ROME (Reuters) - The thought of eating beetles, caterpillars and ants may give you the creeps, but the authors of a U.N. report published on Monday said the health benefits of consuming nutritious insects could help fight obesity.
More than 1,900 species of insects are eaten around the world, mainly in Africa and Asia, but people in the West generally turn their noses up at the likes of grasshoppers, termites and other crunchy fare.
The authors of the study by the Forestry Department, part of the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), said many insects contained the same amount of protein and minerals as meat and more healthy fats doctors recommend in balanced diets.
"In the West we have a cultural bias, and think that because insects come from developing countries, they cannot be good," said scientist Arnold van Huis from Wageningen University in the Netherlands, one of the authors of the report.
Eva Muller of the FAO said restaurants in Europe were starting to offer insect-based dishes, presenting them to diners as exotic delicacies.
Danish restaurant Noma, for example, crowned the world's best for three years running in one poll, is renowned for ingredients including ants and fermented grasshoppers.
As well as helping in the costly battle against obesity, which the World Health Organization estimates has nearly doubled since 1980 and affects around 500 million people, the report said insect farming was likely to be less land-dependent than traditional livestock and produce fewer greenhouse gases.
It would also provide business and export opportunities for poor people in developing countries, especially women, who are often responsible for collecting insects in rural communities.
Van Huis said barriers to enjoying dishes such as bee larvae yoghurt were psychological - in a blind test carried out by his team, nine out of 10 people preferred meatballs made from roughly half meat and half mealworms to those made from meat.
(Reporting by Catherine Hornby; Editing by Philip Pullella and Mike Collett-White)
Electric vehicles still have a few obstacles that prevent them from going fully mainstream. These typically center on the price of the vehicle itself (though this is changing), and its range. One other barrier has also been the price of home-based chargers. Now, Bosch is offering a level 2 (quicker than the usually cheaper, and slower level 1) home charging system for just $450. For that price you get 16 amp charging and a 12 foot cord. There are two other options that increase the amperage to 30, with a choice of 18 or 25 foot cables -- costing $593 and $749 respectively. These don't include any additional networking features and so on, but for this price, and reduced reliance on external charging networks, it'd be worth clearing out the garage for.
NEW YORK (AP) ? The government is running out of time to try to halt implementation of a federal judge's ruling that would lift age restrictions for women and girls wanting to buy the morning-after pill.
U.S. District Judge Edward Korman in Brooklyn last week refused to delay enforcement of his month-old decision while the government challenges his ruling, but said it would have until Monday to appeal to the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan.
Korman said politics is behind efforts by Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius to block the unrestricted sale of the Plan B One-Step morning-after pill and its generic competitors.
Justice Department lawyers want the ruling stayed while they appeal.
If the government fails, it would clear the way for over-the-counter sales of the morning-after pill to younger girls. The FDA announced earlier this month that the contraception could be sold without a prescription to those 15 and older, a decision Korman said merely sugarcoated the appeal of his order lifting the age restriction.
Sales had previously been limited to those who were at least 17.
The government warned that "substantial market confusion" could result if Korman's ruling was enforced while appeals are pending. The judge dismissed the reasoning as a "silly argument."
Korman ordered levonorgestrel-based emergency contraceptives be made available without a prescription, over-the-counter and without point-of-sale or age restrictions. The order was supposed to take effect on Friday.
The judge said he ruled against the government "because the secretary's action was politically motivated, scientifically unjustified and contrary to agency precedent" and because there was no basis to deny the request to make the drugs widely available.
In court papers, attorneys for the Center for Reproductive Rights have said that every day the ruling is not enforced is "life-altering" to some women.
Supporters of Boiko Borisov, former Prime Minister and leader of center-right GERB party applaud as they wait to see him outside a polling station in Bankya, Bulgaria, Sunday May 12, 2013. Bulgarians are voting Sunday in parliamentary elections with no party expected to win a majority to form a government, fueling fears about more political and economic instability in the country. (AP Photo/Valentina Petrova)
Supporters of Boiko Borisov, former Prime Minister and leader of center-right GERB party applaud as they wait to see him outside a polling station in Bankya, Bulgaria, Sunday May 12, 2013. Bulgarians are voting Sunday in parliamentary elections with no party expected to win a majority to form a government, fueling fears about more political and economic instability in the country. (AP Photo/Valentina Petrova)
Sergey Sanishev, leader of Bulgarian Socialist Party talks to journalists after casting his vote for parliamentary elections in Sofia, Sunday, May 12, 2013. Bulgarians are voting Sunday in parliamentary elections with no party expected to win a majority to form a government, fueling fears about more political and economic instability in the country. (AP Photo/Valentina Petrova)
A demonstrator shows a poster depicting former PM Boyko Borisov, Simeon Dyankov, minister of finance and Tsvetan Tsvetanov, interior minister as prisoners during a protest against the center-right GERB party in Sofia, Saturday, May 11, 2013. Bulgarian prosecutors have stormed a printing house and seized 350,000 illegally printed ballots just hours before the start of parliamentary elections. Vote-buying and other election fraud concerns have prompted the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) to dispatch its biggest monitoring mission to Bulgaria since 1990 for Sunday's vote. (AP Photo/Valentina Petrova)
A demonstrator shouts slogans during a protest against the center-right GERB party in Sofia, Saturday, May 11, 2013, after 350,000 illegally printed ballots were seized just hours before the start of parliamentary elections. Vote-buying and other election fraud concerns have prompted the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) to dispatch its biggest monitoring mission to Bulgaria since 1990 for Sunday's vote. (AP Photo / Valentina Petrova)
An elderly Bulgarian casts his ballot for parliamentary elections in Sofia, Sunday, May 12, 2013. Bulgarians are voting Sunday in parliamentary elections with no party expected to win a majority to form a government, fueling fears about more political and economic instability in the country. (AP Photo/Valentina Petrova)
SOFIA, Bulgaria (AP) ? Bulgaria's center-right party and its main challenger, the Socialists, finished first and second in Sunday's parliamentary election, with neither one winning a majority needed to form a government, two exit polls indicated.
If that outcome is confirmed, it could lead to more political and economic instability in this financially strapped Balkan nation.
Some 6.9 million eligible voters were choosing among candidates from 36 parties. But voter apathy was widespread, and allegations of vote fraud and an illegal wiretapping scandal marred the campaign.
The Alpha Research exit poll said former Prime Minsiter Boiko Borisov's GERB party won 31.1 percent, with the Socialists were second with 27.1 percent. A separate exit poll by Sova Harris said Borisov's party won 31 percent of the vote, with the Socialists at 25.3 percent.
Recent opinion polls had predicted that outcome.
With up to five other parties expected to enter the 240-seat parliament, formation of a stable government may prove difficult. "I expect that the country will soon head to another election," Anton Todorov, a political analyst, said before the vote.
Bulgaria has been led by a caretaker government since February, when Borisov, who guided his Citizens for Bulgaria's European Development party to victory in 2009, resigned as prime minister amid sometimes violent protests against poverty, high utility bills and corruption.
The ex-ruling party has seen its reputation tarnished further since prosecutors alleged that former Interior Minister Tsvetan Tsvetanov was responsible for illegally eavesdropping on political opponents during his term. Media leaks have also fueled suspicion that Borisov may have tried to interfere with the case.
But perhaps more than anything, Borisov's party may struggle to win the public's confidence due to economic issues. Six years after Bulgaria's entry into the European Union, the Balkan state of 7.3 million remains the bloc's poorest member.
Bulgarians have been angry over austerity measures designed to reduce public debt, which have meant cuts in health care and education programs.
Many Bulgarians feel squeezed by low wages ? the lowest in the EU at 400 euros ($524) a month ? and relentless inflation. They feel betrayed by promises that joining the EU would bring them a better life. Now, more than 22 percent of the people live below the official poverty line.
According to official statistics, the unemployment rate is 12 percent, but experts suggest that the real rate is more than 18 percent.
Allegations of vote-rigging that have accompanied elections in the past prompted five major former opposition parties to seek an independent vote count; the first such count since 1990 will be conducted by the Austrian agency SORA. More than 250 international observers monitored Sunday's election.
On Saturday, prosecutors stormed a printing house and seized 350,000 ballots that were printed over the legally fixed number.
The country's president urged Bulgarians to vote in large numbers to counter possible vote-buying practices that could influence the outcome of the race.
"As many as the scenarios may be, these do not stand any chance against millions of Bulgarians who can cast their votes for their own country and its future," Rosen Plevneliev said after casting his ballot.
Teen clothing brand Wet Seal has reached a $7.5 million settlement over allegations that it horrendously discriminated against employees of color, because they didn't have the "white," "blue eye," "thin and blond" look the brand wanted, according to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
Three former managers filed the lawsuit last year, accusing the nationwide retail chain of actively firing and denying raises and promotions to black workers. One plaintiff, former manager Kai Hawkins, said that her boss threatened to fire her unless she hired more white employees. Another, Nicole Codgell, claimed that she was fired the day after the company's senior vice president for store operations toured several outlets and sent an email to lower managers, "African American dominate -- huge issue."
The lawsuit also accused senior vice president Barbara Bachman of commanding managers to "lighten up" the staff in stores serving mainly white customers, and telling one regional manager that she must have "lost her mind" to put a black person in charge of a certain store.
More: Weather Channel Anchor Says She Was Fired For Her Military Service
Wet Seal had denied the allegations. The company, calling the settlement a "no-fault resolution of the case," agreed to pay at least $5.58 million in damages to current and former African American managers, according to the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund, which was co-counsel in the suit. As part of the settlement, Wet Seal, which has over 7,000 employees, must also track applications to ensure diversity in hiring, expand its human resources department, post management openings, and regularly report on the hiring, promotions and firings of minority employees.
"Being targeted for termination from a job I loved because of my race was a nightmare," Cogdell said in a statement. "... Wet Seal has now committed to strong, fair policies because we took a stand. I hope these changes will create opportunities for all deserving employees, regardless of their race."
More: 4 Retail Jobs That Pay Surprisingly Well
This isn't an isolated case in the retail industry, where the pursuit of a specific "brand image" can end up leaving many out. "There's sort of an assumption about what the employees who interact with the customers have to look like," ReNika Moore, director of the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund's economic justice group, told AOL Jobs. "And there's a bias and prejudice that's filtering into these workspaces, and it's really acting as a barrier for workers of color to advance."
The Wet Seal case was just a particularly extreme example, she said. "You rarely get situations where it's so explicitly recorded, in email, especially from someone at such a high level in the company."
In 2004, Abercrombie & Fitch paid $40 million to minority and female employees and job applicants to settle a massive class-action federal discrimination suit. The settlement also demanded that Abercrombie increase the number of non-whites in its ads.
But it wasn't just African Americans who didn't fit into Abercrombie's idea of itself; an employee, who claimed that she was forced to work in the stockroom, away from customers, because of her prosthetic arm, filed suit in 2009; and two women said that they were fired or refused a job for wearing a head scarf.
More: Why Is It So Hard To Get An $8 An Hour Job At Walmart?
Just this week, Abercrombie has come under fire for refusing to stock XL sizes, and media outlets resurfaced a 2006 quote from CEO Mike Jeffries. "In every school there are cool and popular kids, and then there are the not-so-cool kids," he told Salon. "Candidly, we go after the cool kids. We go after the attractive all-American kid with a great attitude and a lot of friends. A lot of people don't belong [in our clothes], and they can't belong. Are we exclusionary? Absolutely."
But for many retail chains, there's a built-in bias when it comes to the question of who belongs. A 2012 survey of New York retailers by the worker advocacy group, Retail Action Project, and CUNY's Murphy Institute for Worker Education and Labor Studies found that minority workers were more likely to have their hours reduced without their consent, and significantly less likely to get a promotion.
White employees also earned an average of $11.30 an hour, compared to $10.49 for black workers, and $9.45 for Latinos, according to the report. All of them earn more than the average Wet Seal sales associate, however. According to employment review site Glassdoor.com, he or she takes home just $7.90 an hour.
1. Only 20% of active managers (1 in 5) can outperform their benchmarks in any given year;
2. Within that quintile, less than half (1 in 10) outperform in 2 out of the next 3 years;
3. Only 3% stayed in the top 20% over 5 years (1 in 33);
4. Once we include costs and fees, less than 1% (1 in 100) manage tooutperform (net).
5. What are the odds you can pick that 1 in 100 manager?
Source: Morningstar, Vanguard
Probably not good.
The TAG 401k) Plan has a wide array of index funds (also a number of actively managed funds, in case you want to hook your wagon to some out-performer's star. But remember ... today's hot financial adviser is tomorrow's loser.)
I remind people about index investing because I've gotten shafted investing with a smarter-than-thou financial adviser picking individual stocks. It's not that the adviser was super wrong, it's that the adviser charged Big Money to be only mildly right.
Months ago, TAG 401(k) Plan trustees were faced with having to replace an actively-managed Mid Cap fund that had been sucking bad over the previous year. Not only did it suck against other actively managed funds, but it didn't keep up with the index fund that it tracked. We tried to replace it with another actively managed fund, but they all were worse than the index.
So we deep-sixed the active fund and went with the index. Forbes magazine points out that indexes dominate over time.
An actively-managed five-fund portfolio held for 20 years has only a two percent chance of outperforming a comparable index fund portfolio.
Said another way, if you hold five index funds in different fund categories for 20 years, your portfolio has a 98 percent chance of outperforming a portfolio holding five comparable, actively-managed funds. ...
Even actively managed bond funds, often thought to wallop indexes, aren't so spiffy:
"On average, about 70 percent of all actively-managed bond funds underperformed their benchmarks over the five-year period ending in 2012. ..."
Factoids to think about when you're putting money into retirement investments.
401(k) Enrollment Meeting Dates (May-June)
Disney
Disney Feature - Southside Bldg. Tue. May 14th, 10 am Rm. 1300
DisneyToon Thur. May 16th, 2 pm, Conf. Rm. 101
Disney TVA - Sonora Bldg. Wed. May 22nd, 10 am, Rm. 1172
Disney TVA - Empire Cntr.. Wed. May 22nd, 2 pm, Rm. 5223
Cartoon Network Wed. May 15th, 1 pm, Main Conf. Rm.
Dreamworks Animation Thur. May 30th, 2 pm, Dining Rm. B&C
Dreamworks - Dragons Thur. May 23rd, 2 pm, Main Conf. Rm.
Fox TV Animation Wed. June 5th, 2 pm, Main Conf. Rm.
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) ? The America's Cup catamaran that capsized in San Francisco Bay, killing an Olympic gold medalist, nosedived during a difficult maneuver and broke into many pieces, an official said Friday.
However, it remained unclear why the Artemis flipped on Thursday, trapping crew member Andrew "Bart" Simpson under the wreckage for at least 10 minutes.
America's Cup organizers also said Friday it was unclear what affect the fatality might have on the series of races scheduled to begin on July 6.
"Nothing is off the table," said Stephen Barclay, chief executive of the America's Cup Event Authority. "We need to know what happened."
Murray said America's Cup organizers have launched an investigation. The San Francisco Police Department is also looking into the incident.
Another organizing official, Iain Murray, said conditions Thursday afternoon were typical on San Francisco Bay, which often sees hard-blowing winds. The Artemis was operating in winds of 15 to 20 knots, with occasionally stiffer gusts.
Murray said Artemis Racing's catamaran was attempting to change direction and turn down wind when it capsized. Though difficult, the maneuver was normal, he said.
Murray said Simpson was on a trampoline on the windward side of the yacht with crew members and got trapped under some solid sections of the yacht, out of site to those on board who were looking for him.
"How he got to where he got to we do not know," Murray said.
Simpson, 36, was a strategist for the team that represents a Swedish yacht club. The crew was practicing with the Oracle team.
"Artemis and Oracle were out there training in what they had been doing for months," Murray said. "And looking frankly quite good."
Artemis officials didn't attend a Friday news conference and didn't return phone calls. Oracle Racing agreed to suspend its training until Monday.
"Andrew Simpson was a hugely accomplished sailor and Olympian," International Olympic Committee President Jacques Rogge, a former Olympic sailor from Belgium, said in a statement to The Associated Press. "He died pursuing his sporting passion."
It was the second time a sailor has died during training for the America's Cup. In 1999, Martin Wizner of the Spanish Challenge died almost instantly when he was hit in the head by a broken piece of equipment.
No deaths have been recorded during the actual racing since its inception in 1851.
Simpson and his partner Iain Percy won an Olympic gold medal for England in 2008 in the Star class of sailing. The duo was expected to repeat in London in 2012 but was upset by a Swedish team and settled for silver.
Artemis Racing has had its share of upheaval in the buildup to the 34th America's Cup. Late last year, skipper Terry Huthinson of Annapolis, Md., was released. He was replaced by Nathan Outteridge of Australia, who won a gold medal at the London Olympics.
The team has had technical problems, as well. Last fall, Artemis said the front beam of its AC72 catamaran was damaged during structural tests, delaying the boat's christening. A year ago, Artemis' AC72 wing sail sustained serious damage while it was being tested on a modified trimaran in Spain.
The Artemis wasn't the first America's Cup boat to capsize on the wind-swept San Francisco Bay. Oracle's $10 million boat capsized in 25-knot winds in October, and strong tides swept it four miles past the Golden Gate Bridge.
No one was injured, but the rough waters destroyed the 131-foot wing sail.
It was too soon to answer questions about the safety of the high-tech boats on the San Francisco Bay, Barclay said.
"Obviously a catamaran is more prone to capsizing than a mono-hull," he said. "Whether boats are safe or unsafe, we're not going to speculate on those things."
In addition to sailors wearing crash helmets and life vests, chase boats carry doctors and divers, Barclay said.
"There are lots of precautions that are taken, and some of those are as a result of Oracle's mishap last year," he said.
The catamarans have proved hard to handle. The wing sail looks and acts like an airplane wing, improving the yacht's speed and maneuverability. The 7-ton boat's hulls are lifted out of the water and it skims along the waves on "foils," reducing the drag on the boat and increasing speed dramatically.
___
Associated Press writers Terry Collins, Sudhin Thanawala and Garance Burke contributed to this report.
CLEVELAND (AP) ? The mannequin was life-sized, with a mop-like wig and creepy, slanted eyes. Ariel Castro kept it propped against a wall of his house and liked to use it to scare people. Sometimes he drove around town with it in the back seat of his car.
"He threatened me lots of times with it," said Castro's nephew, 26-year-old Angel Caraballo, who was terrified of his uncle as a little boy and unnerved by him as an adult. "He would say: 'Act up again, you'll be in that back room with the mannequin.'"
Castro installed padlocks on every door leading into his dilapidated home on Seymour Avenue. He kept the basement bolted shut, too. When relatives showed up at his front door, he made them wait for half an hour before emerging, and nobody was ever allowed past the living room.
"He had told me to stay in the kitchen," said Elida Marie Caraballo, Castro's niece, who was at his house about seven years ago with Castro's daughter Rosie. "I didn't know why."
In the days since Castro's arrest on charges of keeping three women imprisoned in his home for a decade, relatives and acquaintances have sketched a portrait of him as a man with a twisted sense of humor, a compulsion for secrecy and a towering, terrifying rage that led him to savagely beat, torment and control his common-law wife, Grimilda Figueroa.
He was a "monster," they said.
The image stands starkly at odds with the picture drawn by some neighbors, fellow musicians and others. They described the former school bus driver as an affable guy who played bass in a merengue band and rode motorcycles around town.
"You can talk to him and you think he's a nice guy," said Frank Caraballo, Castro's brother-in-law. "I think it was a female thing. He was really controlling with females. You know, he didn't want no one to touch his daughters. He wanted to know everything his wife did."
Castro, 52, is being held in jail on $8 million bail under a suicide watch, charged with rape and kidnapping. Prosecutors said they plan to bring additional counts, possibly including murder charges punishable by death for allegedly forcing at least one of his pregnant captives to miscarry over and over again by starving her and punching her in the belly.
A DNA test confirmed Friday that he fathered the now 6-year-old girl born to one of the women while in captivity.
Castro was represented in court on Thursday by public defender Kathleen Demetz, who said she is acting as Castro's adviser if needed until he is appointed a full-time attorney. She said Friday that she can't speak to his guilt or innocence and that she advised him not to give any news interviews that might jeopardize his case.
Figueroa left Castro years ago and died last year after a long illness. During their early years together, Castro worked in a plastics factory and treated his wife well, relatives said. But after their first child was born, they said, something snapped in him.
He beat Figueroa relentlessly, her relatives said. They said he pushed her down the stairs, fractured her ribs, broke her nose several times, cracked a tooth and dislocated both shoulders. Once, he shoved Figueroa into a cardboard box and closed the flaps over her head, they said.
Figueroa filed domestic-violence complaints accusing Castro of threatening many times to kill her and her daughters. She charged that he frequently abducted the children and kept them from her, even though she had full custody, with no visitation rights for Castro.
He kept his wife and children imprisoned, cut off from friends and family, according to relatives. Figueroa couldn't even unlock her own front door, they said.
"When I go over there to visit her, and I ask her, 'Nilda, I'm here, open the door,' she's like, 'I can't. Ariel has the key,'" Elida Caraballo recalled.
Castro forbade Figueroa to use the telephone, relatives said. After warning her not to leave, he would test her to see if she obeyed.
"He would go creeping downstairs, not telling her that he's home, spying on her," Caraballo said. "See who she's calling. Next thing you know, he'll pop upstairs."
One day, Figueroa was returning home with her arms full of groceries when Castro jumped into the doorway with the mannequin, frightening her so badly that she fell backward and smashed her head on the pavement, Caraballo said.
The mind games are echoed in the police report this week on the escape of the three women held at his home. According to the report, their big break came when Amanda Berry, 27, discovered that the main door was unlocked, leaving only a bolted screen door between her and freedom.
But she feared it was a test: Castro occasionally left a door unlocked to test them, Berry said. But she called to neighbors on a porch for help and was able to squeeze through.
Castro was strange in other ways, relatives said. He would take his nephew and nieces to fast-food restaurants and let them split a fountain soda, forcing them to pass the drink around. He would let each one sip just enough until the line of soda reached an exact marking on the paper cup.
Then he would tear a hamburger into four pieces and watch them eat it, said Angel Caraballo.
"I was always quiet and nervous around him," he said. "Always."
The nice-guy image Castro presented to the rest of the world enabled him to remain close with the family of Gina DeJesus, another one of the women he is accused of imprisoning. Castro comforted the girl's mother at vigils, passed out missing-person fliers and played music at a fundraiser dedicated to finding DeJesus.
He was a school bus driver for more than two decades, saying on his job application in 1990 that he liked working with children. He was fired last year after leaving his bus unattended for four hours.
"Let me tell you something: That guy was the nicest guy ? one of the nicest guys I ever met," said Ricky Sanchez, a musician who played often with Castro.
But on a recent visit to Castro's run-down home, Sanchez said, he heard noises "like banging on a wall" and noticed four or five locks on the outside door. Then a little girl came out from the kitchen and stared at him, silently.
When Sanchez inquired about the banging, Castro blamed it on his dogs.
"When I was about to leave, I tried to open the door," Sanchez said. "I couldn't even, because there were so many locks in there."
Residents listen to speeches before releasing balloons in support of the three women found in a house on Seymour Avenue in Cleveland, Ohio, Thursday, May 9, 2013. Prosecutors said Thursday they may ... more? Residents listen to speeches before releasing balloons in support of the three women found in a house on Seymour Avenue in Cleveland, Ohio, Thursday, May 9, 2013. Prosecutors said Thursday they may seek the death penalty against Ariel Castro, the man accused of imprisoning three women at his home for a decade, as police charged that he impregnated one of his captives at least five times and made her miscarry by starving her and punching her in the belly. (AP Photo/David Duprey) less? ?
___
Associated Press writers Thomas J. Sheeran, Andrew Welsh-Huggins and freelance reporter John Coyne in Cleveland; Mitch Stacy and Julie Carr Smyth in Columbus; Dan Sewell in Cincinnati; John Seewer in Toledo; and news researchers Rhonda Shafner and Jennifer Farrar in New York contributed to this report.
Just days ago Sports Illustrated model Chrissy Teigen joked on Twitter about women wanting to f*** her fiance John Legend. It looks like her concern may not be unfounded. The New York Post reports that John Legend was caught making out with an attractive blonde in a bathroom stall at Acme in New York. Legend, ...
A lot of people find that once they get started with learning about network marketing strategies they feel more positive in their network marketing goals. If you are feeling a little flustered with network marketing or if you just want some more insight on ways to improve in network marketing, then read this article and take these tips into consideration.
A great tip for successful network marketing is to join online forums and participate. These network marketing forums are great places to get tips on network marketing for free. Do an internet search and find a forum that you enjoy and spend a little time there each day picking up tips from others in the business.
Commit to your business fully and devote as much time into it as possible. This is especially true in the beginning and is what separates the ones who will be making enormous amounts of money from those who fail after just a few months. If you don?t invest yourself into this endeavor it won?t give you the result you want from it.
In the world of network marketing, your name is your brand, so establish a domain site based on your name (i.e. johndoe.com). Your primary page should include a good picture ?head shot only? and some biographical information. This page should showcase your primary blog, with your own high quality content, to explain your business line and services. When someone searches the internet for your name, this is the page you want them to see. Over time, your business lines may change, but this domain site, with your personal blog, remains the constant through which your clients and contacts can stay in touch. If you need help establishing your own domain site, ?Go-Daddy.com? has some excellent resources to get you started.
When you?ve completed your initial website, ask someone you know who knows nothing about network marketing to look at it. Have them use a critical eye when reviewing everything, and then find out if they would sign up through you if the website is all they had known about you.
Include word pictures in your seminars or even on the phone with a lead to show them exactly what it is you?re offering them. Most people think in pictures anyway so you?ll be directly targeting their brain with your sales pitch. This is an extremely effective way to convert them from leads to recruits.
Make the lead you?re talking to about your network marketing business value your time. Ensure that you don?t give them too much of your time when you talk to them on the phone or in person. Even if they want to sign up, ask them to meet you again when you can have the paperwork ready. If you show you?re not going to waste their time, they will respect what you say.
Take advantage of training provided and any workshops that are offered. Most business owners do not take advantage of these things, but they are often presented to you when you join up with a network marketing business opportunity. Make sure you take part in these, and stay focused on your success.
Make use of social media to build your network. Reach out and make contact with others on these sites by answering questions in a professional and scholarly manner. This builds your reputation as a trustworthy advisor, and makes people more likely to believe in you when it comes time to pitch your business to them.
You need to become a leader to be successful in network marketing. The reason for this is simple: people are attracted to leaders. Customers will question someone with leadership skills less. They show such confidence, that many people just assume they know what they are doing, and have less doubt.
Furthermore, businesses use different strategies to run their company. One of these strategies, known as network marketing, links sellers to the sellers they recruit. The tips in this article should help you to learn how to use network marketing for your business model and adapt it to your sales force.
Longaberger is a great business where you can work from home.
TechCrunch is reporting that Microsoft, which has already made an interesting $300 million investment in Nook, wants to double down and buy the whole darn thing. Specifically, Microsoft wants to pay $1 billion to acquire the digital assets of Nook Media LLC?that would be the separate Nook company that spun off from Barnes & Noble last year. Microsoft wants its own Kindle (or iBooks) store.
TechCrunch explains the internal documents that show that Microsoft is interested in the e-reader ecosystem that is not named Kindle (which continues Redmond's trend of being the search engine not named Google, the phone not named iPhone or Android, etc.):
In this plan, Microsoft would redeem preferred units in Nook Media, which also includes a college textbook division, leaving it with the digital operation ? e-books, as well as Nook e-readers and tablets.
So Nooks will continue to exist. But not all of them. The internal documents show that Nook is planning to discontinue the Android-based tablet business by the end of its 2014 fiscal year and push Nook content to a 'third party partner'. I guess that 'third party partner' would have been Microsoft? Or other Android tablets too? Who knows. The internal documents do not show Nook planning to discontinue the Nook e-readers, however. [TechCrunch]
Hubble finds dead stars 'polluted' with planetary debrisPublic release date: 9-May-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Nicky Guttridge nguttrid@partner.eso.org 49-893-200-6855 ESA/Hubble Information Centre
The stars, known as white dwarfs small, dim remnants of stars once like the Sun reside 150 light-years away in the Hyades star cluster, in the constellation of Taurus (The Bull). The cluster is relatively young, at only 625 million years old.
Astronomers believe that all stars formed in clusters. However, searches for planets in these clusters have not been fruitful of the roughly 800 exoplanets known, only four are known to orbit stars in clusters. This scarcity may be due to the nature of the cluster stars, which are young and active, producing stellar flares and other outbursts that make it difficult to study them in detail.
A new study led by Jay Farihi of the University of Cambridge, UK, instead observed "retired" cluster stars to hunt for signs of planet formation [1].
Hubble's spectroscopic observations identified silicon in the atmospheres of two white dwarfs, a major ingredient of the rocky material that forms Earth and other terrestrial planets in the Solar System. This silicon may have come from asteroids that were shredded by the white dwarfs' gravity when they veered too close to the stars. The rocky debris likely formed a ring around the dead stars, which then funnelled the material inwards.
The debris detected whirling around the white dwarfs suggests that terrestrial planets formed when these stars were born. After the stars collapsed to form white dwarfs, surviving gas giant planets may have gravitationally nudged members of any leftover asteroid belts into star-grazing orbits [2].
"We have identified chemical evidence for the building blocks of rocky planets," says Farihi. "When these stars were born, they built planets, and there's a good chance that they currently retain some of them. The signs of rocky debris we are seeing are evidence of this it is at least as rocky as the most primitive terrestrial bodies in our Solar System."
Besides finding silicon in the Hyades stars' atmospheres, Hubble also detected low levels of carbon. This is another sign of the rocky nature of the debris, as astronomers know that carbon levels should be very low in rocky, Earth-like material. Finding its faint chemical signature required Hubble's powerful Cosmic Origins Spectrograph (COS), as carbon's fingerprints can be detected only in ultraviolet light, which cannot be observed from ground-based telescopes.
"The one thing the white dwarf pollution technique gives us that we won't get with any other planet detection technique is the chemistry of solid planets," Farihi says. "Based on the silicon-to-carbon ratio in our study, for example, we can actually say that this material is basically Earth-like."
This new study suggests that asteroids less than 160 kilometres across [3] were gravitationally torn apart by the white dwarfs' strong tidal forces, before eventually falling onto the dead stars [4].
The team plans to analyse more white dwarfs using the same technique to identify not only the rocks' composition, but also their parent bodies. "The beauty of this technique is that whatever the Universe is doing, we'll be able to measure it," Farihi said. "We have been using the Solar System as a kind of map, but we don't know what the rest of the Universe does. Hopefully with Hubble and its powerful ultraviolet-light spectrograph COS, and with the upcoming ground-based 30- and 40-metre telescopes, we'll be able to tell more of the story."
###
Notes
1] The two "polluted" Hyades white dwarfs are part of a search of planetary debris around more than 100 white dwarfs, led by Boris Gnsicke of the University of Warwick, United Kingdom. Using computer models of white dwarf atmospheres, Detlev Koester from the University of Kiel in Germany is determining the abundances of various elements that can be traced to planets in the COS data.
[2] Seeing evidence of asteroids points to the possibility of Earth-sized planets in the same system. Asteroids are the building blocks of major planets. Planet-forming processes are inefficient, and spawn many times more small bodies than large bodies but once rocky embryos the size of asteroids are built, planets are sure to follow.
[3] The team estimated the size of the infalling asteroids by measuring the amount of dust being gobbled up by the stars about 10 million grams per second, equal to the flow rate of a small river. They then compared that data with measurements of material falling onto other white dwarfs.
[4] The Hyades study offers insight into what will happen in the Solar System when the Sun burns out, five billion years from now.
Notes for editors
The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of international cooperation between ESA and NASA.
[1] The international team of astronomers in this study consists of J. Farihi (University of Cambridge, UK; STFC Ernest Rutherford Fellow), B. T. Gnsicke (University of Warwick, UK), D. Koester (University of Kiel, Germany).
[2] The new study is appearing in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.
More information
Image credit: NASA, ESA, STScI and G. Bacon (STScI)
Links
Contacts
Jay Farihi
Institute of Astronomy, University of Cambridge
Cambridge, UK
Tel: +44 (0)12 2333 0896
Email: jfarihi@ast.cam.ac.uk
Robert Massey
Royal Astronomical Society
London, UK
Tel: +44 (0)20 7734 3307
Cell: +44 (0)794 124 8035
Email: rm@ras.org.uk
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Hubble finds dead stars 'polluted' with planetary debrisPublic release date: 9-May-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Nicky Guttridge nguttrid@partner.eso.org 49-893-200-6855 ESA/Hubble Information Centre
The stars, known as white dwarfs small, dim remnants of stars once like the Sun reside 150 light-years away in the Hyades star cluster, in the constellation of Taurus (The Bull). The cluster is relatively young, at only 625 million years old.
Astronomers believe that all stars formed in clusters. However, searches for planets in these clusters have not been fruitful of the roughly 800 exoplanets known, only four are known to orbit stars in clusters. This scarcity may be due to the nature of the cluster stars, which are young and active, producing stellar flares and other outbursts that make it difficult to study them in detail.
A new study led by Jay Farihi of the University of Cambridge, UK, instead observed "retired" cluster stars to hunt for signs of planet formation [1].
Hubble's spectroscopic observations identified silicon in the atmospheres of two white dwarfs, a major ingredient of the rocky material that forms Earth and other terrestrial planets in the Solar System. This silicon may have come from asteroids that were shredded by the white dwarfs' gravity when they veered too close to the stars. The rocky debris likely formed a ring around the dead stars, which then funnelled the material inwards.
The debris detected whirling around the white dwarfs suggests that terrestrial planets formed when these stars were born. After the stars collapsed to form white dwarfs, surviving gas giant planets may have gravitationally nudged members of any leftover asteroid belts into star-grazing orbits [2].
"We have identified chemical evidence for the building blocks of rocky planets," says Farihi. "When these stars were born, they built planets, and there's a good chance that they currently retain some of them. The signs of rocky debris we are seeing are evidence of this it is at least as rocky as the most primitive terrestrial bodies in our Solar System."
Besides finding silicon in the Hyades stars' atmospheres, Hubble also detected low levels of carbon. This is another sign of the rocky nature of the debris, as astronomers know that carbon levels should be very low in rocky, Earth-like material. Finding its faint chemical signature required Hubble's powerful Cosmic Origins Spectrograph (COS), as carbon's fingerprints can be detected only in ultraviolet light, which cannot be observed from ground-based telescopes.
"The one thing the white dwarf pollution technique gives us that we won't get with any other planet detection technique is the chemistry of solid planets," Farihi says. "Based on the silicon-to-carbon ratio in our study, for example, we can actually say that this material is basically Earth-like."
This new study suggests that asteroids less than 160 kilometres across [3] were gravitationally torn apart by the white dwarfs' strong tidal forces, before eventually falling onto the dead stars [4].
The team plans to analyse more white dwarfs using the same technique to identify not only the rocks' composition, but also their parent bodies. "The beauty of this technique is that whatever the Universe is doing, we'll be able to measure it," Farihi said. "We have been using the Solar System as a kind of map, but we don't know what the rest of the Universe does. Hopefully with Hubble and its powerful ultraviolet-light spectrograph COS, and with the upcoming ground-based 30- and 40-metre telescopes, we'll be able to tell more of the story."
###
Notes
1] The two "polluted" Hyades white dwarfs are part of a search of planetary debris around more than 100 white dwarfs, led by Boris Gnsicke of the University of Warwick, United Kingdom. Using computer models of white dwarf atmospheres, Detlev Koester from the University of Kiel in Germany is determining the abundances of various elements that can be traced to planets in the COS data.
[2] Seeing evidence of asteroids points to the possibility of Earth-sized planets in the same system. Asteroids are the building blocks of major planets. Planet-forming processes are inefficient, and spawn many times more small bodies than large bodies but once rocky embryos the size of asteroids are built, planets are sure to follow.
[3] The team estimated the size of the infalling asteroids by measuring the amount of dust being gobbled up by the stars about 10 million grams per second, equal to the flow rate of a small river. They then compared that data with measurements of material falling onto other white dwarfs.
[4] The Hyades study offers insight into what will happen in the Solar System when the Sun burns out, five billion years from now.
Notes for editors
The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of international cooperation between ESA and NASA.
[1] The international team of astronomers in this study consists of J. Farihi (University of Cambridge, UK; STFC Ernest Rutherford Fellow), B. T. Gnsicke (University of Warwick, UK), D. Koester (University of Kiel, Germany).
[2] The new study is appearing in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.
More information
Image credit: NASA, ESA, STScI and G. Bacon (STScI)
Links
Contacts
Jay Farihi
Institute of Astronomy, University of Cambridge
Cambridge, UK
Tel: +44 (0)12 2333 0896
Email: jfarihi@ast.cam.ac.uk
Robert Massey
Royal Astronomical Society
London, UK
Tel: +44 (0)20 7734 3307
Cell: +44 (0)794 124 8035
Email: rm@ras.org.uk
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Obama says does not foresee sending U.S. troops to Syria
SAN JOSE, Costa Rica (Reuters) - President Barack Obama said on Friday he does not foresee a scenario in which he would send U.S. ground troops to Syria and outlined a deliberate approach to determining whether the Syrian government had used chemical weapons in a 2-year civil war. Obama insisted that the United States has not ruled out any options in dealing with Syria as the United States investigates whether the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad used chemical weapons.
Israel has conducted airstrike in Syria: U.S. official
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Israel has conducted an airstrike in Syria, apparently targeting a building, a U.S. official said on Friday. The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, declined to elaborate. CNN quoted two unnamed U.S. officials as saying Israel most likely conducted the strike "in the Thursday-Friday time frame" and that Israel's warplanes did not enter Syrian airspace.
Israel's Netanyahu, Palestine's Abbas head to China
BEIJING (Reuters) - China will host Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas next week for separate bilateral talks as it tries to shore up its role in a region where its diplomatic influence is limited. Netanyahu's visit -- the first trip by a top Israeli leader to China since former prime minister Ehud Olmert visited in 2007 -- will be focused on trade, though experts have also said he is likely to discuss Iran's nuclear program with China.
In Malaysia, online election battles take a nasty turn
KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) - Ahead of Malaysia's elections on Sunday, independent online media say they are being targeted in Internet attacks which filter content and throttle access to websites, threatening to deprive voters of their main source of independent reporting. Independent online news sites have emerged in recent years to challenge the dominance of mostly government-linked traditional media. The government denies any attempts to hobble access to the Internet in the run-up to a close-fought election.
Iran diplomat's arrest due to "misunderstanding:" minister
DUBAI (Reuters) - Iran's foreign minister said he believed the detention of a former diplomat linked to the country's reformists was caused by a "misunderstanding" and defended the man's record, Iranian media reported. Bagher Asadi, who was a senior diplomat at Iran's U.N. mission in New York before becoming a director at the secretariat of the D8 group of developing nations in Istanbul, was arrested mid-March in the Iranian capital, sources told Reuters this week.
Support for Najib falls ahead of election: poll
KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) - Support for Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak fell among all the country's main racial groups in an opinion poll, signaling the tough fight he faces in an election in the Southeast Asian country on Sunday. The survey, conducted between April 28 and May 2 among 1,600 voters, showed 42 percent of respondents believed the opposition Peoples' Pact of former Deputy Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim should be given a chance to govern. That was narrowly ahead of the 41 percent of respondents who said that only Najib's ruling Barisan Nasional (BN) coalition could govern the country.
Obama says U.S. watching 'crackdowns' on Venezuela opposition
(Reuters) - The United States is watching "crackdowns on the opposition" in Venezuela, President Barack Obama said in a television interview aired on Friday when asked if he considered newly elected Nicolas Maduro to be the country's legitimate president. Maduro, elected in April by a narrow margin, earlier this year accused the United States of seeking to kill opposition leader Henrique Capriles to stir chaos and spark a coup. Maduro's mentor and predecessor, the late Hugo Chavez, was one of the world's most vocal critics of the United States.
American journalist held in Syria believed to be in detention center
NEW YORK (Reuters) - The family and employer of James Foley, a U.S. journalist missing in Syria since November, say they now believe he is being held by the Syrian government in a detention center near the capital, Damascus. That conclusion follows a five-month investigation by Foley's family and his employer, GlobalPost, and was announced on Friday in an article posted on the news organization's website.
Venezuela's Maduro says Colombia's Uribe plotting to kill him
CARACAS (Reuters) - Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro on Friday said Colombian ex-president Alvaro Uribe was plotting to kill him, adding to a deluge of accusations by the former bus driver in recent months. "Uribe is behind a plot to kill me," Maduro said in a televised speech. "Uribe is a killer. I have enough evidence of who is conspiring, and there are sectors of the Venezuelan right that are involved."
At least three killed in violent Guinea election protest
CONAKRY (Reuters) - At least three people died on Friday on the second day of violent street protests that have swept the Guinean capital over the organization of delayed legislative elections, witnesses and officials said. Guinea's opposition parties have accused President Alpha Conde, who took office in 2010 following Guinea's first democratic transfer of power since 1958, of trying to rig the polls in the world's largest bauxite exporter.
The HPV vaccine can prevent both cervical cancer and a nasty sexually transmitted disease in women. But emphasizing the STD prevention will persuade more young women to get the vaccine, a new study suggests.
These results go against the conventional wisdom that scaring women about the possibility of cancer is the best way to get them vaccinated.
The failure of that cancer-threat message may be one reason that fewer than 20 percent of adolescent girls in the United States have received the HPV vaccine, said Janice Krieger, lead author of the study and assistant professor of communication at The Ohio State University.
"Young women don't respond strongly to the threat of cervical cancer," Krieger said.
"They seem to be more worried about getting an STD. That's the way we should try to encourage them to get the HPV vaccine."
The vaccine ? most commonly sold under the brand name Gardasil ? prevents the types of HPV, or human papillomavirus, that cause most cases of cervical cancer and most cases of genital warts, a sexually transmitted disease.
Krieger conducted the study with Melanie Sarge of Texas Tech University. It appears in a recent issue of the journalHealth Communication.
Many early studies of how to sell the benefits of the HPV vaccine found that the message that it prevents cancer was effective. But these studies often involved women of all ages, from adolescence to old age. The problem, though, is that the vaccine is targeted to women under the age of 26.
"Cancer is something people start to worry about later in life, not when they're in high school and college. We decided to do a clean study that compared what message worked best with college-aged women versus what worked with their mothers," Krieger said.
Participants in the study included 188 female college students (average age of 22) and 115 of their mothers (average age of 50).
The mothers and students both received a packet of materials that included a questionnaire and a pro-vaccine message. The student message recommended talking to a doctor about the HPV vaccine, and the parent message recommended encouraging their daughter to talk to a doctor.
Two different messages were created. Half of the mothers and students received a message sheet about the vaccine with a large headline that read, "Prevent cervical cancer." The other half received a similar message, but with the headline declaring, "Prevent genital warts." A text box on the sheet also re-emphasized either the cancer or the genital warts message.
Participants then filled out the questionnaire, which asked a variety of questions that included how they felt about the threat of HPV and whether they felt they (or their daughter) could talk to a doctor about receiving the vaccine.
Results showed that the message emphasizing the vaccine's effectiveness at preventing genital warts was a clear winner with the young women.
Compared to those who received the cancer prevention message, young women who read that the vaccine prevented genital warts were more likely to say they intended to talk to their doctor about the vaccine. They also said they felt more comfortable talking to their doctor about the vaccine.
"Preventing cancer was not a big motivator," Krieger said.
Overall, the findings showed that scaring young women into getting the vaccine doesn't seem to be a good strategy.
Young women who perceived HPV as a bigger threat to their health than others, or who thought they were more likely to get the virus, were not consequently more likely to say they would get the vaccine or talk to their doctor.
"Our results suggest it is more important to get women to feel comfortable talking to their doctor about the vaccine," she said. "Fear doesn't work. They need to feel it is not difficult or embarrassing to discuss the vaccine with their doctor. That's the best way to encourage them to be vaccinated."
The researchers expected that the mothers in the study would be more likely to talk to their daughters about getting the HPV vaccine if they read the cancer prevention message rather than the STD prevention message.
Part of their reasoning was that the mothers, being older, were at a stage in their life when cancer was a bigger issue for them, Krieger said. But they also thought mothers would not feel comfortable about an STD message that assumes that their daughters were sexually active.
However, it turned out that the mothers weren't affected by which of the messages they received.
"We believed that mothers would react negatively to the message about preventing genital warts, but that wasn't supported. Mothers reacted similarly to the genital warts and cancer prevention messages. It suggests that if we focus on the prevention of genital warts in our messages to daughters, it may not mean we have lost the mothers."
Krieger said the results should encourage policymakers, doctors and others to shift their messages to young women concerning the HPV vaccine.
"Cancer may seem to be the more serious issue to some older adults, but it is not the top concern for young women," she said.
###
Ohio State University: http://researchnews.osu.edu
Thanks to Ohio State University for this article.
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WEST, Texas (AP) ? Investigators working to figure out what caused a massive, deadly fertilizer plant explosion in Texas have talked to more than 370 people and received more than 200 tips as they continue to search for a breakthrough.
Two weeks after the April 17 blast that killed at least 14 people, agents compare their work to solving a puzzle or completing an archaeological dig.
"We're trying to find the critical piece," said Chris Connealy, the state fire marshal, on Thursday.
Their work is complex for several reasons: the magnitude of the blast at West Fertilizer, which knocked out windows and rooftops all over the tiny town of West and registered as a small earthquake; the deaths of 10 first responders and two others who volunteered to help; and the spread of debris as far as two miles away.
Agents are using digital mapping of the plant, rakes, shovels and front-end loaders to sift through dirt and rubble over an approximately 15-acre site. Possible bits of evidence are being cataloged and tested.
Investigators in dark blue uniforms and light blue helmets raked through piles of dirt and lifted debris. Many of them had worked almost every day since the blast. Small skid-steer loaders carried away piles of dirt that already had been examined.
On a cool, windy day, the faint smell of fertilizer filled the air, and officials said the air quality was continuously being monitored. Remnants of burned-out cars and trash littered the sides of the plant site.
Some of the remaining wall from a plant building had been raised at the site, as officials also are trying to reconstruct as much of the plant as possible as part of their investigation. A specialist from the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives will later design a model of what the plant looked like at the time of the explosion, so that authorities can test several scenarios of what happened, said Assistant State Fire Marshal Kelly Kistner and Robert Champion, ATF's Dallas special agent in charge.
Authorities have not yet begun to fully investigate the approximately 90-foot-wide crater left by the blast, Kistner said. On Thursday, teams were sifting through dirt at the former site of an administrative building next to the crater.
Chemical tests so far have only revealed fertilizer at the site, Kistner said. He said he didn't know yet what specific chemicals were found or how much ammonium nitrate was on site during the blast.
Two months before the explosion, it reported the capacity to store as much as 270 tons of ammonium nitrate, though how much was actually on site when the blast occurred is unknown. In addition to mapping the site, agents have spoken to the plant's owner and are reviewing documents to find out how much ammonium nitrate was there, Kistner said. They have previously ruled out a rail car carrying ammonium nitrate.
"This is planting season. This is fertilizing season," Kistner said. "This is a busy, busy time for this facility right here. So they were constantly turning product, tons a day, out of this facility."
Officials would not reveal all of the technology they are using, but said the process could continue after a previously set May 10 target date. They also continue to investigate the possibility that the blast was a criminal act.
"Nothing has been ruled out at this point," Champion said.
Officials defended the amount of time they were taking to finish the investigation, saying they owed it to the victims of the blast to take their time, and criticized speculation about the blast. Kistner criticized speculation about the explosion as uninformed.
"It's not becoming a distraction to the investigation, but I think it's a distraction to the public and to the people, and the families of the people, who lost their lives here," Kistner said. Because you've got a lot of people running around trying to tell people what happened, but they're not down here to have the facts and the evidence to know what happened."
Six lawsuits have been filed in local county court against Adair Grain, which owns and operated West Fertilizer. Those suing include people injured in the blast and insurance companies representing businesses that were damaged.
Kistner said the owners of the plant have cooperated with investigators, but declined to say what documents they had turned over.
Irish lawmakers presented guidelines describing when life-saving terminations could be allowed. Opponents of the bill worried it would become a platform for further expanding abortion rights in Ireland.
By Shawn Pogatchnik,?Associated Press / May 1, 2013
This file photo shows abortion rights protesters holding pictures of Savita Halappanavar. Ireland's government published a long-awaited bill, Wednesday, explaining the law on when life-saving abortions can be performed in a country that officially bans the practice.
AP Photo/Shawn Pogatchnik, File
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Ireland?unveiled a long-awaited bill Wednesday that lays down new rules governing when life-saving abortions can be performed, a point of potentially lethal confusion for women in a country that outlaws terminations.
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Prime Minister Enda Kenny, speaking to reporters after his government published the Protection of Life During Pregnancy Bill, said he hoped the coming weeks of debate would not turn bitter. But he warned Catholic conservatives within his own party to back the bill or be expelled.
"I do hope that we can bring everybody with us, on an issue that I know is sensitive," said Kenny, who said his government was seeking only "a clarification of rights within existing law."
Kenny said the bill would set a maximum 14-year prison sentence for anyone involved in an illegal abortion, whether doctor or patient. The current law, dating to 1861, sets the maximum penalty at life.
Kenny's government took action following the death of a woman last year from blood poisoning after she was refused a termination because her dying fetus still had a heartbeat. The bill, if passed, would change nothing for the vast majority of an estimated 4,000 Irish women who travel annually for abortions in England, nor the growing number who order miscarriage-inducing drugs over the Internet.
Anti-abortion activists, including many in Kenny's own Fine Gael party, protest that the proposed law could become a platform for eventual wider access to abortion in?Ireland. Malta is the only other European Union country that bans it.
Activists particularly oppose the bill's provisions for women who threaten to kill themselves if they are denied a termination. The bill specifies that three doctors ? the woman's obstetrician and two psychologists ? must determine that the suicide risk is substantial. If denied, the woman would have a right of appeal to a panel of three other doctors.
Most other life-saving abortion cases would require certification by two doctors, or just one in emergencies requiring an immediate decision.
The bill, published after weeks of government infighting on its terms, faces lengthy debate and likely amendments. Kenny wants it passed by July.
During parliamentary debate, left-wing opposition lawmakers who want broader access to abortion accused Kenny of hypocrisy.
"What you've presented is the absolute minimum," lawmaker Clare Daly told Kenny. "The clear intention is to make it so restrictive that most women will not even bother. Instead they'll continue to make the journey to Britain so that you can continue to pretend that there's no Irish abortion."
Countering government claims that?Ireland?had one of the world's lowest rates of maternal death, Daly said more pregnant women would have died from complications or killed themselves if not for?Ireland's?"proximity to Britain."
Ireland's?abortion law has been muddled since 1992, when the Supreme Court ruled that abortions should be legal when doctors deem it necessary to save the woman's life. The judges defined a credible suicide threat as one reasonable ground.
That ruling was made in the case of a 14-year-old girl who had been raped by a family friend, a crime that her parents reported to police. The government ordered the girl not to travel to England for an abortion, and she threatened to kill herself if forced to give birth. The Supreme Court ruled that she should receive an abortion in?Ireland, given her suicide threats. The girl then miscarried.
While the ruling had the power of law, a series of governments refused to enact supporting legislation, fearful of a voter backlash in a country that is more than 80 percent Catholic.
Obstetricians long have complained they need clearly defined abortion regulations to avoid lawsuits or even criminal murder charges.
"We're pleased to see legislators doing the job they're paid to do. After 21 years," said Peter Boylan, a prominent obstetrician who ran a Dublin maternity hospital.
Boylan said dozens of life-saving abortions had been performed annually in Irish hospitals, but only involving the most clear-cut emergencies. Too often, he said, doctors advised patients to go to England.
The European Court of Human Rights ruled in 2010 that women's lives were being unnecessarily endangered by a system that forced seriously ill women to travel while pregnant.
The government took action after a 31-year-old woman, Savita Halappanavar, died in an Irish hospital in October. Halappanavar, who was 17 weeks pregnant, died from blood poisoning one week after being admitted at the start of a miscarriage. As her condition worsened, doctors rejected pleas to abort the fetus because its heart was still beating. Subsequent investigations determined that by the time the fetus died, it was too late to save the woman.
Some of?Ireland's?approximately 350 psychiatrists have formed rival lobbying groups. Those opposed argue that abortion is never an acceptable treatment for someone contemplating suicide.
Anthony McCarthy, one of only three psychologists in?Ireland?who specializes in counseling pregnant women, welcomed the bill ? but forecast its provisions would affect only "a tiny number" of patients.
Over the past 16 years, McCarthy said he'd helped women suffering from self-destructive delusions or hallucinations, who may have stabbed themselves in the stomach or taken drug overdoses in attempts to kill themselves, their fetuses or both. However, he believed that only one of those patients was really serious about suicide.
"The vast majority do not want termination of their pregnancy. They want help with their depression and suicidal thinking," McCarthy said.
Online:?Protection of Life During Pregnancy Bill,?http://bit.ly/17x26dq
Teen clothing brand Wet Seal has reached a $7.5 million settlement over allegations that it horrendously discriminated against employees of color, because they didn't have the "white," "blue eye," "thin and blond" look the brand wanted, according to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
Just days ago Sports Illustrated model Chrissy Teigen joked on Twitter about women wanting to f*** her fiance John Legend. It looks like her concern may not be unfounded. The New York Post reports that John Legend was caught making out with an attractive blonde in a bathroom stall at Acme in New York. Legend, ...
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