What happens to a country when its young people stop having sex? Japan is finding out...

Ai Aoyama is a sex and relationship counsellor who works out of her narrow three-storey home on a Tokyo back street. Her first name means "love" in Japanese, and is a keepsake from her earlier days as a professional dominatrix. Back then, about 15 years ago, she was Queen Ai, or Queen Love, and she did "all the usual things" like tying people up and dripping hot wax on their nipples. Her work today, she says, is far more challenging. Aoyama, 52, is trying to cure what Japan's media calls sekkusu shinai shokogun, or "celibacy syndrome".

Japan's under-40s appear to be losing interest in conventional relationships. Millions aren't even dating, and increasing numbers can't be bothered with sex. For their government, "celibacy syndrome" is part of a looming national catastrophe. Japan already has one of the world's lowest birth rates. Its population of 126 million, which has been shrinking for the past decade, is projected to plunge a further one-third by 2060. Aoyama believes the country is experiencing "a flight from human intimacy" - and it's partly the government's fault.

One thing about the Affordable Care Act is clear: Hospitals will exist in a world where they are rewarded more for the quality of care than for the volume of patients they treat.

A grisly headshot of Walter White, the anti-hero of "Breaking Bad," glares from two computer monitors on the desk of Mike Schatzlein, the CEO of Saint Thomas Health, one of Nashville's major health care systems. The TV character's meth-cooking ways don't exactly line up with Saint Thomas' mission of faith-based care, Schatzlein joked, but he still loves a good show.

Schatzlein took the helm at Saint Thomas three years ago, just in time to pilot the system through some drama of its own - namely, the Affordable Care Act and federal health reform.

Today, hospitals across the country must transform to survive.

Max Blumenthal explained how The New York Times commissioned the 11-minute video, but after the paper's editors saw it, refused to publish it:

I was asked to submit something by The New York Times op docs, a new section on the website that published short video documentaries. I am known for short video documentaries about the right wing in the US, and extremism in Israel. They solicited a video from me, and when I didn't produce it in time, they called me for it, saying they wanted it. So I sent them a video I produced with my colleague, David Sheen, an Israeli journalist who is covering the situation of non-Jewish Africans in Israel more extensively than any journalist in the world.

We put together some shocking footage of pogroms against African communities in Tel Aviv, and interviews with human rights activists. I thought it was a well-done documentary about a situation very few Americans were familiar with. We included analysis. We tailored it to their style, and of course it was rejected without an explanation after being solicited. I sent it to some other major websites and they have not even responded to me, when they had often solicited articles from me in the past.

Blumenthal, author of the bestselling and widely promoted 2009 book Republican Gomorrah, also spoke about the difficulty he has had getting any mainstream media attention for his new book Goliath: Life and Loathing in Greater Israel.

Just like this video, Blumenthal's new book offers an unflinching look at the racist reality of Israel that America's establishment media simply does not have the guts to confront.

The violin famously played by the Titanic's bandmaster as the ship sank on its maiden voyage in 1912 sold for £900,000 ($1,454,400) at auction on Saturday.

This breaks the previous world record price for a single Titanic-related item set at $340,000. According to the auction house staff, the winning bid went to a British buyer based in the UK. It had been set to be auctioned for an estimated £300,000 ($485,796).

U.K. auction house Henry Aldridge and Son has spent over six years and many thousands of pounds researching and investigating the instrument's authenticity. Police forensic evidence, audio archive material, Oxford University research and a CT scan have all been used to prove it is the real deal.

The French government is lobbying its citizens to opt for domestic products over imports, but a new report said that doing so could leave French consumers 300 euros ($398) a month poorer.

According to a report by French thinktank CEPII, which specializes in international economic research, choosing "Made in France" products over imported equivalents could lose French households between 1,270 euros ($1,685) and 3,770 euros ($5,010) each year.

The report came after Arnaud Montebourg, the government minister for Industrial Renewal, launched a "Made in France" campaign last year,dressed in a quintessentially French Breton top and clutching a French-branded blender.

Japan's population fell by a record 0.22 percent to 127.515 million as of last Oct. 1, while people aged 65 or older surpassed the 30 million mark for the first time, the government said Tuesday.

The figures are from a survey by the Internal Affairs and Communications Ministry.

The decline of 284,000 in the total population, which also included foreign nationals, was the largest of its kind since officials began compiling comparable data in 1950.

It was also the second year in a row that the population has fallen.

Tiona McKinney knew that something had changed in her sleepy college town when she woke last week to the sound of screaming.

"That was right outside my window," said McKinney, 20, a Northwest Missouri State University senior from St. Louis.

A fiery diatribe was coming from her adult neighbor. The woman was ranting in a loud and angry voice, midmorning, across the lawn to no one in sight about the disturbing details of the alleged sexual assault of Daisy Coleman and the investigation that followed.

In this close-knit town of 12,000 some 90 minutes north of Kansas City, there were few who weren't already painfully aware of the murky particulars of a case that had divided the city.

Washoe county police say first reports of the violence at Sparks middle school came in just after 7am, and the suspect is 'down'

Two people died and two boys were critically injured in a shooting at a middle school in Nevada on Monday.

Police did not immediately offer details of who died in the incident, in Sparks, east of Reno.

They said Sparks middle school was "all clear" and the suspect was "down," but gave no further information.

Washoe county police said they received the first report of the incident, at 7.16am local time on Monday.

Angela Rambo, a spokeswoman for Renown regional medical center, said it was treating two boys, who were in a critical condition.

Washoe county school district spokesman Charles Rahn said the middle school and the adjacent Agnes Risley elementary school were evacuated to Sparks high school. Rahn said the middle and elementary schools would be closed for the rest of the day.

Source: Associated Press

Pair deny abduction charges and claim girl given by mother who could not look after her.


A Roma couple accused of abducting a mystery four-year-old girl dubbed the "blonde angel" by Greek media told a court today that her biological mother willingly gave her to them as a baby because she could not look after her.

The couple were ordered held in custody pending trial on charges of abduction and procuring false documents.

The discovery of the girl, known as "Maria", has riveted Greece and prompted thousands of calls with leads from across the world as authorities try to track down her real parents, as DNA tests have shown she was not born to the Romas.

The case has raised questions about whether children are being stolen to order and whether the couple were part of a wider child trafficking ring - in addition to deepening mistrust between the Roma community and the Greeks.

Eight things you need to know to get up to speed in the Maryville sexual assault case, based on interviews, law enforcement records and other documents gathered by The Star in the last seven months:

1. About 1 a.m. on Jan. 8, 2012, two teenage girls sneak out of a slumber party and are picked up and driven to the home of a 17-year-old Maryville High School senior named Matt Barnett. Daisy Coleman, 14 at the time, alleges she blacked out after being given multiple drinks and was sexually assaulted by Barnett. Her 13-year-old friend says she was forced to have sex with a 15-year-old boy. Another 17-year-old, Jordan Zech, allegedly takes phone video of the encounter between Barnett and Daisy. Afterward, Daisy is carried out of the house, crying, driven back to her home and left outside in freezing temperatures, where she is discovered by her mother the next morning.

2. Barnett soon is charged with sexual assault, a felony, and endangering the welfare of a child, a misdemeanor. Zech is charged with sexual exploitation of a minor, a felony. Barnett, grandson of a former state representative, tells the sheriff's office that he'd been aware that Daisy had been drinking before having sex with her but says she was only "buzzed," not yet drunk, when the encounter took place. Zech admits to shooting a portion of the encounter between Barnett and Daisy. The 15-year-old admits to having sex with the 13-year-old girl even though she had said "no" multiple times. His case is handled in juvenile court. Nodaway County Sheriff Darren White, whose office investigated the case, later says he "absolutely" believed prosecutions would follow, adding, "I would defy the Kansas City, Mo., Police Department to do what we did and get it wrapped up as nicely as we did in that amount of time."