About 25,000 children in on-base Air Force daycare centers will be forced to receive the H1N1 vaccine or face being barred from school, Truthout has learned following reports from concerned parents.
When a number of Air Force parents opened the November Child Development Center newsletter, they were outraged to learn that their children must receive the H1N1 vaccine. The newsletter article indicates that the Air Force is considering the H1N1 vaccine as part of the required seasonal flu vaccination.
AMY GOODMAN: More than 49 million Americans, or one in seven, struggled to find enough to eat last year, according to a report from the US Department of Agriculture released on Monday. That's the highest total since the federal government began keeping track of what they call food insecurity. The numbers for 2008 shot up by three-and-a-half percent, or nearly 13 million people, from 2007, marking the greatest deterioration in access to food in a single year. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack called the numbers a, quote, "wake-up call," and President Obama described the report as, quote, "unsettling and troubling."
Miriam Jordan Wall Street Journal 2009-11-17 13:25:00
Los Angeles -- The U.S. Census Bureau is recruiting a new set of volunteers: kids.
Seeking to ensure strong participation in the decennial population count, especially in so-called hard-to-count neighborhoods, the bureau has decided children are key.
That has led it to settings like Arlene Paynes's first-grade class at Union Avenue Elementary School in this immigrant enclave on the edge of downtown. Last Thursday, the class gathered to read aloud a story titled Who Counts?
They learned about a boy named Joey who helps his grandmother, an Italian immigrant, fill out the Census form that arrives in the mail. The grandmother and grandchild decide that those who "count" in their household are Grandma, Mom, Dad, Joey, little sister Mary -- and even Mr. Macintosh, who occupies a spare room "until he finds a job." The only one who doesn't count: their cat Clover.
Suicides in the U.S. Army will hit a new high this year, a top general said on Tuesday in a disclosure likely to increase concerns about stress on U.S. forces ahead of an expected buildup in Afghanistan.
The findings, released as President Barack Obama inches toward a decision to send up to 40,000 additional troops to Afghanistan, show the number of active-duty suicides so far in 2009 has already matched last year's record of 140 deaths.
"We are almost certainly going to end the year higher than last year," General Peter Chiarelli, the Army's vice chief of staff, told a Pentagon briefing.
"This is horrible, and I do not want to downplay the significance of these numbers in any way."
Kansas City - The rapid adoption by U.S. farmers of genetically engineered corn, soybeans and cotton has promoted increased use of pesticides, an epidemic of herbicide-resistant weeds and more chemical residues in foods, according to a report issued Tuesday by health and environmental protection groups.
The groups said research showed that herbicide use grew by 383 million pounds from 1996 to 2008, with 46 percent of the total increase occurring in 2007 and 2008.
The report was released by nonprofits The Organic Center (TOC), the Union for Concerned Scientists (UCS) and the Center for Food Safety (CFS).
The groups said that while herbicide use has climbed, insecticide use has dropped because of biotech crops. They said adoption of genetically engineered corn and cotton that carry traits resistant to insects has led to a reduction in insecticide use by 64 million pounds since 1996.
Still, that leaves a net overall increase on U.S. farm fields of 318 million pounds of pesticides, which includes insecticides and herbicides, over the first 13 years of commercial use.
Joseph Rhee, Mary-Rose Abraham, Anna Schecter, and Brian Ross ABC News 2009-11-16 20:51:00
Major Nidal Malik Hasan's military superiors repeatedly ignored or rebuffed his efforts to open criminal prosecutions of soldiers he claimed had confessed to "war crimes" during psychiatric counseling, according to investigative reports circulated among federal law enforcement officials.
On Nov. 4, the day after his last attempt to raise the issue, he took extra target practice at Stan's shooting range in nearby Florence, Texas and then closed a safe deposit box he had at a Bank of America branch in Killeen, according to the reports. A bank employee told investigators Hasan appeared nervous and said, "You'll never see me again."
Diane Wagner, Bank of America's senior vice president of media relations, said that her company does not "comment or discuss customer relationships" but is "cooperating fully with law enforcement officials."
A British army officer threatened to set fire to an Iraqi detainee, an inquiry into the death of Baha Mousa heard.
Former corporal Donald Payne told the public inquiry into Mr Mousa's death he witnessed Lieutenant Craig Rodgers pretending to set a young detainee alight.
He also claimed that he saw every member of the unit commanded by Lt Rodgers, known by the call sign G10A, ''forcefully kick and/or punch'' the group of Iraqi prisoners that included Mr Mousa.
Hotel receptionist Mr Mousa, 26, died in Basra, southern Iraq, on September 15 2003 while in the custody of the former Queen's Lancashire Regiment (QLR) having suffered 93 separate injuries.
Payne, a former QLR provost corporal, became the first member of the UK armed forces to be convicted of a war crime when he pleaded guilty at a court martial to inhumanely treating civilians.
Nicolas Sarkozy is to get a new presidential jet, which critics in France have nicknamed 'Air Sarko One'.
The French President currently uses an ageing Airbus 319s but next year a larger Airbus A330-200 will come into service.
The airliner has been bought seond-hand from Air Caraibes but is to undergo major renovations to make it fit for the French leader and his first lady, Carla Bruni-Sarkozy.
While the new presidential plane is not as big as President Barack Obama's Boeing 747-200B - otherwise known as Air Force One - its cost is already provoking debate in Paris.
The trial of a husband accused of murdering his wife as they slept in a camper van has heard he killed her while he dreamt she was an intruder.
Christine Thomas, 57, was killed in Aberporth, Ceredigion, in July 2008.
Swansea Crown Court heard Brian Thomas, 59, of Neath, accepts he killed her but says he has a sleep disorder which had been triggered by "boy racer activity".
Jurors have been told they can reach a verdict of not guilty or of not guilty by reason of insanity.
Prosecuting barrister Paul Thomas QC, in his opening words to the jury on Tuesday morning, described the case as "highly unusual".
Henry Samuel The New York Times 2009-11-17 06:35:00
A decree banning women from wearing trousers in Paris is still technically in force, it emerged on Monday, making the laissez-faire French capital theoretically stricter than hard-line Sudan in the fashion stakes.
The rule banning women from dressing like men - namely by wearing trousers - was first introduced in 1800 by Paris' police chief and has survived repeated attempts to repeal it.
The 1800 rule stipulated than any Parisienne wishing to dress like a man "must present herself to Paris' main police station to obtain authorization".
In 1892, it was slightly relaxed thanks to an amendment which said trousers were permitted "as long as the woman is holding the reins of a horse".
Then in 1909, the decree was further watered down when an extra clause was added to allow women in trousers on condition they were "on a bicycle or holding it by the handlebars".
Germany could be home to as many as 17 million fewer people in 50 years' time, official statistics showed today, laying bare the scale of the demographic crisis in Europe's top economy.
At the same time, Germans are greying rapidly, with one in three set to be over 65 by 2060, compared to one in five now, the federal statistics office said. One in seven will be over 80.
The total population, currently 82 million, will slump to between 65 and 70 million and neither immigration nor an increase in the birth rate - currently 1.4 children per woman - can do much to ease the crisis, the office added.
Like other advanced economies, Germany is facing a snowballing population crisis, leaving the country short of workers and adding to the strain on already stretched public coffers.
Jakarta--About 100 women peasant members of Serikat Petani Indonesia (SPI) gathered at the Hotel Indonesia roundabout, Jakarta commemorating the 2009 World Food Day. They were doing a peaceful rally by walking around the big fountain.
Dakar - South African and Israeli army instructors, hired by the ruling Guinea junta, are training pro-junta recruits in a camp in Forecariah, 100km south of Conakry, witnesses said on Monday.
The new soldiers recruited by the junta, which seized power in Guinea on December 23 last year, are being trained in a camp formerly used to house Sierra Leone refugees outside Forecariah.
The around 40 military instructors are training soldiers "recruited on the basis of their ethnicity" as they belong to the same group as junta leader Captain Moussa Dadis Camara, witnesses said.
A US-flagged vessel has been saved from the clutches of Somali pirates who attacked the ship for the second time.
The bandits on Wednesday came dangerously close to Maersk Alabama but were scared off by US security contractors on board the vessel, The New York Times reported. Gunshots, sonic devices and clever evasions were used to head off the attack, the Daily added.
The ship was on its way to the Kenyan port of Mombasa at the time of the attack. No casualties or damages were reported.
"Due to Maersk Alabama following maritime industry's best practices such as embarking security teams, the ship was able to prevent being successfully attacked by pirates," said Vice Adm. Bill Gortney, the commander of Central Command.
Somali pirates on Tuesday released a Spanish trawler with 36 crew on broad after receiving more than three million U.S. dollars in ransom, a pirate commander said.
"The crew and the ship were released after our demands were met. They paid more than three million U.S. dollars for the freedom of the fishermen and their fishing boat who were caught looting our resources," Omar Ali, a pirate commander with the gang holding the released Spanish trawler told Xinhua by phone from Harardheere, a pirate stronghold in north central Somalia.
The Spanish fishing ship, the Alakrana, had been seized early last month off Somalia coast by Somali pirates who demanded the payment of a ransom and the release of detained pirates in Spain.
During the holding of the Alakrana, Somali pirates have threatened to harm the hostages if their colleagues currently on trial in Spanish courts were not released, a move that triggered a wave of protests in Spain demanding the Spanish government to help secure the release of the hostages.
Armed Somali pirates have hijacked a chemical tanker with 28 North Koreans on board in the latest attacks along the world's most dangerous waters, a regional maritime official said on Tuesday.
Andrew Mwangura, the coordinator of the East Africa Seafarers Assistance Program (SAP), said Kiribati flagged-MV Theresa VIII was seized on Monday 618 nautical miles North West of the Seychelles on its way to the Kenyan port of Mombasa.
"She was taken on Monday at 1053 hrs some 618 nautical miles north west of Seychelles. All 28 crew members on board are North Korean nationals. The vessel is Bulgarian owned," Mwangura told Xinhua by telephone.
He said the Singaporean-operated chemical tanker was seized in the south of the Horn of African nation which has been without an effective central government for more than two decades.
Along with a bouquet of flowers, the global CEO of Yahoo! Inc, Carol Bartz, offered the Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh, whom she met on Wednesday morning, help with the Unique Identification (UID) programme being put in place in the country when she met him on Wednesday morning.
"The UID project involves a huge database. We, at Yahoo, have expertise in handling such huge amount of data. We met the Prime Minister today and discussed, among other things, how Yahoo can help the Government in the project," Bartz said here at an editorial round table with the media.
However, Yahoo also said that it was not looking at the UID project for any commercial interest but to pay back to the nation where it has had a presence for so many years.
Ozark Police Chief Jim Noggle says one of his officers used a Taser on a 10-year-old girl who was combative when the officer tried to get the girl into a patrol car to be taken to a youth shelter.
Noggle said Tuesday that officer Dustin Bradshaw went to the girl's home after her mother called police woman called police.
According to a report filed by Bradshaw on Thursday, the officer found the girl on the floor of the house screaming and crying. She refused to follow her mother's instructions and the mother told Bradshaw to use his Taser.
Bradshaw carried the girl to the living room and told her she was going to jail, according to the report. The girl was violently kicking, the report said, and struck Bradshaw in the groin with her legs and feet. The report said Bradshaw administered a "very, very brief" stun with the Taser, put the girl in handcuffs and carried her to his patrol car. She was taken to the Western Arkansas Youth Shelter in Cecil.
On Monday, U.S. President Barack Obama spoke to more than 400 Chinese students at the Shanghai Museum of Science and Technology. Obama spoke and answered questions on a range of issues - including freedom of speech and religion.
However, it's not clear how many Chinese people could actually see or hear the event in the media. A scheduled live video stream of the event on the website of state-run Xinhua News Agency turned out only to be a transcript of the event. And while it was shown on a local Shanghai TV station, it was not broadcast on national television.
CCTV cameras are being fitted inside family homes by council 'snoopers' to spy on neighbours in the street outside, it was revealed today.
The £1,000 security cameras have been placed inside properties but are trained on the streets to gather evidence of anti-social behaviour.
Each device is linked to a laptop computer and accessible online by police and council officials 24 hours a day.
But the trial inside two homes by Croydon council in south London has sparked new fears about invasion of privacy and Britain's 'surveillance society'.
The world is becoming unsafer by the day. Before the end of November, half a billion new terrorists will be added to the list kept by the US government.
On November 30, one day before the Lisbon Treaty is scheduled to take effect, the ministers of justice of the EU's 27 member states will sign yet another security agreement with the US. It is supposed to be an essential weapon in the global "War on Terror" the US claims to be fighting.
Under the new agreement, the US government will get access to all the banking data of all Europeans. This means that from December 2009, every single financial transaction done by every single European banking customer will come under the scrutiny of the US authorities. Henceforth, whenever the US government suspects a European "citizen" of supporting terrorism, it can request all his or her banking data, including all bank statements as well as any and all personal data connected with the account.
No doubt, many people will fail to see much harm in this, because "they have nothing to hide." But such an attitude is based on the assumption the US is governed by benign, rational individuals, controlled by an elaborate system of checks and balances.
Geoffrey Alderman The Guardian 2009-11-18 09:28:00
The London Safety Camera Partnership is dominated by bureaucrats, has no constitution and holds meetings in secret
On Wednesday the London assembly member Victoria Borwick will, on my behalf, put a series of questions to the mayor, Boris Johnson, relating to the present plight of the London Safety Camera Partnership, a road safety initiative designed to reduce speeding and the number of vehicles running red lights in the capital.
The LSCP is a curious entity. It has no written constitution. Why not? The LSCP has not met since January. Why not? We are told that the LSCP is now in financial crisis, and may be "mothballed". Would this matter?
There are now 38 SCPs, covering most police force areas. Until April 2007, local SCPs received a proportion of the income from fines generated by traffic-enforcement cameras, but the well-founded suspicion that the cameras were being used primarily for revenue-raising purposes led the government to abandon this method of funding. Nowadays all local authorities with a responsibility for road safety receive an annual road safety grant not related to the number of penalty notices issued.
The move, despite demands for a freeze by the Palestinians, also undermined Nicolas Sarkozy, just as the French president arrived in Saudi Arabia to push for a Middle East peace conference.
It lessens still further the chance of any meaningful negotations between the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and Mahmoud Abbas, the beleaguered president of the Palestinian Authority.
Mr Abbas, under pressure from his own Fatah party as well as the militant group Hamas, which has control over the Gaza strip, has said he will not agree to talks until there is a freeze on settlement building.
Barack Obama has put fresh pressure on Israel to stop its settlement projects, saying continued building could lead to a dangerous situation with the Palestinians.
The White House has expressed dismay over Israeli approval to expand its Gilo settlement near Jerusalem. 900 homes are being built on West Bank land occupied in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.
The US President told Fox News: "I think that additional settlement building does not contribute to Israel's security, I think it makes it harder for them to make peace with their neighbours. I think it embitters the Palestinians in a way that could end up being very dangerous."
The European Union (EU) expressed its dismay on Wednesday for Israel's decision on the expansion of the settlement of Gilo in East Jerusalem.
"The presidency recalls that settlement activities, house demolitions and evictions in East Jerusalem are illegal under international law," Sweden, which is current rotating presidency of the EU, said a statement.
Such activities also prejudge the outcome of final status negotiations and threaten the viability of a two-state solution. The presidency recalls that the European Union has never recognized the annexation of East Jerusalem in 1967 nor the subsequent 1980 basic law," said the statement.
"Actions taken by the Israeli government contravene repeated calls by the international community, including the Quartet, and run counter to the creation of an atmosphere conducive to achieving a viable and credible solution to the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians," the statement added.
Richard Beeston and Catherine Philp United Press International 2009-11-17 20:36:00
The U.N. nuclear watchdog and Iranian officials met secretly on a deal to lift sanctions and allow Iran to keep most of its nuclear program, officials said.
The 13-point agreement was drafted in September by Mohamed ElBaradei, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, to try to break the stalemate over Iran's nuclear program before he leaves at the end of November, The Times of London, which reviewed a draft document, said.
While IAEA denied the document's existence, The Times said it received a copy of the documentfrom a party that said it was alarmed by the contents.
A woman who refused to remove her clothes in front of Israeli soldiers at a checkpoint in Hebron was detained and taken to an Israeli prison facility Tuesday afternoon, local sources said.
Umm Wisam Dovch approached the Martyrs street checkpoint in central Hebron, and was asked to remove layers of her clothing so soldiers could search her person after she passed through metal detectors at the military post. When the middle-age woman refused to remove her clothing she was struck several times by one of the soldiers and forced into a military vehicle.
DES MOINES, Iowa - A study says the poorest Iowans paid nearly double the percentage of their income in taxes than the wealthiest paid, a gap the authors argue underscores the need to reform Iowa's tax system.
The study by the Child and Family Policy Center showed that Iowa families making less than $20,000 annually paid roughly 11 percent of their income in state and local taxes. Earners averaging nearly $1 million paid 7.4 percent in taxes, but that was reduced to 6 percent because federal tax payments are deductible when calculating state tax liability.
Workplace morale is flagging in some offices. In a study, 23 percent of 2,900 polled workers said their current organization's employee morale is low.
The CareerBuilder survey indicated that 40 percent of those polled said they have had difficulty staying motivated at work in the last year and 24 percent do not feel loyal to their current employer.
America's mainstream religious denominations used to teach the faithful that they would be rewarded in the afterlife. But over the past generation, a different strain of Christian faith has proliferated - one that promises to make believers rich in the here and now. Known as the prosperity gospel, and claiming tens of millions of adherents, it fosters risk-taking and intense material optimism. It pumped air into the housing bubble. And one year into the worst downturn since the Depression, it's still going strong.
Like the ambitions of many immigrants who attend services there, Casa del Padre's success can be measured by upgrades in real estate. The mostly Latino church, in Charlottesville, Virginia, has moved from the pastor's basement, where it was founded in 2001, to a rented warehouse across the street from a small mercado five years later, to a middle-class suburban street last year, where the pastor now rents space from a lovely old Baptist church that can't otherwise fill its pews. Every Sunday, the parishioners drive slowly into the parking lot, never parking on the sidewalk or grass - "because Americanos don't do that," one told me - and file quietly into church. Some drive newly leased SUVs, others old work trucks with paint buckets still in the bed. The pastor, Fernando Garay, arrives last and parks in front, his dark-blue Mercedes Benz always freshly washed, the hubcaps polished enough to reflect his wingtips.
It can be hard to get used to how much Garay talks about money in church, one loyal parishioner, Billy Gonzales, told me one recent Sunday on the steps out front. Back in Mexico, Gonzales's pastor talked only about "Jesus and heaven and being good." But Garay talks about jobs and houses and making good money, which eventually came to make sense to Gonzales: money is "really important," and besides, "we love the money in Jesus Christ's name! Jesus loved money too!" That Sunday, Garay was preaching a variation on his usual theme, about how prosperity and abundance unerringly find true believers. "It doesn't matter what country you're from, what degree you have, or what money you have in the bank," Garay said. "You don't have to say, 'God, bless my business. Bless my bank account.' The blessings will come! The blessings are looking for you! God will take care of you. God will not let you be without a house!"
Pastor Garay, 48, is short and stocky, with thick black hair combed back. In his off hours, he looks like a contented tourist, in his printed Hawaiian shirts or bright guayaberas. But he preaches with a ferocity that taps into his youth as a cocaine dealer with a knife in his back pocket. "Fight the attack of the devil on my finances! Fight him! We declare financial blessings! Financial miracles this week, NOW NOW NOW!" he preached that Sunday. "More work! Better work! The best finances!" Gonzales shook and paced as the pastor spoke, eventually leaving his wife and three kids in the family section to join the single men toward the front, many of whom were jumping, raising their Bibles, and weeping. On the altar sat some anointing oils, alongside the keys to the Mercedes Benz.
There's one problem, though: There is no 15th congressional district in Arizona; the state has only eight districts.
And ABC News has found many more entries for projects like this in places that are incorrectly identified.
Late Monday, officials with the Recovery Board created to track the stimulus spending, said the mistakes in crediting nonexistent congressional districts were caused by human error.
"We report what the recipients submit to us," said Ed Pound, Communications Director for the Board.
Pound told ABC News the board receives declarations from the recipients - state governments, federal agencies and universities - of stimulus money about what program is being funded.
Richard Perez-Pena The New York Times 2009-11-15 12:00:00
Americans, it turns out, are less willing than people in many other Western countries to pay for their online news, according to a new study by the Boston Consulting Group.
Among regular Internet users in the United States, 48 percent said in the survey, conducted in October, that they would pay to read news online, including on mobile devices. That result tied with Britain for the lowest figure among nine countries where Boston Consulting commissioned surveys. In several Western European countries, more than 60 percent said they would pay.
When asked how much they would pay, Americans averaged just $3 a month, tied with Australia for the lowest figure - and less than half the $7 average for Italians. The other countries included in the study were Germany, France, Spain, Norway and Finland.
"Consumer willingness and intent to pay is related to the availability of a rich amount of free content," said John Rose, a senior partner and head of the group's global media practice. "There is more, better, richer free in the United States than anywhere else."
Construction of new homes in the United States fell sharply last month, showing potential weakness in the economy's recovery, while consumer prices rose slightly more than expected.
The Commerce Department said on Wednesday housing starts dropped 10.6 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 529,000 units, the lowest level since April and the percentage drop was the biggest since January.
Financial markets had expected starts to rise to 600,000 units. September's housing starts were revised upwards to a 592,000 unit rate from the previously reported 590,000 units.
"The trickle-down effect of the housing number is going to be amazing," said Dan Cook, senior market analyst at IG Markets, Chicago. "It's likely that more construction crews will get cut after this, and the supplier who supply those crews will be hurt as well. This is not good news at all."
Comparing the DNA in modern birds to that in ancient generations shows molecular evolution can happen at varying rates
The evolutionary march of the penguins happened in double time, according to new genetic calculations.
A study of DNA from ancient and modern Adélie penguins suggests that scientists may have miscalculated the rates at which genetic clocks tick off evolutionary time in other species as well. A team of researchers collected mitochondrial DNA from penguins currently living in rookeries in Antarctica and from bones of penguins that had lived in the same spot as long as 44,000 years ago. Analysis of the DNA reveals that the penguins are evolving on a molecular scale two to six times faster than standard calculations indicated, the team reports in the November Trends in Genetics.
Mitochondria are small structures that generate power inside cells. The organelles were once free-living bacteria and have kept their own circle of DNA, which encodes many of the proteins needed for power production. The function of mitochondria is so crucial to the cell that any changes to mitochondrial genes are likely to throw a wrench into a cell's energy-generating capabilities. As a result, the mitochondrial DNA has evolved slowly. Scientists can use the number of changes in mitochondrial DNA between different species to calculate a molecular rate of evolution and estimate how long ago the species shared a common ancestor.
Colonies of army ants, whose long columns and marauding habits are the stuff of natural-history legend, are usually antagonistic to each other, attacking soldiers from rival colonies in border disputes that keep the colonies separate. But new work by a researcher at the Harvard Museum of Comparative Zoology and colleagues at the University of Copenhagen shows that in some cases the colonies can be cooperative instead of combative.
In those cases, when an army ant colony loses its queen, its workers are absorbed, not killed, by neighboring colonies, and within days are treated as part of the family.
The research, conducted in an ant-rich area on the slopes of Mount Kenya, is detailed in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B.
Army ant colonies are dominated by a single, large queen who produces the eggs that give rise to all of the colony's individuals, which can number millions of workers. When she dies, colonies quickly disappear, raising the question of what happens to the many individuals.
The rise of a celebrity-fuelled "therapy culture" is damaging a generation of children, according to new book.
An increase in reality TV programmes, self-help guides and confessional autobiographies is leaving young people feeling increasingly "vulnerable" and unable to cope with normal pressure, it was claimed.
Kathryn Ecclestone, professor of education at Birmingham University, said the trend had been driven by New Labour which had "responded to popular concerns about emotional vulnerability and unhappiness" by rewriting the way education is delivered in schools, colleges and universities.
Growing numbers of parents are turning to drugs for a "quick fix" solution to their children's mental disorders, figures show.
Sami Timimi, consultant child and adolescent psychiatrist in the NHS and a visiting professor at Lincoln University, said the trend underlined the "McDonaldisation" of childhood mental health.
He said that, like fast food, the medical industry fed on "peoples' desire for instant satisfaction and a quick fix".
More children were taking medication to deal with emotional difficulties, anxiety, eating disorders and behavioural problems with little evidence of improvements, he said.
Martin Beckford Telegraph.co.uk 2009-11-16 16:32:00
Children are being treated as "mini-adults" by society, according to an academic.
Richard House, from Roehampton University's Research Centre for Therapeutic Education, criticised the Government's "nappy curriculum" for under-fives.
Under the Early Years Foundation Stage Framework, children are supposed to hit 69 learning targets by the time they start full-time education.
But Dr House, who co-edited the book Childhood, Wellbeing and a Therapeutic Ethos, said it was "robbing children more and more of their right to a childhood relatively free of adult anxieties, preoccupations, and intrusions".
Biddy Youell, head of child psychotherapy at the Tavistock and Portman NHS Trust, said that children's development could be stunted unless they were given the opportunity to play and be playful at an early age.
Research from a new study reaffirms the importance of proper vitamin D levels to a healthy heart.
Researchers at Intermountain Medical Center in Utah found that low levels of vitamin D significantly increase the risk for stroke, heart disease and death.
The study followed 27,686 people age 50 and older with no history of cardiovascular disease. The participants were divided into three groups based on their vitamin D levels of normal, low or very low.
After just a year, those with very low levels were 77 percent more likely to die, 45 percent more likely to develop coronary artery disease and 78 percent more likely to have a stroke compared to those with normal vitamin D levels.
A new study shows that trauma patients without health insurance are twice as likely to die in the hospital as those with insurance, according to the Associated Press.
Doctors and health experts, who thought emergency room treatment was fair and unprejudiced, were shocked to hear the news from the Harvard University researchers.
"This is another drop in a sea of evidence that the uninsured fare much worse in their health in the United States," said senior author Dr. Atul Gawande, a Harvard surgeon and medical journalist.
Published in the November issue of Archives of Surgery, the study is just in time to add fuel to the debate in Congress over extending health insurance coverage to the millions of uninsured in America.
Rebecca Smith The Daily Telegraph 2009-11-17 13:27:00
Meditation is good for the body as well as the mind, scientists have discovered, as the practice significantly reduces the risk of a heart attack for people with heart disease.
Patients with heart disease who practised Transcendental Meditation cut their chances of a heart attack, stroke and death by half, compared with non-meditating patients, the first study of its kind has found.
Stress is a major factor in heart disease and meditation experts say the technique can help control it.
Transcendental Meditation, practised by the Beatles and based on an ancient tradition of enlightenment in India, involves sitting quietly and concentrating to focus the mind inwards by silently repeating a mantra. The practice is said to induce inner peace by allowing thoughts to flow in and out of the mind.
Hardening of the arteries has been detected in Egyptian mummies, some as old as 3,500 years, suggesting that the factors causing heart attack and stroke are not only modern ones; they afflicted ancient people, too.
Study results are appearing in the Nov. 18 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) and are being presented Nov. 17 at the Scientific Session of the American Heart Association at Orlando, Fla.
"Atherosclerosis is ubiquitous among modern day humans and, despite differences in ancient and modern lifestyles, we found that it was rather common in ancient Egyptians of high socioeconomic status living as much as three millennia ago," says UC Irvine clinical professor of cardiology Dr. Gregory Thomas, a co-principal investigator on the study. "The findings suggest that we may have to look beyond modern risk factors to fully understand the disease."
In 525 B.C., the Persian Emperor Cambyses dispatched 50,000 of his soldiers to lay waste to an oasis temple in the Sahara because its oracle had spoken ill of his plans for world domination.
The punitive expedition proved to be one of antiquity's most dramatic episodes of imperial overreach. One morning, while the army was having breakfast, writes the ancient historian Herodotus in The Histories, it was set upon by "a violent southern wind, bringing with it piles of sand, which buried them." The Greek continues, "Thus it was that they utterly disappeared."
For centuries, this little anecdote - like many others in Herodotus's famous text - seemed to be a myth. The Histories is lined with rumors and fantastical hearsay of ants that dig for gold, rings that make their bearers invisible and winged serpents that patrol remote mountain passes.
But recent excavations in western Egypt by a team of Italian archaeologists may have unearthed traces of this long-lost army, entombed in the desert for some 2,500 years.
The Indus Valley's Bronze Age civilisation may have developed the world's first sophisticated system of wage labour, financial exchange and measurement, a Canadian mathematician has discovered.
According to a new study of clay pots and ceramic tablets discovered almost 70 years ago in Harappa, now in Pakistan, the people of the Indus Valley had a detailed system of commodity value, weights and measures.
Dr Bryan Wells, a researcher based at India's Institute of Mathematical Sciences, told The Daily Telegraph he had begun work on his thesis ten years ago when he first saw photographs of the clay pots with markings which appeared to be in proportion to their relative size.
Spanish Foundation for Science and Technology 2009-11-17 20:05:00
The sensor of some optical mice can be used to easily and cheaply detect counterfeit euros, according to a study published by researchers of the University of Lleida (UdL) in the scientific journal Sensors. Almost 80% of counterfeit coins discovered in Europe in 2008 were two-euro coins.
The sensor, incorporated in optical computer mice, is usually used to guide cursor movement, but can also be used as a counterfeit coin detector. This has been demonstrated by a prototype developed by computer engineers from the UdL, whose details can be consulted openly and for free in the scientific journal Sensors.
James Riordon American Physical Society 2009-11-17 19:54:00
A team of physicists has, for the first time, seen convincing experimental evidence for directed percolation, a phenomenon that turns up in computer models of the ways diseases spread through a population or how water soaks through loose soil. Their observation strengthens the case for directed percolation's relevance to real systems, and lends new vigor to long-standing theories about how it works. Their experiment is reported in Physical Review E and highlighted with a Viewpoint in the November 16 issue of Physics (http://physics.aps.org).
This is the ghostly picture taken at the former Roe Valley Hospital showing a nurse like figure holding a baby that has put paranormal sceptics in a spin, and sparked fresh supernatural investigations into the grounds.
The photo, taken by a night time LCDI security guard just a few months ago, has been deemed by experts as authentic and reignited examinations into the ghoulish goings on at the former workhouse. The picture was passed onto paranormal investigators at the Paranormal Society Ireland who analysed the photo for two to three months before releasing it. LCDI manager Damien Corr, the first person to be shown the picture, says he was taken aback by the image.
If reports are to believed, on the Utah Idaho border, near the Bear Lake it seems that the Bear Lake Monster is again surfacing and seen. A creature which sometimes resembles like a beast, walrus or a dinosaur was first sighted in 2004. The locals call it the Bear Lake Monster and it originally grew from articles in the 19th century by Joseph C Rich, a Mormon Colonizer in the area.
The Bear Lake monster also appears in Animal Planet's Lost Tapes.
The Bear Lake Monster is believed to be like a huge brown snake of around 90 feet long. It has ears that stick out from the side of its skinny head and its big mouth is capable enough to eat a man. Many say that it has small legs and can swim very fast, even faster than a horse can gallop.
Date of Sighting: November 16, 2009
Time of Sighting: 10:20 PM EST
Location of Sighting: Greenville, Michigan (Near Grand Rapids - See Map)
Description: Listen to Clip of Interview With Witness (MP3)
The witness reported his sighting a few minutes after it occurred. He saw three orange lights in triangular formation moving westward. The lights did not flash or strobe and no sound was heard.
Note: Like most triangular object (lights) sightings at night no explanation can be provided.
Location of Sighting: Stockton, Teesside NE cleveland
Date of Sighting: Monday 16-11-2009
Time: 16:00
Witness Statement: It was over cast all day with no breaks in the cloud, i looked over my friends shoulder while waiting for a train and a flat darker grey object was dropping around 2 miles away (estimate) from the dark grey cloud, rectangular in shape, it then disapeared into the cloud and came back out back and was a round disk shape then tilted the other way and went back into the cloud, I showed this as it was happening to my friend and he seen it also, when it came back out of the cloud again it looked like it was getting closer to the bottom of the clouds and a thought of it crashing went through my head. I also remember it falling tilting left and right but can't remember the order of when that happened.
Location of Sighting: Gretna, Dumfriesshire, Scotland
Date of Sighting: 01/11/09
Time: 15:10 approx
Witness Statement: 3 white globes traveling in a triangular formation from the North East to South East then rapidly changing direction to head south West. Definitely not satellites or any recognisable aircraft, difficult to determine height or speed although they covered about 180 degrees of sky in about 2 mins so seemed to be traveling very rapidly. At a guess I would say they were traveling at above the height of a typical cumulus cloud although the skies were virtually clear at the time and it was hard to make a good
Location of Sighting: M9 (polmont turnoff/junction/roundabout)
Date of Sighting: 17/11/2009
Time: 06:55-07.05
Witness Name: anon + hundreds of m9 commuters!
Witness Statement: This looks the same structure craft as S*** P*** reports.
2 bright lights at either side with flashing light in the middle.
This looked at first sight like a distant aircraft coming in for a landing in line with the M9. But as I got closer it became clear it was COMPLETELY stationary and just a 150 ft-250ft above the motorway. I drove under it.
Several family members were tied up with duct tape
Police are looking for two suspects who managed to heat up a bottle for a crying baby while robbing a home Friday morning.
Indianapolis Metro Police Department detectives said two suspects forced their way into a home just after 8:30 a.m. Friday morning with intentions to rob the family.
Police said two men came up to the home, in the 6100 block of East 21st Street, asking for jumper cables for a broken down car. They left, then later came back to the home and knocked on the door. That's when police said one of the suspects pulled out a shotgun and forced their way into the home, tying up two adults and a teenager.
One of the robbers hit one of the adults over the head with a gun.
"Then he hit me again over the head and that was it," said Morgan Adams. "It was lights out. I woke up to my buddy untying me."
Police said the robbers started ransacking the house. Then, the baby in the house made his presence known.
NASA has launched an investigation in its efforts to prove that world will not come to an end on December 21, 2012, despite the claims of many Internet theorists.
Comment: Frankly speaking, no official body or institution in the position of authority can guarantee anything like that will or will not happen at any given moment, like in 3 years. That's just illogical!
The theory states that world will come to an end, based on deductions from the Mayan calendar, as a mysterious planet, Nibiru, collides with Earth.
The claims have fueled a Sony Picture, titled "2012," which will come to theaters on Friday.
Some Internet theorists have blamed NASA for keeping information concealed about the Earth's doomsday.
"There is no factual basis for these claims," NASA said on its Web site.
Tech culture has come a long way from its widely-lambasted formative years of LAN parties, red Doritos and Mountain Dew to today, when the New Oxford Dictionary ekes our vocab and ratifies it. "Unfriend," a term used to describe deleting a social networking buddy (like your mom on Facebook) was chosen as 2009's Word of the Year. (Funny, I always thought it was defriend.)
Five of the other Word of the Year finalists also came from the tech world -- two of which could have soiled tech culture's image. For instance, "sexting" -- the sending of sexually explicit text messages -- would have made us appear like sex-crazed smartphone junkies; and "intexticated" -- driving distracted while texting -- paints us to be irresponsible maniacs behind the wheel. So it's a good thing the relatively benign depiction of removing somebody from Facebook made it into Oxford Dictionary.
