Women who experience sleep apnea during pregnancy may face an increased of risk of health problems, for both themselves and their newborns, a new study suggests.
In the study, babies born to women with obstructive sleep apnea were more likely to be admitted to the neonatal intensive care unit than babies born to women without the condition. All of the women in the study were obese.
In addition, the women with sleep apnea were more likely to develop preeclampsia, a condition of high blood pressure during pregnancy, and to deliver their babies by cesarean section.
Pregnancy complications linked to obesity — such as high blood pressure and gestational diabetes — are better understood than sleep apnea, which is an understudied and under-diagnosed condition in pregnant women, the researchers said.
There is a need for better ways to screen and treat sleep apnea in pregnancy, said study researcher Dr. Judette Louis, an assistant professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of South Florida.
People with sleep apnea experience pauses in their breathing during sleep. With obstructive sleep apnea, the pauses are due to a blocked airway. Obesity increases the risk for obstructive sleep apnea because the extra fat tissue can narrow in the inside of the windpipe, according to the National Heart and Blood Institute.
In the new study, the reseachers analyzed information from 175 obese pregnant women who were tested for obstructive sleep apnea at home using a portable device.
About 15 percent of participants had obstructive sleep apnea. Those with sleep apnea were more likely to be heavier, and have chronic high blood pressure than those without sleep apnea.
Among those with sleep apnea, about 65 percent required a C-section, while 33 percent of those without the condition required the surgery. Additionally, 42 percent of those with sleep apnea had preeclampsia, compared with 17 percent of those without sleep apnea. The rate of premature births was similar between the groups.
The percentage of newborns requiring admission to the NICU was 46 percent for mothers with sleep apnea, compared with 18 percent for those without sleep apnea. Many of these admissions were due to breathing problems.
The higher rate of NICU admissions for infants born to mothers with sleep apnea may be due to the higher rate of C-sections in this group, the researchers said.
The best way to reduce the risks that come with obesity-related sleep apnea would be to treat obesity before a woman becomes pregnant, although losing weight is often difficult, the researchers said.
Because the study only included obese women, it's not clear whether sleep apnea could have the same effects in women who are not obese.
The study is published online today (Sept. 20) in the journal Obstetrics & Gynecology.
Pass it on: Babies born to obese mothers with sleep apnea are at increased risk for admission to the NICU.
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Huge explosion around the 5:00 minute mark. Ammunition cooks off on a crashed Mi-26 super heavy lift helicopter in Dagestan (republic of Russia). The helicopter is destroyed as ammunition it was carrying explodes when subjected to the heat from burning fuel.


A Defined Contribution or Defined Benefit retirement plan. The most common types are 401(k), Profit Sharing Plans and Pension Plans. Other types include SEP, Keogh and SIMPLE plans.


In the eyes of investors, Tesla Motors can do no wrong. A blog post unveiling the company’s “Model W” ‒ a watch ‒ sent stocks surging momentarily… until, perhaps, people actually read the post that referred to an orangutan and Big Ben.
The announcement came five minutes before the closing bell, and in the next minute, Tesla stock jumped about $1.50 ‒ approximately 0.75 percent ‒ from the previous minute, with about 400,000 shares traded during that time.
The Model W caused the heaviest one minute of trading volume in the company's stock since February 12, Reuters reported.
The wire service was one of at least two news organizations that jumped on the Tesla announcement before realizing what Wednesday’s date was. That increase came after Tesla revealed a plan to produce battery packs strong enough to power houses within six months.
"We have withdrawn the headlines and regret putting out the material," a Reuters spokeswoman said.
The prank came just days before Tesla competitor Apple is set to begin pre-orders of its Apple Watch on April 10. The two companies are contending on at least two different fronts: Apple is developing an electric car to compete with Tesla Motors vehicles already on the roadway, and it has also been accused of poaching employees from Elon Musk’s company. For its part, an unnamed Apple employee told Business Insider that Tesla employees are jumping ship voluntarily.
Of course, Tesla denied there was any truth that the Model W was a jab at the Apple Watch.
"This is in no way a competitive response to what some other company is doing," Tesla concluded its blog post.
But the Model W wasn’t Tesla’s only April Fools joke on Wednesday. It also released a video about a software update for its Model S, which was already set for an upgrade at the beginning of April and another one over the summer that will allow for a self-driving mode.
The gag video reveals a “ticket avoidance mode” for the Model S, allowing the car to prevent a meter maid from placing a parking fine on the windshield by setting off the wipers. And if that fails, it will just drive itself away from the scene of the crime.
Tesla shares reached a high of $188.50 on Wednesday in the minute after the announcement, but lost that value almost as quickly, closing the day at $187.59, or 0.63 percent lower than they were at the end of the trading day on Tuesday.


The victim, a 26-year-old man, was taken to the hospital with a stab wound to the chest and additional injuries to his head and face, Beckley said. He was in fair condition Friday, said Hilary Andrade, a hospital spokeswoman.
A witness told police the two men fought before the incident, but officers were unable to talk with the victim because of his condition, Beckley said.
Blanco-Martinez made his first appearance in Whatcom County Superior Court on Friday afternoon before Commissioner David Thorne. He has lived in Whatcom County since 1989, said Angela Anderson, Blanco-Martinez’s public defender.
Erik Sigmar, the deputy prosecutor, told the court Blanco-Martinez admitted to being in a fight when police arrested him. He also had injuries to his face, Sigmar said, reading from charging papers.
Blanco-Martinez has proven himself a flight risk eight times in the past, Sigmar said, urging Thorne to set bail at $100,000. Thorne followed the recommendation.
Blanco-Martinez was sentenced in another assault case involving a weapon in August 2009, according to court records.
In that case, he had been driving south on Interstate 5 in a black GMC Yukon. Leonardo Blanco-Martinez, whose relationship to Victor is not clear in court papers, was in the passenger seat.
As Victor Blanco-Martinez was driving, Leonardo, leaning out of the passenger-side window, used an aluminum bat to break the driver-side windows of a van driving in an adjacent lane with two people inside, records say. The woman driving the van tried speeding away, and eventually got off the freeway at the State Street exit as the men kept driving south.
She called police from the parking lot of a nearby Subway. A witness driving in another car also stopped to give details to a state patrol trooper, according to court papers.
A Bellingham police officer found the Yukon driving near Samish Way and 36th Street and followed it until it stopped at a house along the 500 block of 38th Street, according to charging papers. Both men got out of the car, and a man who had stepped out of the front door of the home told the officer he did not know the men.
The officer yelled at both men to get back into the car, charging papers say, which they both initially ignored. Police eventually arrested both without further incident. Under the Yukon’s back seat, officers found a red aluminum bat with scratch marks on it, according to court papers.
Victor Blanco-Martinez, whose breath smelled of alcohol, told police someone had thrown bottles at the Yukon. Police found damage on the rear passenger side door of the Yukon that could have been from a bottle, court papers say.
Both denied knowing anything about bats being swung and glass breaking on the freeway.
When booked into jail, Victor Blanco-Martinez gave a breath sample more than double the legal limit.
Both initially were charged with second-degree assault with a deadly weapon, but their charges were reduced seven months later to third-degree malicious mischief and reckless endangerment. They were sentenced to a year in jail with all but 30 days of that time suspended, according to sentencing papers.


JURGEN KLOPP admits it’s good to have Daniel Sturridge back involved for Liverpool tonight.
Sturridge could make his first appearance since the middle of November at Goodison Park.
He’s been named on the bench for the Merseyside derby which kicks off at 8pm.
Klopp has named Divock Origi up top with support from Roberto Firmino and Sadio Mane.
But Sturridge could be involved from the bench if he's needed.
And Klopp said: “It's good to have Daniel Sturridge back and that's why we took him on the bench. Maybe not for tonight but for the next few weeks.
"I've waited a long time to come to Goodison. I like ground-hopping. A chance to win new points. I went on the pitch earlier.
"It was a coincidence I watched [Rocky film] Creed in the build-up - Goodison Park played a role."


Nearly 13,000 new downtown rental units have been approved in the past 12 years, and another 10,000 are in the works.
Long Island’s newest, most luxurious rentals are getting snapped up by affluent empty-nesters and young professionals seeking flexibility, convenience and hotel-like amenities such as pools, concierges and room service.
The demand for high-end rentals has driven up prices throughout the Island. In Nassau County, the average rent for units in multifamily buildings was $2,257 a month in the first three months of 2018, up 3.2 percent from a year ago and 27 percent from five years earlier, Manhattan-based real estate market research company Reis reported. Suffolk County rents have risen by about 2 percent in a year and 13 percent over five years, to an average $1,775 in western Suffolk and $1,654 in eastern Suffolk, according to Reis.
The growing number of rental complexes provides more options for Long Island apartment-hunters, though some planners say the supply still falls far short of demand, especially when it comes to rentals that are priced for recent college graduates, retirees, and people with low to moderate incomes.
Hofstra students Jeffrey Rozanski and Monika Rivera, seen here on Tuesday, say their Hempstead apartment is more comfortable and economical than living in a dorm. Photo Credit: Newsday/J. Conrad Williams Jr.
In a sign of how tight the rental market is, Long Island’s vacancy rate is 2.9 percent, higher than Manhattan’s 2.1 percent but roughly half the national rate of 5.9 percent, real estate information company CoStar Group reported.
Developers are scrambling to meet the local demand. New apartments “are snapped up in an instant; you can’t build rentals fast enough, at all different price points, from affordable to market rate to what we would consider higher than market rate,” said Mitchell Pally, chief executive of the Long Island Builders Institute, a trade group.
In the past 12 years, nearly 13,000 new downtown rental units have been approved, and more than half of those have been built, with another 10,000 units making their way through the approval and construction pipeline, said Eric Alexander, the director of Vision Long Island, a Northport-based planning group that supports downtown development and tracks apartment construction.
Among the new breed of luxury renters is Angelo Iannone, 56, who sold his 2,700-square-foot house in Roslyn Heights last year and moved into a two-bedroom apartment with a den at the Vanderbilt, a new 195-unit building in Westbury where apartments rent for about $3,500 to $8,000.
“I was living in a house that was comfortable but really too large for me,” said Iannone, an investment banker who is divorced and has a daughter in college and a son who just graduated from college. Living at the Vanderbilt gives him access to a heated pool, outdoor grills, a fitness center, game room and library, plus concierge service and proximity to stores and restaurants, he said.
“There’s everything that would be in a luxury New York City apartment building, on Long Island,” he said.
The move made sense financially, too, he said. He had been paying $24,000 in property taxes, and under the federal tax overhaul signed into law last year by President Donald Trump he could only have claimed deductions for $10,000 in state and local taxes.
“The real estate market has had a good run, with many years of appreciation . . .It was time for me to further diversify my assets,” he said.
Strong demand for high-end rentals — primarily from baby boomers who are selling their homes — has led to a faster-than-expected pace of lease signings at the Vanderbilt, said Steven Dubb, a principal with the developer, Jericho-based Beechwood Organization.
The building opened in March, and it is 75 percent occupied and 90 percent leased, Dubb said. With demand so strong, rents have risen from their original range of about $3,000 to $7,000, he said. The $120 million project was Beechwood’s most expensive development outside the Hamptons, on a per-square-foot basis, Dubb said.
Indeed, Beechwood has plans for a similar, 237-unit complex at a shuttered Syms department store on Merrick Avenue in Westbury, he said.
It’s not a coincidence that many new buildings cater to the luxury market.
Many renters in high-end buildings are millennials. Across the country, less than 38 percent of those ages 25 to 34 owned a home in 2016, lagging 8 percentage points below the 2004 peak for that age group, Freddie Mac reported last month. The main reasons were increasing home values and costly rents that make it hard to save for a down payment, Freddie Mac found. Other factors included lower marriage and childbearing rates, student debt, difficulty getting a mortgage and some young adults’ preference for renting.
Many buildings that cater to young renters offer generous amenities, with prices to match.
The 166-unit Metro 303 building in Hempstead is among those marketed to young adults, with a pool, fitness center, Xbox and PlayStation in the gaming center and a website that boasts of “grilling and chilling areas for entertaining with friends.” Jeffrey Rozanski and Monika Rivera, both 20-year-old students at Hofstra University, said it’s more comfortable and economical than living in a dorm and paying for meal plans.
“I feel like I’m in a hotel; there’s a pool, there’s a little lounge area,” Rivera said.
Many young adults “are willing to spend money, and they demand more,” said Wendy Sanders, a Great Neck-based real estate agent with Douglas Elliman who specializes in rentals. Apartment buildings that cater to millennials have “completely revitalized” communities such as Patchogue, Farmingdale, Huntington, Rockville Centre and Mineola, she said.
Even so, Long Island’s relatively stagnant wages have not kept up with the rising cost of housing, and the region has such a shortage of affordable rentals that about four in 10 adults ages 18 to 34 live with family members because they cannot pay for an apartment here, said Gwen O’Shea, chief executive of the Community Development Corp. of Long Island. The group has helped build roughly 1,800 affordable rental apartments on Long Island since 1973 and has plans for 400 more.
Rentals make up about 20 percent of the housing stock on Long Island, compared with 37 percent in northern New Jersey and 34 percent in Westchester, a 2016 report by the Long Island Index showed.
The Island’s high cost of living is not only a challenge for young adults.
Thomas Velez, 65, is an Army veteran who works part-time at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Northport. A year ago he moved from a shelter for homeless veterans in Yaphank to Copiague Commons, a rental complex for people with low and moderate incomes. He pays $1,169 for a one-bedroom apartment he shares with his Jack Russell terrier, J.D. Staying on the Island lets him remain close to his 92-year-old mother and his three grown children, ages 28 to 33.
“I love it,” he said of the 89-unit complex, built by Conifer Realty LLC of Rochester in partnership with the Community Development Corp.
Some retirees choose to rent in Suffolk County, where prices are lower than in Nassau. Angela Landi, 75, started looking for apartments in Nassau County when she was preparing to move out of the house she had been renting in Long Beach, but they were largely “not in good condition,” she said.
By contrast, she said, the one-bedroom apartment she now shares with her 5-month-old puppy, Angel, at the 656-unit Devonshire Hills in Hauppauge is well-maintained, with two pools, a new barbecue area and a patio where she has planted impatiens and other flowers, she said. The complex advertises units renting for about $2,000 to $2,800.
Living there allows her to remain close to her friends and a daughter who lives in Wantagh, Landi said.
Prices are lower in Virginia, where her other daughter lives, but Long Island “is really home to me,” said Landi, who retired from a career in medical billing.
Nassau County’s efforts to increase the supply of affordable rentals includes its Industrial Development Agency’s recent decision to hire a consultant who will work with private developers to construct more affordable housing.
In addition to rentals subsidized by state and federal funds or local industrial development agencies, Long Island also needs the ultrasmall “micro” apartments built in New York City and other urban areas, with space-saving features such as foldaway wall beds, Alexander said.


Reporters gather outside the Tribeca Film Center, where a package with a pipe bomb was sent to actor Robert De Niro.
NEW YORK — President Trump on Thursday blamed the news media for the division and anger in the United States, as authorities discovered more pipe bombs intended for the president’s political rivals.
In his tweet on Thursday, Trump did not mention that CNN, the news network that he has long assailed and called “fake news,” was among the targets of a pipe bomb, along with former President Barack Obama, former Vice President Joe Biden and actor Robert De Niro. Three more devices were found in Delaware and New York, the FBI said Thursday. Two were addressed to Biden, a Delaware resident, and a third to De Niro, who lives and works in Lower Manhattan.
Trump’s posture as a leader working to bring the country together — saying on Wednesday that any attempted terrorist act “against any American is an attack on every American” — was brief.
Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., pointed to the president’s tweet on Thursday morning as motivation for Democrats to vote in the coming midterm elections.
The White House press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, defended her boss on Thursday in remarks to Fox News. “The president, I think, could not have been more presidential yesterday when he spoke,” she said.
Meanwhile, federal authorities have turned their attention toward southern Florida, believing that a number of the explosive devices were mailed from the area, two people briefed on the matter said Thursday.
All of the 10 packages that have been discovered since Monday bore return addresses from Debbie Wasserman Schultz, a Democratic congresswoman from Florida.
Federal, state and local investigators in New York, Washington, Florida and Los Angeles have all joined forces in the rapidly widening case, which has not yet resulted in any injuries but has sent a shock through the nation’s political and news media establishments. One central question in the inquiry is whether the bombs were the work of one person or multiple people.
Though investigators initially believed that some of the packages were delivered by hand or by courier, they have now concluded that all 10 were likely sent through the mail, a person briefed on the matter said.
Investigators are now focusing on Florida because an analysis of information collected by the U.S. Postal Service indicated that many of the packages were mailed from the state.
Eileen Sullivan, Katie Rogers, William K. Rashbaum, Alan Feuer and Adam Goldman are New York Times writers.


Phillip Adams is a prolific and sometimes controversial broadcaster, writer and film-maker. As presenter of Late Night Live, he has interviewed thousands of the world's most influential politicians, historians, archaeologists, novelists, theologians, economists, philosophers and sundry conversationalists. "It's a privilege to present Late Night Live", he says. "No radio program, anywhere on earth, casts a wider net."
Phillip's laid back approach has become a trade-mark for Late Night Live, as has his humour, curiosity, his ability to flesh out rare insights from his guests, and his amazing store of anecdotal knowledge.
Largely self-educated (he left school in his mid-teens) he's the author of over 20 books, including The Unspeakable Adams, Adams Versus God, Talkback, Retreat From Tolerance and A Billion Voices. His writing has appeared in many of Australia's most influential publications and he has been a contributor to The Times and The Financial Times in London, and to the New York Times.
His films include The Adventures of Barry McKenzie, The Getting of Wisdom, Don's Party, Lonely Hearts and We of the Never Never. Adams' Australia was part of BBC TV's contribution to Australia's bicentennial celebrations. Other TV programs include two series of The Big Questions with Professor Paul Davies, and Death and Destiny, filmed in Egypt with Paul Cox.
A foundation member of the Australia Council and chairman of the Film, Radio and Television Board, Phillip has chaired the Australian Film Institute, the Australian Film Commission, Film Australia and the National Australia Day Council. He is a former president of the Victorian Council for the Arts and was foundation chairman of the Commission for the Future. He currently chairs the Advisory Board of the Centre for the Mind at Sydney University and the Australian National University. His many board memberships include Adelaide's Festival of Ideas, Brisbane's 'Ideas at the Powerhouse" and the Families in Distress Foundation.
Other board memberships have included the Museum of Australia, Greenpeace Australia, CARE Australia, the Australian Children's Television Foundation, Film Victoria and the Anti-Football League. He was co-founder of the Australian Skeptics.
As well as two Orders of Australia, Phillip was Australian Humanist of the Year (1987) and received the Longford Award, the film industry's highest accolade in 1981, the same year that he was appointed Senior ANZAC Fellow. He is a recipient of the Henry Lawson Arts Award (1987) and in 1998, the National Trust elected him one of Australia's '100 Living National Treasures". He has an honorary doctorate from Griffith University.
Phillip lives on a cattle property specialising in the production of chemical-free beef. He is a collector of rare antiquities, including Egyptian, Roman and Greek sculptures and artefacts.
Late Night Live is broadcast on Monday to Thursday at 10pm, repeated the following day at 4pm, on Radio National, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's national radio network of ideas.


The rapper admits to cheating on his wife, as revealed in his latest album.
Don’t come for Jay Z! Actress Tiffany Haddish made that quite clear while rehashing a story about Beyonce and her husband during a Hollywood party. And yes, there was another woman involved!
The Girls Trip superstar revealed she was at an afterparty for Jay Z's 4:44 tour when another actress got a little too close for comfort.
In a video, Tiffany shares, "I was talking to Jay Z for a little bit and there was another actress who was also talking to Jay Z. She touched Jay Z's chest."
Afterwards, Beyonce came up to them and Tiffany then described the encounter as Beyonce going, "Bish, get your hands off my man's chest!"
In December, Jay Z admitted to cheating on Beyonce, and the 47-year-old told New York Times executive editor Dean Baquet that he would even push his wife away during their relationship.
“It took them years to get to the point where they are now,” a source told People. “If it wasn’t for Blue Ivy, they might not be together,” the source added.
What are your thoughts on Beyonce getting defensive about her man? Let us know in the comments section.


"Teachers, principals, parents and city councillors joined together last night in Porirua to talk about the effect National's national standards are having on the quality of education our children are receiving", Kris Faafoi, Labour's Candidate for Mana said today.
"The majority of those who attended the NZEI forum rejected the rushed, untested implementation of National standards.
"Many were concerned that National standards will dampen the love of learning many kids have.
"Attendees said that children who are successful when measured against the average achievement for their age are being labelled as 'failures' because National standards have been pitched much higher than normally achieve for their age.
"National Standards should be about uplifting the education of our kids- not penalising them for not meeting a set of standards that may be unrealistic.
" Kids and quality education are not a one size fits all problem- yet this government is trying to implement a one size fits all solution.
" Education and National Standards are a huge issue many parents in Mana are concerned about, yet National MP Hekia Parata did not front the Komiti.
"Mrs Parata was invited to answer the many questions attendees had around her government's decision not to listen to teachers, prinicpals, mums and dads who are all saying that the implementation of unrealistic and untested standards are going to hurt our kids." said Kris Faafoi.


Joel Fitzgerald, Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh's choice to head the city police department speaks at a news conference at City Hall.
It’s not clear precisely what information will be shared, nor whether the submission will include a complete background check report that members of the council have been pushing to see.
In an interview, Pugh said some information would be withheld to protect the privacy of Fitzgerald’s family.
“The stuff that can be shared will be shared,” Pugh said.
Much of the information the city has gathered on Fitzgerald is likely protected by state laws that guard personnel records, meaning officials can’t disclose it, and it’s not clear how much Fitzgerald is willing to release voluntarily.
But a third council member — Zeke Cohen — announced Wednesday that he would not be able to vote in favor of Fitzgerald unless he can review the background investigation report.
Cohen described a testy interaction when he asked Fitzgerald on Tuesday to share the file.
“Baltimore is a tough town and anyone who wants to lead the police department needs to understand that our city is at a moment where people are demanding transparency and engagement,” Cohen said.
On Monday, the chairman and vice chairman of the council’s public safety committee, Brandon Scott and Ryan Dorsey, also said they would not vote in favor of Fitzgerald without seeing the report.
Fitzgerald’s nomination would need a majority of the 15-member council to be approved.
Pugh said that Fitzgerald enjoyed his meetings with council members and was smiling when she last saw him on Tuesday.
Pugh said the confirmation process remains on track and that the community is going to have a chance to get to know Fitzgerald.
“We just continue to move forward,” she said.
The city hired US ISS Agency, a North Carolina private investigation company, to probe Fitzgerald’s background, but officials have declined to say precisely what checks were carried out.
City Solicitor Andre Davis has said the investigators’ report is a personnel record and so legally protected from public disclosure. He said he is reluctant to release it to the City Council in case that step weakens those legal protections.
Fitzgerald is currently police chief in Fort Worth, Texas, and told reporters Monday that he intends to continue in that job until the council holds a final vote on his nomination. That’s expected in late January.
Cohen said the decision on who should become police commissioner is critically important to the city.


Chef Cindy Wolf, pictured with business partner Tony Foreman in the Palm Room of Charleston, has been nominated for a James Beard Award six times.
The winners of the awards, considered the Oscars of the culinary industry, were announced at the James Beard Foundation Awards Gala, held at the Lyric Opera of Chicago Monday night.
In addition to Vernick, of Vernick Food & Drink, Wolf was up against another Philadelphia chef, Richard Landau of Vedge, along with Washington, D.C., chefs Amy Brandwein of Centrolina and Tom Cunanan of Bad Saint.
Wolf could not immediately be reached for comment Monday night.
A partner in Foreman Wolf Restaurant Group, Wolf has been a frequent semifinalist for James Beard Awards during the last decade; in addition to this year’s nomination, she’s also been named a finalist in 2006, 2008, 2014, 2015 and 2016.
Wolf has described herself as the Susan Lucci of the James Beard Awards. Lucci, who starred on the show “All My Children,” was nominated for a Daytime Emmy 19 times before winning one.
Wolf was among 20 semifinalists named in the “best chef: mid-Atlantic” category in February, which was narrowed down to five finalists in March.
Tony Foreman, Wolf’s partner in the restaurant group, said Wolf’s consistency is what has landed her among the James Beard nominees year after year.
“Consistency of quality, consistency of development. She’s pretty relentless in her enthusiam for cooking and for making things better and better for our guests,” he said.
Wolf has been in the kitchen for 20 years at Charleston, her signature restaurant in Harbor East. Baltimore’s dining scene has evolved drastically since Charleston opened in 1997.
“What Chef Wolf has been doing her whole career has become in vogue, but it wasn’t when she started,” said Mike Evitts, vice president of communications for the Downtown Partnership of Baltimore Inc.
He said there’s a reason she gets nominated every year.
James Lewandowski, executive chef at Cinghiale, has worked for the group since 2001 and watched her evolve, especially through her travels, “going to France, going to Italy and just bringing a little bit back each time,” he said.
And her passion for food hasn’t faded.
Although Wolf was the only Baltimore chef or restaurant that made the 2017 cut of finalists, other James Beard Award semifinalists this year included Charleston, Wolf’s restaurant, for outstanding wine program and Woodberry Kitchen for outstanding service.
Woodberry Kitchen chef and owner Spike Gjerde holds Baltimore’s only James Beard Award for “best chef: mid-Atlantic,” which he won two years ago. Gjerde, through a spokeswoman, declined to comment for this story.
Nearby in Milton, Del., Sam Calagione, CEO of Dogfish Head Craft Brewery, took home a James Beard Award for “outstanding wine, beer or spirits professional.” It was his seventh time being nominated.
Baltimore-based chef and author Allison Robicelli was also nominated as a personal essay finalist in the James Beard Media Awards for her Food52 piece, “In Sickness, in Health, in White Castle.” The media award winners were unveiled April 25 in New York.


If you're traveling to Puebla, Mexico, past visitors recommend staying at Hotel Cartesiano. Overall, recent lodgers were impressed with the hotel, especially its picturesque location, attentive staff and stylish yet cozy rooms. The property sits in historic Puebla, surrounding guests with eye-catching period architecture and putting them within walking distance of top attractions like the city's Zócalo. You can also enjoy Puebla from the comfort of your room's private balcony. Other standard room amenities include 55-inch flat-screen TVs, Nespresso coffee makers and bathrooms with rain showers. Should you desire a more unique experience, consider upgrading to a suite, where you'll find natural stone and exposed-brick walls. When it's time to grab a bite to eat, previous guests suggest you savor the delectable food at the hotel's cafe and Centena Cuatro, where every dining table offers views of the city's cathedral and mountains. Additional property facilities range from a fitness center to a spa to a rooftop pool (a traveler favorite). Since this hotel is part of the Leading Hotels of the World family, those who have Leaders Club memberships can enjoy free extras like daily breakfast for two and in-room Wi-Fi access while staying here.
A hotel's guest rating is calculated using data provided under license by TripAdvisor. A total of 207 have reviewed the Hotel Cartesiano Puebla, giving it a rating of 4.5, on a scale of 1-5.


Watch as the Metro Maple Leafs receive a personal message from @smithpelly23 and @JohnCarlson74 inviting them to Monday's game.
A minor hockey team that stood up for one of its players after he was the subject of racist taunts got a surprise from the Washington Capitals on Wednesday.
The Capitals sent the Metro Maple Leafs a video of forward Devante Smith-Pelly and defenseman John Carlson inviting them to Washington's game against the St. Louis Blues on Jan. 14.
Divyne Apollon II, a 13-year-old blue-liner on the 14-and-under club based in Odenton, Md., was subjected to taunts from an opposing team at a tournament in December, according to NHL.com's Tom Gulitti.
His teammates fought the opponents at the end of the game in response to the taunts. After Apollon was suspended for the rest of the tournament for his part in the melee, the team placed logos on their sticks with the word "Racism" crossed out by a hockey stick.
Smith-Pelly, who is black, wanted to do something to show his support after reading about the incident.
"It's crazy that's still going on in 2019, but I really like how he stood up for himself and how the team had his back too," Smith-Pelly told Gulitti. "For 13-year-old kids to put a foot in the sand and stand up for their teammate at 13 years old, that's pretty remarkable.
"So I liked reading that part of him standing up for himself and his whole team, a team of kids, standing up for him, too."
A group of Chicago Blackhawks fans targeted Smith-Pelly with racist taunts during a game at the United Center last February.


DENVER — A judge is being asked to appoint a specialist to help ensure that the state hospital at Pueblo comes into compliance by promptly determining whether a backlog of criminal defendants are mentally competent to stand trial.
The request is the latest development in a lawsuit against the hospital because it and its parent agency are not promptly determining whether hundreds of pre-trial detainees lingering in county jails are competent to have their day in court.
The request was made Thursday in Denver to Magistrate Judge Nina Y. Wang of the U.S. District Court for Colorado.
It was made by Disability Law Colorado, an office that advocates for disabled persons in Colorado, including the detainees who are in jails all over the state. They are there because judges think they may not be competent.
State mental health staff have to tell judges whether those defendants are competent. Until that happens, judges can't move the cases forward for juries to determine if the defendants are guilty.
The current lawsuit — which has been ongoing since 2011 — was filed by Disability Law Colorado. It claims that the hospital and its parent agency are violating the constitutional rights of the detainees by allowing them to remain in jail, rather than quickly determining if they are competent to be put on trial.
The defendants being detained are charged with a wide variety of crimes, ranging from low-level ones all the way to murder.
Meanwhile Wang has given the hospital and its parent agency until Dec. 14 to submit to her a plan to remedy their failures to meet a required timeframe to conduct competency evaluations..
The hospital is the Colorado Mental Health Institute at Pueblo and its parent agency is the state Department of Human Services, headquartered in Denver.
They have not yet replied in court to Thursday's request for the judge to appoint an forensics systems psychologist expert to serve Wang as a "special master." That person would assist the judge with getting CMHIP and DHS into compliance with a requirement to provide the evaluations within 28 days of judges' orders for the evaluations.
Judges of state courts across Colorado have for many years ordered DHS to conduct the evaluations so the judges can rule whether particular defendants are not competent to stand trial due to mental illness. They are presumed innocent under the law while they are awaiting trial.
In Thursday's request, Disability Law Colorado said the most recent data shows "the average wait time was at least 58.6 days and the longest wait time was 186 days."
Wang has scheduled a multi-day hearing to begin March 18 in her Denver courtroom to hear arguments regarding what she should do to remedy the delays.
She ruled several weeks ago that DHS and CMHIP are out of compliance with the 28-day timeframe.
• Analyzing why this problem (delays) has persisted and not improved for 18 month, and suggesting various methods to improve the system"
• "Providing expert feedback to (DHS) on how to fix a system that has been broken for at least a decade."
The department has said it does not have the physical capacity "to keep up with the extraordinary demand (from state judges overseeing the cases of some criminal defendants) for evaluations and mental health restorations, which has continued to increase at an exponential rate."
Colorado Public Radio reported this week that in recent weeks public defenders across the state have been asking judges to get the detainees moved out of jails. The defenders claim their clients' rights are violated by sitting in jail for long periods without ever having been convicted.
CPR went on to report that judges in some counties are ordering some of those detainees out of jail immediately, some are not, and other judges continue holding DHS in contempt of court for delaying the evaluations. The radio network reported one defense attorney said he had a client sitting in the Fremont County jail for 270 days, awaiting a competency evaluation by state mental health staff.
The 28-deadline was agreed to in 2016 by DHS and Disability Law Colorado. Wang has ruled that the state broke the agreement by not meeting the timeframe.


It's hard to believe that ten years ago, Taylor Swift was preparing to tour in support of her second studio album Fearless while Adele had just won the Grammy Award for Best New Artist. As for Beyoncé, she was still releasing tracks from her third studio album I Am… Sasha Fierce.
Flash forward to today and Swift is now the biggest pop star on the planet, having released six studio albums and racking up two Album of the Year awards in the process. Adele is one of the best-selling artists of all time and Beyoncé is, well, Beyoncé.
Oh, how things have changed!
Even the 2009 Grammys award ceremony now seems worlds away.
Lady Gaga had just received her first nomination for her chart-topping single "Just Dance" whileLil Wayne still dominated the rap categories.
Miley Cyrus teamed up with a surprise star for a country duet while the world had not yet been graced with the presence of Pharrell Williams' now infamous Arby's hat.
Needless to say, it was a much simpler time.
In anticipation for this Sunday's award show, let's take a walk down memory lane as we recount what the Grammys looked like a decade ago in our gallery below.
The two superstars perform their Grammy-award winning single "American Boy," only seven months before West's infamous moment with Taylor Swift at the MTV Video Music Awards.
One of the most surprising collaborations of the night came when Nick, Joe and Kevin Jonas paired up with the jazz legend to give a rendition of their hit singles "Burning Up" and "Superstition" respectively.
The two teamed up with Boys II Men and Keith Urban to sing a cover of Green's soul song "Lets Stay Together."
The duo's song "Stay" won two awards that evening, including Best Country Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal and Best Country Song.
Chris Martin and his band picked up numerous awards, including Song of the Year for their hit song "Viva La Vida."
The two paired together to give a duet of Swift's award-winning single, "Fifteen."
The country superstar posed in the Grammy press room with her Grammy for Best Female Country Vocal Performance for her hit "Last Name."
The Oscar-winning actress wore this shimmery gold dress as she made an appearance with her husband.
The then 20-year-old picked up Best New Artist after the release of her chart-topping debut album 19.
The Hills star rocked the red carpet while wearing this strapless Tadashi gown. Fast-forward to today and fans are gearing up for the MTV show's reboot.
The DJ walked the red carpet wearing his signature mouse head as he celebrated his two nominations, both for his remix of the song "The Longest Road."
The singer-songwriter took home two awards that night, one for the song "Gravity," and the other for his smash-single "Say."
The rapper took home four Grammy awards that night, including Best Rap Album for Carter III.
The singer performed on stage after receiving her first Grammy nomination for her hit single, "I Kissed a Girl."
The very pregnant rapper teamed up with T.I., Jay-Z, Lil Wayne and Kanye West to give a jaw-dropping performance of "Swagga Like Us."
The American Idol judge shinned bright in this yellow dress by late designer Basil Soda.
The late singer presented the Grammy Award for Best R&B Album to newcomer Jennifer Hudson.
So who is going to win big this weekend? Who will have the performance everyone is talking about? Your guess is as good as ours.
We can't wait to watch and find out.


Harris Hill are excited to be working exclusively with Perennial, the UK's only charity dedicated to helping people who work in horticulture, who aim to give free confidential advice, support and financial assistance to people working in, or retired from, the horticulture industry.
We are currently recruiting for a fantastic opportunity for an ambitious and enthusiastic Corporate Partnership Manager, ideally to be home based outside of London to look after partnerships based in the North, with a focus on raising substantial and sustainable income through developing key relationships with key organisations.
- Procuring sponsorship for Perennial activities and campaigns from the trade and suppliers to the trade to raise additional income for the team.
If this sounds like the ideal position for you please press the Apply Now button below. All applications will be looked at on a case by case basis. If you do not hear back from us you can assume your application has been unsuccessful on this occasion.


This information is also available as a PDF download.Since I've been doing a lot of coverage of storage technology both for the enterprise and for the home lately, I thought I should give an explanation of what RAID storage is.
This information is also available as a PDF download.
Since I've been doing a lot of coverage of storage technology both for the enterprise and for the home lately, I thought I should give an explanation of what RAID storage is. I won't go in to every RAID type under the sun, I just want to cover the basic types of RAID and what the benefits and tradeoffs are.
RAID was originally defined as Redundant Array of Inexpensive Drives, but RAID setups were traditionally very expensive so the definition of "I" became Independent. The costs have recently come down significantly because of commoditization and RAID features are now embedded on to most higher-end motherboards. Storage RAIDs were primarily designed to improve fault tolerance, offer better performance, and easier storage management because it presents multiple hard drives as a single storage volume which simplifies storage management. Before we start talking about the different RAID types, I'm going to define some basic concepts first.
Fault tolerance defined: Basic fault tolerance in the world of storage means your data is intact even if one or more hard drives fails. Some of the more expensive RAID types permit multiple hard drive failures without loss of data. There are also more advanced forms of fault tolerance in the enterprise storage world called path redundancy (AKA multi-path) which allows different storage controllers and the connectors that connect hard drives to fail without loss in service. Path redundancy isn't considered a RAID technology but it is a form of storage fault tolerance.
Storage performance defined: There are two basic metrics of performance in the world of storage. They are I/O performance and throughput. In general, read performance is more valued than write performance because storage devices spend the majority of their time reading data. I/O (Input/Output) performance is the measure of how many small random read/write requests can be processed in a single second and it is very important in the server world, especially database type applications. IOPS (I/O per second) is the common unit of measurement for I/O performance.
Throughput is the measurement of how much data can be read or written in a single second and it is important in certain server applications and very desirable for home use. Throughput is typically measured in MB/sec (megabytes transferred per second) though mbps (megabits per second) is sometimes also used to describe storage communication speeds. There is sometimes confusion between megabits versus megabytes since they sound alike. For example, 100 megabit FastEthernet might sound faster than a typical hard drive that gets 70 MB/sec but this would be like thinking that 100 ounces weighs more than 70 pounds. In reality, the hard drive is much faster because 70 MB/sec is equivalent to 560 mbps.
Mirroring: Data mirroring stores the same data across two hard drives which provides redundancy and read speed. It's redundant because if a single drive fails, the other drive still has the data. It's great on read I/O performance and read throughput because it can independently process two read requests at the same time. In a well implemented RAID controller that uses mirroring, the read IOPS and read throughput (for two tasks) can be twice that of a single drive. Write IOPS and write throughput aren't any faster than a single hard drive because they can't be process independently since data must be written to both hard drives at the same time. The downside to mirroring is that your capacity is only half of the total capacity of all your hard drives so it's expensive.
Striping: Data striping distributes data across multiple hard drives. Striping scales very well on read and write throughput for single tasks but it has less read throughput than data mirroring when processing multiple tasks. A good RAID controller can produce single-task read/write throughput equal to the total throughput of each individual drive. Striping also produces better read and write IOPS though it's not as effective on read IOPS as data mirroring. You also get a large consolidated drive volume equal to the total capacity of all the drives in the RAID array. Striping is rarely used by itself because it provides zero fault tolerance and a single drive failure causes not only the data on that drive to fail, but the entire RAID array. Striping is often used in conjunction with data mirroring or with parity.
Striping with parity: Because striping alone is so unreliable in terms of fault tolerance, striping with parity solves the reliability problem at the expense of some capacity and a big hit on write IOPS and write throughput compared to just data striping. Data is striped across multiple hard drives just like normal data striping but a parity is generated and stored on one or more hard drives. Parity data allows a RAID volume to be reconstructed if one (sometimes two) hard drives fail within the array. Generating parity can be done in the RAID controller hardware or done via software (driver level, OS level, or add-on volume manager) using the general purpose processor. The hardware method of generating parity either results in an expensive RAID controller and/or poor throughput performance. The software method is computationally expensive though that's no longer a problem with fast multi-core processors. Despite the performance and capacity penalty of using parity, parity uses up far less capacity than data mirroring while providing drive fault tolerance making this a very cost-effective form of reliable large-capacity storage.
The various RAID types used in the storage world are defined by Level numbers. At the basic level, we have RAID Level 0 through 6. We also have various composite RAID types comprised of multiple RAID levels. Note that people often drop the word "Level" when referring to RAID types and this has become an accepted practice. Also note that even though same-sized hard drives are not technically required, RAID normally uses hard drives of similar size. Any implementation that uses different sized hard drives will result in wasted capacity.
RAID Level 0: RAID Level 0 is the cluster-level implementation of data striping and it is the only RAID type that doesn't care about fault tolerance. Clusters can vary in size and are user-definable but they are typically blocks of 64 thousand bytes. The clusters are evenly distributed across multiple hard drives. It's used by people who don't care about data integrity if a single drive fails. This RAID type is sometimes used by video editing professionals who are only using the drive as a temporary work space. It's also used by some PC enthusiasts who want maximum throughput and capacity.
RAID Level 1: RAID Level 1 is the pure implementation of data mirroring. In a nutshell RAID Level 1 gives you fault tolerance but it cuts your usable capacity in half and it offers excellent throughput and I/O performance. This RAID level is often used in servers for the system partition for enhanced reliability but PC enthusiasts can also get a nice performance boost from RAID Level 1. Using multiple independent RAID Level 1 volumes can offer the best performance for database storage.
RAID Level 2: RAID Level 2 is a bit-level implementation of data striping with parity. The bits are evenly distributed across multiple hard drives and one of the drives in the RAID is designated to store parity. Out of an array with "N" number of drives, the total capacity is equal to the sum of "N-1" hard drives. For example, an array with 6 equal sized hard drives will have the combined capacity of 5 hard drives. It's interesting to note that this RAID level is almost forgotten and is very rarely used.
RAID Level 3: RAID Level 3 is a byte-level implementation of data striping with parity. The bytes are evenly distributed across multiple hard drives and one of the drives in the RAID is designated to store parity. Out of an array with "N" number of drives, the total capacity is equal to the sum of "N-1" hard drives. For example, an array with 4 equal sized hard drives will have the combined capacity of 3 hard drives. This RAID level is not so commonly used and is rarely supported.
RAID Level 4: RAID Level 4 is a cluster-level implementation of data striping with parity. Clusters can vary in size and are user-definable but they are typically blocks of 64 thousand bytes. The clusters are evenly distributed across multiple hard drives and one of the drives in the RAID is designated to store parity. Out of an array with "N" number of drives, the total capacity is equal to the sum of "N-1" hard drives. For example, an array with 8 equal sized hard drives will have the combined capacity of 7 hard drives. This RAID level is not so commonly used and is rarely supported.
RAID Level 5: RAID Level 5 is a cluster-level implementation of data striping with DISTRIBUTED parity for enhanced performance. Clusters can vary in size and are user-definable but they are typically blocks of 64 thousand bytes. The clusters and parity are evenly distributed across multiple hard drives and this provides better performance than using a single drive for parity. Out of an array with "N" number of drives, the total capacity is equal to the sum of "N-1" hard drives. For example, an array with 7 equal sized hard drives will have the combined capacity of 6 hard drives. This is the most common implementation of data striping with parity.
RAID Level 6: RAID Level 6 is a cluster-level implementation of data striping with DUAL distributed parity for enhanced fault tolerance. It's very similar to RAID Level 5 but it uses the equivalent capacity of two hard drives to store parity. RAID Level 6 is used in high-end RAID systems but it's slowly becoming more common as technology becomes more commoditized. Dual parity allows ANY two hard drives in the array to fail without data loss which is unique in all the basic RAID types. If a drive fails in a RAID Level 5 array, you better hope there is a hot spare that will quickly restore the array to a healthy state in a few hours and you don't get a second failure during that recovery time. RAID Level 6 allows that second drive failure during recovery and is considered the ultimate RAID Level for fault tolerance. Out of an array with "N" number of drives, the total capacity is equal to the sum of "N-2" hard drives. For example, an array with 8 equal sized hard drives will have the combined capacity of 6 hard drives.
RAID Level 10 (composite of 1 and 0): RAID Level 10 (sometimes called 1+0) is probably the most common composite RAID type used on the market both in the server and home/enthusiast market. For example, there are plenty of cheap consumer-grade RAID controllers that might support RAID Level 0, 1, and 10 that don't support Level 5. The most common and recommended implementation of mirroring and striping is that mirroring is done before striping. This provides better fault tolerance because it can statistically survive more often with multiple drive failures and performance isn't degraded as much when a single drive has failed in the array. RAID Level 0+1 which does striping before mirroring is considered an inferior form of RAID and is not recommended. RAID Level 10 is very commonly used in database applications because it provides good I/O performance when the application can't distribute its own data across multiple storage volumes. But when the application knows how to evenly distribute data across multiple volumes, independent pairs of RAID Level 1 provides superior performance.


Sept. 27, 2010, 1:30 p.m.
Block by Block: Once you’ve launched, what’s Phase 2 of a community news startup?
By Megan Garber @megangarber Sept. 27, 2010, 1:30 p.m.
Jay Rosen called it “entrepreneur atomization overcome.” And, for an event that put nearly 100 formerly disconnected community news publishers together in one place, it’s an apt description. When those publishers got together in Chicago on Friday to share their experiences in publishing — to talk, in particular, about on-the-ground matters like audience engagement, advertising strategies, and, of course, revenue generation — there was a prevailing sentiment: Why didn’t we do this earlier?
The Block by Block Community News Summit, principally organized by the Reynolds Journalism Institute‘s Michele McLellan (a former Nieman Fellow), was thankfully well-recorded, through means both ephemeral (its Twitter hashtag), slightly less so (its CoverItLive’d live blog), and much less so (its official blog). I don’t want to reinvent the wheel here, and if you’re at all interested in community news — and if you’re interested in the future of news in general, you probably should be — I highly recommend checking those out. In the meantime, though, here are some of the core ideas that emerged during the conference’s jam-packed day of panels, breakouts, and room-wide discussions.
Community news sites, just like their larger and more established counterparts, need to be able to provide an answer when someone — a would-be reader, a potential advertiser or funder — asks, “So why do you exist?” As West Seattle Blog‘s Tracy Record put it during the conference’s panel on engagement: “You have to think how different your publication is…what need is it filling?” Starting out, answering that question could involve filling a particular niche in terms of content, or simply stepping in to contribute community coverage that a local paper is no longer willing or able to provide. (As virtual attendee Whitney Parks noted in the conference’s Twitter stream, “ask your community what they want to know about and what issue they want covered.”) But the purpose has to be clear, and easily articulated. It’s the foundation of a site’s brand, which, in turn, is the foundation for its success or failure.
During the conference’s closing session, Jay Rosen invoked that classic de Tocqueville line: “Newspapers make associations, and associations make newspapers.” In another context, and in another conference, that reference might have been laughably romantic hyperbole; at Block by Block, though, it fit right in. There was a sense — to engage in just a smidge of laughably romantic hyperbole myself — of symbolism in the room. In some ways, Rosen pointed out, the publishers in the room are going back to the early days of American journalism, in which the connection between publications and the communities they covered was implicit, and therefore intimate — and vice versa.
Collaboration isn’t just a way to get more and better content for a site; it’s also a way to inspire engagement among readers. As OJR put it, tweeting a comment from Dave Cohn, “One key to engaging=collaboration w/audience and others says @digidave. Actually attracts others to participate.” And that’s true for the local sites themselves. Several participants expressed the desire to continue the conversations at other conferences, and online. They’ve made it through Phase 1, the creation stage.
But as VTDigger‘s Anne Galloway put it during the conference’s wrap-up session, “We need a Phase 2 guidebook.” The publishers want a systematized way to share information and best practices. During the conference, there was a wealth of wisdom in the room; participants agreed in their desire to aggregate that wisdom. “It would be good to have tipsheets,” Galloway said. It would also be good, they agreed, to continue the conversation via further conferences. The Block by Block participants are already planning a meetup at next month’s Online News Association conference, during which they’ll consider more ways to consider the conversation; here’s hoping even more good things will come from that.
Update: This post originally listed local advertising as a “$100 million business.” That would be a $100 billion business. Sorry about the error, and thanks to Mark Potts for pointing it out.
POSTED Sept. 27, 2010, 1:30 p.m.
Garber, Megan. "Block by Block: Once you’ve launched, what’s Phase 2 of a community news startup?." Nieman Journalism Lab. Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard, 27 Sep. 2010. Web. 23 Apr. 2019.
Garber, Megan. "Block by Block: Once you’ve launched, what’s Phase 2 of a community news startup?." Nieman Journalism Lab. Last modified September 27, 2010. Accessed April 23, 2019. https://www.niemanlab.org/2010/09/block-by-block-once-youve-launched-whats-phase-2-of-a-community-news-startup/.
| title = Block by Block: Once you’ve launched, what’s Phase 2 of a community news startup?


Pack of 4 for the UPC: 072151459617Product Description Freeman Feeling Legendary Pore Clearing Peel-Off Mask with Volcanic Ash uses Volcanic Ash & Charcoal to pull pore-clogging build-up including dirt, grime & oil from your pores. The easy removal peel-off action helps tone and refine without over drying. Perfect for ALL skin types.
A dual-action cleansing and moisturizing mask that blends natural volcanic ash. A highly-effective pore purifier that unclogs pores and helps radiate the skin.
Clean rinsing skin is left clean and smooth.


It’s topped the best-sellers list for months on end, but Michelle Obama Michelle LeVaughn Robinson ObamaThe Hill's Morning Report — Category 5 Mueller storm to hit today Warren praises Ocasio-Cortez in Time 100 Beyoncé in 'Time 100' profile: Michelle Obama empowers black Americans MORE says there’s at least one person who hasn’t yet read her memoir "Becoming": Sasha Obama.
“Sasha still hasn’t read it,” the former first lady said of her 17-year-old daughter during a chat with BookTube posted Tuesday.
“It’s like, ‘I’m getting to it, Mom!’ ” Michelle Obama quoted, making an exasperated facial expression into the camera. “ 'I’m a senior,' ” she continued, impersonating her younger daughter.
“Well, you know, that would be Sasha,” Obama quipped.
"Becoming" was declared the best-selling hardcover book of 2018 shortly after its November release by its publisher, Penguin Random House.
Sales hit 3 million in December. Earlier this year, Amazon announced "Becoming" had the longest run as its best-selling book since 2012's "Fifty Shades of Grey."
Despite Sasha Obama not yet diving into her mom’s memoir, another member of the former first family did give it a read before it hit store shelves, according to Michelle Obama.
“The first test was when I had my husband read the draft because I wouldn’t let him look at anything,” Obama told the YouTube series.
“He was like, ‘Can I see this first draft?’ ” Obama, 55, said with a smile.
“No! Get out of here,” she said she told him.
“I didn’t want anybody’s opinions or their worries to cloud it until it was out,” Obama said.


Barry "Butch" Wilmore, commander of the International Space Station, sends a Thanksgiving message to Earth. This image is a still from a NASA video published on Nov. 24, 2014.
This Thursday (Nov. 27) will be full of feast, family and friends as people celebrate Thanksgiving — both on Earth and on the International Space Station (ISS).
The orbiting lab's American astronauts — commander Barry "Butch" Wilmore and flight engineer Terry Virts — and Italian-born flight engineer Samantha Cristoforetti will take Thursday off from their normal duties to celebrate the holiday. Orbiting about 250 miles (400 kilometers) above the Earth, Wilmore took a moment to send a Thanksgiving greeting for everyone on the ground.
"I can hang from the ceiling like a bat," he said, floating with his feet straight above his head. "And I'm grateful for these kinds of things that you dream about. Literally dream about. … To have the opportunity to take part and share in it is special and amazing. And I'm thankful for that."
Wilmore, Virts and Cristoforetti were recently joined at the station by three Russian astronauts: flight engineers Alexander Samokutyaev, Anton Shkaplerov and Elena Serova, who got to the station late Sunday (Nov. 23).
While the Russian crewmembers do not take Thanksgiving Day off, they will likely join their crewmates for dinner. NASA food scientists have created a "traditional" Thanksgiving dinner for the crew, including irradiated smoked turkey, thermostabilized candied yams, freeze-dried cornbread stuffing, freeze-dried green beans and mushrooms, and thermostabilized cherry-blueberry cobbler.
"So we're going to have all of that up here and try to share in the spirit of the season," Wilmore said.
Food aboard the space station is either freeze-dried or thermostabilized (a process similar to canning, but with the food packed in pouches), so it has a long shelf life and can be stored without refrigeration. There are no microwaves or ovens on board the station, so astronauts heat food using warm water.
Thanksgiving celebrations on the International Space Station began in 2000, the first year American astronauts were aboard during the holiday. The first space-based Thanksgiving took place aboard the United States' first space station, Skylab, on Nov. 22, 1973, and was held by American astronauts Jerry Carr, Bill Pogue and Ed Gibson.
In his video message, Wilmore spoke about feeling thankful for all the people involved in the current mission, both in orbit and on the ground.
"As we go forward, I look back at the two months that I've been here," said Wilmore, "and the things that I've had the opportunity to experience, and the people from the ground that I've worked with from afar — that are processing experiments, doing all the science that we are really operators for up here. I'm thankful for them and the efforts they're doing for the benefit of mankind."


SANTA MONICA, Calif., March 26, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Digits.io, the first blockchain technology offering the ability for any credit or debit card to be used as a cryptocurrency card, announced today that it has launched is core technology.
Digits hopes to bridge the gap between the complexity of crypto currencies and simple spending on Credit Cards by creating a bridge between the two. The Digits technology allows any credit or debit card to be turned into a crypto card when consumers are using their card at merchants that have signed up to the Digits platform.
Along with releasing their product, which can be accessed at digits.io they have also released their API which allows any merchant to integrate into the digits platform. Digits will also be building "plug ins" for popular ecommerce platforms like BigCommerce.
Despite the challenging market conditions in Crypto and Blockchain products over the last year, Digits has continued to develop their products and services and todays release is a testament to the continuing power of the technology.
About Digits:Digits aim is to make it so that people can make purchases using cryptocurrency funds with the same convenience they are used to with their existing debit and credit cards. The company does not issue a new card to spend cryptocurrency. Rather it makes it so that any existing debit or credit card is compatible with crypto money and fiat money. The transaction does not require vendor interaction, so the card works at any online or in-person vendor that accepts major credit cards.
This exciting technology is suitable for both the consumer as well as the merchant; the consumer continues to purchase with their card the way they always have, and the merchants experience the same settlement times, processes and fees.


Update December 13, 2018: In the final count, Jones won with 53% of the vote to 47% for Griffith, the closest margin in recent history for this district.
November 8, 2018 (San Diego’s East County) – Brian Jones, a familiar face in East County Politics, will be the new State Senator in the 38th State Senate District. Jones, a Republican former Assemblyman and current Santee City Councilman, has defeated Cal Fire Captain Jeff Griffith a Democrat, by a 56 to 44 percent margin with 72% of precincts counted.
November 29, 2015 (San Diego's East County) - A Superior Court judge in Los Angeles has ordered the conviction of Luis Vargas overturned, after DNA evidence proved that he spent 16 years in prison for a series of rapes that he did not commit.


Need a dose of creativity?
Check out the Open Exhibit this April at Art Downtown.
Artists from the Hanover Area Arts Guild and the community have combined talents for the show and are showing more than 130 pieces of artwork. The 3rd Open Exhibit, April 6-27, features work in five categories: oil and acrylics, watercolors, photography and digital arts, three-dimensional art and other media, such as pastels, fiber arts and collage.
Rob Evans, an artist from Wrightsville, will judge the show.
Awards, including Best of Show, will be presented during a reception, set for 2-4 p.m. Sunday, April 8. The reception is open to artists, families and the community. It will be held at Art Downtown, 32 Carlisle St., Hanover.
The Open Exhibit can be seen during regular gallery hours at Art Downtown — 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesday-Thursday, 10 a.m.-7 p.m. Friday and 10 a.m.-3 p.m. Saturday.


AUSTIN, Texas (CN) — The Texas Supreme Court unanimously upheld the dismissal of a University of Texas regent’s lawsuit over access to student admissions records, finding the UT chancellor had authority to redact the records based on federal privacy law.
Wallace L. Hall Jr., in his capacity as a University of Texas System regent, originally sued UT Chancellor William H. McRaven in Travis County Court in June 2015 seeking access to the disputed records.
Justice John P. Devine, who delivered the Jan. 27 opinion, stressed that the ruling only dealt with whether Hall could overcome the chancellor’s sovereign immunity to proceed in his lawsuit— and Texas’ high court ruled he could not.
As such, the ruling does not answer important questions that arose from the case, Devine said. For example, does a university regent have an inherent right for access to information? And, can an institution invoke federal privacy law to redact information and limit a regent’s quest for complete access?
The dispute started in 2013 after Hall raised concerns about possible improprieties in the admissions process at UT Austin. Then-UT Chancellor Francisco Cigarroa commissioned an internal inquiry into the university’s admissions practices.
The investigations yielded revelations that the university’s admissions office was pressured by legislators and other influential people to admit prospective students who were less qualified than those whose applications were denied.
Cigarroa then hired the consulting firm Kroll Associates, Inc. to conduct an external investigation on admissions decisions at the university.
While Kroll was doing the investigation, McRaven took over as chancellor of the UT System in January 2015.
Kroll later released a 101-page report regarding UT admissions decisions. The report confirmed the previous revelations: “The ‘Kroll Report’ outlined a practice of UT Austin’s President—based on recommendations from influential persons—to exercise significant oversight and discretion in the admissions process. Such oversight sometimes resulted in the admission of underqualified students over the objection of admissions officials. While Kroll determined this practice might not be a violation of any existing rules or laws, it did ‘not appear in UT-Austin’s public representations,’” last week’s opinion states.
Bill Powers was UT president during the period relevant to the Kroll investigation. He resigned in 2015.
Despite the findings, McRaven concluded no disciplinary action would be taken against any university officials regarding the suspect admissions practices.
The findings of the Kroll report were made available to the public, but access to the underlying records—hundreds of thousands of pages of documents containing student records—was not provided.
In March 2015, Hall requested access to the Kroll report source materials, but McRaven denied his request.
The board of regents took a vote on Hall’s records request the next month. Three regents favored granting the request, but two regents conditioned their votes on a review by McRaven’s office to determine which information was protected by FERPA, short for the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act.
At the time of the vote, there was no regent’s rule governing how the chancellor’s office would conduct a FERPA review, so the board adopted a rule that specifically outlined the chancellor’s role in such a review.
Hall again requested full access to the records and cited a list of arguments claiming he had a “legitimate educational interest” in the records.
These arguments failed to sway McRaven, who again denied Hall’s request. McRaven did offer Hall a two-step process for reviewing the records. First, the chancellor’s office would redact all information protected by FERPA and other privacy laws. Second, if Hall identified specific private information he wanted to see, the UT System’s general counsel could review that request.
Hall did not agree to that process and sued McRaven for access to the records. Hall alleged that McRaven acted ultra vires, or outside his authority, in refusing to provide the unredacted information.
Notably, the board of regents held a special meeting a few weeks later regarding Hall’s lawsuit. In a vote on July 8, 2015, a majority of the board endorsed McRaven’s two-step offer of access.
McRaven then filed a plea to the jurisdiction, claiming that sovereign immunity barred Hall’s lawsuit and an ultra vires exception did not apply.
Hall replied with a motion for summary judgment, claiming a right to the unredacted records since he was a regent.
The trial court granted McRaven’s plea to the jurisdiction and dismissed the case. The appeals court later affirmed the dismissal. The Texas Supreme Court then granted Hall’s petition for review.
In looking at McRaven’s conduct and Hall’s ultra vires claims, Justice Devine noted such claims depend on the scope of a state official’s authority.
“[T]he specific responsibilities of Chancellor McRaven—which are of utmost importance to this lawsuit—come from the rules and resolutions of the Board, which we consider in the context of this dispute between the System’s Chancellor and one of its regents,” he wrote in the 19-page ruling.
The Texas Supreme Court’s decision hinged on whether the board’s July vote took away McRaven’s discretion. Hall argued it did not.
But Hall argued for an unfettered right to access the records, further claiming that FERPA does not apply to a regent’s request for information he thinks is necessary to fulfill his job.
The court held that McRaven’s alleged misinterpretation of FERPA did not constitute an ultra vires act.
McRaven’s authority gave him absolute discretion to interpret the federal privacy law, Devine said.
The Texas Supreme Court similarly ruled that McRaven did not violate a purely ministerial duty in denying Hall’s records requests.
Hall’s failure to meet either of the bases for establishing an ultra vires action means the case was properly dismissed, Devine said.
In closing, the court showed Hall some sympathy.
Justices Don Willett, Eva Guzman, Debra Lehrmann and Jeff Brown each delivered concurring opinions.
“I understand that it is important for a governing board to have access to certain information to perform its duties, but I must also ensure that The University of Texas System strictly complies with privacy requirements created by state and federal law,” he said.
Hall’s six-year term on the UT Board of Regents ended Wednesday. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has already named a replacement, and the Senate Nominations Committee will vote soon on whether to confirm the new regent.


Apple's 30. Isn't it time it grew up and got itself a proper job?
On Apple's birthday it is tempting to cast a retrospective eye over the company's successful and not so successful products and strategies of the past 30 years. But as the company approaches middle age and the inevitable launch of the iHarley, perhaps it would be more fruitful to look to the future and start taking the workplace more seriously.
Apple's greatest strength has always been the desktop — this is the metaphor it has lived by for most of the past 30 years, and it is the place that the company understands better than any other. Steve Jobs knows, perhaps better than any other tech chief executive, what people want. For the most part that is a seamless, easy experience, and it applies to music players as much as to computers, which is why the iPod has been such a success.
So why are Macs still such a rare site in the enterprise? The reasons may seem obvious — cost, relatively low availability of applications, Apple not caring to compete with the cut-price merchants — but they are increasingly bogus.
Macs are generally more expensive to buy than PCs, but when it comes to TCO, Apple has one great advantage that no other major desktop PC vendor has: total control of the interface between operating system and hardware. One company building the hardware and the (OS) software should thereby be able to increase reliability and reduce support costs. If that also makes work a little bit nicer for your users at their desks, isn't that a good thing?
Some will argue that Apple's lock-in is greater by virtue of its refusal to sell copies of the OS for just any hardware: at least by buying Windows-based PCs you have a choice of hardware vendor. Perhaps, but the flip side is zero ambiguity when things go wrong.
And the days of worrying about application availability for Macs will shortly be, if it is not already, a thing of the past. Apple users have always enjoyed a slick range of content-creation software, but the increasing library of open source software means that there is a correspondingly large pile of cross-platform applications that gives Apple owners a taste of the wider world.
So come on Steve, Apple's 30 and the time is now ripe to take the enterprise seriously. If you do, you might just find yourself pushing at an open door.


Today is the birthday of “the man the White House wakes up to.” That’s Politico‘s Playbook Author Mike Allen, who was born in 1964 in Orange County, Calif.
We have remarks from a special person in Allen’s life: NJ‘s Marc Ambinder, who lobbed a public grenade at Playbook last week at the Page One screening/panel at the Newseum. Ambinder specifically criticized Allen’s select birthday listings for “further politicizing Washington” and for “pushing the Administration’s agenda.” The pair later exchanged relative niceties over email.
We at FishbowlDC wish Allen a very Happy Birthday.


Our PharmCAS application deadline has been extended to June 3.
Our four year Doctor of Pharmacy (PharmD) is a professional degree program where we prepare our students to be therapeutic drug managers, working as integrated members of the health-care team along with physicians, non-physician providers, and other allied health professionals.
We are also proud to offer pre-pharmacy at UB, whch is not a baccalaureate degree granting program; instead it is a pre-professional academic pathway similar to pre-medicine or pre-law.
Our graduates have many career options including working in community pharmacies, hospitals or physician practice sites, universities, government agencies, pharmaceutical research companies, nursing homes, as well as hospice and home care. Pharmacists can also work with specific populations ranging from newborns to geriatrics as well as focus on many specialties such as cardiology and infectious disease.


Human rights conditions in Iraq deteriorated in 2014. Suicide attacks, car bombs, and assassinations became more frequent and lethal, killing more than 12,000 people and injuring more than 22,000 between January and December. Government forces’ attacks on largely peaceful demonstrations on December 20, 2013, helped trigger a renewal of armed conflict in Anbar province between local residents, Iraqi security forces, and multiple armed groups. The fighting, which has included indiscriminate attacks by government forces on civilian areas, displaced close to 500,000 people from and within Anbar province between January and September and killed an unknown number of civilians.
The conflict spread north after the extremist group Islamic State, also known as ISIS, took over Mosul, Iraq’s second largest city, on June 10. The group has committed numerous atrocities in Iraq, including ongoing car bombings and suicide attacks in civilian areas; summary executions; torture in detention; discrimination against women; forced marriage; sexual assault and slavery of some Yezidi women and girls; destruction of religious property; and killings and kidnappings of members of religious and ethnic minorities –Shia and Yezidis—in Nineveh province.
Government security forces and pro-government militias carried out attacks on civilians in Sunni and mixed Sunni-Shia areas, including kidnapping and summary executions, and were responsible for arbitrary arrests, disappearances, and torture.
In April, in the lead up to parliamentary elections, authorities closed media stations critical of the government and issued mandatory “guidelines” for journalists prohibiting unfavorable coverage of government military and security operations.
Elections on April 30 were largely peaceful but marred by irregularities, including harassment and bribing of voters. Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki’s State of Law coalition won a plurality but Hayder al-Abadi, from the prime minister’s party, replaced Maliki as prime minister on September 9 as a result of waning support for Maliki in the aftermath of the loss of Mosul to ISIS. Abadi formed a government on the same day, but was unable to bring parties to agree on the appointment of interior and defense ministers.
On September 14, Abadi order the air force to cease strikes on civilian areas even where ISIS was present, but airstrikes continued in Fallujah and northern Iraq to the end of the year. On September 7, US President Barack Obama authorized US air strikes against ISIS at the request of the Iraqi government. As of December, the US had carried out over 160 air strikes throughout the country.
According to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, as of September 2014, more than 900,000 Iraqis were internally displaced due to conflict.
Both government forces and armed groups were responsible for attacks that targeted or indiscriminately harmed civilians.
Indiscriminate air and artillery shelling by government forces killed numerous civilians between February and December. Government forces battling armed groups in Anbar repeatedly struck Fallujah General Hospital with mortar and artillery shells.
Since early May, government forces dropped barrel bombs on residential neighborhoods of Fallujah and surrounding areas, causing civilian casualties and forcing thousands of residents to flee.
Seventeen airstrikes, six of them involving barrel bombs, killed at least 75 people in the first half of July.
In March, former Prime Minister al-Maliki told senior security advisers that he would form a new security force consisting of three militias: Asa’ib, Kita’ib Hezbollah, and the Badr Brigades. These militias kidnapped and murdered Sunni civilians throughout Baghdad, Diyala, and Hilla provinces, at a time when the armed conflict between government forces and Sunni insurgents was intensifying.
According to witnesses and medical and government sources, pro-government militias were responsible for the killing of 61 Sunni men between June 1 and July 9, 2014, and the killing of at least 48 Sunni men in March and April in villages and towns in an area known as the “Baghdad Belt.” Dozens of residents of five towns in the Baghdad Belt said that security forces, alongside government-backed militias, attacked their towns, kidnapping and killing residents and setting fire to their homes, livestock, and crops.
A survivor of an attack on a Sunni mosque in eastern Diyala province in August said that members of Asa’ib Ahl al-Haqq entered the mosque during the Friday prayer, shot and killed the imam, and then opened fire on the other men in the mosque, killing at least 70 people. Three other Diyala residents reported that Asa’ib Ahl al-Haqq had kidnapped and killed their relatives.
Iraqi security forces and militias affiliated with the government were responsible for the unlawful execution of at least 255 prisoners in six Iraqi cities and towns in June. The vast majority of security forces and militias are Shia, while the murdered prisoners were Sunni. At least eight of those killed were boys under age 18.
ISIS took over the northern Iraqi city of Mosul on June 10, killing, kidnapping, and threatening civilians, particularly religious and ethnic minorities. It reportedly killed at least 40 Shia Turkmen, including children, and issued orders barring Kurdish, Yazidi and Christian employees from returning to their government jobs. According to Shabak and Shia Turkmen leaders, ISIS killed seven Shabak and at least four of the Turkmen it had taken prisoner.
ISIS summarily executed large numbers of captured Shia security officers. In the largest reported incident, ISIS captured more than a thousand soldiers fleeing Camp Speicher, near Tikrit, then summarily executed at least 800 of them.
Other anti-government Sunni armed groups fighting against the government, including Ba’athists, the Naqshabandi Army, the Islamic Army, Jeish al-Mujahideen, and groups of community-based fighters have also committed abuses against civilians, sometimes fighting alongside ISIS and sometimes against ISIS. In February, fighters from the Military Council, a group of local military leaders, captured and summarily executed 17 SWAT members in Ramadi.
On December 30, 2013, security forces attacked demonstrators in a public square in Ramadi where Sunnis had gathered every Friday for a year to protest perceived government abuses of the Sunni population. The attack left 17 people dead and helped to trigger renewed conflict in Anbar province that continued throughout the year. The army closed the main eastern, northern, and southern checkpoints to Fallujah, and elsewhere in Anbar, refusing to allow people, medicine, or food to enter or leave the city.
The government failed to investigate the April 23, 2013 attack on a demonstration camp in Hawija in which soldiers, federal police, and SWAT forces fired on a crowd of about 1,000 demonstrators, killing more than 50.
The Committee to Protect Journalists named Iraq the “worst nation” on its 2014 Impunity Index of unsolved journalist murders, noting that a resurgence of armed groups “propelled a spike” in journalist killings.
On June 21, the commission wrote to a media outlet that reported critically about the government, warning that “if this kind of broadcasting is repeated” the commission would revoke their license. On June 24, Egypt’s broadcast regulator barred two privately owned Iraqi television stations based in Cairo from access to Egypt’s main satellite system, after Egyptian officials received complaints from Baghdad about the stations’ content. According to a staff member of one of the channels, Al-Baghdadiyya, 16 police officers came to the station’s Baghdad office around June 20, beat two guards so badly that they required hospitalization, and confiscated some of the station’s equipment.
On June 13, the central and Kurdish regional governments separately blocked social media platforms including Facebook, Twitter, Skype, and YouTube, and in some places tried to block the Internet completely. The government lifted the ban intermittently throughout the rest of the year.
On February 6, Human Rights Watch issued a report documenting how authorities illegally detained women and subjected many to torture and ill-treatment, including sexual abuse. Iraq’s judiciary frequently based convictions on coerced confessions and trial proceedings fell far short of international standards, including in cases against women.
Authorities detained many women for months and even years before seeing a judge. Women were frequently detained with their young children, who were deprived of access to education and adequate health care. The government has not investigated these documented allegations of abuse.
On February 25, Iraq’s Council of Ministers passed a draft Jaafari Personal Status Law. As of December, parliament had not voted on the discriminatory legislation, which would restrict women’s rights in matters of inheritance and parental and other rights after divorce, make it easier for men to take multiple wives, and allow girls to be married from age nine.
Many Iraqi women, having lost their husbands as a result of armed conflict, generalized violence, and displacement, are vulnerable to trafficking for sexual exploitation and prostitution. The parliament passed a counter-trafficking law in April 2012, but authorities have done little to enforce it.
After it took over Mosul, ISIS kidnapped hundreds of Yezidi women and children, and forced some young women and girls to marry its members. The group systematically separated unmarried women and girls as young as 12 from adult relatives. Some women and girls were also subject to sexual assault and slavery. In October, ISIS confirmed that they were enslaving women and attempted to provide religious justification for their actions.
According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Iraq continues to receive large numbers of Syrian refugees, 500,000 since 2011, as well as the return of many Iraqi refugees from Syria. The conflict in Anbar displaced some 500,000 Iraqis. The Iraqi government prevented residents in many parts of Anbar province from leaving areas where fighting is taking place and obstructed humanitarian aid from getting in.
Displaced persons within Iraq in December topped 1.9 million and many reside in squatter settlements without access to necessities such as clean water, electricity, and sanitation, and the government has announced no plan for their return to their homes.
Despite plentiful evidence that Iraqi security forces systematically abused detainees and indiscriminately attacked civilian areas—abuses that increased in the escalating conflict with ISIS and other armed groups—the US delivered two shipments of weapons, including Hellfire missiles, after Prime Minister al-Maliki visited Washington in December 2013.
On August 7, President Obama authorized military strikes on ISIS forces in Iraq. According to the US Department of Defense, as of September 20 the US had conducted more than 160 strikes near Erbil, Amerli, Sinjar, the Mosul Dam, and Haditha. France, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates all also carried out air strikes, ostensibly against ISIS targets, in September.
US officials have not publicly called on the Iraqi government to investigate abuses committed by security forces and pro-government militia, and has not conditioned military support to Iraq on human rights reforms as required by US law.
On September 1, the UN Human Rights Council requested that the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights dispatch a fact-finding committee to investigate violations committed by ISIS and its associates. The council’s request failed to include abuses by government forces or its allied militas.


It's a well-known fact that some of our favourite seafoods come with an unsavoury dose of heavy metals like mercury. But there's another group of chemicals that sometimes lace our tuna steaks, and the latest findings on them are anything but appetising. They're called persistent organic pollutants (POPs), and they do a bang-up job obstructing the human body's chemical defence system. That's according to an analysis published today in Science Advances, examining how ten POPs found in both tuna and human bodily fluids interact with a gatekeeper protein that shuttles unwanted toxins out of our cells. The findings suggest that ingesting even very small quantities of POPs can do bodily harm.
"These chemicals interfere with our chemical defence system's ability to operate, which can make us more vulnerable to drugs and other toxins," Amro Hamdoun, a biologist at the Scripps Institute of Oceanography and lead author on the study, told Gizmodo.
POPs have been around for a long, long time. One of the most infamous, the pesticide DDT, was developed during World War II. DDT was banned in the 1970s, but other POPs, including flame retardants and non-stick coatings, are still widely used today. While these chemicals are damn useful in many applications, they're a toxicologist's nightmare. They degrade very slowly in the environment, they accumulate in biological tissues and they have been been linked to everything from impaired neural development to obesity.
Hamdoun's study sheds new light on POP toxicity by demonstrating, for the first time, exactly how these chemicals shut down a key cellular defence system. Normally, foreign molecules are kicked out of our cells by a special transporter known as P-glycoprotein (Pg-p). "Pg-p is a bit like a bouncer," Hamdoun said. "Initially, we thought that these chemicals sneak past the bouncer. But what we found is that they actually form very intimate interactions with Pg-p."
Laboratory tests revealed that ten of the most widespread POPs all bind tightly to this protective protein, inhibiting its ability to do its job. Even at levels where POPs themselves pose no hazard, "they're interfering with the very systems and pathways that have evolved to protect us," Amro said.
Levels of POPs in the environment are on the decline. But the ocean is a big place, and industry leaves a long legacy. "The bottom line is, there are still reservoirs of these in the ocean," Amro said. "And we are still being exposed to them through the consumption of seafood."
Which types of seafood and which part of the ocean are most contaminated is something Amro and his colleagues are still figuring out. But we know enough to start taking some common-sense precautions, including routinely testing seafood and tracking potentially contaminated stocks.
"Tuna are in the upper five per cent of highly contaminated fish," Amro said. "The good news is, we can reduce exposure by monitoring where they come from. The bad news is, we don't do that yet."
Seafood is typically a very healthy source of protein, and only a small fraction of it is likely to contain appreciable levels of flame retardants and pesticides. But food distributors and regulators owe it to consumers to figure out where that fraction comes from.
"These compounds persist in the environment for a long, long time," Hamdoun said. "We still see fish that have levels as high as they were 30 to 40 years ago. We need to find those fish, find those food products, and reduce or eliminate them in the food supply."


Comcast Corp., facing federal and state government reviews of its proposed $45.2 billion deal for Time Warner Cable Inc., said last week that it would indefinitely continue a $9.95-a-month Internet service for low-income families with schoolchildren.
The company agreed to offer the discounted service as a public-interest benefit and a condition of its acquisition of NBCUniversal in 2011. The program was set to expire this June.
If the Time Warner Cable deal is approved, Comcast's discounted Internet program will be available in Time Warner Cable areas and 19 of the nation's 20 largest metropolitan markets, Comcast officials said.


The BBC's decision to cut 360 jobs in its online division has angered trade unions, who claim that the move could damage the corporation's service quality.
According to IT Pro, the Broadcasting, Entertainment, Cinematograph and Theatre Union (BECTU) and the National Union of Journalists (NUJ) have criticised the BBC's move, questioning how it will be able to maintain quality services by losing so many of its staff.
“It makes no sense to cut back the BBC website as increasing numbers of people rely on the internet,” he added.
BECTU however, plans on holding talks with the BBC after consulting with its members.
“Whilst we expect the BBC to respond positively to our concerns that absolutely every effort should be made to avoid compulsory redundancies, the fact that several departments are affected, and to different degrees, means that staff will need to work with their union to get the best outcomes from this reorganisation,” BECTU supervisorary official Helen Ryan said.