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Police take 16 year-old girl into custody for “dressing inappropriately”

May 6, 2013, 9:38 am
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A 16 year-old girl was taken into police custody for dressing inappropriately in the Capital of Maldives  Male’ this afternoon (May 5).
Police Spokesperson Chief Inspector Hassan Haneef told Minivan News today that the minor was alone in Novelty Bookshop in Male’ when she was taken into custody for wearing a black cocktail dress.
“The societal norms and values of Maldivian culture were violated,” Haneef told Minivan News. “There are laws, which might fall under the Anti-social Behaviour Act.”

The girl was taken into police custody because people were “teasing her on the street,” according to local media.
“The minor was given a police jacket to cover herself and taken to the Family and Child Protection department,” Haneef said.
“Police explained to her about how her dress should be as well as called her parents and advised them regarding this. She was not arrested and is not being charged or penalised. We were not concerned with her dress, just with the nudity. We don’t want [this to go to] court,” he added.
Haneef emphasised that the issue in question was upholding societal norms and values and if anyone witnesses someone violating those standards they should report them to the police.
“If someone is not meeting these expectations they can be arrested, but it is very rare. It depends on a case by case basis,” explained Haneef.
“Anyone can dress with nudity, even in plain clothes, if they are showing any personal, private parts and society does not accept that,” an anonymous police official told Minivan News.

“She was very, very, very, very naked. Her dress was transparent,” the official added.
Pictures of the minor taken by bystanders have flooded social media.
Anti-social behavior act

While the Anti-social Behavior Act in the Maldives lists specific offences that could be considered antisocial behavior, dress codes in public are not dealt with in the law passed by parliament in 2010.
Offences that could be considered anti-social behaviour are specified in articles five through 14 of the law, including harassing people on the streets (article 6(a)).
Other offences include harassing or intimidating neighbours, exhibitionism, damaging personal property, spraying graffiti on walls, putting up posters and banners without permission, playing loud music and leaving garbage bags on the roads.
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US women abducted ten years ago found alive

May 6, 2013, 7:30 pm
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Two women who were abducted as teenagers about a decade ago in the US have been found at a house in Cleveland, not far from where they disappeared.
Amanda Berry (L) and Georgina DeJesus (R), both who went missing as teenagers about a decade ago

Amanda Berry and Gina DeJesus were found after a neighbour heard screaming and called 911, according to WKYC.com.

Berry disappeared at age 16 on April 21, 2003, when she called her sister to say she was getting a ride home from her job at a Burger King. DeJesus went missing at age 14 on her way home from school about a year later.

A third woman named Michelle Knight was also found at the house.

Children were also found at the property. Police have arrested a 52-year-old man in relation to the abductions. Two of his brothers have also been detained.

The women were discovered when a neighbour was alerted to their presence by screams from the house. He rushed to the property, where one of the women used his mobile phone to call 911, according to Cleveland police.
"I heard screaming - I see this girl going nuts trying to get outside," Charles Ramsey, the man who found them, told WEWS.

"I go on the porch and she said 'Help me get out. I've been here a long time.' - She comes out with a little girl ... 'Call 911, my name is Amanda Berry'... When she told me it didn't register."

He said he kicked the bottom of the door open so Ms Berry could crawl out as the man ran from the house. She emerged with a young child, he said.

All three women have since been taken to a hospital, where they were reported to be in good medical condition, police said. They will be reunited with the remaining members of their families at the hospital, Cleveland's Channel 5 News reported.

"I am thankful that Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus and Michelle Knight have been found alive. We have many unanswered questions regarding this case and the investigation will be ongoing. Again, I am thankful that these three young ladies are found and alive," Mayor Frank Jackson said.

Loved ones said they hadn't given up hope of seeing Ms Berry and Ms DeJesus again. Among them was Kayla Rogers, a childhood friend of Ms DeJesus.

"I've been praying, never forgot about her, ever," she told The Plain Dealer. "This is amazing. This is a celebration. I'm so happy. I just want to see her walk out of those doors so I can hug her."

Ms Berry's cousin Tasheena Mitchell told the newspaper she couldn't wait to hug her.

"I'm going to hold her, and I'm going to squeeze her and I probably won't let her go," she said.
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Cleveland girls found after being missing for 9 and 10 years

May 6, 2013, 9:33 pm
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Cleveland police said missing teens Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus and a third woman were found in a west side house on Monday.
“This isn’t the ending we usually get,” said MetroHealth Medical Center Dr. Gerald Maloney.
Hundreds of people gathered in the streets near 2207 Seymour Ave. in Cleveland, where the women were discovered. Cleveland police said Berry, DeJesus and Michelle Knight are alive, talking and appear to be OK.

“I heard screaming… And I see this girl going nuts trying to get outside,” said Charles Ramsey, a neighbor who found the women. “I go on the porch and she said ‘Help me get out. I’ve been here a long time.’ I figure it was domestic violence dispute."
“She comes out with a little girl and says ‘Call 911, my name is Amanda Berry’… When she told me, it didn’t register.” He said he made the call and gave Berry the phone. When police arrived, officers asked him if he knew who he rescued.
A witness who spoke Spanish told NewsChannel5's Stephanie Ramirez that he helped break down the door. He said there was a child who was about 4 or 5 years old with Berry, as well as other children inside the house. He said he recognized Berry from posters.

Cleveland police said three suspects are in custody.
Berry was last seen in 2003 when she was called her sister to say she was getting a ride home from work at the Burger King on West 110th Street and Lorain Avenue. She was set to turn 17 the day after her disappearance. Her mother died of heart failure in 2006.

On April 2, 2004, 14-year-old DeJesus went missing while walking home from Wilbur Wright Middle School. She was last seen around West 105 Street and Lorain Avenue. Her mother, Nancy Ruiz, said she believed DeJesus was sold into human trafficking.

“I always said it from the beginning; she was sold to the highest bidder,” Ruiz said in April 2012.
The remaining families of both women went to MetroHealth Medical Center, where they will be reunited. FBI agents were also at the hospital Monday night as family and friends flocked to see the women.
"I am thankful that Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus and Michelle Knight have been found alive. We have many unanswered questions regarding this case and the investigation will be ongoing. Again, I am thankful that these three young ladies are found and alive," Mayor Frank Jackson said.

Last summer, there was a break in Berry case that turned out to be an inmate’s hoax. Robert Wolford, 26, told authorities that Berry’s body was in a vacant lot in Cleveland. Police searched at West 30th Street and Wade Avenue in July with backhoes, but nothing was found. Wolford was sentenced to four and half years in prison after pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice, making a false report and making a false alarm.

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The Not-So-Dirty Truth About Dirt

May 7, 2013, 12:49 am
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Stop! You’re getting grass stains all over your pants!”
“Dear, please get that mud off your hands!”
“What are you doing?! No, you can’t eat mud pies!”
How many children have heard these words? From an early age, we are trained to be clean, learning to destroy dirt and microbes with an arsenal of various chemical soaps, wipes, and anti-bacterial sanitizers to make our living conditions as sterile as possible. We try to banish signs of dirt at all costs in westernized culture, making that dirt caked underneath your fingernails after gardening taboo. Have we really become that detached from the ground beneath our feet; the life-giving earth that sustains our very existence? Theoretically, by keeping clean, a person was once able to give the appearance of a being of a higher social standing (think lords vs. peasants during medieval times). Ironically, in our modern age of science, we have realized that dirt harbors many benefits, so our normally pristine well-off pay hundreds of dollars to lay on a sterile, white table and have their body smothered in only the finest exotic mud. Yep, plain ol’ microbial mud. Luckily, you don’t have to pay hundreds to smear mud all over your body.
Are you curious as to why anyone would smother themselves in mud? Here are some of mud’s not-so-dirty secrets…

Strengthen the immune system. Playing in dirt and being exposed to the millions of tiny microbes that thrive in it can actually boost the immune system – especially a child’s. Humans that live in a sterile environment are less able to combat harmful bacteria when they come across it, due to seclusion from any bacteria. Why? Well, our gut is filled with pounds of microbes that carry intrinsic value in helping our bodies function smoothly. If you are unfamiliar with the workings of your little gut hitchhikers, this article provides good context in relation to weight loss. Your health relies on the presence of microbes more than you would think. Immune-wise, being exposed to these microbes actually allows the body to build up anti-bodies to the harmful ones, while reaping countless benefits from the good ones. Children, and even adults, who are too clean are actually at a greater risk for developing allergies, asthma, and other auto-immune diseases.

Boost happiness. Mycobacterium vaccae, a soil-dwelling bacteria, was shown to increase the brain’s production of serotonin, as much as exercise and anti-depressants, according to a study by Bristol University. Plus, it’s just plain fun to play in the dirt, young or old!

Detox the body. Certain clays, when ingested, can actually pull toxins out from the body. Many animals practice geophagy after eating highly toxic plants, which is the act of eating clay or soil as self-medication. These healing clays, being negatively-charged, magnetically draw in the toxins, which are almost always positively-charged. The clay is then excreted, with all of the toxins bound up in its swelled, sponge-like interior. Need a real-world example? Here are some of the benefits of clay. Also, check out this study involving Peruvian parrots, their toxic diets, and geophagy. Clay is also great for the skin, minimizing the size of and drawing impurities from pores. Try a mask of equal parts calcium bentonite clay and apple cider vinegar for 15-20 minutes to cleanse and soothe the skin.

Some dirty activities include hiking, gardening, yard work, camping, or whatever else you can think of. Mankind has been rolling in and eating dirt for thousands of years. There are many healthy cultures that benefit from a close connection to dirt to this day. So what are you waiting for? Get outside and go get dirty!

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7 Wise Ways to Choose Your Daily Bread

May 7, 2013, 12:55 am
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Whole grains—those are the magic words. They are naturally low in fat, with zero cholesterol. They contain 10% to 15% protein,  loads of healthy fiber, resistant starch, minerals, vitamins, antioxidants—essentially, everything you need to keep your engine chugging merrily.

The right bread can protect you from heart disease, stroke, diabetes, obesity, and some cancers. Let’s look at some common options, with their pros and cons:
ROLLS: There’s much to like about soft, doughy potato rolls. They pack in a good amount of protein and fiber at just about 100 calories each. BUT: pick your roll with care—make sure it isn’t sugar-laden and closer to a sticky bun!

ORGANIC SPROUTED BREAD: No sugar here, only lots of good-for-you protein and fiber. And, it’s got whole grain as its prime ingredient!  If you can train your taste buds to like this dry, dense bread, you’ve got the perfect loaf.

PITA: Low on fat and high in fiber. Plus that pocket, filled with delicious possibilities. It’s in the shopping that you ought to take care—mass market brands can be refined flour in disguise.

READY-TO-EAT WRAPS: If you’re short on time and need a wholesome bite, this is a great choice, considering wraps generally boast of colorful veggies and are low in calories. But be aware—some of those spinach and tomato fillings can be high on salt, and even artificially colored to boost taste.

WHOLE WHEAT BREAD: The winner in my book. Tastes great, gives you fiber, and does not load you with calories. The downside—careless buying. Don’t buy a bread that says ‘whole wheat’ without checking the list of ingredients. If whole grains are not the first ingredient, you’re probably being shortchanged.

BROWN BREAD:We’re told to believe that ‘darker’ foods have more nutrients, but in this case, the flour used may be white, with brown sugar or molasses added for color.

MULTI GRAIN BREADS: Their names can be impressive—after all, 7, 9 or 12 grains in a slice should be packed with nutrients, right? Not always. You need to look carefully at the labels to see if the words ‘whole grains’ feature there, and if the slices contain at least 3 grams of fiber per slice.
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Diets Too Good to Be True

May 7, 2013, 12:56 am
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"I'm on a diet;" common words heard spoken from another's mouth, especially at the start of a new year. While dieting to lose weight will never fade, diet trends come and go. These days, between Atkins, Jenny, and the Cave Man, there are more and more weight loss programs to choose from, and sometimes the truth behind each one can get lost in the shuffle.

Human beings' bodies all work in different and mysterious ways, but there is one thing that we thrive on when it comes to leading a healthy lifestyle: food. Along with exercise and dietary supplements, most popular diet trends revolve around developing a strategy for eating the right foods that will help you lose weight, but the truth is that some of them don't work, and that's where The Daily Meal's Cook editors come in. To help you decide what food diets are right for you, we asked some of the country's leading nutritionists to weigh in on popular diet trends and inform us when some are, quite literally, too good to be true.

Bacon lovers: did your eyes light up and taste buds sing when you heard about the Atkins diet? We're sorry to have to tell you that the meat-heavy diet is only effective in the short-term. Think you're doing yourself a favor when you skip the pasta at dinner? You may be avoiding some heavy carbs, but you're also missing out on important and essential nutrients, too. From longstanding diets that you know well (and very well could have tried) to under the radar ones that are just arriving on the scene, our experts shared their thoughts on each one and told us which were in, and which were out.

Out: Vegan
Author of Six Weeks to Sleeveless and Sexy and co-star of TLC's Freaky Eaters, JJ Virgin is known as one of the nation's leading experts in fitness and nutrition. Her 25 years of experience in the industry has taught her, among other things, which diets work. A popular one that has been around for centuries is the vegan one, and Virgin has her doubts about it. Because a lot of vegans rely on food-substitutions she feels that they subject themselves to a lot of over processed and unnatural foods that are carb-heavy, low in protein, and high in sugar. The perfect recipe for weight gain.


In: South Beach Diet
Shemek is a fan of the South Beach plan because it relies on good carbohydrates and fats (the stuff we like to eat) to promote successful weight loss. She warns that the initial stages can be challenging for some, but relying on a diet of lean dairy, lean potatoes, fish, vegetables, nuts, and whole grains can be very rewarding in the weight-loss department.



Out: Raw Food's Diets
Los Angeles nutrition consultant Lauren Schmitt studies diets on a daily basis through her work at Healthy Eating and Training, Inc. One diet that always has her eyes rolling is the 100 percent raw vegetable diet. Many people cannot tolerate eating a diet that is 100percent raw. Their digestive system rebels [against it], she says.

Virgin agrees with Schmitts sentiments, and also points out that this diet is highly popular with celebrities, who have expensive private chefs that are making their raw foods taste really, really good. You might be in for a different story if you were to actually try it, warns Virgin.

In: Flexitarian Diet
The Flexitarian diet works to try and give you the benefits of becoming a vegetarian, without making you give up meat altogether. Thankfully for most steak-lovers, Shemek believes that it works. "The diet is excellent in its approach to weight loss for vegetarians and it is effective in creating optimal health. It uses plant-based proteins and creates the flexibility of choosing different meals that can work for the whole family. Adding meat very occasionally is still allowed on this diet," she says.


Out: Long Term Fruit and Vegetable Cleanses
Along with the popular detox diet trends that Shemek told us about, Schmitt mentioned another cleanse that has becoming popular, which is the long term fruit and vegetable cleanse. "The human body is smart and can adequately cleanse itself. If we were truly toxic as you may read in literature promoting cleanses, we would die. The body benefits from high intake of fruits and vegetables for nutrients and fiber, but needs more than just produce. We need adequate protein and complex carbohydrates [as well]," she says.


In: Food-Tracking
Similar to Volumetrics, in that it doesn't set a strict standard of foods but rather tracks the foods you're already eating, food-tracking approaches such as electronic methods can be very effective. Schmitt told us that research has proven that the individuals who rely on electronic methods, such as My Fitness Pal or Livestrong apps, to track their food intake are more successful with losing weight compared to those who don't. "By journaling one's food, it opens up one's eyes to the amount they are consuming and they can correct the meals or snacks that are too large or not balanced properly. Some people find that they eat a great array of food but that they just eat too much," she explains.


Out: hCG Diet
The hCG diet, which stands for Human Chorionic Gonadotropin, is a diet based on hormonal injections and low-calorie meal consumptions. Beyond the fact that the daily injections are quite costly, Schmitt raises the point that low-calorie meals of most vegetables and lean protein don't give you enough daily nutrients that you need in order to maintain a healthy diet and comfortable weight. While you may lose weight in the beginning, the low-nutrient diet will eventually convince your body to gain the weight back.


In: Healthy Plate Method
Schmitt explained to us that the Healthy Plate Method is done by dividing your plate into four quarters: one filled with a lean protein, one with a whole grain carbohydrate, and the final two with vegetables and fruit. First used with diabetics, this method helps control blood sugar and promotes weight loss. You don't need any books, apps, or scales, just the memory of a straightforward plate diagram when you're sitting down for a meal.


Out: Low-Carb Diet
We know this one, and we know that so many people think that if they skip the bread basket at dinner they're doing themselves a serious favor. Well, even though it is good to cut here and there, Schmitt agrees with us that this is actually a very poor plan to try to stick to. Besides the fact that you're missing out on key nutrients that carbohydrates like rice, quinoa, and sweet potatoes have, the truth is that people have a very hard time following a lifetime of low-carb meals. Once they finally cave and jump back on the carbohydrate-wagon, their bodies freak out and the weight lost comes right back. An even, well-balanced meal of protein, vegetables, and carbohydrates, is the best way to push your body into shedding some pounds.


In: Exercise
It has to be said, that for many food-lovers like us, there are just some foods that we absolutely cannot live without. Schmitt understands that, so she reminded us that really the only true "diet" you could ever be happy with is maintaining a healthy exercise program. Go ahead and indulge on that crème brulee, just make sure to walk it off the next morning.
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To Juice or Not to Juice?

May 7, 2013, 12:59 am
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Getting your daily dosage of fruits and vegetables can be daunting. How many spinach leaves, beets and carrots can one person honestly eat each day? The pursuit of healthy living may be easy for some – for the rest of us, there’s the juicer. It's definitely a lifestyle choice that requires time and money. Is it worth it?

To juice...
We see it everywhere: people becoming increasingly aware of what they’re putting into their bodies. Want to eat raw, natural, and organic wherever possible? Whipping up homemade juice might be your healthy quick-fix. We asked and found there are tons of benefits to making your own juice at home.
  • You can take the market to go. If you're always on the move, toting a bottle of homemade juice in your bag is easier than juggling a basket brimming with fresh produce.
  • Variety is at your fingertips. Keep things fresh and try new combinations, especially if nothing on the market shelf satisfies your craving. (Beet-kale-apple juice, anyone?)
  • Prepping for your practice is easy. A tall glass of juice is the perfect companion for the commute to yoga. (Just don't down it too quickly right before class.)
  • You keep all nutrients by going raw. We all know that cooking means sacrificing nutritional value to some extent. Juicing keeps all vitamins and minerals intact.
  • Mother Earth gets a hug. Making your own juice keeps plastic bottles out of landfills and cuts back on food-waste coming from your kitchen.
What's up, doc? Why not drink your carrots?
 
...or not to juice
While many people have jumped on juicing, there are still plenty of reasons people avoid doing it at home. When we asked why people didn't juice, the answers were clear.
  • It's expensive to do it well. If you don't want a big mess, a big clean-up or a big pile of wasted produce, you're going to pay a bigger price. It's one of those lifestyle changes that requires you to invest a lot right off the top.
  • If you don't love it, you've wasted money on an appliance. Your juicer could end up being less of a health gateway and more of a dust magnet.
  • Your grocery bill may go up. You may not have access to inexpensive organic produce, and if you're consuming more of it, you do the math.
Of course, the alternative to juicing at home is hitting a juice bar. The convenience is great but paying premium dollars for juice is not on the top of everyone's list.


Before you buy
Consider your needs and ask yourself these questions as you do your research:
  • How often will I use it? Think about cost per use. (It's like investing in an expensive pair of jeans. If you use them every day, they pay for themselves.)
  • What will I be juicing? If you lean towards carrots, whole apples and other solid fruits and veggies, you'll want a powerful motor so you get the most out of your groceries.
  • Is a quick clean-up a priority? If so, look for something with few parts to remove and wash. (We literally rinsed two pieces when making our green concoction. So simple.)
  • Can I store a big appliance? If you want your juicer to be a regular fixture on your counter, it may not be an issue but if counter space is valuable, make sure it's compact enough for you.
  • What is the capacity? If you're on your own, you may not need a huge reservoir for juice.
  • What's the warranty and can I purchase replacement parts? Get these facts before you spend otherwise you may be spending lots more down the road.
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'I have a right to know': The moment a 12-year-old boy demanded a cop's badge number after he parked illegally to buy a soda

May 7, 2013, 4:51 am
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One 12-year-old Las Vegas boy has become a viral video hero after reminding a thirsty police officer he's not above the law. 
The young man, who identifies himself as Jeremy in the video, springs into action when he sees a motorcycle cop park illegally on the sidewalk.
The officer was apparently going to buy a soft drink. 

'Is there a reason for you to park on the sidewalk?' Jeremy asks. 'Is it like an emergency or anything?'
When the cop refuses to answer, Jeremy goes one step further.
'Can I see your badge number?' he asks.
'Why?' the officer responds.
'Because I have the right to.' 
'Are you a lawyer?' The officer asks. 
'No I just want to see your badge number.'

    The officer refuses to give over his badge number but asks Jeremy to give him an ID. 
    Jeremy keeps pressing the officer for his badge number, but finally the man rides off leaving Jeremy to wonder what the emergency was.
    The video, uploaded to YouTube under the user name Jeremy Drew, has already been viewed more than 2.2 million times.


    It's sparked fierce debate between viewers who think Jeremy did the right thing those who think he was being a pest.
    'This cop puts his life on the line every day to protect and serve us. Grow up kid,' writes one viewer on YouTube.
    While another writes: 'The kid was doing the right thing. I'm always amazed at suckups who think holding police to the same standard as everyone else is some sort of sin.'

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    Elizabeth Smart: Abstinence Education Teaches Rape Victims They’re Worthless, Dirty, And Filthy

    May 7, 2013, 4:58 am
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    Elizabeth Smart became a household name after she was kidnapped from her home in Salt Lake City, UT at the age of 14 and held in captivity for nine months. She was forced into a polygamous marriage, tethered to a metal cable, and raped daily until she was rescued from her captors nine months later. Smart was recovered while she and her kidnappers were walking down a suburban street, leading many Americans who followed her story on the national news to wonder:Why didn’t she just run away as soon as she was brought outside?
    Speaking to an audience at Johns Hopkins about issues of human trafficking and sexual violence, Smart recently offered an answer to that question. She explained that some human trafficking victims don’t run away because they feel worthless after being raped, particularly if they have been raised in conservative cultures that push abstinence-only education and emphasize sexual purity:
    Smart said she “felt so dirty and so filthy” after she was raped by her captor, and she understands why someone wouldn’t run “because of that alone.”
    Smart spoke at a Johns Hopkins human trafficking forum, saying she was raised in a religious household and recalled a school teacher who spoke once about abstinence and compared sex to chewing gum.
    “I thought, ‘Oh, my gosh, I’m that chewed up piece of gum, nobody re-chews a piece of gum, you throw it away.’ And that’s how easy it is to feel like you no longer have worth, you no longer have value,” Smart said. “Why would it even be worth screaming out? Why would it even make a difference if you are rescued? Your life still has no value.”
    Now in her mid-twenties, Smart runs a foundation to help educate children about sexual crimes. She now believes that children should grow up learning that “you will always have value and nothing can change that.”
    Social psychologists and sexual abuse counselors agree that comprehensive sex education can help prevent sexual crimes. Teaching children about their bodies gives them the tools to describe acts of abuse without feeling as embarrassed or uncomfortable, and it also helps elevate their self-confidence and sense of bodily autonomy. A shame-based approach to genitalia and sexuality, on the other hand, sends kids the message that they can’t discuss or ask questions about any of those issues.
    Nonethless, abstinence-only education programs have a long history of imparting harmful messages that shame youth about their sexuality instead of teaching them the facts they need to safeguard their health. A high school in West Virginia recently made national headlines after hosting a conservative religious speaker who allegedly told students “if you take birth control, your mother probably hates you” and “I could look at any one of you in the eyes right now and tell if you’re going to be promiscuous.” In Smart’s home state of Utah — which is home to a large religiously conservative Mormon community — sex education is currently mandated, but lawmakers have repeatedly pushed to weaken the state law and reinstate an abstinence-only curriculum.
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    The FBI may be corrupt: Conspiracy theories

    May 7, 2013, 6:20 am
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    Though first organized in 1908 to police interstate commerce, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has spread its wings to cover much of American law enforcement. The post-9/11 Patriot Act has given the FBI more power than ever before and there are those who believe the federal government's top crime fighting unit is abusing its mandate...

    The JFK Assassination
    1. There is circumstantial evidence that Lee Harvey Oswald was an FBI informant. The FBI denies Oswald ever worked for them.

    2. Congress concluded that the FBI "failed to investigate adequately the possibility of a conspiracy to assassinate the President."

    3. Ironically, it was a declassified FBI report released in the mid-90s that revealed a Cuban investigation into the matter, which concluded "that Oswald could not have fired three times in succession and hit the target" and that therefore "it took about three people" to assassinate the president.


    Timothy Leary, Snitch
    Here's a conspiracy theory that turned out to be true: Timothy Leary, counterculture guru, famous for questioning authority and asking kids to "tune in, turn on, drop out," was also an FBI informant. Documents released after Leary's death reveal that the icon was pressured to rat out his hippie friends to reduce his long prison sentence for narcotics charges. In 1974, he struck a deal with the FBI and named the members of the radical Weathermen who helped him escape from jail in 1971. Once dubbed "the most dangerous man in America" by Richard Nixon, Leary was released in 1976 and continued to disseminate his ideas for the next twenty years.


    J. Edgar Hoover
    Hoover's footprint has been indelibly stamped on the FBI. Some say that Hoover's dogged professionalism shaped a small agency in charge of regulating interstate commerce into a globally renowned crime-fighting unit. Others are just glad his 67-year reign gave rise to legislation that limits the term of the FBI director to no more than 10 years. His legacy is checkered: the man ruined the lives of innocent celebrities such as Charlie Chaplin and disrupted benevolent causes like the Women's Rights Movement.


    Hoover And The "Disloyalists"
    In 1950, less than two weeks after the start of the Korean War, Hoover decided it was time to act against 12,000 Americans he had placed on a list of "dis-loyalists." He wrote a memo to President Truman asking to "apprehend all individuals potentially dangerous [to] protect the country against treason, espionage and sabotage." He also asked that the writ of Habeas Corpus be suspended — in other words, to suspend the Constitution. Thankfully Truman denied Hoover's request and the integrity of our Constitution was upheld


    Hemingway
    Hoover took a special interest in Ernest Hemingway after the Cuban revolution. Hemingway had been living on the island for 20 years when, in 1960, he met with the newly victorious Castro to congratulate him and swap fishing stories. "Papa" soon returned to the United States and committed suicide less than a year later. He apparently had suspected he was under surveillance, having constantly complained to friends about being trailed and monitored. With no one believing his "paranoid" rantings, the Nobel Prize-winner has been proved correct by the unveiling of a 127-page file the Feds kept on him.


    Counter Intelligence
    From 1956 to 1971, the Counter Intelligence Program (COINTELPRO) acted under the radar and outside of the law to quell political dissenters. The program was the brainchild of — you guessed it — J. Edgar Hoover, who wrote that COINTELPRO's mission was to "expose, disrupt, misdirect, discredit and otherwise neutralize" undesirable individuals and groups. Some of COINTELPRO's targets were Albert Einstein, Martin Luther King Jr., Cesar Chavez and members of left-wing student groups. Other people were targeted for being guilty of nothing more than writing an outraged letter to the President.


    COINTELPRO
    COINTELPRO purportedly operated with a four-pronged approach: 1) infiltrate political groups to disrupt them from within, 2) use propaganda to discredit dissident groups from the outside, 3) harass undesirables with unnecessary and costly legal action, and 4) if all else failed, intimidate any hold-outs with violence including vandalism and riot-starting. When the secret workings of COINTELPRO were brought to light by the Citizens Committee to Investigate the FBI, there was a rash of resignations and apologies for its actions from the FBI.


    Malcolm X: The FBI File
    It's no secret that the FBI disliked the passionate spokesman for black empowerment. Known for his sharp critiques and frequent calls for violence, Malcolm X rubbed many people the wrong way. His association with the FBI began in 1950 when he wrote a letter to President Truman, calling himself a Communist and expressing his disgust for the Korean War. His file remained until his death in 1965, when it was already 4,000 pages. The FBI closely monitored Malcolm's involvement first with communism and later with the Nation of Islam.

    Malcolm X: The Murder
    On February 21, 1965, Malcolm X was addressing a Harlem crowd when he was shot 21 times. Talmadge Hayer, a Nation of Islam member, confessed to the crime but alleged that he was not acting alone. He named four other members of the Nation as his accomplices. John Ali, national secretary of the Nation of Islam, an informant for the FBI and known for making violent remarks about Malcolm. However, Ali, the Nation and the FBI were never accused of involvement... although that hasn't stopped conspiracy theorists from wondering what really happened.

    The Grateful Dead And Acid
    In the 1960s, an unidentified FBI agent wrote that "LSD originates from San Francisco through The Grateful Dead." Despite this allegation, the FBI apparently had very little knowledge of the future Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees — the 1971 declassified memo accusing them of trafficking appends the band's name with "It would appear that this is a rock group of some sort" — another Fed agreed to label the rock band as "dangerous" and on par "with organized crime."


    John Connolly
    After years of intense work with the Mafia and its informants, it's no wonder that FBI Agent John Connolly began to fall under their spell. Connolly was decorated for his work to break up the Boston mob throughout his career, even convincing prominent gangsters Whitney Bulger and Steve Flemmi to act as informants. But Connolly's meetings with Bulger and Flemmi were friendlier than he let on. In 1999, Connolly was indicted for using FBI intelligence to help his buddies avoid capture for decades and convicted on charges of racketeering and obstruction of justice.


    The Oklahoma City Bombing
    Documents obtained by private citizen through a Freedom of Information Act request show that the CIA and FBI had a spy satellite pointed over Oklahoma at the time of the Oklahoma City bombing. Why? Another FOIA request revealed that all four security camera tapes that recorded the blast site were wiped clean at 9:02am — the exact time of the blast. The FBI says the tapes were being changed at that time. This has given rise to much speculation in the conspiracy community that the FBI somehow knew of the attacks ahead of time, a charge the Bureau has always dismissed.


    The Socially-Responsible FBI
    Is the FBI monitoring your social networking accounts? Recently, the Feds wrote a public memo to the tech world at large in search of a company to help them design an app to "continuously monitor networks, including Facebook, Twitter, and MySpace." Though the FBI has clarified that "the application will not focus on specific persons or protected groups, but on words that relate to 'events' and 'crisis,' and activities constituting violations of federal criminal law or threats to national security," they are hoping to use the technology not only to track crisis events as they unfold but also to "predict future actions taken by bad actors." Watch your mouths out there.


    MegaUpload
    Those who believe the internet should be relatively unregulated were outraged when file-sharing website MegaUpload was taken down by the FBI in January 2012. This coup took place only a few days after the anti-internet SOPA and PIPA bills were defeated in Congress. Some internet commenters suggested that Obama asked the FBI to go after MegaUpload when angry Hollywood executives threatened to pull their funding from his re-election campaign. Because the indictment against Kim DotCom, MegaUpload's founder, had been extant for two weeks before his arrest, the timing is a bit suspicious.


    9/11 & The Patriot Act
    When the excesses of COINTELPRO were revealed in the 1970s, America was shocked that a government agency would actively undermine the First Amendment. However, during the Reagan administration, many types of covert actions, especially those undertaken abroad, were legalized. But the greatest empowerment of the FBI since Hoover's days has been the Patriot Act. Drafted in 2001 in response to the 9/11 attack, the Act exponentially increases the FBI's powers of investigation. Wiretapping and online monitoring have become almost commonplace. One (true) conspiracy theory has it that FBI agents can now enter a person's home when he is away and wait weeks before notifying the resident his place was searched.


    DeLorean
    In 1983, Hustler publisher Larry Flynt leaked a surveillance tape of the FBI arresting auto magnate John DeLorean after DeLorean appears to refuse to participate in a $24 million cocaine deal. According to the New York Times, someone can be heard threatening to "bash" DeLorean's daughter's head in if he does not agree to the sale. DeLorean was acquitted on drug charges and the arresting agent denied making threats, but Flynt was forced to pay a fine for disseminating government documents. He has since gone back and forth on questions of whether the tape was real.


    The Cleveland Five
    In the spring of 2012, the FBI arrested a group of self-proclaimed anarchists known as "the Cleveland Five." (The defendants have been charged with attempting to blow up a bridge in Cleveland; a September trial is pending.) The Bureau alleges that the anarchists put bricks of what they thought were C4 at the base of a bridge, but from there, things get murky. The defense has suggested that it was an FBI informant that pushed the young men to blow up the bridge — a violent action out of line with the Occupy movement to which the men are believed to have been associated.
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    Linguists identify 15,000-year-old ‘ultraconserved words’

    May 7, 2013, 6:27 pm
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    You, hear me! Give this fire to that old man. Pull the black worm off the bark and give it to the mother. And no spitting in the ashes!
    It’s an odd little speech. But if you went back 15,000 years and spoke these words to hunter-gatherers in Asia in any one of hundreds of modern languages, there is a chance they would understand at least some of what you were saying.
    That’s because all of the nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs in the four sentences are words that have descended largely unchanged from a language that died out as the glaciers retreated at the end of the last Ice Age. Those few words mean the same thing, and sound almost the same, as they did then.
    The traditional view is that words can’t survive for more than 8,000 to 9,000 years. Evolution, linguistic “weathering” and the adoption of replacements from other languages eventually drive ancient words to extinction, just like the dinosaurs of the Jurassic era.
    A new study, however, suggests that’s not always true.
    A team of researchers has come up with a list of two dozen “ultraconserved words” that have survived 150 centuries. It includes some predictable entries: “mother,” “not,” “what,” “to hear” and “man.” It also contains surprises: “to flow,” “ashes” and “worm.”
    The existence of the long-lived words suggests there was a “proto-Eurasiatic” language that was the common ancestor to about 700 contemporary languages that are the native tongues of more than half the world’s people.
    “We’ve never heard this language, and it’s not written down anywhere,” said Mark Pagel, an evolutionary theorist at the University of Reading in England who headed the study published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. “But this ancestral language was spoken and heard. People sitting around campfires used it to talk to each other.”
    In all, “proto-Eurasiatic” gave birth to seven language families. Several of the world’s important language families, however, fall outside that lineage, such as the one that includes Chinese and Tibetan; several African language families, and those of American Indians and Australian aborigines.
    That a spoken sound carrying a specific meaning could remain unchanged over 15,000 years is a controversial idea for most historical linguists.
    “Their general view is pessimistic,” said William Croft, a professor of linguistics at the University of New Mexico who studies the evolution of language and was not involved in the study. “They basically think there’s too little evidence to even propose a family like Eurasiatic.” In Croft’s view, however, the new study supports the plausibility of an ancestral language whose audible relics cross tongues today.
    Pagel and three collaborators studied “cognates,” which are words that have the same meaning and a similar sound in different languages. Father (English), padre (Italian), pere (French), pater (Latin) and pitar (Sanskrit) are cognates. Those words, however, are from languages in one family, the Indo-European. The researchers looked much further afield, examining seven language families in all.
    In addition to Indo-European, the language families included Altaic (whose modern members include Turkish, Uzbek and Mongolian); Chukchi-Kamchatkan (languages of far northeastern Siberia); Dravidian (languages of south India); Inuit-Yupik (Arctic languages); Kartvelian (Georgian and three related languages) and Uralic (Finnish, Hungarian and a few others).
    They make up a diverse group. Some don’t use the Roman alphabet. Some had no written form until modern times. They sound different to the untrained ear. Their speakers live thousands of miles apart. In short, they seem unlikely candidates to share cognates.
    Pagel’s team used as its starting material 200 words that linguists know to be the core vocabulary of all languages.
    Other researchers had searched for cognates of those words in members of each of the seven Eurasiatic language families. They looked, for example, for similar-sounding words for “fish” or “to drink” in the Altaic family of languages or in the Indo-European languages. When they found cognates, they constructed what they imagined were the cognates’ ancestral words — a task that requires knowing how sounds change between languages, such as “f” in Germanic languages becoming “p” in Romance languages.
    Those made-up words are called “proto-words.” Pagel’s team compared them among language families. They made thousands of comparisons, asking such questions as: Do the proto-word for “hand” in the Inuit-Yupik language family and the proto-word for “hand” in the Indo-European language family sound similar?
    Surprisingly, the answer to that question and many others was yes.
    The 23 entries on the list of ultraconserved words are cognates in four or more language families. Could they sound the same purely by chance? Pagel and his colleagues think not.
    Linguists have calculated the rate at which words are replaced in a language. Common ones disappear the slowest. It’s those words that Pagel’s team found were most likely to have cognates among the seven families.
    In fact, they calculated that words uttered at least 16 times per day by an average speaker had the greatest chance of being cognates in at least three language families. If chance had been the explanation, some rarely used words would have ended up on the list. But they didn’t.
    As a group, the ultraconserved words give a hint of what has been important to people over the millennia.
    “I was really delighted to see ‘to give’ there,” Pagel said. “Human society is characterized by a degree of cooperation and reciprocity that you simply don’t see in any other animal. Verbs tend to change fairly quickly, but that one hasn’t.”
    Of course, one has to explain the presence of “bark.”
    “I have spoken to some anthropologists about that, and they say that bark played a very significant role in the lives of forest-dwelling hunter-gatherers,” Pagel said. Bark was woven into baskets, stripped and braided into rope, burned as fuel, stuffed in empty spaces for insulation and consumed as medicine.
    “To spit” is also a surprising survivor. It may be that the sound of that word is just so expressive of the sound of the activity — what linguists call “onomatopoeia” — that it simply couldn’t be improved on over 15,000 years.
    As to the origin of the sound of the other ultraconserved words, and who made them up, that’s a question best left to the poets.
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    US returns stolen Tyrannosaurus dinosaur to Mongolia

    May 7, 2013, 6:29 pm
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    The US has returned a 70-million-year-old dinosaur skeleton which was smuggled from Mongolia.
    The near-complete skeleton of the Tyrannosaurus bataar was handed over to Mongolian officials at a ceremony in New York on Monday.
    A Florida fossils dealer in December admitted smuggling the bones, which sold at auction for more than $1m (£643,000).
    US officials seized the bones last year after Mongolia said they were stolen.
    ''We are very pleased to have played a pivotal role in returning Mongolia's million-dollar baby,'' US Attorney Preet Bharara said.
    ''Of course, that million-dollar price tag, as high as it is, doesn't begin to describe the true value of an ancient artefact that is part of the fabric of a country's natural history and cultural heritage.''
    Mongolian Minister of Culture, Sport and Tourism Oyungerel Tsedevdamba said they would be setting up a new dinosaur museum, as "we never had dinosaurs' museum before".
    The bones, discovered in the Gobi Desert, were smuggled into the US from the UK in March 2010.
    Mongolia has laws that protect fossils - they are the property of the state and their export is banned.
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    Grandfather, 90, survived for FOUR days trapped in his car with a broken hip by eating cake, cookies and ice cream

    May 8, 2013, 5:24 am
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    John Collins says his neighbor, a 90-year-old grandfather, survived being trapped in his car for days by eating cake, cookies, and empty ice cream cones.

    Collins and Carl Frantz feel terrible they didn't notice Justyn Ambrozia sooner. Ambrozia's nickname is "Jay." They say he'd returned home from a quick trip to the grocery store last week but couldn't get out of his car.

    Frantz says he had tears in his eyes when he did finally see his friend in distress. "Because I always watched out for him and then, when something happened, I wasn't there to help him."

    Collins says Ambrozia told him it all started when a quick trip to the grocery store went bad. Collins says, "There was something on the floor that he tripped on ... he says he grabbed for the shelf and the shelf let loose, and when he went to the floor he broke his arm. He broke his hip."

    Collins says the grocery store helped Jay up and then helped him right out the front door, possibly in a wheelchair, he says. He says store workers should have called paramedics immediately. "Put him in the car with his groceries. They should have called. They shouldn't have touched him."

    Somehow, though, Ambrozia managed to drive himself the short distance to his home and he even backed into his garage. Collins says Ambrozia told him that once he backed in he couldn't get out of the car.

    Days passed. Ambrozia says he blew his horn and hollered, but no one heard his cries for help.

    Frantz remembers the garage door being nearly all the way down while Collins remembers it being all the way up. Either way, another neighbor walking by finally noticed Ambrozia and "Scooter," a dog who lives next door, sensed something was wrong around the same time. By then, Frantz and Collins and several other neighbors rushed over and one called 911.

    Collins says when he first caught a glimpse of Ambrozia, all he could see was his head peering over the steering wheel and he says he was slumped down low in the front seat.

    Frantz adds, "When they picked him up and put him on the gurney, he was scrunched all up in a knot."

    Ambrozia had to undergo surgery at Medical Center for Trinity for his hip. A neighbor says he was sedated and resting Monday night. Ambrozia turned down a request for an interview Monday evening.

    10 News spoke with the manager of the nearby grocery store where Ambrozia was reportedly shopping. The manager referred us to a media and community relations manager who was not available Monday evening.
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    The boy aged FIVE who can reel off the name of every U.S. President

    May 8, 2013, 5:33 am
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    He may not know how to tie his shoes yet, but he already has an epic command of the nation’s commanders-in-chief.

     Five-year-old Arden Hayes can recite the full name of every U.S. president and will even tell you a bevy of interesting facts about each one, the Los Angeles Times reported.

     The bright California kindergartener loves everything his fellow tots do -- Legos, running around the room and planets. It’s just that he just also happens to be a savant on presidential history.

     “I think Arden’s passion for the presidents was sparked by, when one day, we were learning about who was born on his birthday. And Arden shares a birthday with FDR, and so he got really excited about learning more about the presidents,” his mother, Lynn Hayes told the Los Angeles Times.



    “One morning several months ago, we were sitting at the breakfast table, and we must have been reading a book about (Abraham) Lincoln, or at the very least, talking about Lincoln,” she told the Times. ”And Arden breaks into the Gettysburg Address in full, from start to finish, and we were like what in the what what?”

     Arden can tell you on command who the 29th President was (Warren G. Harding), who the first president to use a telephone was (Rutherford B. Hayes) and that George H.W. Bush hated eating broccoli.

     His parents recognized Arden’s gift immediately and have tried to foster their son’s presidential passion by feeding him head-of-state-themed books, puzzles and music.

     The brainy kid might even have a future in politics himself. He’s already fashioned himself as a candidate who could appeal to members of both major parties.

     "I'm a Republican and a Democrat," he told the Times. “Because my first president, George W. Bush, was a Republican and my next president was a Democrat."


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    You never complain, are NEVER sick and only answer 'Yes, chef': The 44 overbearing requirements for restaurant line chef

    May 8, 2013, 5:50 am
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    If you've ever dreamed of working as a chef, this job advertisement may make you think twice. 
    FARMBloomington, in Bloomington, Indiana, listed an astonishing 44 requirements for a new line chef on the website Craigslist.
    The demands include that candidates never call in sick, never complain and happily work several double shifts in a row without a day off. 
    While the position certainly isn't an easy one, with its long hours and low pay, this restaurant's long list of required skills makes it sound like a job in a real-life Hell's Kitchen. 
     

    'You never complain - especially about things the chef can't control like customer requests, the hours the restaurant is open, how busy or slow it is, etc.
    'You cook your dishes exactly as the chef taught you, the same every time.'
    On top of these demands, the posting adds that employees can only respond to the head chef with 'yes, chef!' or 'oui, chef!'. 

    It claims this 'is the only proper response in a traditional kitchen', adding: 'All questions to cooks will be phrased such that “Yes, chef!” is the correct and only response. If it sounds militaristic, that’s where it came from.'
    General manager at FARMbloomington, Harry Shafer, said a sous chef put up the job posting without reading it thoroughly. 
    He told FoxNews.com: 'It was taken down as soon as we were aware of the negatives listed.  I promise that the ad does not reflect the kind of business we run.'
    While the advert was only posted on Craigslist for a few minutes, FARMBloomington admitted that it is company policy that manages decide whether staff are unfit to work.
    Mr Shafer continued: '"Sick" associates are most often just hungover, so it is our policy that the managers decide if they cannot work.'
    But he added that FARMbloomington pays its hourly staff time-and-a-half if they work over 40 hours and they receive gift cards as bonuses.  
    Mr Shafer said: 'Although we do run a tight ship and a very professional kitchen, I promise you our staff enjoys themselves while they are here (at least as much as someone can while working).'

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    Florida man’s massive gun collection gets lots of looks

    May 8, 2013, 5:54 am
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    How many guns is that, you say?
    One hundred and fifteen.
    The country’s clash over gun control has created anxiety about ammo shortages, increased applications for conceal-carry permits and even brought a Florida man social-media fame.
    @Gun_Collector had 8,500 followers on the photo-sharing site Instagram before the December mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary bolstered calls for tougher firearms laws.
    Now he has a celebritylike following of nearly 40,000 fans who subscribe to portraits he posts of his arsenal of semi-automatic handguns and rifles.
    “I don’t consider myself a ‘gun nut,’” the 42-year-old father said. “I have a collection, and it is something I really enjoy and like to share with people. There really is no agenda other than that.”
    He knows not everyone shares his passion or position on bearing arms, and asked that Yahoo News not publish his last name.
    “There will be activists that would target me because of what I do,” Chris said. “I am not using this for personal gain … and I would hate to put my family at risk. I am a gun collector in a very trying time.”
    According to a recent Gallup poll, 65 percent of Americans said they felt the U.S. Senate should have passed a bill last month expanding background checks for gun purchases. Twenty-nine percent said the measure should not have passed.
    Despite the on-going debate, Chris continues to post photos of his guns almost daily. The collection of rare and high-powered firearms has been 20 years in the making. All of them were purchased legally, he said.
    “I bought my first one at a gun show in Virginia and just kept buying,” he told Yahoo News. “I have always taken care of these things and appreciated the history behind them.”
    Photography is also a hobby, which led him to start the Instagram account last summer.
    “I wanted to show off my collection and have people see some of the interesting things I’ve acquired,” said Chris, who works as a marketing executive and product developer.
    The cache, housed in four safes at his home, includes Eastern Bloc sniper rifles and 15 different AK-47s. His most recent purchase is a semi-automatic version of a belt-fed heavy machine gun, which he posed on top of a Polish flag. The photo received more than 2,800 likes and 120 comments. Dozens of followers email him weekly seeking information about a firearm’s history, purchasing and ownership.
    “One of the things I really try to do with my Instagram account is educate people about guns,” said Chris, who is not a hunter but target shoots and trains for self-defense. “I field a lot of questions. It does take up a lot of time, but I do feel strongly about the Second Amendment and what it means for the country. I try to educate people about what is right and what is wrong.”
    Ladd Everitt, a spokesman with the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, called the photos “pretty run-of-the-mill gun porn.”
    “Loose gun laws remain a far greater threat to public safety than this Instagram account will ever be,” Everitt wrote in an email to Yahoo News.
    However, many of @Gun_Collector’s Instagram photos are of the kinds of high-powered, high-capacity rifles that sent the country reeling following the mass shootings last year at a movie theater in Aurora, Colo., and at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn.
    “Does the average American need an automatic weapon that can spurt out hundreds of bullets in a second? No,” said Marcus Weaver, one of the moviegoers wounded in Colorado.
    Weaver said he supports the right to bear arms, but would like to see more detailed background checks and perhaps 30-day wait periods for weapons. James Holmes, the man charged with killing 12 people and wounding 58 others at the theater, legally obtained four guns and thousands of bullets and other explosives in the two months leading up to the massacre, police said.
    “How much ammo should someone be able to purchase in a 12-month span?” Weaver said.
    Weaver, at the request of Yahoo News, viewed Chris’ Instagram photos.
    “More power to the Gun Collector and his legion of fans that support his arsenal of weapons,” Weaver said. “He has the right to legally possess his weapons. Gun owners like him aren't the issue, I'm afraid.”

    But Brad Bushman, a communications and psychology professor at Ohio State University, said @Gun_Collector’s popularity is troubling because, “the mere presence of weapons can increase aggression.”
    Bushman wrote about the “weapons effect” forPsychology Today earlier this year. He began the article with a quote from noted social psychologist Leonard Berkowitz: “Guns not only permit violence, they can stimulate it as well. The finger pulls the trigger, but the trigger may also be pulling the finger.”
    That line of thinking is partly what motivated Chris to begin a photo contest on Instagram. Each week he announces a theme and challenges his followers to safely photograph their weapons. His popularity has prompted gun shops and weapons accessory companies to provide T-shirts and trinkets for the winners.
    But the contests have also produced what some might deem as questionable art: guns posed in toasters, dishwashers, on poker tables or resting on a bowl of Fruit Loops.
    “I am trying to show that the gun is not something that should be feared,” Chris said. “It is an inanimate object. It’s people behind the guns that have ill intentions that are what you need to watch out for.”
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    The man who saved the 3 Cleveland kidnapping victims says he wants any reward money to go to the girls he saved

    May 8, 2013, 6:21 pm
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    The man who is being hailed as a hero for rescuing the lives of three women kidnapped for a decade says that he would like any reward money to be turned over to the victims.
    Charles Ramsey became an instant Internet sensation on Monday when he helped free Amanda Berry, Georgina DeJesus and Michele Knight from the house next to his where they had been trapped for around 10 years.
    “Bro, I knew something was wrong when a little, pretty white girl ran into a black man’s arms,” he told WEWS following the rescue. “Something is wrong here. Dead giveaway.”On Tuesday, CNN host Anderson Cooper asked Ramsey what it felt like to find out that he had been living next to kidnapping victims.
    “See, that’s why now I’m having trouble sleeping,” he explained. “See, up until yesterday, the only thing that kept me from losing sleep was the lack of money. See what I’m saying? So now that that’s going on, and I could have done this last year, not this hero stuff, just do the right thing.”
    “Because there’s a lot of people, they’re saying you’re a hero,” the CNN host noted.
    “No, no, no. Bro, I’m a Christian, an American, and just like you,” Ramsey insisted. “We bleed same blood, put our pants on the same way. It’s just that you got to put that – being a coward, and I don’t want to get in nobody’s business. You got to put that away for a minute. You have to have cajones, bro.”
    Cooper noted that the FBI had offered a reward for at least two of the victims.
    “I tell you what you do, give it to them,” Ramsey said. “Because if folks been following this case since last night, you been following me since last night, you know I got a job anyway.”“Just went picked it up, paycheck,” he added, producing an envelope from his pocket. “What that address say?”
    “Where are them girls living? Right next door to this paycheck. So yes, take that reward and give it to — that little girl came out the house and she was crying.”

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    Elizabeth Warren: Students should get the same loan rate as big banks

    May 8, 2013, 6:22 pm
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    Sen. Elizabeth Warren introduced her first bill, a simple proposal to give students the same loan rates as the nation's biggest banks. Her proposal would allow the cut-rate loans for students for one year, to give Congress the time to come to agreement on a long-term solution to interest rates. Federal Stafford subsidized loan rates for new students are set to double on July 1 to 6.8 percent.
    Here's a snippet from her floor speech introducing the bill.
    “Some people say that we can’t afford to help our kids through school by keeping student loan interest rates low,” said Senator Warren. “But right now, as I speak, the federal government offers far lower interest rates on loans, every single day–they just don’t do it for everyone. Right now, a big bank can get a loan through the Federal Reserve discount window at a rate of about 0.75%. But this summer a student who is trying to get a loan to go to college will pay almost 7%. In other words, the federal government is going to charge students interest rates that are nine times higher than the rates for the biggest banks–the same banks that destroyed millions of jobs and nearly broke this economy. That isn’t right. And that is why I’m introducing legislation today to give students the same deal that we give to the big banks.”
    “Big banks get a great deal when they borrow money from the Fed,” Senator Warren continued. “In effect, the American taxpayer is investing in those banks. We should make the same kind of investment in our young people who are trying to get an education. Lend them the money and make them to pay it back, but give our kids a break on the interest they pay. Let’s Bank on Students… Unlike the big banks, students don’t have armies of lobbyists and lawyers. They have only their voices. And they call on us to do what is right.”
    Sen. Warren is selling herself a little short, there. Students don't just have their voices. They have Elizabeth Warren's voice, too. That's a damned good thing.
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    Super Immune Boosters

    May 9, 2013, 2:31 am
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    The immune system of the body plays the role of a defense system, and is a complex interplay of different mechanisms. Ensuring that the immune system functions to the optimum levels should be a topmost priority, and merely washing hands before meals and using the kerchief in public places isn’t enough. Add these foods to your meals for an extra boost and double up your immunity.


    Salmon: All fishes, including salmon, do a good job of boosting your immunity. How? For starters, its packed full of essential vitamins and minerals that your body can’t produce by itself, and gives you an extra punch of animal protein. Some notable nutrients you can get through your single serving of salmon include omega 3 fatty acids and selenium, which help reduce inflammation and help the soldiers of your immune system.

    Oats: Oats are highly nutritive and excellent foods for your health, not just because they help you lose those extra kilos, but also because the oat fiber molecules assist the immune cells in detecting harmful bacteria, thus stimulating them to work fast and thereby ensuring speedy recovery from an illness.

    Also, oats contain beta glucan, which has profound antimicrobial and antibacterial properties that help reduce the risk of influenza, anthrax, and herpes. Some studies even suggest that regular consumption of oats may lead to accelerated wound healing and speedy function of antibiotic medicines.

    Blueberries: Berries, mostly blueberries, are a rich source of vitamin C, which is extremely important for the healthy functioning of the immune system. They have also been known as ‘super foods’ owing to their amazing ability to fight cancer and improve digestive health.

    Garlic: Known for its antibacterial, anti inflammatory, antihypertensive and cholesterol lowering actions, garlic is truly a wonder herb. It contains the compound allicin (also present in onions since they both belong to the same plant family) which actively fights infection and bacteria.

    Studies also link regular consumption of garlic to lesser risk of catching a cold and developing colorectal cancer.

    Green tea: Green tea has already earned a good reputation for its rich antioxidant content, which fights off the free radicals, thereby significantly reducing the chances of development of cancer. The antioxidant catechin is thought to fight away harmful bacteria and restore health.

    Green tea extracts have also been linked to an increase in cardiovascular and kidney strength.

    Yogurt: Loaded with probiotic bacteria, yogurt is a lifesaver, especially for those suffering from digestive ailments like diarrhea, flatulence and irritable bowel syndrome. Yogurt contains a huge amount of the good bacteria-lactobacilli, which stimulates the white blood cells of the body to function better.

    Mushrooms: For centuries, mushrooms have been used for the treatment of various conditions, and studies show, regular consumption of mushrooms can be beneficial for the immune system.

    Mushrooms are thought to increase the production of white blood cells and make them more aggressive, thereby increasing immunity. Be sure to add them to your pizza toppings the next time.

    Sweet potatoes: These yummy potatoes have a sweet way of boosting immunity. Loaded with beta carotene, they give the body a good dose of vitamin A, which helps protect your outer skin linings, which actually plays a huge role in maintaining immunity by preventing the entry of harmful organisms and microbes.

    Apart from adding these foods to your diet, make sure you follow these simple tips too!

    Cut your sugar intake- high sugar concentrations can suppress immune function and lower WBC activity.

    Boost your zinc intake- zinc is an essential mineral that is associated with the proliferation of WBC’s

    Avoid stress- laugh out loud, it can help release the fell good hormones, which make you more healthier

    Get a good night’s sleep- 8 hours of beauty sleep can benefit your health in more ways than one

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    Your Simple Guide to Looking, Feeling and Being Healthy

    May 9, 2013, 2:32 am
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    A shiny mane, bright eyes and glowing skin; what more can one ask for? If that’s exactly what’s going on in your mind, keep reading, we’ve shortlisted the best of the best, tips, tricks and more.

    Hair repair: Long hours of working in an air-conditioned environment can sap your hair of the necessary moisture, leaving it dry and frizzy. Revive its shine and get a glossy mane- here’s how.
     

    Try the mayonnaise conditioner for your hair. Just apply mayonnaise to your hair, as you would a conditioner, and wash off.

    Thinning hair? Crack open an egg and spread it all over moist hair and gently massage for a minute before rinsing. The egg protein will add more volume and shine to your hair.

    For dry and damaged hair, try avocado. Its lecithin content helps nourish hair and prevents further damage.

    Dandruff trouble? Massage your scalp with fresh apple juice. The natural fruit acids help reduce dandruff visibly.

    Sweat free: Summer is here, and so is the sweat. And if your deos and cooling talcs don’t seem to work, here’s something to try.

    Use a crystal stick as a deodorant. It’s available in specialty stores and online too. It is basically a chunk of mineral salts that helps control bacterial activity.

    Stick to cottons this summer. Wear loose, comfortable and light-colored clothing to help your skin breathe.

    Pearly whites: You don’t need to spend exorbitant amounts to get those set of pearly whites you’ve always coveted. A few simple tips will help. Read on…

    Combine together 1tbsp of soda bicarbonate and 1 tsp fine sea salt. Dip a moist toothbrush into this mixture and brush your teeth gently for around 30 seconds.

    Eating fresh strawberries is known to naturally bleach your teeth, giving you visibly brighter teeth.

    For a fresher breath, chew on fennel seeds.

    Plaque issues? Mix aloe vera gel with warm water and gargle.

    Bright eyes: Stress and sleep deprivation show up instantly on your eyes. Here’s how to fix it.

    For puffy eyes, steep chamomile tea bags in water, and when cool, place them over your eyes.

    A mask of cooled, mashed potatoes helps soothe swollen eyelids.

    Glowing skin: Whether it’s a bad day at work, or a sleepless night, it all almost instantly affects your skin, making you more prone to breakouts, patchiness and dullness. Rejuvenate your skin instantly. Follow these simple steps.

    Remove the layer of dead skin cells that make your face look dull and drab by gently brushing your body with a loofah.

    Massaging the skin with almond oil gives it an extra healthy glow!

    For patchy, discolored skin, this trick works best. Soak cotton squares in fresh lemon juice, and apply to the skin, and leave on for 10-15 minutes. For dark elbows and knees, lemon juice is excellent natural bleach.

    Smoothen rough, bumpy skin by spreading sour cream over it.

    Relive itchy skin by simply adding 2-3 tbsp of soda bicarbonate to your bath water.

    Banish the age spots with the easy to make face mask. Mix together 2 egg whites, 1 tsp almond oil, 1 tbsp honey and the juice of a lemon. Whisk together and apply directly onto the skin.

    The health, bliss, and everything in between- From headaches to infections, we’ve sorted it all out here.

    For all those prone to cold sores, here’s a lifesaver. Avoid eating nuts, chocolates and seeds. They contain arginine, an amino acid that triggers this problem.

    For minor cuts and bruises, apply a menthol-based ointment. It speeds up healing and prevents darkening of skin after it has healed.

    Optimum vitamin C levels in the blood speed up the healing process. Keep yours high by adding more strawberries, kiwis, spinach, broccoli and citrus fruits to your diet.

    Cranberry juice works wonders in curing urinary tract infections.

    Got a painful tooth? Dab a few drops of clove oil to the affected tooth.

    Unbearable headache? Starting from the outer edge of your eyebrow, press and massage gently following over your head to the back of your ear and finally ending down to the back of your neck. Do this on both the sides.

    Recharge the batteries: Though there’s no actual remedy to beat stress, there’s a lot you can do to reduce its impact on your health. Interested? Read on…

    Practice meditation. It has helped millions worldwide, and you are no exception. Relax your mind and body, and focus your attention to one object or thought, and hold it GENTLY for as long as possible. Don’t strain yourself. Just simply and gently get back to focusing on the thought or the object.

    A foot massage always helps. In a large bowl, place some marbles and pebbles, and cover it with water as hot as you can bear. Add a couple of drops of your favorite essential oil. Place your feet in the bowl, and move it over the pebbles gently, for as long as you like.

    Angry and stressed? Try aerobic exercises. They help metabolize the stress hormones.

    Beat nausea with peppermint tea, crystallized ginger or charcoal tablets.

    Practice Qi gong, an ancient Chinese art of meditation to get re-energized instantly.
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