapper to pay $476K, but he managed to settle his debt efficiently.

According to TMZ, the documents claim the rapper owes $101,952.44 for 2009 and $444,317.85 for 2011.

Snoop is currently gearing up for the release of ?Reincarnated? which will be accompanied by a documentary that details the rapper?s adoption of Rastafarianism. The doc is currently set to hit theaters on March 15^th, while the album is expected to drop in the next few months.

Source: http://theversed.com/2013/02/16/irs-calls-on-snoop-lion-to-pay-500k-tax-debt/

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Facebook?s Never Had A Big User Data Breach, But May Never Recover When It Does

It's not?if,?but?when. Between crooks, hackers, and foreign governments, Facebook probably can't avoid a serious user data breach forever. When it happens, Facebook may never be able to quiet fears that "personal data isn't safe there". That could cause a chilling effect on sharing, jeopardize its future in commerce, and cut its lifetime short.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/ri04l0L_C24/

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Award winning Israeli poet to be discussed at the University of Scranton

Award-winning poet in spotlight

SCRANTON - The works of an award-winning Israeli poet will be examined through her work and a film based on her life in a discussion at the University of Scranton.

Israeli Prize recipient Leah Goldberg's life and work will be discussed by another award-winning poet, Annie Kantar, at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday in the Pearn Auditorium of Brennan Hall at the university. Ms. Kantar will read from her translation of Ms. Goldberg's "With This Night."

After that reading, a screening of Yair Qedar's "The Five Houses of Leah Goldberg" will be shown. Ms. Goldberg has written nine poetry collections, three plays and three novels, among other works.

The event is free and open to the public.

Source: http://thetimes-tribune.com/news/award-winning-israeli-poet-to-be-discussed-at-the-university-of-scranton-1.1445844?localLinksEnabled=false

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PRUDEN: State of the Union speech: The president?s annual letter to Santa

ANALYSIS/OPINION:

Once upon a time, a State of the Union speech occasionally produced something memorable. James Monroe, in his seventh try, came up with the Monroe Doctrine in 1823, which would be the cornerstone of American foreign policy for decades.

Franklin D. Roosevelt proposed the Four Freedoms in 1941, arguing that people ?everywhere in the world? ought to enjoy freedom of worship, freedom of speech, freedom from want and freedom from fear. Four years later, he proposed a second bill of rights, arguing that the first attempt neglected a government guarantee of equality in ?the pursuit of happiness.?

Sometimes the ?something memorable? was something everybody later would like to forget, such as Lyndon B. Johnson?s ?War on Poverty,? which he introduced in 1964. That war was subsequently lost, but we?ve been paying for it since.

George W. Bush used his State of the Union speech in 2002 to identify three authentic enemies of the U.S. at that time, North Korea, Iran and Iraq ? ?states like these and their terrorist allies constitute an ?axis of evil,? arming to threaten the peace of the world.? He took considerable flak from the frightened nursemaids and nervous Nellies for saying it, though recent history has since treated his formulation with a certain sympathy, if not kindness.

Since then, State of the Union orations have devolved into mere laundry lists and presidential letters to Santa, bearing little relevance to anything likely to happen.

FDR should have proclaimed a fifth freedom, the freedom from another State of the Union speech. It would have been an empty promise, but making expensive and expansive promises is what most presidents do.

Nobody expands his promises with expensive abandon quite like Barack Obama. His State of the Union this week was a classic of its kind, delivering nothing of substance, something of value only to the pundits who recycle nothing with greater skill than even the politicians they celebrate. One of them, Dana Milbank of The Washington Post, took note of the coincidence that Mr. Obama?s speech fell on the last night of Mardi Gras.

The noisy spendthrift carnival in Washington, unlike the harmless if not always innocent street festival in New Orleans, ?is a display of wretched excess,? he wrote, ?when giddy and rowdy participants give in to reckless and irresponsible behavior. The standoff gives new meaning to Fat Tuesday. The nation?s finances are a mess, but let?s have another round.?

Mr. Obama?s letter to Santa Claus is even greedier than usual. He wants a $9-an-hour minimum wage as a stimulus to the sagging economy, though if a $9 minimum will produce prosperity, why not make it $20? (That may be for next year.) He proposes stricter gun control, universal kindergarten for 4-year-olds and a swift rewrite of U.S. immigration law. He promises to cool the globe, or warm the globe, depending on what the White House climatologists are calling changes in the weather this week.

The Obama solution will cost the usual billions, though Congress could accomplish just as much as he could by merely adopting a resolution instructing the weather to behave, and it wouldn?t cost anything.

?Minimum wage won?t pass the House,? Sen. John Thune of South Dakota said on the morning after the president?s exercise in Daniel Webster oratory. ?Climate-change won?t pass the House. Those are things he could probably have a hard time getting a lot of Democrats to vote for.? He notes that six of his Democratic colleagues are up for re-election next year in states that Mitt Romney carried, ?and they?re going to be hard-pressed to vote for? tax increases.

The Constitution requires the president to make a report to Congress, but it doesn?t require the empty bombast that accompanies the modern State of the Union. With the precise and economic language of the era, the Constitution says of the president only that ?He shall from time to time give to Congress information of the State of the Union and recommend to their Consideration such measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient.?

The rest comes from mere ?tradition.? This stuff is catching, too. Now across the land there are speeches about the State of the State, the State of the City and even the State of the County. This week, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg of New York applies his golden oratory to a demand that Gotham abolish Styrofoam coffee cups. Next year it could be something actually useful, such as a requirement that everybody wash his socks and change his underwear once a week.

? Wesley Pruden is editor emeritus of The Washington Times.

? Copyright 2013 The Washington Times, LLC. Click here for reprint permission.

Source: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/feb/15/pruden-the-presidents-annual-letter-to-santa/?utm_source=RSS_Feed&utm_medium=RSS

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5 arrested in Mexico tourist rapes

By Jessica King and Salomon Kaufman, CNN

updated 2:52 AM EST, Mon February 11, 2013

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• 50 investigators are working the case
• An official says investigators are pursuing strong leads
• Six Spanish women were allegedly raped

Acapulco, Mexico (CNN) -- Mexican authorities are holding five suspects in connection with the alleged rapes of six Spanish tourists in Acapulco, Guerrero state Gov. Angel Aguirre Rivero said Sunday.

The state attorney general has not yet released any information on the suspects or where they're being held, prompting demonstrations by family members concerned about their whereabouts.

Fifty investigators have been dedicated to the case.

The six women were among 14 people victimized by hooded gunmen who burst into a beach bungalow in the resort town before dawn February 4. There are seven suspects between the ages of 20 and 30, lead investigator Marcos Juarez said.

In addition to the rapes, the men stole cell phones, iPads and tennis shoes from the victims, investigators said.

Investigators believe the victims bought drugs from one or more of the suspects a day or two earlier, and that the victims knew the suspects, Juarez said last week.

The Spanish nationals range from ages 20 to 34 and are under the protection of Mexican authorities in Mexico City.

Rape case in Mexican resort city puts violence back in the spotlight

Seven men who were with the group were tied up with cell phone cables and bikini straps while the gunmen assaulted the six women, officials said.

A seventh woman, a Mexican, was spared because of her nationality, Guerrero state Attorney General Martha Garzon said in a radio interview Wednesday.

"She has said that she identified herself to the men and asked them not to rape her," Garzon told Radio Formula. "And they told her that she had 'passed the test' by being Mexican, and from that point they don't touch her."

The gunmen's motive was robbery and "to have some fun," as they saw it, Garzon said. They do not appear to be a part of organized crime, officials said.

Military checkpoints have been set up to apprehend the suspects.

As they sift through evidence, investigators have cordoned off the area around the bungalow, which is in Playa Encantada.

Last year, the city of Acapulco attracted half a million tourists -- most of them Mexicans.

Mexico's Foreign Ministry said in a statement that the Spanish tourists received consular aid after the incident.

The U.S. State Department says "resort areas and tourist destinations in Mexico generally do not see the levels of drug-related violence and crime reported in the border region and in areas along major trafficking routes."

But the agency adds that resort city bars, including those in Acapulco, can be "havens for drug dealers and petty criminals."

Salomon Kaufman reported from Acapulco, and Jessica King reported from Atlanta.

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Ten dead in stampede at Hindu festival in India

ALLAHABAD, India (AP) ? A stampede killed at least 10 people and injured a dozen more in an Indian train station flooded with people during a Hindu festival that attracts millions.

Indian Railway Minister Pawan Bansal said the stampede happened in the Allahabad train station on Sunday evening. News reports said tens of thousands of people were in the station when a section of a footbridge there collapsed, leading to the stampede.

Indian media outlets reported higher tolls later, saying about 20 people died and 30 others had been injured.

Television showed large crowds pushing and jostling at the train station as policemen struggled to restore order.

"There was complete chaos. There was no doctor or ambulance for at least two hours after the accident," an eyewitness told NDTV news channel.

An estimated 30 million Hindus were expected to take a dip at the Sangam, the confluence of the Ganges, the Yamuna and the mythical Saraswati rivers on Sunday, one of the holiest bathing days of the Kumbh Mela, or Pitcher Festival. The festival lasts 55 days and is one of the world's largest religious gatherings.

The auspicious bathing days are decided by the alignment of stars, and the most dramatic feature of the festival is the Naga sadhus ? ascetics with ash rubbed all over their bodies, wearing only marigold garlands ? leaping joyfully into the holy waters.

According to Hindu mythology, the Kumbh Mela celebrates the victory of gods over demons in a furious battle over nectar that would give them immortality. As one of the gods fled with a pitcher of the nectar across the skies, it spilled on four Indian towns_Allahabad, Nasik, Ujjain and Haridwar.

The Kumbh Mela is held four times every 12 years in those towns. Hindus believe that sins accumulated in past and current lives require them to continue the cycle of death and rebirth until they are cleansed. If they bathe at the Ganges on the most auspicious day of the festival, believers say they can rid themselves of their sins.

____

Associated Press writer Biswajeet Banerjee contributed to this report.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/10-dead-stampede-hindu-festival-india-172028808.html

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Home & Decor Malaysia - February 2013 ? PDF Magazines, free ...

Graphics & Design: Home & Decor Malaysia - February 2013 PDF free download for PC digital issue

Home & Decor Malaysia - February 2013

English | 172 pages | True PDF | 44.00 Mb

Home & Decor is a monthly interior design magazine which aims to make stylish living easy for everyone. Authoritative articles on interior design, home decorating and home improvement equip readers with the relevant know-how to navigate their renovations, with beautiful interior photography and styling for inspiration. Capturing the latest design and lifestyle trends, shops, furniture and furnishings, house proud owners are able to keep their home perennially stylish and the perfect fit to their changing needs and lifestyles.Dear visitor, you went to the site as not registered user, we recommend Register or enter the site with your name.

Source: http://worldmags.net/graphics_design/43391-home-decor-malaysia-february-2013.html

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