A BILLION DOLLAR WASTE. DESTRUCTION OF 100 DOLLAR BILLS

It was a waste to not oversee the production of these bills. Now they will have to be destroyed.

FBI HAS ALERT FOR BARBIE VIDEO GIRL DOLL

The FBI thinks this camera will be used by child molesters .

FEMALE VETS ESPECIALLY VULNERABLE TO SUICIDE

This is a sad tale. Women vets not only have to deal with sexual harassment from military personnel but also with outside contractors.

GERMAN HACKERS STEAL POP SONGS

.Two German hackers gained access to the computers of more than 50 pop stars, including Justin Timberlake and Lady Gaga in an attempt to steal unreleased songs and issue blackmail threats over intimate photographs, prosecutors allege.

German police say the pair used simple invasive programs called trojans, which can break into private computer networks.

But they are alleged to have hacked into the computers of a string of stars and downloaded hundreds of documents including music and credit card details.

Their haul reportedly included a compromising picture of the American singer Kesha.

Prosecutors said the pair had tried to blackmail the singer but no money changed hands.

They believe the pair's main goal was unreleased musical material.

LIFE IS SOMEWHAT BETTER FOR CHINESE WOMEN

RUSSIAN TV CREW ARRESTED FOR FILMING PROTEST AT FORT BENNING GEORGIA

It seems like many media persons are not allowed to film government events or political events.

EU IS IN BATTLE FOR SURVIVAL

Latin America wants to start their own monetary system. They might learn a lesson from the EU.

A NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISOR RESIGNS

U S GAVE SPHYLLIS INFECTIONS TO GUATAMALA

I am so glad these things are made available to the public via the internet.

EISENHOWER PREDICTED IN THE FUTURE

Everyone was taken aback when President Eisenhower was talking about this. They never believed this would happen.

ATHEISTS KNOW MORE ABOUT RELIGION THAN PEOPLE OF OTHER FAITHS

This seems so true.

A TV REALITY SHOW STAR CHEF COMMITS SUICIDE

This is a tragic situation.He was the second chef to commit suicide.

DIABETES DRUG BANNED IN THE US STILL USED IN INDIA

EGYPT AND ETHIOPIA FIGHTING OVER RIGHTS TO THE NILE RIVER.

Who's river is it and who will win ?

ENGLISH SPY DEAD

Eileen Nearns, wartime spy, dead at 89 years of age,

A NICARAGUAN DIPLOMAT FOUND DEAD IN THE BRONX

BEETLE CONTAMINATION IN SIMILAC FORMULA

STANFORD MEDICAL SCHOOL 25 BEDSIDE TESTS

Stanford 25
Stanford Medical School in California is trying to make sure its graduates and trainees know how to do 25 bedside tests that it considers essential to good doctoring.


Here's the list:


Examine the back of the eye
Examine the pupil of the eye and its response to light
Examine the thyroid gland
Examine the neck veins for abnormal size and pulses
Examine the lung's surface, lung sounds and borders
Evaluate the heart's motion
Examine the liver's size and shape
Evaluate the spleen's size and density
Evaluate gait (walking movements)
Test ankle reflexes for nerve abnormalities
Identify markers of liver disease throughout the body
Identify signs of stroke caused by blockage of a deep brain artery
Examine the knee
Identify abnormal heart sounds
Evaluate tremors and other involuntary movements
Recognize markers of disease in the hands and fingernails
Examine the tongue
Examine the shoulder for injuries and joint abnormalities
Assess blood pressure and abnormal pulses
Assess lymph nodes in the neck
Detect fluid in the abdomen and abdominal blood flow
Perform a rectal exam
Evaluate a mass in the scrotum
Test balance and ability to perceive the body's position in space
Use a pocket ultrasound device*
*This item is not yet standard practice in most U.S. medical settings, but Dr. Abraham Verghese of Stanford hopes it will be. He says it's valuable in detecting abnormal fluids, quickly evaluating heart function and assessing organ abnormalities


--Richard Knox

CENSUS BUREAU WENT ON A VEGAS TRIP

Now we know why some census workers were only allowed to work for two weeks, and then laid off.

STUDIES OF AMERICA'S PRESIDENCY

AGRICULTURAL SOURCES SAY THAT DATA IS WRONG

Why have we been given the wrong statistics about food production ?

FDA CLAMPS DOWN ON LIPTON GREEN TEA CLAIMS

We've been paying a lot more attention to health claims for foods and drinks lately.

But not as much as the Food and Drug Administration, which just told consumer products giant Unilever to knock it off already with some health claims for Lipton Green Tea 100% Natural, Naturally Decaffeinated.

The company's Lipton unit splashes the trademarked phrase "Tea Can Do That" liberally on the health sections of its websites. But the agency says in a warning letter that the way Lipton is talking up health benefits from tea on the Web is over the line for a product that's a food and not a drug.


For instance, on one Web page titled "Heart Health Research," Lipton says "[F]our recent studies in people at risk for coronary disease have shown a significant cholesterol lowering effect from tea or tea flavonoids...."

That sort of thing sounds like a drug, FDA says, so it told Lipton to drop the offending claims, or else.

The agency also criticizes Lipton for some of the food claims made for tea. Specifically, the company is playing fast and loose in its characterization of the antioxidant qualities of its tea.

We asked Unilever for comment. In an e-mail, a spokesman confirmed the company got the FDA's warning letter dated Aug. 23, 2010, and that it is "carefully reviewing the contents of the letter and committed to full compliance with the law."

Separately, the agency sent a similar letter to the Dr. Pepper Snapple Group criticizing the company for its marketing of Canada Dry Sparkling Green Tea Ginger Ale.

Aside from the validity of specific claims, there's a separate question about how much of the antioxidant stuff purported to be in bottled tea is even there. In a recent post we wrote about tests that showed most teas came up short on antioxidant content.

HALLUCINOGENIC MUSHROOMS IN NEW STUDY

Is it time to give hallucinogenic drugs for medical use another try?

Some researchers in California make that case in a study of a dozen patients with advance cancer. The patients, 11 women and 1 man, received a low dose of psilocybin, the active ingredient in "magic mushrooms" in one session and a placebo, consisting of water and the B vitamin niacin, which causes flushing, in another.

On a couple of measures of mental health, the patients showed less anxiety months after treatment and a big improvement in mood even a half-year after a single psychedelic session.


To be sure, this study, billed as a pilot test, had some flaws, most notably that each patient served as his or her own point of comparison, or control. And the researchers concede that it was pretty much impossible for the patients not to know pretty quickly whether they were getting the drug or the dummy medicine in a given session.

One of the funders of the pilot study and the bigger one at NYT is the Heffter Research Institute, a nonprofit that specializes in the science of hallucinogenic drugs.

BLACKWATER CREATED SHELL COMPANIES TO GET AMERICAN CONTRACTS

The security company Blackwater Worldwide formed a network of 30 shell companies and subsidiaries to try to get millions of dollars in government business after the company faced strong criticism for reckless conduct in Iraq, The New York Times reported Friday.


The newspaper said that it was unclear how many of the created companies got American contracts but that at least three of them obtained work with the U.S. military and the CIA.


Sen. Carl Levin, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, has asked the Justice Department to see whether Blackwater misled the government when using the subsidiaries to gain government contracts, according to The Times.
It said Levin's committee found that North Carolina-based Blackwater, which now is known as Xe Services, went to great lengths to find ways to get lucrative government work despite criminal charges and criticism stemming from a 2007 incident in which Blackwater guards killed 17 Iraqi civilians. A committee
chart outlines the web of Blackwater subsidiaries.

Messages left late Friday with spokespeople for the Michigan Democrat and Xe were not immediately answered.

The 2007 incident and other reports of abuses by Blackwater employees in Iraq led to criminal investigations and congressional hearings, and resulted in the company losing a lucrative contract with the State Department to provide security in Iraq.

But recently the company was awarded a $100 million contract to provide security for the agency in Afghanistan, prompting criticism from some in Congress. CIA Director Leon Panetta said that the CIA had no choice but to hire the company because it underbid others by $26 million and that a CIA review concluded that the contractor had cleaned up its act.

Last year, Panetta canceled a contract with Xe that allowed the company's operatives to load missiles on Predator drones in Pakistan, and shifted the work to government personnel. However, The Times quoted former Blackwater officials as saying that at least two Blackwater-affiliated companies, XPG and
Greystone, obtained secret contracts from the CIA to provide security to agency operatives.

The newspaper said the network of subsidiaries, including several located in offshore tax havens, were uncovered as part of the Armed Services Committee's examination of government contracting and not an investigation solely into Blackwater. But Levin questioned why Blackwater would need to create so many companies with various names to seek out government business, according to The Times.


The report quoted unidentified government officials and former Blackwater employees as saying that the network of companies allowed Blackwater to obscure its involvement in government work from contracting officials and the public, and to ensure a low profile for its classified activities.

AMBASSADOR'S DAUGHTER FALLS OUT OF 25 STORY APARTMENT WINDOW

The 17-year-old daughter of the U.S. ambassador to Thailand slipped off her shoes and climbed out onto a window ledge Friday at a Manhattan apartment before plummeting more than 20 stories to her death, police said.

Nicole John fell at about 4:15 a.m. from the top floor of the 25-story Herald Towers, police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said. Her body landed on a third-floor ledge, a camera nearby. It's not clear whether she had been trying to take a photo when she died, and her death is believed to be accidental.

The girl's father, Eric John, was appointed U.S. ambassador to the Kingdom of Thailand in 2007.

John, an incoming freshman at Parsons The New School for Design in New York City, was thought to have been drinking. Ilan Nassimi, 25, who rents the apartment, was arrested later Friday on charges of giving alcohol to a minor, police said. He was awaiting arraignment in Manhattan court and it wasn't clear if he had a lawyer.

Police say John had been out with partying with friends at Tenjune, a club in the trendy Meatpacking District, before the group headed back to Nassimi's apartment at West 34th Street near the Empire State Building at around 2 a.m. Friday.

Police believe the apartment might have been cleaned up by the time investigators arrived, but they think about a dozen people were there and had been drinking.

The medical examiner was scheduled to perform an autopsy and toxicology tests Saturday.

John had graduated from the International School in Bangkok and had a fake Brazilian ID that gave her age as 23 or 24.

Pages from a blog believed to be hers portray a smart, artistic young girl with a wild streak, eager to begin college. "Reading. Partying. Lucid dreaming. Night terrors. Deep eyes. Good food" she wrote as a description of herself on a Tumblr site, a hodgepodge of quotes, photos and journal entries.

CHINA BARS FOREIGN FOOD PRODUCTS

China bars foreign food products

China's quality watchdog has destroyed or blocked the import of a wide range of foreign food and cosmetic products amid concerns that they posed potential health risks, it announced on its website.

The General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine (AQSIQ) this week published blacklists of products from a number of nations including the United States, South Korea, Japan and New Zealand.

All of the products imported in April and May - including milk powder, jam, chocolate and bath products - "have been returned, destroyed or converted to other uses" and "were not sold in the domestic market", AQSIQ said.

The safety watchdog did not specify what the "other uses" were.

US food giant General Mills was singled out after its corn muffin powder, pancake powder and cake flour were found to have genetically modified contents or excessive aluminium, the agency said.

Other companies named included South Korea's Lotte, US group Kraft Foods and Britain's Marks and Spencer, according to the statements.

China is regularly hit by product safety scandals, mainly involving domestically made items, despite government pledges to clean up the food industry.

In 2008, the industrial chemical melamine was found in the products of 22 Chinese dairy companies in a massive scandal blamed for the deaths of at least six infants and for making 300,000 others sick in China.

China's government has repeatedly said all tainted milk products were seized and destroyed after the scandal and that there was no further public health threat, but reports of contaminated products continue to trickle out.

Earlier this month, China's health ministry refuted claims that milk powder produced by the NASDAQ-listed Chinese company Synutra had caused three infant girls to grow breasts.

LOOKING FOR THE RIGHT COUNT FOR FLU DEATHS.

Have the media been scaring people enough when it comes to reporting flu's death risk? Or too little?





CDC It helps to know how many people would have died from flu in an average year if you want to put the swine flu pandemic in perspective.
For as long as I can remember now, we've been saying 36,000 people die each year from the flu. When we've asked the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for updated figures, they told us 36K was the best they had.

Didn't seem quite right that it never changed year after year.

Now it turns out the 36K was calculated way back in 1999, when flu deaths hit a peak.


A new analysis of the past 31 flu seasons, put out by the CDC this afternoon, shows that 36K might have been a third too high. It's more like 23,607 per year, on average. But it all depends on how you slice the data.

The new average is an average of the past 31 seasons. It goes all the way back to 1976. But if you were to look at just the past 10 seasons, the average per year is higher — 32,743.

Or you can look at this way: In some years as few as 3,349 have died (back in 1986-7). But the highest annual average toll was 48,614, just seven seasons ago (2003-4).

The reason for this wide variation: Deaths peak when the H3N2 strain of influenza A dominates. When it's H1N1 or influenza B, the toll is quite a bit lower. Scientists can guess which strain may predominate in a given year, but it's only a guess. That's why the flu vaccine doesn't work in some years. But it usually does.

It may be that the average death toll will decline somewhat as immunization rates go up. The CDC is now recommending that everyone older than 6 months get a flu shot each year. (It used to be just children and seniors.)

The CDC wants reporters to drop the 36,000 annual estimate (at last) and instead say that the death toll ranges from 3,300 to 49,000.

The wide range doesn't seem quite right. After all, it's been 25 years since as few as 3,300 people died from the flu – most years since the death toll been anywhere from 4 to 16 times higher. So we won't be reporting the lower number very often, unless we're reviewing history.

We're still mulling over exactly what we'll say in our reporting – we definitely say "tens of thousands die from flu, on average, each year." But whether we get more specific than that is still under discussion. Your ideas are welcome.

BRITAIN VACCINATING CHICKENS FOR SALMONELLA

Vaccine for hens against salmonella, the bacteria that tainted eggs and caused thousands of cases of illness.
Room for Debate
Why Eggs Became a Hazard
The American food safety system has failed to eliminate the threat of salmonella. Why?

Lohmann Animal Health International, in Winslow, Maine, is one of three companies that make the vaccine in the United States.
But when American regulators created new egg safety rules that went into effect last month, they declared that there was not enough evidence to conclude that vaccinating hens against salmonella would prevent people from getting sick. The Food and Drug Administration decided not to mandate vaccination of hens — a precaution that would cost less than a penny per a dozen eggs.

Now, consumers have been shaken by one of the largest egg recalls ever, involving nearly 550 million eggs from two Iowa producers, after a nationwide outbreak of thousands of cases of salmonella was traced to eggs contaminated with the bacteria.

The F.D.A. has said that if its egg safety rules had gone into effect earlier, the crisis might have been averted. Those rules include regular testing for contamination, cleanliness standards for henhouses and refrigeration requirements, all of which experts say are necessary.

However, many industry experts say the absence of mandatory vaccination greatly weakens the F.D.A. rules, depriving them of a crucial step that could prevent future outbreaks.

Salmonella bacteria is passed from infected hens to the interior of eggs when they are being formed. The salmonella vaccines work both by reducing the number of hens that get infected and by making it more difficult for salmonella bacteria to pass through to the eggs.

“They are the only thing I’m aware of that really controls the problem from the inside out, at the source,” said Ronald Plylar, the former president of a company that developed an early salmonella vaccine.

Many people in the American egg industry say they believe that the current outbreak and recall will tip the balance and force nearly all producers in the United States to begin vaccinating hens to reassure consumers.

The F.D.A. said it considered mandatory vaccination very seriously. “We didn’t believe that, based on the data we had, there was sufficient scientific evidence for us to require it,” said Dr. Nega Beru, director of the agency’s Office of Food Safety.

However, Dr. Beru says that the new rules encourage producers to vaccinate if they think it will help fight salmonella.

Another F.D.A. food safety official, Nancy S. Bufano, said that despite the success of vaccination in Britain, the agency thought that because the vaccines used in the two countries were not identical, it made comparisons difficult.

Vaccine company executives, however, said the differences were minor and the drugs used in both countries were equally effective.

The drop in salmonella infections in Britain was stunning.

In 1997, there were 14,771 reported cases in England and Wales of the most common type of the bacteria, a strain known as Salmonella Enteritidis PT4. Vaccine trials began that year, and the next year, egg producers began vaccinating in large numbers.

The number of human illnesses has dropped almost every year since then. Last year, according to data from the Health Protection Agency of England and Wales, there were just 581 cases, a drop of 96 percent from 1997.

“We have pretty much eliminated salmonella as a human problem in the U.K.,” said Amanda Cryer, director of the British Egg Information Service, an industry group.

The F.D.A. estimates that each year, 142,000 illnesses in the United States are caused by consuming eggs contaminated with the most common type of salmonella. It has said the new rules would cut that by more than half. People who eat bad eggs that have not been cooked thoroughly to kill the bacteria can get diarrhea and cramps. Rare cases can be fatal.

There are no laws mandating vaccination in Britain. But it is required, along with other safety measures, if farmers want to place an industry-sponsored red lion stamp on their eggs, which shows they have met basic standards. The country’s major supermarkets buy only eggs with the lion seal, so vaccination is practiced by 90 percent of egg producers, according to Ms. Cryer.

Thomas Humphrey, a food safety professor at the University of Liverpool, said that producers in the United Kingdom turned to vaccination after other measures, similar to those now required by the F.D.A., failed to show significant results.

One-half to two-thirds of American farmers already inoculate their flocks, according to industry estimates, and that number is likely to increase. While the new federal rules do not require vaccination, they do require testing for salmonella. If henhouses are found to be contaminated, then eggs must be tested. If eggs are tainted, then they would have to be broken and pasteurized, which would mean producers would get much less money for their eggs.

DEA TO HIRE EBONICS TRANSLATORS

DEA wants to hire Ebonics translators

NEW: Linguistic Society says Ebonics a valid dialect
Ebonics is "a language form we have a need for," DEA says
Ebonics became controversial with a 1996 school board proposal
The DEA is seeking translators in 114 languages
Wanted by the Drug Enforcement Administration: Ebonics translators.

It might sound like a punch line, as "Ebonics" -- the common name for what linguists call African-American English -- has long been the butt of jokes, as well as the subject of controversy.

But the agency is serious about needing nine people to translate conversations picked up on wiretaps during investigations, Special Agent Michael Sanders said Tuesday. A solicitation was sent to contractors as part of a request to companies to provide hundreds of translators in 114 languages.

"DEA's position is, it's a language form we have a need for," Sanders said. "I think it's a language form that DEA recognizes a need to have someone versed in to conduct investigations."

The translators, being hired in the agency's Southeast Region -- which includes Atlanta, Georgia; Washington; New Orleans, Louisiana; Miami, Florida; and the Caribbean -- would listen to wiretaps, translate what was said and be able to testify in court if necessary, he said.

"The concept is right and good," said Walt Wolfram, distinguished professor of English linguistics at North Carolina State University. "Why wouldn't you want experts who can help you understand what people are communicating?"

"On one level, it's no different than someone from the Outer Banks of North Carolina who speaks a distinct brogue," he said. "The problem is that even the term 'Ebonics' is so controversial and politicized that it becomes sort of a free-for-all."

And Ebonics is no longer spoken only by African-Americans, Sanders said, referring to it as "urban language" or "street language." He said he is aware of investigations in recent years in which it was spoken by African-Americans, Latinos and white people. "It crosses over geographic, racial and ethnic backgrounds," he said.

"[African-American English] is linguistic defiance being reinforced by hip-hop," said professor John Baugh, who leads the public relations committee of the Linguistic Society of America.

The DEA's recruiting "has it half right," Baugh said.

Although having translation help is a good law enforcement tool, Baugh said, the term "Ebonics" may be counterproductive because "the social positions of speakers have been the object of ridicule."

The Washington University professor also is concerned about racial profiling resulting from assumptions made from a speaker's dialect.

While the DEA wants to have the translators available, it may not need to call upon them, Sanders said. He did not know how much it would cost to have the translators available.

"I can't say it's spoken all the time, like Spanish and Vietnamese," Sanders said. "But there are people trying to use this to evade detection" while trafficking in drugs, he said.

Asked whether agency currently has agents who can translate Ebonics, Sanders said some who have worked on local police forces can help pick out words on wiretaps.

The term "Ebonics" -- a blend of "ebony" and "phonics" -- became known in 1996, when the Oakland, California, Unified School District proposed using it in teaching English. After the school board came under fire, it voted to alter the plan, which recognized Ebonics as a distinct language.

The revised plan removed reference to Ebonics as "genetically based" and as the "primary language" of students. The board also removed a part that some understood to indicate that African-American students would be taught in Ebonics, although the board denied such intentions.

"There is something of substance here," said Wolfram, who said he has studied African-American English for 40 years. "There are differences in terms of language and lexicon and so forth that are difficult to understand for most people. So it is an issue. What, of course, happens is, it gets politicized and trivialized by the very term 'Ebonics.'"

The Linguistic Society of America calls Ebonics a form of communication that deserves recognition and study.

"Characterizations of Ebonics as 'slang,' 'mutant,' 'lazy,' 'defective,' 'ungrammatical' or 'broken English' are incorrect and demeaning," a 1997 resolution said.

For Baugh, all languages or dialects are "fundamentally equal." Ebonics is a dialect spoken by slave descendants who live in many countries and don't speak just English, he said. Its early speakers were enslaved, isolated from other speakers of their language and denied access to formal education, Baugh said.

Wolfram -- who has authored more than 20 books on English dialects, including African-American English -- recalled the Black Panther trials during the 1970s, when there was debate over whether the saying, "Off the pigs," was a genuine threat to kill police officers or a more metaphorical saying.

Wolfram acknowledged Ebonics often presented as "nothing but bad language." But, he said, "However you view it ... why wouldn't you want to avail yourself of all the interpretive capability that you can get?"

African-American English is "a systematic language variety, with patterns of pronunciation, grammar, vocabulary and usage that extend far beyond slang," according to the website of the Center for Applied Linguistics, a Washington-based nonprofit organization that says it aims to improve communication through better understanding of language and culture.

"Because it has a set of rules that is distinct from those of standard American English, characterizations of the variety as bad English are incorrect," the center said. "Speakers of AAE do not fail to speak standard American English, but succeed in speaking African American English."

U.S. English, a political advocacy group, supports the DEA's recruitment, said Tim Schultz, director of government relations.

"Having somebody to explain slang terms ... spoken by a particular community is an advantage if it allows them to understand a conversation," he said.

U.S. English's primary focus is making English the official language of the United States and backing laws that ensure immigrants learn English.

Language barriers that contribute to conflicts between nations can be a "serious issue," Wolfram noted. "It's the same point here."

He said the translators could help in investigations, as "the differences between dialect and code words can get pretty blurry at times."

Sanders said DEA plans to continue seeking the translators.

"African-American English is an evolving dialect and in some ways is growing in stature," Baugh said.

NEW EVIDENCE VIRUSES MAY CAUSE CHRONIC FATIGUE SYNDROME

The answer isn't clear, but there's more evidence that suggests the idea might not be so far-fetched.

Government scientists found that blood cells from people diagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrome were much more likely than samples from people without the condition to contain traces of genetic code from viruses that cause leukemia in mice.

Eighty-seven percent of samples from CFS patients (32 of 37) contained genetic fingerprints from murine leukemia viruses, which can also infect humans. Only 7 percent (3 of 44) of samples from normal blood donors show signs of the viruses.


The results bolster a controversial report last year that linked a related virus, XMRV, to chronic fatigue. One reason people have thought a virus might be to blame for the debilitating condition is that the symptoms resemble a bad case of the flu that doesn't go away.

The National Institutes of Health's Dr. Harvey Alter, senior author of the paper, said in a conference call with reporters, "It's an association, but that's all it is." He was careful to say the findings don't prove that a virus causes CFS.

The results from the latest study were published online by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Since the Science paper last year that implicated XMRV, other groups have had trouble reproducing the findings, casting doubt on its significance. The latest work didn't find that particular virus either.

Alter says that it's "a dilemma" that some researchers find an association between CFS and a virus while others do have not. He hypothesized that the lack of hardcore standardized test for CFS, such as a biopsy, means that variability in the patients selected for study could be part of the problem.

One way to settle the question would be to test antiretroviral drugs in patients with CFS. The University of Alberta's Dr. Andrew Mason suggested in an accompanying commentary that the benefits of such a study may outweigh the risks. "If the patients improve, after a certain point you stop debating whether [a virus] causes the disease and say the treatment works and we're going to use it," he told the Wall Street Journal.

HEARIN LOSS OF US ADOLESCENTS HAS SURGED

One in Five U.S. Adolescents Has Hearing Loss, Researchers Find
Hearing loss among U.S. adolescents has surged, probably because of the use of devices such as earbuds for listening to music, doctors say.

Researchers surveyed a sample of children ages 12 to 19 in 2005 and 2006 and found that 19.5 percent had some hearing loss, compared with 14.9 percent in a study covering the years 1988 to 1994, according to a report published today in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Hearing loss of 25 decibels or more -- enough that the children were often aware of the deficit -- increased to 5.3 percent of the sample, from 3.5 percent in the earlier group.

Listening to loud sounds through earbuds -- the tiny electronic speakers that fit into ears, for use with personal music players -- is probably the main reason that more adolescents are losing some of their hearing, said William Slattery, director of clinical studies at the House Ear Institute, a Los Angeles medical practice, who wasn’t involved in today’s study.

“Once you have hearing loss, there’s a greater risk of that hearing loss progressing as you get older,” Slattery, a clinical professor in the Department of Otolaryngology at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, said today in a telephone interview. “Here is a major study that demonstrates that teenagers are having hearing loss in a significant percent of children. It can happen and it does happen.”

Teens and parents need to be told that hearing loss from noise that occurs early in life isn’t reversible, he said.

Effect in School

Hearing loss may affect teenagers’ social development and education, said Gary Curhan, an author of the study, who is an associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and a physician at Brigham & Women’s Hospital in Boston.

“In an educational setting, even kids with slight hearing loss do not perform as well as those with normal hearing,” Curhan said in a telephone interview on Aug. 13. “It’s potentially preventable.”

Curhan said parents whose kids are doing poorly in school may want to get the children’s hearing tested because most people with a slight hearing loss don’t know a problem exists.

The researchers examined data from the 2005-2006 National Health & Nutrition Examination Survey and the one conducted from 1988 to 1994.

Boys at Risk

The study showed that males had a higher rate of hearing loss than females. The researchers also found that teens whose families were below the poverty line were more likely to have impaired hearing.

Among the signs of potential hearing loss are asking that things be repeated, having difficulty following directions, listening to the television at a loud volume, having problems with speech and language, and having trouble identifying sounds, said Denise Miller-Hansen, a pediatric audiologist at Children’s Mercy Hospitals & Clinics, in Kansas City, Missouri, who wasn’t involved in today’s study.

“The key to prevention is education and getting it out there in the public domain so that people know about hearing loss and the possibility of hearing loss in children,” Miller- Hansen said today in a telephone interview. “We also need studies to look at causative factors for the hearing loss.”

Curhan said it’s unclear how loud and how long teens need to listen to personal music players such as Apple Inc.’s iPod for hearing loss to occur. Parents can set a volume limit on their children’s iPods and lock them with a code.

In December, Apple won a federal appeals court ruling upholding dismissal of a lawsuit that claimed the iPod and headsets sold with it are defective and the company doesn’t adequately warn about the possibility of hearing loss.

Today’s study was sponsored by the Massachusetts Eye & Ear Infirmary Foundation and the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine Development Funds.

BOTTLE TEAS CONTAIN LITTLE OR NO ANTIOXIDANTS

Tea companies like to brag about the antioxidants in their bottled tea beverages.
Some even put the amount of antioxidants on the label. But if you think that you’re getting a big dose of these natural chemicals from your favorite bottled brew, think again.


If you're looking for antioxidants in tea, you're better brewing your own rather than buying the bottled stuff.
Reseachers tested bottled teas for antioxidants called polyphenols and found that most brands contain very little of them.


“Out of 49 samples, half of the bottle teas contain less then 10 milligrams of polyphenols,” says Shiming Li, a natural products chemist at WellGen, a company that's working to develop foods for medical use.

A cup of home-brewed green or black tea has 50-150 milligrams of polyphenols. So you'd have to drink between 5 and 20 of those pint-size bottles of tea to get the same amount of antioxidants. That’s a lot of tea.

The research findings were presented this weekend at an American Chemical Society meeting in Boston. Li says the analysis was part of WellGen research toward developing a product for diabetes that contains tea concentrate.

Despite the poor antioxidant content, tea companies have benefited from the healthy image of tea. Li says that sales of bottled teas have increased 90 percent since 2004. And considering how much more bottled teas costs than tea bags, consumers could aren’t getting a bargain when it comes to antioxidants.

Tea experts have been hip to the low polyphenol levels in bottled teas for a while now. "Bottled teas are a scam," declares Susanne Henning, a researcher at UCLA who has been studying the health effects of tea for years. "They’re mainly sugar water."

Henning says that polyphenols in tea start breaking down after the tea is brewed. So if a bottle has been sitting on the shelf for a while, there may be only a little — if any — antioxidants in the tea. Such small amounts, says Henning, won’t provide any of the health benefits associated with tea. Plus, many tea beverages have just as much sugar as soda.

To get the most out of your tea, Henning suggests brewing a fresh batch in the morning and drinking the tea throughout the day. After 24 hours, she says, the tea should be chucked. Green tea extract is another good option, she says.

As for bottled teas, there’s nothing wrong with drinking them if you like the taste. Just don’t expect them to do much for your health.

MILLIONAIRES ARE CLAIMING UNEMPLOYMENT BENEFITS ACCORDING TO IRS

For most taxpayers, 2008 wasn’t a year to remember. As a whole, incomes and profits tumbled while foreclosures and job losses soared. We saw the anecdotal evidence in the headlines and photos splashed across the media. (Meanwhile, unscrupulous Wall Street types took greed and avarice to a whole new level.)

Hard data from the IRS backs up what we knew to be the case: The recession hit the country hard. But the numbers also tell a shocking, much lesser-known story: Quite a few millionaires were claiming unemployment benefits, too. So while millions of Americans with struggled to keep their homes and feed their kids, a few thousand millionaires, though in not nearly as bad shape, were on the dole, too.

Giving some super-rich folks the benefit of the doubt, if you will, it appears some of them didn’t have such a spectacular 2008. Seventeen of those 13,480 taxpayers who reported income of more than $10 million found themselves standing in the unemployment lines alongside nearly 9.5 million other Americans in 2008. Unemployment benefits for those taxpayers averaged $5,765. The number claiming unemployment benefits increased to nearly 3,000 for those taxpayers who reported overall income of more than $1 million.

Of course, unemployment benefits were up across the board — nearly 25% — at all income levels. The super poor to the super rich reported a collective total of $43.7 billion in unemployment benefits.

While those statistics may stand out merely because of the staggering amount of income involved, it’s interesting that the overwhelming share of income in the top tax bracket isn’t related to wages or salary. Less than 20% of the income at the top is attributable to actually working. The lion’s share of income for those taxpayers at the top comes in the form of capital gains income — even in a down economy. Lucky for those taxpayers, capital gains is generally tax favorable.

As Congress struggled this year with whether to extend benefits for those who are unemployed, questions about who should be able to claim benefits (and under what circumstances) took center stage. These taxpayer stats — the first time the IRS has provided this level of detail on taxpayers in higher tax brackets — will likely raise those questions again. Specifically, the discussions will revolve around whether it is fair for the super rich to claim unemployment benefits.

The rules for collecting unemployment are surprisingly easy in most states. To qualify, you generally have to earn sufficient wages (yup, the millionaires did that), suffer a job loss through no fault of your own, and meet certain criteria moving forward (usually making yourself available for work). There’s no upper limit on the amount of money you can make to otherwise claim unemployment. In other words, you can’t make too much money to collect; ironically, you can make too little money to claim unemployment.

The numbers of those unemployed taxpayers added to the overall grim economic picture for 2008. The IRS statistics show that total income reported on tax returns for 2008 was $8.3 trillion, a decline of nearly 5% from 2007. Factoring in the cost of inflation, the real drop was 8.4% — the biggest dip in income in 20 years.

Even those in the top tax bracket took a hit — there were fewer super-millionaires in 2008. Those reporting income of more than $10 million tumbled 25% to just 13,480.

The number of taxpayers reporting at least $1 million in income also dropped. Overall, the number of millionaire wage earners took a tumble of nearly 22%. The total income reported by those millionaires was a whopping $1.08 trillion, or about 13% of all income.

Even as millionaires garnered unemployment, they also reaped Social Security benefits, too. Nearly 57,000 taxpayers who reported more than $1 million in income in 2008 also collected Social Security payments. Taxpayers who pay into the Social Security system are entitled to payouts at certain ages. As the trust fund depletes (with concerns that it will run out at some point between 2040 and 2080), many believe that Social Security distributions should be income dependent.

A COTTAGE OUT BACK FOR GRANDMA AND GRANDPA

Of all the elderly people he's visited, Rev. Kenneth Dupin remembers a woman named Katie in particular.

Katie had a houseful of treasured memorabilia, and she loved to regale him with stories of Washington high society in the 1950s. But after she was moved to a nursing home, "she started crying," Dupin says. "I went over to her, and she pulled me down to where I could hear her, and she said, 'Please take me home.'"

She never did go back home, but after she died, her memory stayed with Dupin. He tells NPR's Audie Cornish it got him wondering if there was a way to keep people like Katie out of nursing homes and closer to their families. His idea might seem strange, but "granny pods" are catching on.

The granny pod's real name is the MEDCottage, and it's basically a mini mobile home that rents for about $2,000 a month. You park one in the back yard, hook it up to your water and electricity, and it becomes a free-standing spare room for Grandma and Grandpa.

The idea is sprouting all over the country, but nowhere more than Virginia, where the state government has eased zoning restrictions on these high-tech hideaways, which go on the market early next year.

The MEDCottage is homey on the outside, with taupe vinyl siding and white trim around French doors. Inside, it looks like a nice hotel suite, complete with kitchen and bathroom. And security cameras.



On the inside, the MEDCottage is equipped with advanced health monitoring equipment and a lift that can carry an immobile resident to the bathroom.


On the inside, the MEDCottage is equipped with advanced health monitoring equipment and a lift that can carry an immobile resident to the bathroom.
"This is something that we call 'Feet Sweep,'" Dupin shows off a floor-mounted camera. "It only monitors the floor, up about twelve inches, so the person in here, the only thing you see is their feet." But if that person fell, you'd see them lying on the floor.

Dupin says falls are one of the main reasons people end up in nursing homes, so the MEDCottage's technology could help them stay independent for longer. The cottage also has safety lighting along the floors, a lift that can carry an immobile resident to the bathroom, and monitoring systems that let you check on Grandma's temperature, heart rate and whether or not she's taken her medicine.

It might seem a little odd, parking your loved one in a shed in the backyard, but Dupin says the MEDCottage is designed with Americans' independent nature in mind. "That space there provides a level of independence that is very important to Americans," he says.

"Really — this is one of those studies that we really can never publicly say — but we don't want them in our house," Dupin says. "Nor do they want to be in our house." But still, having the family nearby, maybe having grandchildren running in and out of the cottage, could vastly improve an elderly person's quality of life.

While his own parents probably won't end up in a granny pod, it's definitely something Dupin sees in his own future. "As I'm thinking about my life, I'll probably be in one of the backyards of one of my kids," he says.

TAXPAYERS WILL PAY $3 TRILLION IN PENSIONS

Even if the costly state pension system undergoes reform, taxpayers could get stuck with a hefty bill.

Under the current system, unfunded benefit liabilities -- the amount states owe in promised retirement benefits beyond what they've collected -- exceed $3 trillion.

Even moderate policy changes, which are highly controversial, would only trim that amount by a pinch, according to a recent study released Thursday by Northwestern University economist Joshua Rauh.

For example, reducing cost-of-living adjustments by 1% would decrease the total liabilities by up to 11%, while raising the retirement age by one year would cut costs by up to 4%.

And even more severe changes, like eliminating cost-of-living adjustments and implementing Social Security retirement age parameters would only shave the bill by half to $1.5 trillion, the study said.

"The bottom line is that even much more drastic versions of the policy actions currently being discussed don't come close to solving the problem, since so much of the pension debt is owed to workers who have already retired," Rauh said.

He added that more than half of the unfunded liabilities are owed to workers who have already retired, and instead of seriously considering the idea to cut current retirees' benefits, states are focused on revamping the system to affect new workers.

"Assuming states don't start defaulting on their bonds and other debt, it seems like taxpayers will be footing most of the multi-trillion dollar bill for the pension promises that states have already made to workers."

Earlier this year, Rauh predicted that pension funds in at least seven states could dry up by 2020, and 31 states could be in trouble by 2030.

FRANCE EXPELS ROMA GYPSIES 3

France begins its controversial expulsion of around 700 Roma to Romania and Bulgaria on Thursday, amid rising criticism of President Nicolas Sarkozy's clampdown on the minority.

The first 79 Roma who agreed to a so-called "voluntary return procedure" will be put on an afternoon flight to Bucharest, the first such expulsion since Sarkozy in July vowed action against Roma, Gypsy and traveller communities.

France intends to fly 132 more to Timisoara, in western Romania, and Bucharest on Friday and 160 on August 26, with each adult granted 300 euros ($A429.22) and each minor 100 euros ($A143.07).

With unease growing over the roundups using tactics that one member of Sarkozy's ruling party compared to those of Nazi-era France, the interior ministry insisted on Wednesday that each case had been looked at individually.

Romanian Foreign Minister Teodor Baconschi said he was worried about the risk of "xenophobic reactions".

"I am worried about the risks of populism and xenophobic reactions in a context of economic crisis", Baconschi said in an interview with the Romanian service of Radio France International (RFI Romania).

French Interior Minister Brice Hortefeux will next week receive senior Romanian officials including Secretary of State for Roma Integration Valentin Mocanu to discuss the Roma's predicament.

About 10,000 Roma from Romania and Bulgaria were returned to their countries in 2009, but this is the first expulsion since Sarkozy in July announced a clampdown on foreigners.

Baconschi said he "hopes" that all legal procedures have been duly applied for these "expulsions".

The European Union's executive arm has said France must abide by the bloc's freedom of movement rules when it expels Roma living illegally in the country.

The European Commission is following the situation "very attentively", a spokesman, Matthew Newman, said.

Most of the Roma who were sent to Romania in 2009 returned to France afterwards as European citizens free to travel in the EU, officials admitted.

The French foreign ministry insisted the measures being taken against the Roma were in line with European rules.

"The measures taken by the French authorities with regard to dismantling illegal camps fully conform with European rules and do not in any way affect the freedom of movement for EU citizens, as defined by treaties," foreign ministry spokesman Bernard Valero told AFP.

Valero said a European directive "expressly allows for restrictions on the right to move freely for reasons of public order, public security and public health".

There are about 15,000 Roma of Eastern European origin in France.

The Roma community in Romania numbers 530,000 according to the national census or 2.5 million according to non-governmental organisations, who say that some do not declare themselves as Roma fearing discrimination.

TWO INFANT SKELETONS FOUND IN TRUNK IN LOS ANGELES

Two infant skeletons wrapped in 1930s newspapers and placed in doctor's bags were found inside an unclaimed steamer trunk by a woman cleaning out the basement of a 1924 building that's being converted to condominiums, authorities in Los Angeles said.

The skeletons, believed to be decades-old remains of fetuses or infants, were discovered late Tuesday in the 4-foot-tall green trunk inscribed with the initials JMB.

Other things found in the trunk included cigarettes, a green bowl, black and white photos, letters, a book club membership certificate inscribed Jean M. Barrie and ticket stubs from the 1932 Los Angeles Olympic Games.

We'll put detectives on this case for the long term. We'll try to reconstruct the circumstances based on what the coroner tells us, based on the history of the residence and based on science.

Charlie Beck, Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck
The remains were found in the four-story brick building near MacArthur Park, just a few miles west of downtown Los Angeles. The larger skeleton, the size of a newborn, was wrapped in a Los Angeles Times newspaper dated 1934.

A smaller skeleton was wrapped in newspaper dated 1932, said Gloria Gomez, property manager of the co-op for the last 10 years. She and friend Yiming Xing, 35, who has lived there for six years, had to force open the trunk with a screwdriver, she said.

Coroner's officials will try to determine how the babies died, check missing children reports and try to find relatives and neighbors who might know what happened.

It was Gomez's job to clean out the basement. Everyone in the building was given until Aug. 14 to get their things out. The condo board told Gomez she could have anything that wasn't claimed.

On Tuesday night, Gomez and Xing checked two unclaimed trunks and they were empty. They tried several keys on the last one, but finally had to pry it open. They found the drawers full and pulled out several antiques, the bowl, a toilet figurine, books, photos and documents.

Then they found the two black leather doctor bags.

Xing opened the first soft bundle. They found what looked like a piece of brown, dry, very old looking wood, Gomez said, and Xing said it appeared to be an embryo. They called 911 and waited.

When the coroner arrived, investigators unwrapped the second bundle to find the larger skeleton. This one was more childlike, wrapped in an extra blanket, the sheet and newspaper. You could see the child's hair, Gomez said.

Both had been wrapped up like mummies but both were skeletons, Gomez said.

Another paper in the trunk was dated Sept. 17, 1937.

The women found a certificate indicating Barrie belonged to "The Peter Pan Woodlands Club," Gomez said. That said to them that the owner of the trunk might be wealthy, she said.

Oddly, Peter Pan was created by Scottish author James M. Barrie.

Coroner's investigators took the bodies, drawers, medical bags, photos and some of the documents, Gomez said, but they left her the trunk, the book, the bowl, the cigarettes, a typewriter manual, the ticket stubs and clothing.

Police are awaiting results from the coroner's office and have promised their own investigation.

"We'll put detectives on this case for the long term," police Chief Charlie Beck told the Los Angeles Times. "We'll try to reconstruct the circumstances based on what the coroner tells us, based on the history of the residence and based on science. We have many more tools and technology available to us than before, which may allow for identification of the victims and closure to any family members."

According to the property manager's website, the Glen-Donald building has been used in a national DirecTV commercial, for the television show Quarter Life and a small, independent film project.

The building's interior has solid mahogany woodwork throughout, a grand style lobby and two period elevators that serve the building, another website said.

The building is being converted from a co-op building to one with condos. There were 94 units when it was a co-op.

Gomez said it was home to doctors, lawyers, writers and actors when it opened in what was then the tony Westlake district.

SCAM TARGETS FACEBOOK USERS

Facebook members are being warned of a rogue "dislike" feature luring users into giving away personal information to scammers.

The social networking website said it was investigating examples of the scam which tricks members into giving away permission to access their profile pages.

The scam was launched amid calls for the introduction of an official dislike feature to accompany the "like" button already in place, according to IT security firm Sophos.

Graham Cluley, of Sophos, said: "Facebook users should think carefully before they click on an unknown link in a friend's status update as these scams are becoming increasingly common.

"Giving away personal information in a survey and allowing an application access to your profile is extremely risky and Facebook users need to wise up to this rather than just clicking on links that they see, just because they appear to be from a trusted source."

Two versions of the scam were reported to Facebook by Sophos.

A spokeswoman for Facebook said the website disables malicious applications as soon as they are reported.

"We're always working to improve our systems and are building additional protections against this type of content," she said.

"As always, we encourage people not to click on suspicious links anywhere on the web, even if they've been sent or posted by friends.

"We also have a robust reporting system in place and encourage our users to report any content they suspect to be spam or have the potential to compromise a user's account through the 'flag' button underneath each post."

FIRST CHOLERA CASE HITS PAKISTAN AS FLOODS HIT 20 MILLION

PAKISTAN'S Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani said yesterday 20 million people had been affected by the worst floods in the country's history as the UN confirmed the first cholera case.

Independence day celebrations were cancelled as floods continued to bring misery to millions and aid agencies warned of a ''second wave'' of deaths from disease.

''The floods affected about 20 million people, destroyed standing crops and food storages worth billions of dollars, causing colossal loss to the national economy,'' Mr Gilani said in a televised address to the nation.

''I would appeal to the world community to extend a helping hand to fight this calamity.''

The United Nations has appealed for ($513 million) to deal with the immediate aftermath of the floods, but charities say the figure falls far short of what is needed.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon was due to arrive in Pakistan late yesterday to discuss the relief effort and visit flood-hit areas.

''This is the worst-ever calamity for us and the entire nation will have to show courage to face it,'' Mr Gilani said.

''I am pretty confident that the nation will once again emerge victorious from this crisis.

''Outbreak of epidemics in the flood-hit areas is a serious threat, which can further compound the already grave situation.''

''There has been at least one cholera confirmed case in Mingora,'' said Maurizio Giuliano, spokesman for the UN Office for Humanitarian Affairs, referring to the main town in the north-western district of Swat.

Mr Giuliano said at least 36,000 people were reportedly suffering from acute watery diarrhoea.

''We're not suggesting that everyone who has acute watery diarrhoea has cholera, but cholera is certainly a concern and that's why we're stepping up our efforts to treat cholera,'' he said.

Charities said relief for those affected by the worst natural disaster in Pakistan's history was lagging far behind what was needed.

''There are millions of people needing food, clean water and medical care and they need it right now,'' said Jacques de Maio, head of operations for South Asia at the International Committee of the Red Cross.

''Clearly at this point in time, the overall relief effort cannot keep pace with the overall scale of the emergency,'' he said.

Humanitarian agencies in Pakistan were monitoring the risk of ''a second wave of deaths induced by the floods in the shape of water-borne diseases'', Mr de Maio said, adding that it was impossible to measure the full scale of the disaster.


The embattled leader has come under fire from flood victims and the opposition after pressing on with a trip to Europe last week, despite the mounting emergency.



The United Nations believes 1600 people have died in the disaster, while Islamabad has confirmed 1343 deaths.

UN officials warn that the damage to infrastructure and the economy will put volatile Pakistan back years.

With up to 2 million people requiring emergency shelter and 6 million depending on humanitarian assistance to survive, troops distributed national flags among the people in the flood-hit north-western town of Nowshera yesterday.

THE NUMBER OF SEVERE MENTALLY ILL STUDENTS IS RISING

More college students mentally ill
The number of college students with severe mental illness, including those on psychiatric medications, is rising.



The number of college students who are afflicted with a serious mental illness is rising, according to data presented Thursday at the annual meeting of the American Psychological Assn. in San Diego

The findings came from an analysis of 3,265 college students who used campus counseling services between September 1997 and August 2009. The students were screened for mental disorders, suicidal thoughts and self-injurious behavior.

In 1998, 93% of the students seeking counseling were diagnosed with one mental disorder, compared to 96% of students in 2009. The percentage of students with moderate to severe depression rose from 34% to 41% while the number of students on psychiatric medications increased from 11% to 24%.

However, the number of students who said they had thought about suicide within two weeks of counseling fell from 26% in 1998 to 11% in 2009—a figure that could reflect improvements in suicide prevention and counseling outreach on college campuses.

Efforts have been made in recent years to improve the lives of college students who have mental illness.

". . .our findings may suggest that students with severe emotional stress are getting better education, outreach and support during childhood that makes them more likely to attend college than in the past," the lead author of the study, John Guthman of Hofstra University, said in a news release.

Several programs are available to assist students with mental illness, including Half of Us and Active Minds. In addition, the Jed Foundation recently launched a program for high school juniors who have a mental illness to help them select a college that will accommodate students with mental health needs. The program, called the Transition Year, provides information on what students and parents can do to prepare for the college transition.

LANGUAGES SPOKEN TODAY MAY VANISH BY THE YEAR 2100

A language dies every 14 days, and half those spoken today are expected to vanish by 2100. The secret language of the Kallawaya, in central South America, is more than 400 years old and spoken by fewer than a hundred people.

The Kallawaya use Spanish or Aymara in daily life but when discussing medicinal plants, used in their role as healers, they speak their own language.

Aboriginal Australia holds some of the most endangered languages such as Amurdag, which was believed extinct until a few years ago when linguists came across Charlie Mangulda, left, in the Northern Territory.

Mednyj Aleut is spoken by a few people in Siberia. Unlike most languages it has two parents, a combination of largely Aleut vocabulary and Russian verb endings. Nivkh, another Siberian language, has 26 ways of saying a number - depending on the object.

Siletz Dee-ni is spoken on the Siletz reservation in Oregon, US. Residents adopted a pidgin version of Chinook, almost wiping out their indigenous languages.

COMPANIES SELLING SCAM INSURANCE COVERAGE.

U.S. regulators are cracking down on the growing number of companies that fraudulently sell so-called medical discount plans by telling consumers they work like health insurance and cover medical costs.

The Federal Trade Commission said on Wednesday it is working with 24 states to crack down on sellers of medical discount plans that market them as health insurance that covers doctors, hospitals and other services.

Such scams have increased in the wake of the health care reform law passed in March, said David Vladeck, director of the FTC's Bureau of Consumer Protection. The law aims to expand coverage to tens of millions of uninsured and requires people to have health coverage starting in 2014.


The Obama administration is trying to prevent companies from taking advantage of consumers in the wake of the health reform passage, including warning traditional insurers not to use the law as an opportunity to push through big rate increases. .

INSURANCE COMPANIES PROFITING OFF SOLDIERS DEATHS

Why are large life insurance companies profiting from billions of dollars they hold on behalf of the families of fallen military service members?

Bloomberg Markets magazine senior writer David Evans posed that question in an article in its September issue. The article, which took a close look at practices at Prudential Financial, has sparked sharp criticism from Cabinet members, reform proposals from U.S. lawmakers, and a fraud investigation by the New York Attorney General.

The U.S. Veterans Affairs Dept. and the National Association of Insurance Commissioners say they are reviewing military life insurance arrangements.

Fallen soldiers' families denied cash as insurers profit
Gates says Pentagon to help death-benefits inquiry
Veterans agency to probe insurers on soldier benefits
.."It's disgraceful on the part of insurance companies," Senator John McCain (R-Ariz.), a onetime prisoner-of-war in Vietnam, said in an interview on Bloomberg Television. "We'll obviously have to be looking into it."

Under scrutiny are so-called retained-asset accounts. More than 100 carriers use the accounts to earn income on $28 billion owed to beneficiaries. New York-based MetLife, the biggest U.S. life insurer, retains about $10 billion and was among the carriers subpoenaed by Andrew Cuomo, the New York Attorney General.

Many life insurance companies suggest to beneficiaries that as an alternative to taking a lump-sum payment of death benefits, they leave the bulk of the policy proceeds with the carriers.

The accounts were set up for beneficiaries such as Cindy Lohman of Great Mills, Md. Her 24-year-old son had been killed by a bomb in Afghanistan. Prudential and the other insurers give the recipients limited checkbook-like access to the funds and pay modest interest.


.Meanwhile, the carriers can invest the money, obtaining a far higher return than what they offer to beneficiaries. Families often receive misleading guarantees about the safety of the accounts, which are held in corporate coffers, not in federally insured banks, Bloomberg Markets found.

A half-dozen members of President Barack Obama's Cabinet sit on an advisory council overseeing life insurance for military service-members. The last time the council met, in November, none of the Cabinet members attended the annual meeting. Aides accustomed to handling the issue for their agencies go as representatives.

"The advisory council gets briefed on what's going on, how much money is going out, how many death benefits," says John Gingrich, chief of staff for Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki.


Now, Shinseki and other Cabinet members have joined a growing number of lawmakers calling for an overhaul of insurer practices. Representative Debbie Halvorson (D-Ill.), has proposed a measure to set new rules for insurance companies that profit from accounts held for dead soldiers and veterans.

Prudential, based in Newark, N.J., defended retained-asset accounts as helpful to survivors, especially the loved ones of soldiers.

"For some families, the account is the difference between earning interest on a large amount of money and letting it sit idle," company spokesman Bob DeFillippo told Bloomberg. Prudential follows the law, he added.

MetLife spokesman Joseph Madden says his company similarly adheres to legal requirements. Its customers appreciate its version of retained-asset accounts, Madden adds. Beneficiaries get "peace of mind and time to make an informed decision while earning interest in the interim."

CALIFORNIA FIRM RECALLING ONE MILLION POUNDS OF GROUND BEEF.

Unfortunately, food recalls have become such a regular feature of daily life that it takes one really out of the ordinary to get people's attention.

Maybe this recall will grab you. Valley Meat Co. in Modesto, Calif., just recalled 1 million pounds of beef patties and ground beef produced late last year and in early January.


You read that right: 1 million pounds. If you figure that each head of cattle yields about 432 pounds of butcherable meat, then the recall would be the equivalent of more than 2,300 animals.

The problem: 7 people came down with nasty infections caused by E. coli O157:H7 that may have come from the meat, the U.S. Department of Agriculture says. That bug produces toxins that can wreak havoc on your intestines and, in some case, damage other organs.

The suspect meat was sold in California, Texas, Oregon, Arizona and overseas. Most of it was frozen. To identify products from Valley Meat, look for "EST. 8268" in the USDA inspection mark. The company's website is supposed to have a full list of the affected products, but the computers there seemed overwhelmed when when we tried to check late Friday.

But you can get also get a rundown from the USDA.

ROALD DAHL -- A JAMES BOND STYLE SPY

Apparently motivated by a combination of duty and lust, Dahl slept with countless high society women while gathering intelligence in the United States.

His life as a young, handsome and dashing RAF officer in the early 1940s is detailed in a new book by Donald Sturrock, Storyteller: The Life of Roald Dahl, which is serialised today in The Sunday Telegraph.


MI5 is looking for a James Bond-style QAntoinette Haskell, a wealthy friend of Dahl's who looked up to him as a brother even though he was "drop dead gorgeous", said the author had a "whole stable" of women to wait on his every need. "He was very arrogant with his women, but he got away with it. The uniform didn't hurt one bit – and he was an ace [pilot]," she said. "I think he slept with everybody on the east and west coasts that had more than $50,000 a year."

Dahl had fought as a fighter pilot earlier in the war, until injuries grounded him. He then worked for a secret service network based in the United States called British Security Coordination (BSC). It had been initially established to promote UK interests in the United States and to counter Nazi propaganda.

It is not known exactly how Dahl was recruited as a British agent, but it is thought he was working loosely for BSC by the first four months of 1944 when, officially, he had a public relations role at the British Embassy in Washington DC. He was "run" from New York by William Stephenson, a buccaneering Canadian industrialist and businessman.

Yet Dahl's secretive role went against the grain because he was a terrible gossip who frequently betrayed confidences, according to his family and friends. His daughter Lucy admitted: "Dad never could keep his mouth shut."

The new biography also examines Dahl's allegations of bullying and brutality during his public school days at Repton, which the children's author wrote about in his book Boy. Dahl blamed Geoffrey Fisher, the Headmaster of Repton and who went on to become the Archbishop of Canterbury, for a vicious caning that left him bloodied and questioning his religious faith.

However, it has emerged that Dahl, who died in 1990 aged 74, was wrong to blame Fisher for his beating in the summer of 1933. By then, Fisher had left Repton to become Bishop of Chester and so the caning was, in fact, administered by John Christie, his successor as Headmaster.

OBAMA'S MOTHER'S PASSPORT RECORDS DESTROYED !!

State Dept. claims records gone for Stanley Ann Dunham prior to 1968.
Responding to a Freedom of Information Act request, the State Department has released passport records of Stanley Ann Dunham, President Obama's mother – but records for the years surrounding Obama's 1961 birth are missing.

The State Department claims a 1980s General Services Administration directive resulted in the destruction of many passport applications and other "nonvital" passport records, including Dunham's 1965 passport application and any other passports she may have applied for or held prior to 1965.

Destroyed, then, would also be any records shedding light on whether Dunham did or did not travel out of the country around the time of Barack Obama's birth.

The claim made in the Freedom of Information response letter that many passport records were destroyed during the 1980s comes despite a statement on the State Department website that Passport Services maintains U.S. passport records for passports issued from 1925 to the present.

The records released, however, contain interesting tidbits of new information about Obama's mother, including the odd listing of two different dates and locations for her marriage to Obama's Indonesian stepfather, Lolo Soetoro.






In the released documents Dunham listed both March 15, 1965, in Molokai, Hawaii, and March 5, 1964, in Maui, Hawaii, as the dates and places of her marriage.

Dunham later divorced Lolo Soetoro in Hawaii. The divorce decree took effect Nov. 5, 1980, but the divorce papers do not list the date of the marriage.

No marriage certificate between Dunham and Soetoro has yet publicly surfaced, but a released application to amend Dunham's 1965 passport to her married name Stanley Ann Soetoro includes a checked box indicating a passport officer had seen the marriage certificate.

The released records also document that on Aug. 13, 1968, Dunham applied to have her 1965-issued passport renewed for two years, until July 18, 1970.

Under 22 USC Sec. 217a, from 1959 through 1968, passports were initially issued for three years, but they could be renewed for an additional two years.

Obama, by any other name

Also revealed by the released records is a heretofore unknown, alternative name for Barack Obama.

In the 1968 application to renew her 1965 passport, Dunham listed as her son Barack Hussein Obama, including in parenthesis below the name, "Soebarkah," in what appears to be a variation of an Indonesian surname not previously associated in the public record with the president.

For some unexplained reason, the designation of "Barack Hussein Obama (Soebarkah)" is crossed off the 1968 application by five handwritten, diagonal hash marks.



Dunham also appears to have used two different variations of her name in obtaining and amending passports while married to Lolo Soetoro: Stanley Ann Dunham Soetoro and, without her maiden name, Stanley Ann Soetoro.

On April 27, 1981, Dunham applied from Jakarta, Indonesia, for a U.S. passport, indicating that she was in Indonesia working on a two-year contract from the Ford Foundation, from January 1981 through December 1982.

At that time, Dunham was working on a microfinance program for the Ford Foundation, which was overseen by Peter Geithner, the father of Timothy Geithner, the current U.S. secretary of the treasury.

Ann Dunham's occupation in the 1981 passport application was listed as "Program Officer, Ford Foundation."

No passport records subsequent to 1986 for Ann Dunham were released, though presumably a passport was issued following her 1986 application, such that the 10-year period prior to expiration would have extended one year past her death.

Dunham died Nov. 7, 1995, and was known to have been in Indonesia in 1994 when an Indonesian doctor first misdiagnosed as indigestion the first signs of the ovarian cancer that was the cause of her death the following year.

The released documents shed no light on proving or disproving whether Dunham might have held a passport prior to Barack Obama's birth that she could have used to travel to Kenya for his birth, as has been speculated in the absence of the release of Obama's long-form birth certificate from Hawaii.

The State Department released the Dunham passport documents July 29, responding to a Freedom of Information request submitted by Christopher Strunk, a New York resident who has actively pursued obtaining documents regarding Obama's birth and his eligibility to be president under the "natural born citizen" requirement of Section 1, Article 2 of the United States Constitution.

The Dunham documents have been archived on the Internet.

The controversy continues

A prominent array of commentators, including Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Michael Savage, Mark Levin, Lou Dobbs, Peter Boyles and WND's Chuck Norris and Pat Boone have all said unequivocally and publicly that the Obama eligibility issue continues to be legitimate and worthy.

Longtime New York radio talker Lynn Samuels did the same.

"We don't even know where he was born," she said. "I absolutely believe he was not born in this country."

WND has reported on multiple legal challenges to Obama's status as a "natural born citizen." The Constitution, Article 2, Section 1, states, "No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President."

Some of the lawsuits question whether Obama was actually born in Hawaii, as he insists. If he was born out of the country, Obama's American mother, the suits contend, was too young at the time of his birth to confer American citizenship to her son under the law at the time.

Other challenges have focused on Obama's citizenship through his father, a Kenyan subject to the jurisdiction of the United Kingdom at the time of his birth, thus making him a dual citizen. The cases contend the framers of the Constitution excluded dual citizens from qualifying as natural born.

Further, others question his citizenship by virtue of his attendance in Indonesian schools during his childhood and question on what passport did he travel to Pakistan three decades ago.

Adding fuel to the fire is Obama's persistent refusal to release documents that could provide answers and his appointment of lawyers to defend against all requests for his documentation.

While his supporters cite an online version of a "Certification of Live Birth" from Hawaii as his birth verification, critics point out such documents actually were issued for children not born in the state.

WYOMING GOVERNOR TO SELL NATIONAL PARKS TO PAY FOR EDUCATION

The governor is threatening to sell the National Parks to pay for education in his state if the Obama Administration doesn't fund it.

MICHELLE OBAMA AND DAUGHTER TO GO ON PRIVATE HOLIDAY.

ISRAEL EXPELLING 400 CHILDREN TO SAFEGUARD THEIR JEWISH IDENTITY

JERUSALEM:

Israel will expel 400 native-born children of non-Jewish foreign workers to help safeguard the country's Jewish identity.

Migrant advocacy groups responded angrily to the decision, arguing that it will punish innocent children by sending them to back to the impoverished nations their parents had left in search of better lives in Israel.

Announcing the decision on Sunday, the Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said the new policy was also aimed at halting the flow of illegal immigrants across Israel's border with Egypt.

''This decision is influenced by two main considerations, of humanity and Zionism,'' Mr Netanyahu said. ''On the one hand, this problem is a humanitarian problem - we all feel and understand the hearts of children - but, on the other hand, there are Zionist considerations and ensuring the Jewish character of the state of Israel.''

Israel did not want to create an incentive for hundreds of thousands of illegal migrants to flood the country, he said.

Under new immigration rules, children born to foreign workers who entered Israel legally, and who have lived there for at least five years, speak Hebrew and are enrolled in an Israeli school, will be eligible for permanent residency.

The cabinet voted 13 to 10 in favour of the decision on Sunday. Some ministers voted no because not enough children were being expelled; others voted no because they were opposed to the expulsion of any children.

The decision means that about 400 children of foreign workers must leave Israel by the end of the month with their parents, while 800 children will be eligible to stay.

''This isn't the state of the Jews that I know, that expels children,'' said the Industry Minister, Benyamin Ben-Eliezer, a member of the Labour Party. ''This is not the right time to let people see Israel expelling 400 children.''

Rotem Ilan, the chairwoman of Israeli Children, an advocacy group for migrant workers' families, said: ''They are the children of people who came to Israel legally to work. We brought these people here to plough our fields, build our houses and take care of our grandparents. And with people, come families.''

Ms Ilan said it was the deportation of children that threatened Israel's Jewish character.

''The obligation to act with kindness and compassion to foreigners is the most frequently repeated commandment in the Torah,'' she said.

Several Israeli commentators expressed concern at the impact of the decision on Israel's reputation abroad.

IS BP BUYING SILENCE BY HIRING TOP SCIENTISTS ?

If this is so, it is disgusting.

CALCIUM SUPPLEMENTS MAY CAUSE HEART ATTACK RISKS

This is alarming.

HOW WAR GAMES LURES TEENS IN TO MILITARY

I think this is despicable that you have to fool them to get them to enlist.

CITIES ARE TO TAX CELL PHONES AND THE INTERNET

More and more cities are working while we are sleeping of ways to tax us.

101 BEST GENEALOGY WEBSITES OF 2010

GENERAL MOTORS TO ACQUIRE AMERICREDIT

GM to buy auto lender in bid to stoke sales

Top US automaker General Motors said Thursday it would acquire automobile finance firm AmeriCredit for about 3.5 billion US dollars, as it tries to open credit to hard-up consumers.

GM said the acquisition could help boost sales and provide a captive financing arm as the firm emerges from a government-financed bankruptcy.

It "supports our efforts to design, build and sell the world's best vehicles by expanding the financing options we can offer to consumers who want to buy GM vehicles," GM chairman and chief executive officer Ed Whitacre said in a statement.

AmeriCredit, with 3,000 employees in the United States and Canada and 800,000 customers, has about nine billion US dollars in business transactions
.

ANTI-HIV VAGINAL GEL BEING TESTED IN SOUTH AFRICA

Major step seen in quest for anti-HIV vaginal gel

Scientists on Monday reported a major stride towards a vaginal gel that can thwart HIV, a goal that would be of huge benefit to African women bearing the brunt of the AIDS pandemic.

A prototype cream tested in South Africa curbed the risk of infection by the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) by 39 percent overall, but by 54 percent among those women who used it most consistently, they said.

The study coincided with the six-day 18th International AIDS Conference in Vienna, where leading campaigners responded with cheers leavened with some caution.

A wider trial has to be completed to scrutinise the gel for safety and efficacy, and several important questions must be answered.

Even so, this is a bright ray of hope, the scientists said.

"Without this gel, we may see 10 women becoming infected in a year. With this gel, we would see only six women becoming infected," said Salim Abdool Karim, one of the two leading co-researchers, in a teleconference with reporters.

Leading figures in the fight against AIDS applauded loudly, but also sounded a note of prudence.

"We are giving hope to women. For the first time we have seen results for a woman-initiated and -controlled HIV prevention option," said Michel Sidibe, executive director of the UN agency UNAIDS.

"If confirmed, a microbicide will be a powerful option for the prevention revolution and help us to break the trajectory of the AIDS epidemic."

The World Health Organization (WHO) chief Margaret Chan vowed the UN agency would work hard to speed up access to the product, once it is proven to be safe and effective.

Twenty-five million people have been slain by AIDS today and more than 33 million others today are infected by HIV, which causes the disease.

More than two-thirds of these live in sub-Saharan Africa, where 60 percent of new infections occur among women and girls.

One of the big vectors of transmission is through coercive intercourse by an infected partner who is unwilling to wear a condom.

The gel that was tested contains a one-percent formulation of tenofovir. It is a frontline component in the "cocktail" of antiretroviral drugs that disrupt HIV reproduction in immune cells.

Previous microbicides that have been tested have not contained an antiretroviral, and have had either a very low level of protection or even boosted the risk of infection.

Over nearly three years, the gel was tested among 445 HIV-negative women, while 444 counterparts received a harmless lookalike called a placebo.

They were then tested for HIV at monthly follow-up visits, where they were also given counselling in safe sex, access to condoms and treatment for sexually-transmitted disease.

Each participant was asked to insert, using a vaginal applicator, a first dose of the gel within 12 hours before sex followed by a second dose as soon as possible but within 12 hours afterwards, said co-leader Quarraisha Abdool Karim, also of the Centre for the AIDS Programme of Research in South Africa (CAPRISA) in Durban.

Thirty-eight women in the gel group became infected with HIV, compared with 60 in the placebo group.

In statistical terms, the gel reduced the risk of HIV infection by 39 percent overall, but by 54 percent among women who adhered to the instructions most faithfully.

There was no increase in side effects, nor -- among women who became infected with HIV -- any sign that they were more resistant to tenofovir as a result of the gel.

In addition, the microbicide halved the risk of herpes simplex virus type 2, or HSV-2, a lifelong and incurable infection, according to the results.

Despite this good news, the scientists said they still had to tackle several important issues.

One is why the gel seemed to be less effective against HIV after about 18 months.

This may be due to weakened adherence to the cream, they suggested. About 40 percent of the women in the trial used the microbicide less than one time out of two.

The study, published by the US journal, Science, was to be the focus of a seminar on Wednesday, the third day of the world AIDS forum.

If -- eventually -- the gel is approved for use, it will join a small but growing arsenal of preventative tools against HIV.

For a long time, the condom was the only method that had a confirmed high degree of protection from HIV in intercourse.

Four years ago, it was joined by male circumcision. Removal of the foreskin, which contains cells that are vulnerable to penetration by HIV, can reduce HIV risk by more than half, but only for men and not for women, field studies found.

Jean-François Delfraissy, executive director of France's National Agency for AIDS Research (ANRS), said the CAPRISA work was "one of the greatest (medical) trials in the history of HIV".

Even with this success, there remained no "magic bullet" on prevention, but a panoply of methods that had to work together, he told AFP.

LOUISIANA : IF FISH SMELLS GOOD, I GUESS YOU CAN SELL IT !!!

Joe Shepard, administrator of Louisiana’s fisheries division, said state officials acted after analysis of approximately 500 samples of fish, crabs, oysters and shrimp from near shore indicated that they posed no health threat.

State officials are nonetheless urging fishermen to use common sense and to “smell and examine catch closely to ensure that there are no obvious oil or chemical residues.”

TWO US SPIES STOLE SECRETS TO GIVE TO CUBA.

Kendall and Gwendolyn Myers were the kind of spies any intelligence service would want. They did it for love of country, not for money.

According to United States prosecutors, the two stole US secrets and gave them to Cuba for nearly 30 years because of a shared communist ideology and an adoration of the Cuban revolution.

Now, Kendall Myers, a retired State Department worker, faces life in prison and his wife faces at least six years behind bars, the outcome of a plea deal driven by the government's need to find out all of the secrets the two stole.

Pursuing the same criminal charges through a contested trial risked further significant harm to the national security, prosecutors said. The government has not revealed the secrets the two took.

Myers was contacted by the Cuban intelligence service to be a covert agent, and he recruited Gwendolyn in 1979, prosecutors said. The couple married three years later. He was Agent 202, his wife Agent E-634.

In 1978, Myers began teaching at the Foreign Service Institute within the State Department and eventually served as director of European studies. He retired in 2007.

An FBI sting snagged the couple.

A bureau operative approached Myers on the street on the defendant's birthday, April 15, gave him a cigar, said he knew his Cuban handler and asked that they meet later, according to court papers. The couple met three times with the operative at Washington hotels, caught on videotape making incriminating statements.

Prosecutors want Myers, 73, to be sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole and Gwendolyn Myers, 72, to seven-and-a-half years.

The couple have six children and seven grandchildren and they requested prisons that are near each other to make it possible for family visits.

Kendall Myers has taught English to non-English-speaking prisoners and has helped illiterate inmates learn to read, according to court papers.

As for telling the FBI what they did, the government says the picture is mixed but not enough to shelve the plea deal.

There were times when Kendall Myers, in particular, gave inconsistent or uncooperative responses or was intentionally withholding information, the government said in court papers. Prosecutors are "certainly troubled" by that assessment, but the government has received all of the value it believes it is going to derive from the debriefing process, the court papers concluded.

The couple agreed to forfeit $US1.7 million to the government, the amount Kendall Myers defrauded the government out of by receiving a federal salary when he actually was working for the Cuban government.

WHO CREATES A CHILD MEDICINE DATABASE

The World Health Organisation has issued its first-ever guidance on how to use more than 240 essential medicines for children under 13.

The data provides information on use, dosage and side effects of medicines as well as warnings about which children should not take them, the UN health agency said. The 528-page document also tells users about common drug interactions.

"To be effective, medicines must be carefully chosen and the dose adjusted to suit the age, weight and needs of children," said WHO's Hans Hogerzeil.

"Without a global guide, many health care professionals have had to prescribe medicines based on very limited evidence," he said in a statement.

Some countries have developed their own instructions for giving medicines to children, but there are no universal standards.

The WHO document exists only in English. But the agency recommends that governments use it as a model and translate it into their national language, spokeswoman Fadela Chaib said.

About 8.8 million children under five die every year, many from diseases such as diarrhea and pneumonia that could be avoided with the correct use of medicines, according to WHO.

TURTLE EGGS ARE TO BE MOVED IN AN EFFORT TO ESCAPE OIL.

MIAMI:

In an unprecedented plan to save wildlife, volunteers will move tens of thousands of turtle eggs from oil-soaked beaches along the Gulf of Mexico to safety on Florida's Atlantic coast.

The eggs, which could number about 70,000, will be collected by hand, placed in special containers and driven in temperature-controlled trucks from mid-July.

''A plan like this is absolutely unprecedented and it would not be the choice of our scientists,'' said Patricia Behnke, of the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.

In New Orleans, the Coast Guard and BP reached a settlement with environmental groups over protecting endangered sea turtles against the dangers of controlled burns.

Three environmental groups - the Centre for Biological Diversity, the Turtle Island Restoration Network and the Animal Defence League - had sued in federal court, charging that oil spill responders had taken inadequate precautions.

Under the settlement, the Coast Guard will convene a group of scientists to determine how best to ensure that no endangered sea turtles die during controlled burns.

''Sea turtles are already suffering catastrophically from the oil spill and it would be outrageous to add insult to injury by burning them alive in the spill clean-up effort,'' said Kieran Suckling of the Centre for Biological Diversity. ''It's a no-brainer to put sea turtle observers on the clean-up boats and whisk the turtles out of the oil pools before they're set on fire.''

''We've agreed to meet to work out the terms to make sure the turtles are protected,'' Jason Burge, a lawyer for the environmental groups said.

GANG LEADER SAYS US CONSULAR WORKERS DEATH A DRUG HIT

MEXICO CITY:
The murder of a US consulate worker in March was ordered by a drug cartel enforcer who believed the woman was dealing visas to a rival gang, say Mexican police, who have arrested a suspect for the killing.

Jesus Ernesto Chavez, a leader of a gang that supplies contract killers to the Juarez drug cartel, was arrested on charges that he masterminded the daylight ambush and murder of Lesley Ann Enriquez and her husband, Arthur Redelfs, an El Paso sheriff's deputy.

Ms Enriquez, who was four months pregnant, and Mr Redelfs were killed by a squad of commandos as they left a birthday party. The couple's uninjured seven-month-old daughter was found crying in the back seat of their car.

Mr Chavez told police that Ms Enriquez was targeted because she was providing visas to members of the rival Sinaloa drug cartel, the chief of the federal police anti-drug unit, Ramon Pequeno, told a news conference on Friday.

US officials confirmed Mr Chavez is a suspected leader of Barrio Azteca, a violent gang born in Texas prisons with members on both sides of the border.

''He is the real deal, and we are glad they got him,'' a federal anti-drug agent said.

US officials were uncertain whether Mr Chavez was telling the truth about Ms Enriquez dealing in visas. She worked in the American Citizens Services department, which helps US citizens renew passports, register foreign births and get help after running out of money or being robbed.

BP SUED FOR BURNING TURTLES ALIVE IN THE GULF.

Animal welfare groups are suing BP for burning endangered sea turtles and are asking a US court to stop the oil giant's "controlled burns" on the Gulf of Mexico spill.

The lawsuit filed on Wednesday says BP is violating the Endangered Species Act and other laws with their "controlled burns" in the Gulf of Mexico.

The complainants, Animal Welfare Institute (AWI), Centre for Biological Diversity, Turtle Island Restoration Network and Animal Legal Defence Fund, have asked the federal court for a temporary restraining order to stop all burning activities "until ... mechanisms are implemented that will prevent any additional sea turtles from being burned alive."

"It is horrifying that these innocent creatures whose habitat has already been devastated by the oil spill are now being burned alive," AWI president Cathy Liss told the court in Louisiana.

Containment efforts put in place since a BP-leased offshore oil rig exploded April 20 unleashing the worst oil spill in US history include "controlled burns", in which oil is gathered by ship-towed floating booms and set on fire.

"Endangered sea turtles, including the Kemp's ridley, one of the rarest sea turtles on Earth, are caught in the gathered oil and unable to escape when the oil is set ablaze," the animal welfare groups said.

They said some 430 sea turtles from endangered species have perished so far in the oil spill.

"While cleaning up the catastrophic oil spill is critically important, so too is doing it in a way which doesn't destroy wildlife in a flagrantly unlawful manner," said Liss.

The groups said BP should remove all turtles from the oil gathered for a controlled burn before it is set on fire.

THE COAST GUARD BUSTED SHRIMPERS IN GULF

The Coast Guard returned 30,000 pounds of shrimp back to the Gulf of Mexico after seizing the seafood from shrimpers that allegedly scooped them up from oil-tainted waters.


The Coast Guard Cutter Tornado busted some shrimp boats in the Gulf of Mexico.


USCG The Coast Guard Cutter Tornado busted some shrimp boats in the Gulf of Mexico.
Two vessels — the Lady Monica and La Borrachita — had been fishing in an area closed by the feds due to the oil gushing from the Deepwater Horizon, the Coast Guard said.

Keeping the supply of seafood from the Gulf of Mexico safe is big challenge. The Coast Guard Cutter Tornado seized the shrimp Sunday, after boarding the boats 35 nautical miles south of Terrebonne Bay.

We were curious to know if any of the shrimp were checked for contamination. Nope, a Coast Guard spokesman told us. None were tested, he said, because they weren't allowed to be harvested in the first place.

OK.

One other thing, we asked, being naive about shrimping: Were the shrimp still alive when they were dumped back into the Gulf? Yes, they were, the Coast Guard spokesman said.

So maybe we'll see them again someday.

A MAN CLAIMS OIL IN OYSTERS AT A RESTAURANT

A man says he found oil inside his oysters while eating at a restaurant located north of Charlotte this weekend.

Matthew Robertson is fascinated at the thought that an oyster from the Gulf Coast that was possibly soaked in oil made it onto his dinner plate.

"I rubbed it on my napkin and I said 'Hey, Dad look, there's oil on my oysters,'" said Robertson.



WBTV reporter Sarah Batista noticed there was a black substance stuck to the inside of the oyster.

"That is definitely tar, that is not on oysters, "said Robertson.

Robertson said he noticed the oil Saturday evening when he went to dinner at Vinnie's Raw Bar which is located near Lake Norman.

The first few oysters he consumed were fine, but then he noticed something unusual.

"After I ate about four of them, I started looking at my hands and I'm like--what is this stuff on my hands," said Robertson.

Roy Hall is the manager of Vinnie's Raw Bar and he admits the substance in the oyster appeared to be oil.

He said possible food contamination is a concern in the seafood industry right now.

In fact, suppliers are scrambling to find fresh oysters and the cost is rising.

"Some of our suppliers have been maxed out, not able to meet our orders," said Hall.

While suppliers and restaurants are doing their best to screen the food, Hall said the substance was inside the oyster which makes it harder to detect.

On Monday, an inspector with the State health department examined the restaurant's new shipment of oysters, which came from the same area as the suspicious oysters.

He found no indication that any of the oysters were contaminated with oil, but he says the idea isn't too far-fetched given the extent of the oil spill in the Gulf.

"It's not out of the realm of possibility, but I would be real surprised to be honest," said Jeff French, inspector with the North Carolina Department of Environment and Natural Resources.

"After I ate about four of them, I started looking at my hands and I'm like--what is this stuff on my hands," said Robertson.

Roy Hall is the manager of Vinnie's Raw Bar and he admits the substance in the oyster appeared to be oil.

He said possible food contamination is a concern in the seafood industry right now.

In fact, suppliers are scrambling to find fresh oysters and the cost is rising.

"Some of our suppliers have been maxed out, not able to meet our orders," said Hall.

While suppliers and restaurants are doing their best to screen the food, Hall said the substance was inside the oyster which makes it harder to detect.

On Monday, an inspector with the State health department examined the restaurant's new shipment of oysters, which came from the same area as the suspicious oysters.

He found no indication that any of the oysters were contaminated with oil, but he says the idea isn't too far-fetched given the extent of the oil spill in the Gulf.

"It's not out of the realm of possibility, but I would be real surprised to be honest," said Jeff French, inspector with the North Carolina Department of Environment and Natural Resources.