Jeana Eisenhauer can still hear her mother screaming at the sight of her father lying motionless on the floor of their garage in Valley View Estates, Albrightsville.
Editor's note: Donations to help Ember Hardy, 7, can be sent to: Children's Seashore House, ATTN: Ember Hardy, Room 306, 3405 Civic Center Boulevard, Philadelphia, PA 19104.
"My mom came home from work, saw my dad on the floor and screamed out, 'He's not breathing,'" Eisenhauer said. "I heard her scream, I ran up from the basement out into the garage and saw my dad had collapsed. My mom had started doing CPR while I called 911. Then, I took over CPR until the ambulance arrived."
But it did no good.
"We knew my dad wasn't gonna make it by the time the EMTs got there," Eisenhauer said.
Her father, Lammert Roodhof, 66, was pronounced dead later in the evening of Oct. 30 at Gnaden Huetten Hospital in Lehighton, a victim of carbon monoxide poisoning from a gasoline-powered generator he'd been using since Hurricane Sandy had knocked out power the day before.
Prolonged exposure to CO, an invisible, odorless gas emitted by use of gasoline-, kerosene- or diesel-powered machinery, can cause illness, internal injuries and even death.
Eisenhauer herself felt ill from exposure that day, but said she has suffered no debilitating after-effects since then.
But her mother, Ann Roodhof, now has permanent heart damage while her 7-year-old daughter, Ember Hardy, has brain damage.
"Ember had been playing somewhere in the house before my dad collapsed, but I didn't know where she was when the trouble started," Eisenhauer said. "I looked for her while my dad was being loaded into the ambulance, but couldn't find her. It was one of the EMTs who found her curled up between two chairs in the garage, near where my dad had collapsed.
"She was unconscious and not breathing or responding," she said.
As it turned out, Ember wasn't completely unresponsive as she had first appeared, but was having severe difficulty breathing. She was rushed to Gnaden Huetten Hospital, where her grandfather was taken, and a tube was inserted down her throat to open her airway.
Once doctors realized the lack of oxygen had damaged parts of her brain, she was immediately flown to Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and has been there ever since.
Eisenhauer has been by Ember's side around the clock every day since then.
"She can't stand, walk, go to the bathroom or do anything else on her own," Eisenhauer said by phone from the hospital. "She can't feed herself or swallow or bathe herself. She has to learn to talk all over again. The only word she can say is 'mom,' and it took her three weeks just to be able to say that."
Ember, who suffered uncontrollable muscle spasms from the brain damage, needs help just to sit up in bed, but is now able to hold herself up and turn her head.
"They do various kinds of physical, occupational and speech therapy with her every day, but the doctors right now don't know if she'll ever make a full recovery," Eisenhauer said. "Nov. 2 was her seventh birthday, and she spent it here in the hospital. We're praying she'll be able to enjoy her next birthday at home."
After spending more than 10 years working with special-needs children, Eisenhauer lost her job last year and was forced to move in with her parents, who had bought the generator long before Hurricane Sandy even appeared in the forecast.
This was the first time they had ever had to use the generator for a significant amount of time.
"My dad had the generator outside of the garage and was using several extension cords which ran from the generator through the garage, through the kitchen and downstairs into the basement," Eisenhauer said. "The generator was one to two feet from the garage, which we at the time thought was a safe distance but now know wasn't. We were later told it was close enough for the fumes to come right through the open doors into the house."
At the time, the house had working CO detectors that went off, "but we thought it was the smoke alarms going off since they both sound similar," Eisenhauer said.
Eisenhauer now wants others to be aware of the dangers of CO exposure, along with the importance of safe generator use and having properly working CO alarms in the home.
"People need to make sure their families are protected," Eisenhauer said. "My father is gone and my daughter is suffering. I wouldn't want to see that happen to anyone else."


OPINION: After the flood, is it still business as usual?
AS THE floodwaters have receded in Townsville, the town and wider region are contemplating much more than mould.
They will be looking at the extent to which business and the economy will be impacted by the disastrous extreme weather event.
More than 8,500 claims have been lodged so far, and losses are estimated at $105 million - but that figure is expected to rise.
Townsville Chamber of Commerce CEO Marie-Claude Brown told ABC she was worried that industries including retail and hospitality would be particularly badly hit.
Until now, Australian companies and investors alike have tended to think of the impacts of a changing climate in terms of energy transition and regulatory risk.
Less considered are the climate impacts already beginning to reveal themselves within the bottom lines of companies from a range of sectors. How will businesses and portfolios fare with the 4 degrees of warming we are forecast to face this century, if business as usual continues?
Climate change has given rise to a range of physical risks that can impact in the here and now. And though destruction from storms, floods, fire or droughts may grab the headlines, it is the gradual impacts on our everyday lives that are under-considered.
Our research shows 42.5% of ASX200 listed companies face elevated exposure to climate change in the medium term, and 16.5% already have a high exposure. The majority of that risk relates directly to physical impacts - we estimate that $777 billion of ASX200 market cap is exposed (as at 22 Jan 2019).
Many of these risks may be laying dormant within company value chains. Many sectors rely on infrastructure that may be damaged by storms or floods or interrupted by heat stress, with the potential for operations to be halted for weeks - whether it be due to a downed data centre or freight, such as the Pacific National train that was tipped over into the water.
Other businesses, including transport and packaging companies, serve the agriculture sector which is already becoming increasingly volatile. The floods were devastating for Queensland livestock producers, especially on the back of the drought conditions.
Climate is affecting demand patterns for everything from outdoor leisure centres to winter coats. Volatile weather has been affecting entertainment such as theme parks and horseracing. Before merging with Tabcorp, Tatts Group reported a 3.7% decline in wagering revenue, in part due to the cancellation of 347 horse races following unseasonably wet weather.
Extreme flooding in Townsville: Significant flooding as a major weather system continues to bring widespread rainfall.
For service-oriented companies reliant on people, more attention may need to be paid to the impact on productivity from extended hot spells or damaging floods. While the office might be air conditioned, employees will still be subject to sleepless nights and stressful transport disruptions, impairing their performance. And outdoor workers simply cannot work in dangerously hot conditions.
Not all companies, though, face downside risk from climate change - many are well positioned to leverage new markets, innovate new products and harness new technology to address climate change. And it's not just renewables and electric vehicle (EV) companies, it's the miners of the components required for these technologies, including their financiers.
Those providing goods and services that support people to adapt will also benefit - from green star buildings to innovations to protect crops and new finance models to help individuals, businesses and governments adapt.
Investors, concerned about long term returns, are looking to understand how investee companies are planning for, or capitalising on, a changing climate. Pressure will only mount on companies to provide the market with relevant information about the risks (or opportunities) they are facing, and actions taken to mitigate them, preferably aligned to the TCFD framework.
This should lead to a broadening of focus from efforts to reduce carbon footprint, to encompass business resilience and adaptation to better cope with a permanently changed climate. After all, no investor wants shares in the next "climate casualty" - a fate surely awaiting those companies failing to take seriously the risks associated with a changing climate.
Alison George is acting CEO at Regnan, a leading ESG research and engagement provider.


Nearby Jewish cemetery apparently used for building materials by the post-World War II Soviet occupation authorities.
Authorities in Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania, are preparing to demolish a power substation that was built using tombstones looted from a Jewish cemetery, the Mail Online reported.
The use of tombstones was revealed on social media earlier this month by a local man who had noticed Hebrew and Yiddish inscriptions on the graffiti-covered walls of the substation. Archaeologists confirmed that the tombstones had been removed from a nearby Jewish cemetery.
The substation was built in the 1960s, while Lithuania was under Soviet occupation. Local authorities are investigating whether Jewish tombstones were used in the construction of other buildings.
Giedrius Sakalauskas, the local resident who made the discovery, said he had always thought there was something strange about the bunker-like structure outside the center of the city. "Why build an electrical substation with granite blocks instead of regular bricks?" he asked.
"I touched the stones and I realized that they're really gravestones," Sakalauskas told The Associated Press.
The Jewish cemetery that previously occupied a plot of ground opposite the building was demolished by the Soviets in the 1960s.
The etchings on the substation are hard to spot unless you know what you are looking for, as they are only visible in the gaps where the slabs overlay each other.
The power substation provides electricity to thousands of homes in the area. Vilinius Mayor Remigijus Simasius said he had asked the utility that owns the facility to find a way to move the tombstones to a "proper resting place."
It was not the first building in Lithuania found to be using Jewish tombstones. In the 1990s authorities removed steps leading up to Tauro Hill, one of the highest points in Vilnius, after discovering that they were made with stones taken from a Jewish graveyard.
The mayor said two other cases are now being investigated; the steps leading up to the Reformed Evangelical Church in Vilnius — which was turned into a cinema by the communists — and a wall outside a high school in the city.
"We are talking to the Jewish community to find a proper solution." Simasius said.
Over 90 percent of Lithuania's pre-World War II Jewish population of some 240,000 was wiped out during the 1941-1944 Nazi occupation.


Mayawati said other parties made populist manifestoes, but forgot them after coming to power and ‘implemented anti-people policies’.
BSP will not have an election manifesto for Uttar Pradesh polls, its president Mayawati said on Sunday as the party announced a list of 101 candidates for eastern UP, giving a bulk of tickets to upper castes and backwards, in a move take on ruling SP and BJP in the state.
Uttar Pradesh goes to polls from February 11 in seven phases that will end on March 8. The results would be announced on March 11.
Addressing BSP leaders and office-bearers at its state unit office here, Mayawati said other parties make populist announcements in election manifestoes, but these remained “limited to elections”. After forming government, they forgot these promises and “implemented anti-people policies”.
“BSP will not release election manifesto as people know our party keeps its promises. BSP fulfilled all the promises made to the people after forming the government in 2007,” she said, adding that voters have faith in her.
The former UP CM highlighted how Narendra Modi had made several promises, including “ache din (good days)” ahead of 2014 general elections, but these have remained a distant dream for the people two-and-a-half years after he became Prime Minister.
She also hit out at Uttar Pradesh chief minister Akhilesh Yadav, whose SP had released election manifesto ahead of the 2012 assembly election.
“Instead of good governance, the SP rule will be known for lawlessness. The common people are harassed due to SP’s casteist policy,” she said.
The BSP leader said her party would contest assembly election on the formula of ‘sarvjan hitay, sarvjan sukhay’ (welfare of all communities).
However, the party’s casteist calculations were evident in its list of candidates for eastern UP, which had 36 upper caste and 30 backward caste leaders, and 20 seats have been reserved for Scheduled Caste candidates. While only 10 Muslims have been fielded in the region, which has a number of weavers, leaders of the community have been given the lion’s share of tickets in western and central UP.
“Mayawati has fielded Muslim candidates on those seats on which they have a sizable population and can influence the outcome of the poll,” a senior party leader said on condition of anonymity.
“In eastern UP, Brahmins and Thakurs are influential and dominate a large number of seats in Gorakhpur, Basti, Ballia, Ghazipur Varanasi, Jaunpur and Sultanpur,” he said.
BSP had suffered a major blow in the region in the 2012 polls, winning just 13 seats.
Prominent leaders who have been given tickets include Ram Prasad Chaudhary (Kaptanganj), Ganesh Shankar Pandey (Paniyara), Deo Narayan Singh (Sahjanwa), Jai Prakash Nishad (Chauri Chaura), Vinay Shankar Tiwari (Chillupar), Shah Alam alias Guddu Jamali (Mubarakpur), Sukhdeo Rajbhar (Didarganj), Uma Shankar Singh (Rasra), T Ram (Ajgara), Rakesh Tripathi (Varanasi-South) and Rang Nath Mishra (Bhadohi).
To motivate cadre, Mayawati has denied tickets to 73 candidates who contested 2012 polls.
The party has also changed candidates on five seats that it won in the last election—Chillupar, Mughalsarai, Bansgaon, Padrauna, and Shivpuri—as sitting MLAs defected to rival parties.
BSP has so far declared candidates for 401 seats and is yet to announce names for Obra and Duddhi in Sonbhadra district.
Mayawati, who is likely to start campaigning in west UP next week, also directed candidates to follow the Election Commission’s model code of conduct. The leaders were asked to inform the EC if any officer was found working in a biased manner or violating EC’s guidelines.


In Los Angeles, young musicians have honored established performers who have blazed a trail for other artists to follow. The 1,200-member American Society of Young Musicians recently presented its annual awards, and drew attention to its efforts helping young artists avoid the pitfalls of the music business.
The event at the House of Blues, a Los Angeles music club, featured the actor Billy Bob Thornton, who presented an award on behalf of the young musicians to country star Dwight Yoakam.
"He's an amazing actor, an amazing songwriter, amazing musician,” he said.
The honoree said he was flattered.
"I guess it's an auspicious moment for me because I've been around now about 20 years, and to have young musicians and young artists, young writers acknowledge that you're even still around is more than I could have asked for 20 years ago," Mr. Yoakam said.
A 32-year-old musician named Brian Culbertson, with eight albums behind him already, has the kind of career that many performers envy. He received the jazz award from the organization of young musicians.
The son of a trumpet player, he started with piano at age eight, then moved on to drums, trombone, and other instruments.
"And from then on, I just buried my self in the basement with a couple of keyboards and just worked as much as I could," Mr. Culbertson said.
While attending De Paul University in Chicago, he sent a tape to the father of a friend who worked for a record company.
"And he called me back and said, hey, when can you finish a whole record? I'm like, Oh my God. I'm freaking out. I'm still in college," he added.
Brian Culbertson released his first album at 21, and has been turning out recordings and touring ever since then, playing a style of music called "smooth jazz." His latest album is titled Hookin' Up.
Jarvee Hutcherson is national president of the American Society of Young Musicians. Its members, in 18 chapters around the United States, are students or young professionals - rockers, rappers, jazz musicians and country singers. He says too many young performers succumb to drugs and alcohol, and that is something the society helps them with.
"We assist young musicians with scholarships, musicians that have problems, housing problems, drug problems. And we're turning that around, and I think we've made great stride in putting musicians back on the right track," he said.
The young musicians vote for award winners, selecting those whose careers have inspired them. This year's honorees include the rock band the Goo Goo Dolls, contemporary singer Josh Groban, Hip Hop artist Common, and actress and Broadway singer Kristin Chenoweth. Lisa Marie Presley was named favorite new vocalist.
Veteran gospel and soul singer Solomon Burke, now 65, was honored for his trailblazing work in the 1960s. He has had his ups and downs, and has worked as a mortician during career slumps. He tells young performers to remember that the music industry is a business.
"Get as much education and knowledge and wisdom about what you're entering into,” Mr. Burke said. “Never sign a document without having read it well and having someone who knows the business to read it and understand it and explain it to you. Copyright all of your songs and your music. If you don't know how to copyright it, the beauty of life today is there's a word called Internet that will inform you of everything you need to do."
He says steer clear of the drugs and alcohol, which have derailed the careers of many promising artists.


Because Christmas is a time of year like no other, and because N°5 is a fragrance like no other, red is the colour of choice.
For the first time in the history of the house, the legendary clear-glass bottle designed by Mademoiselle Chanel is donning a fiery cloak of red. A unique, limited edition, N°5 L’Eau Eau de Toilette and N°5 Eau de Parfum (100 ml) in mass-dyed red glass.
What other colour could combine with the power of N°5, the symbol of a visionary spirit? Red, “the colour of life, the colour of blood” according to Mademoiselle. Designed in 1921 and adapted in 1924, the clear rectangular bottle with simple, geometric lines and a faceted stopper features a radical architecture that has become the manifesto of a modern aesthetic. The iconic design subtly evolved over the 20th and 21st centuries, maintaining a masterful balance of shape and proportion. Remaining true to its pioneering nature, it is pursuing its course upheld by a new aura.
The designer chose this floral-aldehydic fragrance for life and considered its olfactory signature like her talisman. A reflection of her passionate soul, red conveys her unwavering love for her trade, the arts and the men who marked her life. A colour that holds nothing back, the promise of commitment and self-assertion, it incarnates all the boldness, freedom and strength of a woman who forged her own destiny.
N°5 RED is available in limited edition in selected Chanel outlets only. Chanel is locally distributed by Alfred Gera & Sons Ltd.


Partly cloudy. High 93F. SSW winds shifting to NW at 10 to 20 mph..
Partly cloudy skies. Low 61F. Winds N at 10 to 20 mph.
Want to place a classified ad? Call (661) 322-7355.


ISIS released a 'kill list' last week, which included members of synagogues and churches as potential targets by 'lone wolf' attackers.
The Islamic State’s release on July 3rd of a new “kill list” prompted U.S. Department of Homeland Security officials to brief American Jewish leaders on the possible threat of terrorism to prominent Jewish figures and synagogues. The latest ISIS statement is not the first “ISIS kill list” to target American citizens. News of one broke in early June on the site Vocativ, which reported on a list published online which targeted over 8,000 Americans - including Hollywood celebrities and Silicon Valley executives.
Some 200 Jewish leaders joined the conference call on Friday organized by the Secure Community Network, the security arm of the national Jewish community, in the wake of the ISIS list that included members of synagogues and churches among some 1,700 individuals. The names of the synagogue members were pulled from the synagogue websites, among other sources, according to SCN.
“The lists appear to be directed toward ‘lone wolf’ ISIS supporters who may be inspired to carry out attacks,” SCN said in a statement, using one of the acronyms for the terrorist group.


Cops delivered two strikes against the drug Ecstasy, busting a ring based in Staten Island and arresting a woman trying to smuggle more than 26,000 pills past security at Kennedy Airport, police said yesterday.
Six suspects were charged with drug possession when police raided a residence at 149 Vassar St., near the Staten Island Mall, Friday night and recovered 1,121 Ecstasy pills.
Police said the ring was a major Ecstasy supplier for the borough, with many of the pills sold at Silo, a Staten Island club.
Earlier Friday afternoon, Toma Hylton, 24, of Jupiter, Fla., was nabbed tried to smuggle 26,532 Ecstasy pills past security after getting off a British Airways flight from London .


Will Smith's Oscar-nominated 2001 turn as Muhammad Ali in his heyday. Director Michael Mann's film explores the complexities of the boxing champ who became a political lightning rod when he was stripped of his title after he refused to serve in Vietnam. The special-edition Blu-ray bursts with special features, including a making-of featurette, footage of Ali's set visit and the original theatrical trailer.
Director Rainer Werner Fassbinder casts himself as a clueless dolt who wins the lottery and ends up falling in with a fast crowd, filled with people all too willing to victimize him. An incisive look into 1970s gay German culture, the film bursts with social commentary and witty asides. Extras in the impressive Criterion Blu-ray set explore the 1975 film from all angles, with vintage interviews with Fassbinder, as well as composer Peer Raben, filmmaker Ira Sachs and actor Harry Baer. There's also a tribute booklet with an essay by critic Michael Koresky.
Emily Blunt stars in this twist-filled psychological thriller, adapted from the bestselling Paula Hawkins novel. She plays a train rider who becomes obsessed with the interconnected lives of two women (Haley Bennett and Rebecca Ferguson) who are embroiled in a love triangle. Director Tate Taylor tells the head-spinning story with style and intrigue, although he struggles to keep the multiple storylines cohesive. The Blu-ray/digital copy combo includes deleted and extended scenes, a profile of Hawkins and Taylor's commentary.
Zach Galifianakis and Isla Fisher play an average couple who get caught up in the fast-paced, death-defying lives of their new neighbors (Jon Hamm and Gal Gadot), who turn out to be international spies under deep cover in suburbia. The foursome combines for awkward laughs, even though the plot wears this by the midway point. Extras in the Blu-ray/DVD/digital copy combo include a look at the shooting location, interviews with the cast about their characters and deleted scenes.
Just as Vin Diesel leaps back into action in his anti-James Bond superspy role, Sony throws it back to the 2002 original. Although the movie has severely dated, with its early-2000s, Mountain Dew commercial-like obsession with extreme sports and ludicrous stunts, it still works as a popcorn-chomping action flick. The Blu-ray/digital copy combo boasts deleted scenes, a roundup of 10 featurettes, filmmaker commentary, music videos and the new making-of segment, "Origins of a Renegade."


The Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad says an Israeli airstrike in the Gaza strip has killed three of its members, including a top commander.
The Israeli army confirmed the strike on a vehicle carrying the militants Thursday in Gaza City.
Earlier Thursday in the southern Gaza Strip, Palestinian medical officials said Israeli forces killed a Hamas militant during a military operation.
The Israeli army said the operation was aimed at preventing terrorist threats. The area is a source for rocket fire into Israel.
In the occupied West Bank, the Israeli military said a Palestinian man tried to stab a soldier near a Jewish settlement. It said another soldier hit the attacker in the head, seriously injuring him.
Palestinian witnesses say that during a scuffle an Israeli soldier shot the man, who later died of his wounds.


Most of the work has been finalized. In March, the roaming part of the specification will also be ready, according to Warren. In September, a number of handset and network vendors will get together under the MultiService Forum banner to do interoperability tests. A Vodafone lab in Düsseldorf and a China Mobile Research Lab in Beijing will be used to conduct the tests.


He thinks O, Miami, which continues throughout the month and puts poems on such unusual spots as grocery store conveyor belts and gas station pumps, brings the energy poetry needs.
Putt Puttleggers Literary Mini Golf: 7-9 p.m April 15; Palmetto Bay Mini Golf, 9300 SW 152nd St., Miami; $15. Hang out with other readers and play literary-themed mini golf on a special course, get a book courtesy of Bookleggers and an O, Miami tote bag.
Bad Poetry Slam: 8-10 p.m. April 22, Artistic Vibes, 12986 SW 89th Ave., Miami. Who’s the worst poet in Miami? Find out here.
Japanese Culture Night at The Kampong: April 25, 4013 Douglas Rd., $5. Get a lesson in traditional haiku then test your skills describing the gardens of the Kampong and read your work on stage.
Manual Cinema: 8 p.m. April 28 and 3 and 8 p.m. April 29, South Miami-Dade Cultural Arts Center, 10950 SW 211th St. Cutler Bay; $37. “Lula Del Ray,” inspired by the songs of Patsy Cline, Hank Williams and Roy Orbison, will be performed by the geniuses of Manual Cinema using shadow puppets, cutouts and overhead projectors.


While the political ramifications of dependence on Russian natural gas are a current topic of debate within the European Union, often the talk fails to address a much larger issue of whether or not the importing of Russia’s natural gas will help to meet the EU’s growing demands.
So argues physicist Bengt Söderbergh, who recently completed a dissertation on an assessment of future Norwegian and Russian gas export levels.
According to forecasts by the International Energy Agency (IEA), production of natural gas within the EU will decline from the 2006 level of 216 billion cubic metres per year (Gm3/year) to 90 Gm3/year by 2030, even as demand for gas is expected to rise significantly. The need to import gas will accordingly increase by up to 90 per cent during the period. Russia and Norway are currently the most significant suppliers of gas to the EU. Their combined share of the EU’s gas imports during 2006 was 62 per cent.
As part of Söderbergh’s analysis with regard to the future levels of Norwegian and Russian gas exports to the EU, Norwegian and Russian gas production scenarios were developed based on modelling of production from individual gas fields. As a result, the combined production from the largest fields – the so-called “giant fields” – was forecast.
EU energy security is significantly dependent on production from a relatively small number of Norwegian and Russian fields. Almost all of Norway’s production derives from 18 large fields, 9 of which are classifiable as giant fields.
Essentially all of Russia’s production derives from 36 giant fields.
The findings show that there is little potential for an increase in the level of Norwegian gas exports to the EU. All of the scenarios studied indicate that Norwegian gas production will be in decline by 2030, by which year Norwegian gas deliveries to the EU via pipeline may have fallen by as much as 20 per cent from today’s level.
Additionally, a study of potential production from Russian giant fields indicates a maximum increase of 45 per cent in the level of Russian gas exports to the EU by 2030. In absolute terms, this corresponds to approximately 70 Gm3/year. A number of additional factors may entail significantly lower actual export capacity.
The results and assumptions presented in the dissertation are inconsistent with a 90 per cent increase, over the 2006 level, in imports by the EU. Dependence on pipeline-borne gas imports is not the only matter with vital implications for EU energy security. The geopolitical ramifications of dependence on importation of Russian gas via pipeline are currently a lively topic of debate within the EU.
From a European energy security perspective the dependence of pipeline gas imports is not the only energy security problem to be in the limelight, the question of physical availability of overall gas supplies deserves serious attention as well.
“There is a lively discussion regarding the geopolitical implications of European dependence on imported gas from Russia. However, the results of this thesis suggest that when assessing the future gas demand of the EU it would be of equal importance to be concerned about diminishing availability of global gas supplies,” Söderbergh said.


Pillows can attract bacteria, dust mites, and even mold over time. Consider investing in pillow protectors to help keep these microbes from building up on your pillows, and be sure to replace your pillows regularly.
A pillow can make or break your sleep. Choose the wrong one, and you could end up tossing and turning all night and waking up with a stiff neck in the morning. Choose the right one, and you'll sleep soundly and wake up feeling refreshed and ready to take on the day. The trouble is there is no right pillow for everyone. It all depends on your preferences. Here's a short guide to walk you through the important considerations when buying pillows.
The way you sleep plays a major role in the firmness of the pillow that you need. You want your neck to stay in proper alignment so you don't wake up with soreness. Stomach sleepers don't need much support, so a soft pillow should be plenty. Side sleepers, on the other hand, need a lot of support in order to hold their necks at the right angle, so a firm pillow is the best choice. If you sleep on your back or you sleep in different positions, choose a pillow of medium firmness.
Of course, personal preference plays into this as well. Some people naturally prefer firmer or softer pillows. Use the above guidelines as your starting point, and then make adjustments based on the type of pillow you like best.
Here are some other factors you'll need to consider when choosing a pillow.
Pillows can either be made of synthetic fiber, memory foam, or feathers. Synthetic fiber pillows are common and affordable. Feather pillows are soft but expensive and not as widely available these days. Memory foam pillows also tend to be expensive, but they're popular because they're durable and mold to the shape of your head and neck.
Pillows are available in standard (20 x 26 inches), queen (20 x 30 inches), or king (20 x 40 inches) sizes. When possible, choose the pillow size that matches the size of your bed.
If you suffer from allergies, you may want to choose a pillow that's made from hypoallergenic material.
Some synthetic fiber pillows are filled with antimicrobial filling to help lock out bacteria and dust.
You can buy pillows in packs for less than $10, or you can splurge and spend $100 on a memory foam pillow. If you just want a basic pillow that won't go flat on you, you can expect to spend somewhere between $20 and $30.
Q. How often should I replace my pillows?
A. You should replace your hollow fiber pillows every six months to a year in order to avoid the buildup of bacteria. Memory foam pillows can be replaced every three to four years. In addition, you should replace your pillows whenever they become stained, smelly, or uncomfortable.
Q. What's so special about antimicrobial pillows?
A. Antimicrobial pillows are designed to reduce the bacteria and dust mites that build up on your pillows. These pillows may be the right choice for you if you have a compromised immune system or if you suffer from allergies.
Our take: This adjustable memory foam pillow cradles your head and neck at the perfect angle, so you can enjoy a great night's sleep.
What we like: This pillow is made with shredded memory foam, which you can add or take out until you reach your desired level of support. It's hypoallergenic and dust-mite resistant and is backed by a five-year warranty.
What we dislike: It has an odor when it first arrives, though this does dissipate. Some users have said the pillow is not ideal for side sleepers.
Our take: This is a solid option if you want firm yet supportive pillows at a price that won't break the bank.
What we like: This set of two pillows is filled with hypoallergenic polyester fiber that won't flatten out over time. You can wash the pillows in the washing machine if needed.
What we dislike: These pillows may be too firm for some, especially those who like to sleep on their backs.
Our take: You'll have a hard time finding a better value than this four-pack, but these pillows may not stay as fluffy as you'd hoped.
What we like: These pillows are filled with antimicrobial polyester to prevent bacterial growth and staining. A majority of users report they are comfortable no matter which position you typically sleep in.
What we dislike: They have a tendency to go flat over time.
Kailey Fralick is a writer for BestReviews. BestReviews is a product review company with a singular mission: to help simplify your purchasing decisions and save you time and money. BestReviews never accepts free products from manufacturers and purchases every product it reviews with its own funds.


Black Tom Cassidy, in all his, uh, glory?
Correction: Monday, one of the writers of Deadpool 2, Rhett Reese, took to Twitter to simply say these rumors are “Untrue.” He didn’t elaborate beyond that.
According to rumors currently gently rocking the sleepy, sleepy crib of the internet, the upcoming Deadpool 2 might have one less villain than we thought.
Now, according to rumors via The Tracking Board’s Jeff Sneider, Kesy might not be a presence in the movie any longer. Speaking on a podcast, he commented that he had heard from an anonymous source that Kesy was no longer in the film. And while anonymous sources on films are not the most reliable in the world, this rumor tracks. We haven’t seen anything of Kesy’s villain in the promo materials, and info that suggests that the film’s recent reshoots were largely to recenter the film in the opposition between Deadpool and Cable (along with some more of Zazie Beetz’s Domino), presumably before they become best friends at the end.
Oh, well. Maybe there will be room for Black Tom Cassidy in the MCU. He could fight Hawkeye, I guess. Give them both something to do.
Deadpool 2 is in theaters May 18th.


WASHINGTON - Two Marine non-commissioned officers will be court-martialed for allegedly urinating on the bodies of Taliban fighters last year in Afghanistan and posing for unofficial photos with casualties, the Marine Corps said Monday.
The charges against Staff Sgt. Joseph W. Chamblin and Staff Sgt. Edward W. Deptola are in addition to administrative punishments announced last month for three other, more junior Marines for their role in the urination episode.
The disclosure in January of a video showing four Marines in full combat gear urinating on the bodies of three dead men led to a criminal investigation by the Naval Criminal Investigative Service as well as a Marine investigation of the unit involved, the 3rd Battalion, 2nd Marines, which fought in the southern Afghan province of Helmand for seven months before returning to its home base at Camp Lejeune, N.C., last September.
In the video, one of the Marines looked down at the bodies and quipped, "Have a good day, buddy."
In a statement Monday, the Marine Corps said disciplinary actions against additional Marines will be announced later. It also said there are "other pending cases related to this incident," but said no specifics would be made public now.
The urination video was one in a string of embarrassing episodes for U.S. forces in Afghanistan in recent months. American troops have been caught up in controversies over burning Muslim holy books, posing for photos with insurgents' bloodied remains and an alleged massacre of 16 Afghan villagers by a soldier now in U.S. confinement.
The Marine Corps said the urination took place during a counterinsurgency operation in the Musa Qala district of Helmand province on July 27, 2011. The decision to court martial Chamblin and Deptola was made by Lt. Gen. Richard P. Mills, the commanding general of Marine Corps Combat Development Command.
When the video came to light on YouTube, U.S. military officials sternly condemned the misconduct. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said he feared that it could set back efforts to begin reconciliation talks with the Taliban.
Chamblin and Deptola also were charged with other misconduct alleged to have happened on the same day as the urination incident. That includes dereliction of duty by failing to properly supervise junior Marines, failing to report their misconduct and failing to require them to wear their personal protective equipment.
When it announced in August that three enlisted Marines had been given administrative punishment but would not be court martialed in the urination case, the Marine Corps said one had pleaded guilty to urinating on the Taliban soldiers and posing for a photograph. It said another Marine pleaded guilty to wrongfully videotaping the incident and also posing for a photograph, and a third pleaded guilty to failing to report the mistreatment of human casualties and lying about it. The names of those three Marines were not released.


RIO DE JANEIRO — The three other U.S. swimmers were lying on the ground, following their assailant’s orders, when the gunman turned to Ryan Lochte, one of Team USA’s charming stars.
The four swimmers on the U.S. Olympic team lost their money and wallets but otherwise escaped unharmed from the gunmen who were posing as police officers. The harrowing assault, however, amounts to the most serious breach of security against American athletes in these Olympics, and it follows a troubling pattern of robbery, gunfire and assaults that call into question the ability of Brazil's security forces to keep participants and fans safe.
For a city on high alert for foreign-born terrorism, it has been the everyday domestic crimes that have disrupted the Olympics. While police and security officials say the city's overall crime rate fell during the first week of the Games, helped by more than 80,000 soldiers and police deployed on the streets around stadiums and along bus routes, thieves have managed to prey on several Olympic participants and high-profile officials, even in tourist-friendly areas and near Olympic venues.
Lochte, who won a gold medal as part of a relay in these Games, had been traveling home in a taxi, heading to the Olympic Village after a dance party, along with teammates Gunnar Bentz, Jimmy Feigen and Jack Conger, when the robbery took place, according to the U.S. Olympic Committee. Lochte told NBC that after the taxi pulled over, men approached them with a police badge.
The four swimmers made it home unharmed. One of the swimmers, Conger, who is from Rockville, “is safe and in Rio,” his mother, Bridget, said.
“P.S. The gold medal is safe,” he added.
After four Olympics, Lochte, 32, has established himself as one of the more colorful athletes representing the United States. On the medal stand during the London Olympics, he flashed a custom-made American flag dental grill. This time, he died his hair silver for the Games. Lochte has the reputation as a bon vivant but has also emerged as an elder statesman with the swim team. He has won six gold medals over the years, including one in Rio for the 4x200-meter freestyle relay. Lochte has not been in an event since Thursday, and swimming ended Saturday night.
Late in the evening, Lochte attended a party with Brazilian swimmer Thiago Pereira and Pereira’s wife, Gabriela Pauletti, to celebrate the birthday of a mutual friend inside Club France, situated along the Rodrigo de Freitas Lagoon in an upscale neighborhood of Rio, according to Flavio Perez, a representative for Pereira. Some 2,500 attended the DJ’ed dance party, which began around 11:30 p.m. and took place in a venue inside the club called the Picadeiro Armando de Alencar. Lochte posted a brief video of the crowd on social media.
A spokesman for Club France, Hugo Sppezapria, said Lochte and Pereira left the party together between 2:30 a.m. and 3 a.m. But Perez said Pereira and his wife went back to their hotel earlier. It is unclear whether the other three U.S. swimmers attended the party or met up later.
The armed robbery came as the swimmers were driving back to the Olympic Village in western Rio.
“While it is true that my teammates and I were the victims of a robbery early Sunday morning, what is most important is that we are safe and unharmed,” Lochte tweeted Sunday evening.
Brazilian police said they were investigating the robbery and would be interviewing the athletes. After interviewing one of the swimmers, police said in a statement that the athletes had been returning from the party in the taxi when they were robbed but “the victim did not know where the robbery happened.” One police officer, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said that taxi drivers often work with other criminals to facilitate robberies. The prospect of thieves dressed as police is more unusual, the officer said.
During the Games, a spate of robberies has demonstrated the dangers of Rio de Janeiro. On the night of the Opening Ceremonies, the government’s head of security for major events was mugged by a gang of thieves outside Maracanã stadium. Two Australian rowing coaches were robbed at knifepoint near Ipanema Beach, and Portugal’s education minister was also assaulted near the same lagoon where Lochte attended the party. A security officer for the Olympics was shot and killed in a favela. A stray bullet has hit a media tent, and an Olympics bus had its windows smashed by rocks or bullets.
Rio de Janeiro has suffered a rising homicide rate this year as the economy has plunged into a severe recession.
Boren reported from Washington. Dave Sheinin in Rio de Janeiro contributed to this report.


The era of consumer-grade virtual reality is just dawning, but already there are format wars. HTC Vive and Oculus Rift are facing off as the two main players in the PC gaming space, but just weeks after the release of both, a third-party program threatens exclusivity between platforms.
Revive, posted on GitHub, is described as "a proof-of-concept compatibility layer between the Oculus SDK and OpenVR". In simple terms, it means that certain games meant to be exclusive to Oculus Rift can be run on the Vive.
Currently, Revive only affects platformer Lucky's Tale, which comes with all Oculus Rift headsets, and Oculus Dreamdeck, a package of "vignettes" intended to introduce the possibilities of VR. It seems pretty simple to get either working either, with a small patch or injector to modify the DLLs for either game sufficing to get them running on the rival hardware. "It works by reimplementing functions from the Oculus Runtime and translating them to OpenVR calls," LibreVR, Revive's coder, writes. "Unfortunately Oculus has implemented a Code Signing check on the Runtime DLLs, therefore the Revive DLLs cannot be used unless the application is patched."
The trick could work on other Oculus games too, as LibreVR adds that "the Revive DLLs already contain the necessary hooking code to work around the Code Signing check in any application. However you will still need to patch the application to actually load the Revive DLLs."
The unofficial cross compatibility could be a dagger for Oculus, which has already seen some of its exclusive games – such as EVE Valkyrie - announce official Vive releases for later in 2016. WIRED has contacted HTC and Oculus but neither had responded at the time of publication.
The seeming ease with which Oculus games can be made to run on the Vive (at present, there doesn't seem to be a facility for the reverse) is no doubt aided by both being PC formats. PC gaming has long been home to players eager to tinker with how games and hardware operate, and even if a game isn't optimised for a particular hardware set-up – Vive puts more emphasis on room-scale VR than Oculus, for instance – savvy coders often see it as a challenge just to try.
Currently, neither Oculus nor HTC has commented on the Revive workaround, though we'd be surprised if there weren't patches in the near future to try to lockdown exclusivity.


INJURY WATCH: Smart said he is remaining optimistic he can make an early return to action like he did last post-season following thumb surgery. But he said Tuesday was the first day he was able to walk without pain and that his focus for now is treatment.
KEEP AN EYE ON: Harden. The Jazz used a defence focused on making the left-handed superstar go to his right in Game 1. The tactic kept him from using his step-back 3-pointer as effectively as he normally does. If they use the same tactic in Game 2 look for Harden to continue driving to the paint and dishing off to teammates such as Eric Gordon and P.J. Tucker for corner 3s.
INJURY WATCH: Jazz forward Thabo Sefolosha is questionable with soreness in his left hip and Kyle Korver is probable because of a sore right knee. The Rockets don’t have injuries but hope centre Clint Capela will feel better after struggling during Game 1 while recovering from an upper respiratory infection.


Consumers will now be able to watch online videos from YouTube on their Sony Bravia flat-panel HDTV sets.
YouTube, the online video provider and Google subsidiary, is the latest content company to provide video for Sony’s Bravia Internet Video Link, a small add-on module that connects to the TV on one end and an Ethernet cable on the other and facilitates the viewing of Internet video on the big screen without requiring the use of a personal computer. Sony first announced the Bravia Internet Video Link, which sells for $300, at the Consumer Electronics Show in January 2007 and has since slowly added content partners including Yahoo!, AOL and Conde Nast.
The YouTube service, announced today at a press briefing and new product preview in New York, gives buyers of late-model (2007 and 2008) Bravia LCD sets access to millions of videos at no additional charge. Other new content providers for the Internet Video Link include Wired.com, which will provide technology- and gaming-related content, and C-Spot, which offers original episodic short comedy series and is part of Sony Pictures’ Crackle online video venture.
The full content lineup for the Internet Video Link now includes Yahoo!, AOL, Sports Illustrated, blip.tv, CondéNet’s Style.com, Men.Style.com, Epicurious and Concierge.com channels, Sony Pictures Television’s Crackle, The Minisode Network and Inside Sony Pictures channels, FEARnet, Ford Models, SingingFool and VideoDetective, and Sony says it will continue to add new content partners.
Will tape shows on new game show set in Vegas.
Consumer electronics giant pushes both Blu-ray high-def format and HD movie delivery online.


TUCSON, AZ (Tucson News Now) - They are seen driving around the city all day, and today the City of Tucson unveiled a new garbage truck that will help keep the air clean.
City officials introduced the first green garbage truck this morning at Menlo Park.
The new truck is powered by compressed natural gas or CNG instead of diesel fuel. It is a big change since trash trucks drive around using a lot of fuel.
Compressed natural gas is an alternative fuel that is better for the environment and cheaper than diesel fuel. Using one CNG garbage truck is like taking 325 cars off the road.
This is Tucson's first CNG-fueled trash truck but in Phoenix they have already made the change in many of their garbage trucks.
Tucson City officials will be going over the big benefits of natural gas and how much money it will save the city.
Copyright 2013 Tucson News Now All rights reserved.


Members of the Bognor Regis Write Club have shared their creative tips.
November is the National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) and last year more than 350,000 people globally signed up to the writing challenge, with more expected to take part this year. NaNoWriMo is a challenge to write 50,000 words in 30 days.
NaNoWriMo is as much for beginners as experienced authors.
For the members of the Bognor Write Club, writing is about ‘me time’, self expression and giving the introvert a world to create.
To get started Bognor Write Club members recommend morning pages – writing for half an hour at the start of every day. The idea is to establish a new habit, to write whatever comes to mind and silence the inner critic.
Robert Winter, an IT business analyst and Bognor Write Club member, recommends writing a profile for each character before starting. Write about things like their needs, secrets and contradictions in character to get a fully-rounded character to drive the story.
Professor MacLeod also recommends keeping a notebook for ideas, doodles, observations and overheard conversations.
For more information, visit bognorwriteclub.com.


growth in a year in the third quarter.
0.5 percent against the U.S. dollar, at C$1.2451, or 80.31 U.S.
U.S. cents, at Friday's close.
10 days and may signal more weakness to come.
expect the currency to be under even more severe pressure,"
$147 in July, but the slowing global economy has hurt demand.
influenced by moves in its price.
analysts believe Canada's economy will weaken moving forward.
171 basis points, down from 179 at the previous close.


In the battle of media format dominance, video still commands much of Madison Avenue’s attention, as well as its highest CPMs, but audio is ascending again, thanks to the ad world’s obsession with emerging voice-activated technologies, especially smart speakers and the ilk.
Personally, I’m not sure how much people ultimately will want to talk to their media, but they absolutely still like listening to it. That’s especially true when they’re on the go and using a mobile device, where audio formats remain the No. 1 form of media consumption.
The problem for media buyers is much of that audience opportunity has been fragmented, decentralized and unstructured from a programmatic point-of-view. With the exception of audio’s big two -- Pandora and Spotify -- and a burgeoning marketplace of ad networks compiling podcast audiences, it’s been difficult for advertisers to tap into it.
Now, thanks to a startup incubated by old school radio and TV rep Katz, there’s a third solution.
Aptly named Audiology, the new programmatic audio media-buying platform launched late last year and has been working in conjunction with Katz to create a simple interface that is easy to research, plan and buy. It does for streaming radio audiences what big programmatic platforms already have done for display and video.
“When you talk about online radio, there have been just two gold nuggets -- Pandora and Spotify. Audiology allows us to break those barriers and lets us access all the mom-and-pop radio people are listening to,” explains David Feman, vice president, Publicis’ Spark Foundry unit.
Feman says Audiology has all the bells and whistles necessary to efficiently buy media programmatically, but says it’s real innovation is in old-school blocking and tackling. It establishes relationships to represent the disparate marketplace of local radio stations streaming their audio services.
Aside from creating a competitive alternative for Pandora and Spotify, Feman says the most important reason for using the platform is its ability to reach audiences streaming local radio services.
In other words, it enables advertisers and agencies to do what analogue media reps have done so efficiently: organize and centralize the ability to plan, buy and reach radio audiences with one call. Of if you prefer, the push of a button.


Giving gifts just ain't my bag .
Christmas music makes me gag .
The critter exaggerateth not: Though the season is supposed to bring out the best in everyone, singers recording Christmas albums often prove the exception.
It's the time of year you hear enough identical versions of "The Christmas Song" to want to roast Mel Torme himself on an open fire. It's an annual occasion for masses of Nashville crooners to rent an orchestra for a day and mine the public domain for a quick buck. It's the season when otherwise decent folks commit heinous crimes against humanity like albums of carolling cats and dogs.
That's why finding a gem amid the coal amassed in Santa's music bag is all the more welcome. So, first, the good news in this roundup of '93 Christmas releases.
* * * * Bruce Cockburn, "Christmas," (Columbia). For those whose definition of traditional doesn't begin and end with Perry Como's sweater. The folk-rocker covers obscure carols from the exotic climes of France, Spain and North and South Carolina, while putting his own sterling 12-string spin on familiar classics in styles ranging from barrelhouse to baroque. It's reverent yet rowdy--and as a multiculturalist Christian, Cockburn is one of the few here equipped to tackle hymns as a soulful extension of his craft and not just an exercise in nostalgia.
* * * 1/2 "A John Prine Christmas," (Oh Boy). Another cult singer-songwriter triumphs, in a more secular vein. Prine plays the warmhearted curmudgeon, reprising his holiday-timed divorce anthem "All the Best" and the joyless perennial "Christmas in Prison," while leavening the wry depression with less downcast fare like a countryish "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus." This eight-song mini-album is slightly on the short side, but still everything you'd want a postmodern Christmas record to be--original and classic, cynical and sentimental.
* * * 1/2 Chris Stamey and Friends, "Christmas Time," (East Side Digital). Putting the Chris back in Christmas is this communal collection of alternative jangle, which repackages six songs from Stamey's 1985 vinyl mini-album with a whopping 11 new bonus tracks. Guests include Alex Chilton, Syd Straw and the dB's, but Stamey claims the celebratory highlights with his title rocker and "You're What I Want (for Christmas)," two of the best holiday pop songs of the past decade.
* * * Alan Jackson, "Honky-Tonk Christmas," (Arista). Jackson enjoyably avoids country's syrrupy-chestnut trap with 10 new or lesser-heard selections, requisite twang and nary a string chart in sight. There's some gunk: Jackson should have cut off the duets after Alison Krauss and let the Chipmunks be. But no winter should go by without at least one tipsy-Santa weeper like "Please Daddy, Don't Get Drunk This Christmas" or a crying-in-his-eggnog ego-shrinker like "Merry Christmas to Me."
* * * Aaron Neville, "Soulful Christmas," (A&M;). Having been called "angel-voiced" more than any other human, Neville may be uniquely qualified to pronounce tidings of joy. The title is something of a misnomer: This one aims squarely at traditionalists, and the listening is so easy you might obsess unnaturally on just how radical Neville's vibrato becomes on every slow syllable. But he does break up the uvular balladry with a pair of light Louisiana stomps, including a swell Christmas Eve take on "Such a Night."
* * * "A LaFace Family Christmas," (Arista). This urban label roundup is almost as fun as it is incestuous. Best is TLC kicking out the hip-hop jams with a near-unrecognizable "Sleigh Ride" update.
* * 1/2 "A Cabaret Christmas," (DRG), and "A Broadway Christmas," (Lockett Palmer). Celebrants on the other end of the demographic scale can take heart in two new diva-dominated compilations that rely just on voice, piano and rhythm section. "Cabaret" lets Margaret Whiting, Barbara Cook and other veterans of Christmas past give Christmas presents anew, interspersing some melodramatic, to-hell-with-love holiday saloon songs amid the usual chipper fare for depressive romantics.
There's some crossover between the vocalists on "Cabaret" and those on "Broadway," a whopping 45-song double-CD that includes everyone from Tommy Tune to the cast of "Forever Plaid" waxing jolly for AIDS fund raising. It's uneven, but original material is intriguingly rampant, and--guaranteed--it's the only place this year you'll hear "It's Christmas and We're Jewish" and "Wishing You a Drag Queen Christmas."
* 1/2 RuPaul, "Little Drummer Boy," (Tommy Boy). The only new Christmas single of note puts a moderate hip-hop beat under an otherwise surprisingly straight-(no pun intended)-forward reading of the percussive perennial--proving even Uncle Miltie's cross-dressing sparring partner can provoke an old-lang-yawn.
* 1/2 Vince Gill, "Let There Be Peace on Earth," (MCA). You better watch out: Somnambulist Claus is coming to town, and dragging 101 Strings wanna-bes with him. "Peace" creeps along with sonorous predictability--until it climaxes with his one original, "It Won't Be the Same This Year," a well-meant but ill-timed lament for a dead brother that abruptly drops Gill's drowsy listeners off at the graveyard. Next time, Vince, let there be liveliness on earth.
* 1/2 Gloria Estefan, "Christmas Through Your Eyes," (Epic). The title refers to the eyes of a child, so be forewarned: Though not ostensibly a kids' album, this is more lullaby music. The occasional hint of a Latin beat and a bilingual "Silent Night" are among the few distinguishing features Mama Estefan offers.
* 1/2 Carnie & Wendy Wilson, "Hey Santa!," (SBK). Most singers wait until safely established in a career to trot out Christmas product, which makes the sugary self-sabotage of the Wilson sisters' first extra-Phillips affair all the more curious.
* Kathy Lee Gifford, "It's Christmastime," (Warner Bros.). Notable not just for cameos by son Cody and son-surrogate Regis, but also for being the only holiday album this year in which you can actually hear the artist grinning.
* Jingle Cats, "Meowy Christmas," (Jingle Cats), and Three Cool Cats & the Do Dogs, "We Woof You a Meowy Christmas!," (Tri-Light). Cats and dogs, mewing and barking carols together--didn't Bill Murray say that would be a sign of the apocalypse? A good argument for SPCA vigilante squads, gunning for anybody with a pet and a digital sampler.
Now you're ready for that antidote.
* * * "Ren & Stimpy, Crock O' Christmas," (Nickelodeon/Epic). C'mon get happy happy: This cartoon crockpot includes such soon-to-be-standards as "Fleck the Walls," "Cat Hairballs" (to the tune of "Jingle Bells") and other odes to joy joy--er, bodily excretions, actually. Yule especially love the closer, "Decorate Yourself," a moving, Michael Jackson-ish anthem that invokes holiday universalism with such instructions as "Tape a cheese log to your nose" and "Hang your mistletoe where the sun don't shine." Ah, Christmas is for children. And Chihuahuas.


“I look forward to defeating Dana Rohrabacher,” he said in a statement, even though he was only a few dozen votes ahead of fellow Democrat Hans Keirstead for a shot at unseating the 15-term Republican incumbent.
By the time Keirstead conceded this week and Rouda had won the second spot on the ballot by a margin of only 125 votes, he was more measured. “No one’s going to be calling me ‘Landslide Harley,’ that’s for sure,” Rouda said in an interview.
Rouda, who is chief executive of real estate services firm Trident Holdings Inc., says he’s running to protect healthcare coverage and strengthen environmental protections.
He must now convince supporters of the other seven Democrats who were on the ballot to put the bruising primary behind them if he stands a chance of flipping Rohrabacher’s seat and helping Democrats win back the House.
For one, he has to make up for three weeks of missed campaigning and fundraising. While final results were being tallied, neither Keirstead nor Rouda could raise money for the November election, so they collected money for a possible recount instead.
Rouda also has a lot of voters to talk to, given the vote spread. The share of votes that went to Democratic hopefuls in the 48th District primary was about 46%, compared with 53% of votes for GOP candidates.
Voters who show up for a midterm primary are often whiter, more partisan and more conservative than those who vote in general elections, and Democrats are likely to see some improvement in November. But general election voters in the 48th District have favored Republicans by double-digit margins in every statewide race going back to 2012. Though Hillary Clinton narrowly won the district in 2016, its GOP voters still outnumber Democrats by more than 10 percentage points.
Keirstead, who stood beside him, pledged his support if Rouda was the ultimate victor. “Unity! Unity! Unity!” Keirstead said, pumping his fist in the air.
But after a nasty primary fight — Keirstead was endorsed by California Democrats and Rouda by national Democrats — not all of Keirstead’s supporters are ready to fully accept Rouda.
Cindy Vellucci, a former state party delegate who voted to endorse Keirstead and volunteered for his campaign, says she and other activists were disheartened when the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee decided to back Rouda at the last minute.
Vellucci says she has reservations because Rouda was registered as a Republican more than two decades ago and joined the Democratic Party just last year. He’s also given nearly $10,000 to Republican candidates running for federal office since 1997, when he says he left the Republican Party and became an independent. In 2016, he wrote a $1,000 check to GOP presidential hopeful John Kasich, a personal friend.
Until last year, Federal Election Commission records show, he hadn’t given any money to federal Democratic candidates, though his spokesman says he and his wife have a “long record of donating to progressive causes and organizations,” including Planned Parenthood.
Rouda says he has believed in the Democratic Party’s values for decades, and plans to make his pitch to Democrats and moderate Republicans alike with stances he thinks are much more closely aligned with the district than Rohrabacher’s: addressing climate change, opposing offshore oil drilling and standing up for LGBTQ rights.
Rohrabacher, a 15-term congressman whose controversial antics and Russia-friendly sentiments have drawn scrutiny, once said climate change could be caused by “dinosaur flatulence,” voiced support for new oil wells along the West Coast and recently prompted the National Assn. of Realtors to rescind their endorsement of him after he said homeowners shouldn’t have to sell their houses to gays or lesbians.
Republicans think Rouda, who self-funded much of his campaign, has liabilities, including his support for impeaching President Trump and for a “Medicare for all” single-payer healthcare system.
Rohrabacher’s campaign did not respond to requests for comment. Recently, he has tried to shore up local support by jumping on causes such as a pilot program using shark detection technology off the coast and limiting jet noise from John Wayne Airport, which he recently discussed at a news conference outside his house.
In the primary, he received just 30% of the vote, the lowest share of any California incumbent. He received roughly the same number of votes, about 52,000, as he did in the 2014 midterm primary, despite turnout nearly doubling this year. That suggests voters who came out to support other Republicans — like former Orange County GOP Chairman Scott Baugh, a vocal critic of Rohrabacher’s before losing to him — may not be inclined to turn out for the incumbent in November.
More Democrats in the district cast ballots in this year’s primary, usually a sleepy time for turnout on the left, than they did in the 2016 presidential primary, when Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders were still jockeying for the party’s nomination.


Robots & Automation: Manufacturing Hurdles Or Assets?
You may be aware of the current trend for automation to take shape of our daily lives. This comes in many forms from autonomous vehicles to our appliances and smart homes being turned on using IOT principles through gestures or sound and often remotely. To even robots being implemented in factories and the manufacturing process.
Automation comes in many forms and both hurdles and triumphs as it continues to be developed and utilized across industries. There are a lot of hurdles to automation and IOT principles being utilized in various industries -- such as manufacturing, warehousing, or freight – for many reasons. One, again is that supposedly robots and automated processing steal peoples' jobs and the need for human hands to do all the work. Secondly, the fear of humans have of robots and working alongside robots or robotic systems in place.
Sci-fi movies have been around for decades showing the pitfall of humanity working alongside robots or AI principles being trusted and later gone out of hand. You may recall movies such as Terminator, Matrix and many others showing this spiral of technology out of hand. Well, the movies are very entertaining and certainly worth checking out for any sci-fi fan, however, we need to ask ourselves: are robots really going to compete with us or spread out of control or are they more likely to aid us and help companies become more efficient? The idea of robots replacing all workers in a plant is not the right way of going about efficiency. Humans are needed in many tasks within manufacturing companies: such as human resources, management, administration, among many others within just manufacturing such as management and providing the fuel or electricity to the machines. Human hands are needed just as the human brain is needed because it is so complex and the human insight so profound that robots cannot replace this and will not for quite some time away, if not indefinitely.
People also understand other people way better than any automated system or robot can. Sure, we can put cameras everywhere and various self-check systems that will do a good job of monitoring employees or the overall efficiency within a plant, but the human factor should also be there in the administrative sense. However, if we use the robots for the hard labor of manufacturing and utilize humans for the administration or oversight, then we have efficiency because both groups are working in tandem doing their strengths for productivity.
The Daily Beast recentky had a story published about the concept of killer robots called Robots Are Killing People How Worried Should We Be. The article actually brought up some good points because today in its present shape, there are many hurdles to overcome in the manufacturing process of humans and robots working side-by-side. This is again why the ideal solution is to use both not in that capacity but on the strengths of robotics and human labor. Some aspects of labor robots cannot do and vice versa (we cannot lift a lot of weight without a pully of some sort or lever system in place).
The article actually lists an interesting example of someone in Germany dying due to being hit by a robot inside an auto plant. It also references a new documentary about the subject called The Truth About killer Robots by Maxim Pozdorovkin. It will certainly raise questions that is for sure.
This is again why combining human and machine systems in a dangerous capacity where it is a very close area of operation and a lot of movement involved is not a good idea. It is less of a warning of humans and machines not being able to coexist in a factory and more so of a point for companies to have an efficient workflow in place.
The article does point out an interesting scenario though and makes you think about the future of actual robots in the workforce (not just machine systems but humanoid types of robots). For instance, the idea of strikes being made ineffective due to managers being able to deploy robots in place of workers inside the factories.
However, the workers were there in place originally before going on strike and there is a reason they were hired and why they are needed in addition to the robots. So by taking themselves out of the work environment, and thus organizing a strike, can still be effective. However, one must admit that it is an interesting point and the ramifications can be pretty profound if robots truly take over manufacturing in even just the labor process as a whole.
Manufacturing has always advanced with technology and evolved over time, so this is another evolution that will find a way to make companies more efficient and industries to grow. Workers will also be needed and should not look at robots as their competitors but as systems that can help them by alleviating some of the heavy lifting or mundane tasks involved in a plant (they do not have to worry about a low attention span for instance).
Yes there will be hurdles to overcome and no robots may not be as smart at least not yet, but they can be more efficient in ways and more objective when you take emotion out of the being and leave it with an algorithm and machine learning then you have something a company can find useful in deploying for many tasks.


(MENAFN - Daily Outlook Afghanistan) KABUL - Afghan Wireless Communication Company (AWCC) has launched 'Cheraghe Khana services will provide solar powered lighting solutions to Afghans who don't have access to grid based on electric power.
Cheraghe Khana—‘The Gift of Light', is an affordable solar home system which easy to pay, easy to install and easy to use. The system is supported by AWCC Mobile Money services.
Speaking at the inauguration ceremony of the system on Sunday, Mohammad Gul Khulmi, the Acting Minister of Water and Energy said that he is delighted to participate at the inauguration event of AWCC-initiated solar powered lighting services under the title of Cheraghe Khana.
The Cheraghe Khana project which is launched with d.light has the potential to make a significant contribution to Afghanistan's economy.
Isa Qudrat, the Deputy Minister of Rural Rehabilitation and Development said that project should be extended to other potential production sections in the country.


What East boys basketball did in 2019 will be remembered in the Rockford area for a very long time.
The E-Rabs finished their season 34-4.
East will have to settle for the consolation game after losing 94-82 to Evanston in the state semifinals Friday night.
The E-Rabs punched their ticket to state after a 70-62 victory over Geneva in the 4A NIU Super-Sectional Tuesday night.
Tickets to Tuesday's game in DeKalb went on sale on Sunday and the line was out the door at East.
The former Cardinals girls basketball coach is one of two women to lead a high school athletics program in the Stateline.
NIU hosted several former players as they try to impress NFL scouts ahead of April's draft.
Not many high school athletes call it a career with a win. For five seniors, winning third place in Class 4A is just fine with them.


KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — The county that's home to the Kansas City Chiefs is moving forward with a plan to remove and store tens of thousands of old Arrowhead Stadium seats with the intention of reselling them to fans and sports memorabilia collectors.
Jackson County officials voted Monday in favor of the plan despite concerns about the county spending time and money selling stadium seats when other projects need attention, the Kansas City Star reported.
The county will pay nearly $43,000 to remove and store the 30,000 dismantled seats.
"When I look at it, that's not what the county does," said county legislator Dan Tarwater at a recent meeting. "We don't sell things like that. We're not good at it, plus we don't really have an outlet to do it."
The decision comes as the Chiefs replace some of the Arrowhead Stadium's seating as part of an $11.5 million renovation project. The team had planned to sell some of the 20-year-old chairs through a sports memorabilia vendor and give away others to season ticket holders, but the county intervened because the team doesn't own the seats.
County Executive Frank White's chief of staff, Caleb Clifford, said Jackson County will be able to recoup costs and make a profit by restoring and selling the chairs. He said Harris County in Texas grossed $1.5 million from selling seats removed from the now-dormant Houston Astrodome.
Clifford said it would be "a monumental mistake" to not try to get the most value from the surplus seats.
The county will next seek bids from companies to help market the seats.


When the year began, Connie Pillich was vying for the Democratic nomination for governor. Now she has decided to leave the local political scene, at least for now.
When the year began, Montgomery Democrat Connie Pillich was vying for the Democratic nomination for governor.
Now Pillich has decided to leave the local political scene, at least for now.
She resigned as co-chair of the Hamilton County Democratic Party on Monday for a job in Washington, D.C. supporting women judges and judicial candidates across the country. She started immediately as the executive director of the National Association of Women Judges in Washington, D.C.
"When I finally made the decision to do this, it was hard for me to plan to say goodbye to the Hamilton County Democratic Party and the friends I have in Cincinnati," Pillich told The Enquirer over the phone from her new home in D.C.
The resignation leaves the local Democrats without one of their biggest fundraisers. Her co-chair, Gwen McFarlin, will serve as chairperson for the remainder of the term, which expires in 2020. Pillich and McFarlin in June became the first women to lead the Hamilton County Democrats.
Pillich's experience as state representative from 2009 to 2014 and being a U.S. Air Force veteran made her a well-connected and well-known name in Ohio politics. That helped with fundraising.
"It's not like she's leaving us in the lurch," said Alex Linser, first executive co-chairperson for the Hamilton County Democrats. "Gwen has done a great job. There’s a whole leadership team behind her. But it hurts to lose Connie. Connie is an excellent fundraiser."
McFarlin said the Hamilton County Democrats will look for someone to take over Pillich's fundraising duties.
Pillich said she was ready to take a break from campaigning.
"I've been working really hard for a long time," Pillich said. "I'd say every campaign I've had has been a very challenging and rigorous campaign, each subsequent one harder than the previous one. I became a better candidate in each one."
She takes the helm of an organization that supports and recruits women judicial candidates. Two California judges founded the organization in 1979 with one of their goals to get a woman nominated to the U.S. Supreme Court. Two years later, Sandra Day O'Connor became the first female Supreme Court Justice. O'Connor is a founding member of NAWJ.
Pillich hopes to continue that work and level the playing field for women lawyers and judges.
"There are gender biases that we see from time to time in the legal profession," Pillich said. "Women because of their gender and no other reason not put on the partnership track, always pushed aside."
How does she plan to address that?
"You get excellent people to run for judge," Pillich said.


In 2015, the newly elected president of Poland, Andrzej Duda, immediately announced that he was against marriage equality and, when asked if he would employ gay people in his office, replied: “I can’t imagine half-naked people parading around the chancellery.” His father, Professor Jan Tadeusz Duda, has said he views homosexuality as an acquired affliction that the state should do all it can to prevent.
And yet when the photographer Maciek Nabrdalik began to document the LGBTQ community in Poland, he was “very positive”, given the existence of pride parades, workshops and clubs in the major cities. On the surface Poland seemed to have travelled far in the 30-odd years since Operation Hyacinth in the mid-1980s, when state police raided homes, schools and workplaces to arrest people suspected of being gay. Each of the estimated 11,000 people detained were registered and then given the option of renouncing their sexuality or being forced to carry a so-called Homosexual Card.
On his travels beyond the cities, Nabrdalik’s positivity soon waned. He encountered a country in which the old prejudices had found a new voice amid the rising rightwing populism of our turbulent times. “The longer I stayed,” he recalls, “and the farther I went from the major cities, I could see the rainbow begin to fade.” The resulting book is an intriguing response to a new Poland that, beneath the surface, is much like the old Poland.
Nabrdalik’s creative response is simple and effective: stark, monochrome portraits of his subjects are paired with their personal testimonies. Inspired by passport photographs, which serve as proof of an individual’s identity and citizenship, the portraits are shaded to various degrees to reflect “how comfortable that person was when we met with revealing their sexuality to the public”.
The amount of shading alone speaks volumes, but it is the accompanying testimonies that bear witness to the depth of Poland’s enduring conservatism. All of the personal accounts here are matter-of-factly expressed, which only adds to the poignancy of each tentative journey. Often family members and friends emerge as understanding and supportive, yet the weight of living day to day as “other” in a deeply orthodox society is always apparent, sometimes painfully so. “I wonder why I am so worried about the opinions of people I don’t know – my neighbours, for example, who I pass when I walk my dog,” says one young woman, revealingly.


We are currently seeking a Software Development Engineer in Test (SDET) who will participate in the full life cycle of software development while supporting the functionality and mission of ARIN. This includes research, design, development, testing, debugging, maintenance, and documentation, with a particular focus on the role of test automation and testing in the software development lifecycle. The functionality of ARIN includes domain name services, public key certificate services, registration software, billing/accounting solutions, customer record management, data research and analysis, web-based systems including REST, electronic publication of ARIN data and any future technical growth and implementations at ARIN.
Design, develop and support testing of ARIN’s customer-facing and internal web applications, web services, and other backend systems related to functional areas such as whois, DNS, routing public key infrastructure, internet route registry, billing, and membership management software.
Participate in ARIN’s synchronized, multi-team scrum-based Agile development process. Develop and deploy automated tests using Java Enterprise, Selenium, MyBatis, Protractor, Jasmine, Mocha, Appium, and other testing tools against systems under test. Use open source software and scripting languages in Linux-based environments using ARIN standard practices for software test development.
Participate in requirements gathering process. Produce, contribute to and/or review project specifications, design documents, flowcharts and diagrams. Analyze software requirements to determine feasibility of design within time and cost constraints. Consult with customers concerning requirements, enhancements and operation of systems. Provide estimates for work required, and recommend alternatives that control cost and/or improve velocity.
Perform usability, reliability, compatibility, scalability, security, installation, stress, and integration testing as required to ensure quality of ARIN-developed software, with a particular focus on smooth, consistent and rapid delivery of software into the production environment, minimizing installation and functional bugs. Follow configuration management practices at ARIN, applying source control and coding standards.
Perform other related duties as required and assigned.
Ability to travel to various locations to attend industry related conferences.
4-year college degree preferably in an information systems or computer science related discipline or equivalent work experience.
2+ years of job-related experience as a software developer or software developer in test.
Coding experience with an automation test framework such as Selenium, Protractor, Jasmine, Mocha, Appium.
Experience working with relational databases, SQL and in at least one modern programming language such as Java.
Working understanding of software project development concepts and QA methodologies.
Ability to understand complex instructions and to work independently.
Strong interpersonal, verbal, and written skills.
Familiarity with DevOps tools and practices.
Familiarity of IPv4, IPv6, PKI, and network routing protocols.


A man and a woman were killed when police said their vehicle hit a utility pole in North Memphis early Monday morning.
Memphis police were called to the collision at 2:35 a.m. on Jackson Avenue near Evergreen.
Jarquis Burks, 24, the driver of the vehicle and passenger, 27-year-old Jamelda Short died on the scene, MPD posted on Twitter Monday morning.
"The investigation revealed the vehicle was speeding westbound on Jackson and vehicle struck a utility pole," police said.


Virtual reality headsets like Oculus Rift are cool, but the wires linking them to PCs are not. So Optoma has tried to remove the cable clutter with a new wireless VR headset.
Optoma’s VR headset is like a wireless monitor on your head. Users can play 360-degree games and roam VR worlds streamed wirelessly from a PC to the headset.
However, the quality of the wireless VR experience could be a big question, though Optoma claims there is no lag. VR headsets wired to PCs generally deliver the best experience.
The Optoma VR headset is also different from headsets like Sulon’s Sulon Q and Microsoft’s HoloLens, which are self-contained VR headsets and don’t require PCs.
The Optoma headset has a 5.46-inch AMOLED screen with a 1920 x 1080-pixel resolution and a 90-degree field view. Simply called Virtual Reality Head Mounted Display, the headset was shown for the first time at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco.
In a way, Optoma’s device is an early demonstration of how cloud-based VR could work. Many 3D visuals for headsets are expected to be generated on remote computers, and then delivered to headsets via wireless or the Internet.
Wireless technology will also give users of the Optoma headset freedom to move around within the range of a PC. Oculus Rift users don’t have freedom to move around.
Content is streamed from a PC to the headset using a proprietary wireless signal operating at the 60GHz band. Further details on the wireless technology weren’t provided, but it could be UWB (ultrawide band) technology, which is faster than Wi-Fi.
No price has been set for the VR headset, but it will ship later this year.


Very smooth indeed. Admin pages seem a lot faster. Please let me know if you find any bugs on the site.
UPDATE: Ugh. Getting a flood of comment spam since I upgraded. The new version of Akismet can’t seem to keep up. Any other spam fighting solutions out there?


MILTON, Ont. – A 23-year-old woman who was out for a hike with friends in an Ontario park died Sunday night after falling from a cliff in the area.
Halton regional police, who are investigating, said the incident took place at Rattlesnake Point in Milton, Ont., west of Toronto.
One of the woman’s friends called 911 shortly after 9 p.m. after the woman fell more than 20 metres from a trail, police said.
Sgt. Barry Malciw said police officers, firefighters and paramedics rushed to the area to help, but paramedics weren’t able to resuscitate the woman when they found her.
She was pronounced dead at the scene, Malciw said.
“At this point we don’t believe this to be suspicious,” Malciw said, but he noted the police investigation is ongoing.
Conservation Halton, which owns and operates the park, said Rattlesnake Point will be closed Monday as police continue to probe the incident.
“Our thoughts are with the young woman’s family and friends we extend our sympathies to them,” said Norm Miller, a spokesman with Conservation Halton.
The area on the Niagara Escarpment is popular with hikers, bikers, rock climbers, and campers, and includes more than 13 kilometres of trails, Miller said.
There are some fences and protective barriers in the park, Miller said, but not all areas are near a cliff.
This isn’t the first time someone has had a bad fall in the park, police said.
In mid-April, a 41-year-old rock climber had to be airlifted to a hospital after suffering serious injuries when he slipped from a cliff face and fell 15 metres to the ground.
At a neighbouring park, also run by Conservation Halton, a 35-year-old Toronto firefighter died after falling 18 metres from a cliff.
Sara Rosen was cycling with a friend when she fell down an escarpment at Kelso Conservation Area last May. She was pronounced dead at the scene.


The nonprofit St. Vincent de Paul of Baltimore announced Monday that it would use a $1.5 million grant to expand it's rapid re-housing program to serve 195 homeless families over the next three years.
The grant, which comes from the Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Foundation, will expend the Front Door Program to serve 65 families a year, up from 50. Families represent about a third of all homeless in Baltimore.


(Reuters) - U.S. chipmaker Qualcomm Inc’s (QCOM.O) quarterly profit and revenue topped Wall Street forecasts, suggesting that a slowdown in the global smartphone business might be less severe than feared after a string of weak forecasts from suppliers.
The results announced in Qualcomm’s smartphone chip business contrasted to those from major mobile phone components makers in Asia, including TSMC (2330.TW) and SK Hynix Inc (000660.KS), which have warned of slower growth in their smartphone chip divisions.
While revenue from Qualcomm’s chips division - its largest - rose 6 percent in the three months ended March 25, revenue from the licensing business plunged 44 percent, reflecting the withholding of revenue in a high-profile patent battle with Apple Inc (AAPL.O).
Despite the strong quarter for chip sales, the company does see some signs of weakness.
It forecast growth of about 5 percent in modern mobile handsets for the remainder of the year, which is lower than anticipated. Handset prices, however, are higher than expected.
“Qualcomm posted solid results, but its guidance pointed to a softer handset market, particularly in China,” said Moody’s Senior Vice President Rick Lane.
Qualcomm also is waiting for Chinese regulators to consider its application to buy chipmaker NXP, a deal that Chief Executive Steve Mollenkopf expects to go through. If it does not, Qualcomm plans to use the cash dedicated to the deal for a share buy-back. The deal was held up by diplomatic concerns between countries, rather than Qualcomm-specific concerns, he said.
The biggest spat is over a U.S. ban on exports to China’s ZTE Corp (000063.SZ) after it was caught exporting to Iran. Qualcomm said it expects the loss of business with ZTE to lower its profits by 3 cents per share next quarter, though executives also suggested that other smart phone makers that it also does business with may make up for that lost revenue in the longer term.
The results come as San Diego-based Qualcomm tries to convince shareholders it can boost earnings by cutting annual costs by $1 billion and resolving the Apple dispute.
Qualcomm on Wednesday forecast current-quarter revenue of between $4.8 billion and $5.6 billion, and adjusted earnings of 65 to 75 cents per share. Analysts were expecting revenue of $5.32 billion and earnings of 75 cents per share, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.
Qualcomm’s quarterly net income fell to $363 million, or 24 cents per share, from $749 million, or 50 cents per share, a year earlier.
Excluding one-time items, Qualcomm earned 80 cents per share, ahead of analysts’ average estimate of 70 cents, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.
Total revenue rose 4.9 percent to $5.26 billion, topping expectations of $5.19 billion.
Qualcomm shares rose 1 percent to $50.25 in after-hours trading on Wednesday.
The sentiment also appeared to help boost other chipmakers in after-hours trading, with memory chipmaker Micron Technology (MU.O) up 1 percent to $48.12 after the announcement.


Plano's oldest house has finally arrived at its new home.
On Wednesday, crews completed the final leg of a move for the historic Collinwood House after a years-long debate over its future.
The two-story farmhouse, built around 1861, is now part of the Haggard Farm off Parkwood Boulevard. The plan is for the Collinwood House to eventually be restored and incorporated into future development on that property, according to city officials.
"It's not just a record in a book," preservation advocate Candace Fountoulakis said of the home. "It's something you can walk in, see, feel, touch."
The city of Plano purchased the 80-acre Collinwood Farm in 2009 with plans to develop it as part of a 124-acre park. The pioneer home on the site was declared a hazard, but efforts to relocate it fell through.
Last year, after voters rejected a $3.5 million bond measure to restore the house, the city council voted to tear it down. A preservation architect was tapped to document the dismantling. His estimate for the job was $250,000.
But city officials changed their mind and decided once again to offer up the house and pledged to use the $250,000 to move it off-site. Haggard Enterprises Ltd. submitted the only bid.
Clint Haggard talks with family friend Jeff Nesbitt in front of the Collinwood Home, built around 1861, as it is prepared to be moved to the Haggard farm in Plano.
The Haggards are one of Plano's founding families. Clinton Shepard Haggard bought the Collinwood house in 1862 and lived there with his family for years before it was passed down to his daughter and then a granddaughter. The house changed hands several more times before it was sold in 1956 to the Sowell family, whose trust later sold the property to Plano.
Crews have been busy for weeks prepping the historic structure for the move. Last week they lifted it off its foundation and onto a moving truck. The truck made the slow trek Wednesday along a few city streets to the home's new resting spot.
The Haggards' farm is only about a quarter mile from the home's original location, Plano city spokesman Steve Stoler said.
Fountoulakis is happy the structure will be preserved. She hopes people will start referring to it as the Haggard house in honor of its new owners. And while it didn't qualify for listing on the National Register of Historic Places, it is still a significant piece of history, Fountoulakis said.
"It's important to save because it's so unusual and rare," she said.
Construction has already begun on the city's Windhaven Meadows Park, which will include trails, ponds and a dog park. The project is expected to be completed in late 2019 or early 2020, Stoler said.


ELEANOR HALL: The budget has been attacked from two entirely different perspectives this morning.
The tabloid press has accused the Government of attacking and "gouging families of $150,000", attacking aspirational households by winding back on middle-class welfare.
But many economists are arguing those cuts don't go far enough.
To discuss who wins and who loses, and what more should be done I'm joined in the studio now by our economics correspondent Stephen Long, and also by Brian Toohey, one of the nation's longest serving political journalists and a leading commentator on economics and public policy.
Starting with you Stephen, the front page of the Daily Telegraph today says Wayne Swan's budget "pickpockets" families and that it is hard-working families in "mortgaged poverty" that will be hardest hit. Is that a fair characterisation of who is bearing the brunt of the budget cuts?
STEPHEN LONG: No, I don't think so. It's an inaccurate misleading and very, very superficial critique of the budget, Eleanor. They're talking about measures to wind back on family benefits and various other small benefits to families on $150,000 a year. Now let's put that in context. On the Treasury's figures, there are 40,000 households earning $150,000 a year or more. There are 8.5 million households in Australia so we are talking less than half a per cent of all households who are on that money.
Now well-paid newspaper editors and Canberra press gallery journalists might feel that these are modest incomes but the reality is that $150,000 a year puts you in the well-to-do bracket nationally. There is only about 3 per cent of workers who earn more than $100,000 a year; average weekly earnings are $65,000.
We are talking about people who are relatively well-off and a tiny, tiny proportion of households overall and the benefits that they will lose, we are talking of less than $30 a year for a child with the winding back of the supplement to the various family tax benefit arrangements. Small money for people who are relatively well to do.
Now I accept that if you are on $150,000 living in Sydney, paying a mortgage where house prices are through the roof, it might feel tough and you're not rich in the sense that you are living high on the hog. Very different experience to someone in a country town or say Hobart but you are still, the objective reality says, in the top bracket and the question is who deserves a handout?
Does everybody deserve a handout? Where do we cut it off?
ELEANOR HALL: Brian Toohey, do you agree?
BRIAN TOOHEY: I do and in fact they are not actually cuts. All they're saying is that the threshold for the cut off, $150,000 is not going to be indexed upwards with the CPI but one of the glaring ones that isn't touched at all is the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme where people on $300,000 a year or more, tax free superannuation payouts in retirement, can get subsidised prescription drugs for the same as the base rate aged pensioner which is $5.60 a go, whereas someone slaving away in the workforce on the minimum wage which is worth less than $30,000 a year.
So someone on 10 times as much gets drugs for $5.60 and the person on the minimum wage pays $34.20 - more than six times as much.
So there is plenty of scope to start cutting what I would call in this case upper class welfare to create more money for doing the worthwhile things that can be done in the budget about trying to help people get back into work who haven't got jobs et cetera, et cetera.
ELEANOR HALL: The Government says there are $22 billion worth of savings in this budget. Who is feeling the pain of those cuts?
BRIAN TOOHEY: I don't think anyone much. It is remarkable how they have done this. I mean some of it is counted in money like the flood levy and so forth which strictly speaking isn't a cut but it is remarkable how they've done this in a fairly painless way.
For example, or ways that no one could object to, for example they are saving over, this is all over four years these savings, you should bear that in mind, that for the tax rebate for the dependent spouse who is under 40 and has got no children. Now why if you want people to get back into the workforce would you create in the tax system a disincentive for that person to go to work? Now they are removing that. I don't think it is a tough measure but it does raise $755 million over that time period.
Another thing they are doing is saying that people who have got high incomes and split that income with children who are under 16 so that, and they at the moment are getting the low income tax offset, that no longer will they be able to get the low- it's just a rort. So how could anyone really object to that? And that raises about $740 million. So there are a lot of measures like that which aren't that painful. There is one or two in there that possibly are.
ELEANOR HALL: Stephen, we heard Penny Wong saying that the Government's moves to get single mothers and disability pensioners into the workforce were built on solid Labor values. Will they work?
STEPHEN LONG: Well, I wonder what she means by solid Labor values and I question whether they will work and it really depends on how the Government does it. There is two ways you can do it. Now, there are some commendable measures spoken about in the budget papers in discussion which involve actually creating a readiness for people to go into jobs but if it is punitive and just pushing people into low wage insecure jobs, I don't know that it is going to work.
There are two issues here, Eleanor and that's that for many, many years governments of various political persuasions have tried to get people on welfare, the long term unemployed, people on disability pensions who actually could do some work back into the workforce.
The harsh reality is a lot of these people aren't ready to work, employers don't want to hire them in any job and so the Government is, and I think it is intending to spend big money to actually try and assist these people to get the skills they need to get into the workforce.
That is one side of it and that is consistent with Labor values and it might possibly work but it is going to take a big effort.
But the other side is there is an assumption in all the discussion around this from the Government and just about everybody that somehow this is a universally good thing, that any job is better than no job and we will be giving these people the dignity of work, the dignity of labour.
Now there is a whole body of medical research and other research that actually says that pushing people into low wage, insecure jobs that can often be quite oppressive and give people little control can actually undermine their health and well being.