HIV test urged for 7,000 Oklahoma dental patients

This photo taken Thursday, March 28, 2013 shows the office of oral surgeon W. Scott Harrington in Tulsa, Okla. Health officials have urged Harrington?s patients to undergo hepatitis and HIV testing, saying filthy conditions at his office posed a threat to his 7,000 clients and made him a "menace to the public health." (AP Photo/Justin Juozapavicius)

This photo taken Thursday, March 28, 2013 shows the office of oral surgeon W. Scott Harrington in Tulsa, Okla. Health officials have urged Harrington?s patients to undergo hepatitis and HIV testing, saying filthy conditions at his office posed a threat to his 7,000 clients and made him a "menace to the public health." (AP Photo/Justin Juozapavicius)

Map locates city where health officials are urging 7000 patients of Oklahoma dentist Dr. W. Scott Harrington to seek testing for hepatitis or HIV.

Susan Rogers, executive director of the Oklahoma Board of Dentistry, speaks during a news conference regarding the practices of Tulsa oral surgeon Wayne Harrington, at the Tulsa Health Department's James O. Goodwin Health Center in Tulsa, Okla., on Thursday, March 28, 2013. Health officials said that thousands of Harrington's patients should undergo testing for HIV and hepatitis after officials looking into the source of a patient's viruses discovered the dentist's instruments weren't being cleaned properly. (AP Photo/Tulsa World, Cory Young) ONLINE OUT; TV OUT; TULSA OUT

TULSA, Okla. (AP) ? Health officials on Thursday urged an Oklahoma oral surgeon's patients to undergo hepatitis and HIV testing, saying filthy conditions behind his office's spiffy facade posed a threat to his 7,000 clients and made him a "menace to the public health."

State and county health inspectors went to Dr. W. Scott Harrington's practice after a patient with no known risk factors tested positive for both hepatitis C and the virus that causes AIDS. They found employees using dirty equipment, reusing needles and administering drugs without a license.

Harrington voluntarily gave up his license and closed his offices in Tulsa and suburban Owasso and is cooperating with investigators, said Kaitlin Snider, a spokeswoman for the Tulsa Health Department. He faces a hearing April 19 where his license could be permanently revoked.

"This is an unprecedented event," Susan Rogers, executive director of the state Board of Dentistry, said in an interview. "To my knowledge, this has never happened before as far as a public notification of a (hepatitis C) case involving a dental office."

The Oklahoma Board of Dentistry said the inspectors discovered multiple sterilization issues at Harrington's offices, including the use of a separate, rusty, set of instruments for patients who were known to carry infectious diseases.

"The CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) has determined that rusted instruments are porous and cannot be properly sterilized," the board said in a 17-count complaint against the dentist.

Officials are sending letters to 7,000 people who are known to have been patients of Harrington, but they noted that they do not have information for patients before 2007. The letters urge the patients to be tested for hepatitis B, hepatitis C and HIV. ? viruses typically spread through intravenous drug use or unprotected sexual contact, not occupational settings.

"It's uncertain how long those practices have been in place," Snider said. "He's been practicing for 36 years."

Harrington could not be reached for comment Thursday. A message at his Tulsa office said it was closed and the doctor's answering service referred callers to the Tulsa Health Department. Phone numbers listed for Harrington were disconnected. A message left with Harrington's malpractice attorney in Tulsa, Jim Secrest II, was not immediately returned.

Harrington's practice in Tulsa is in a tony part of town, on a row of some of the city's most upscale medical practices. The white-and-green stucco, two-story dental clinic has the doctor's name in fancy letters on the facade.

Inside, the Dentistry Board said, Harrington ran a clinic that paid little attention to ensuring items were sterile. Dental assistants needing an extra dose of an anesthetic would re-insert used needles into drug vials, drug vials were used on multiple patients, the office had no written infection-protection procedure and Harrington told officials he left questions about sterilization and drug procedures to his employees.

"They take care of that, I don't," the board quoted him as saying.

The doctor is also accused of letting his assistants perform tasks only a licensed dentist should have done. Also, the complaint says that the doctor's staff could not produce permits for the assistants when asked for them.

Rogers said that as an oral surgeon, Harrington routinely does invasive procedures that involve "pulling teeth, open wounds, open blood vessels." The Dentistry Board complaint said Harrington and his staff told investigators that a "high population of known infectious disease carrier patients" received dental care from him.

According to the complaint, a device used to sterilize instruments wasn't working properly. A test is supposed to be performed monthly and sent to a lab to determine that the equipment is successfully sterilizing instruments, but "no such test had ever been performed in the 6 years one dental assistant had been working at the office," the complaint said.

The doctor also apparently used outdated drugs, as one vial found this year had an expiration date of 1993, and didn't properly keep track of drugs, the complaint said. It noted that a drug cabinet was unlocked and unattended during the day and that dental assistants administered IV sedation for procedures without the doctor being present.

It also said that although U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration records show Harrington had not received morphine from a distributor since 2009, the drug logs kept by his assistants said morphine had been used on patients intermittently throughout 2012.

Officials said patients will be offered free medical testing at the Tulsa Health Department's North Regional Health and Wellness Center.

Most people who become infected by hepatitis C get it by sharing needles or other equipment to inject drugs, according to the CDC's website. The infection can last a lifetime and lead to scarring of the liver or liver cancer.

Most people who get hepatitis B have it for a short time, though it can cause a long-term infection that can damage the liver. It can be transmitted through unprotected sex and sharing needles.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/386c25518f464186bf7a2ac026580ce7/Article_2013-03-28-Dentist%20Investigation-Testing/id-29a2834fa7b2454e8b0d0eb2b275e10f

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Pirate perch probably use chemical camouflage to fool prey

Mar. 28, 2013 ? It?s a nocturnal aquatic predator that will eat anything that fits in its large mouth.

Dark and sleek, it hides beneath the water waiting for prey. A Texas Tech University researcher says the target will never know what hit them because they probably can?t smell the voracious pirate perch.

After careful investigations, William Resetarits Jr., a professor of biology at Texas Tech, and Christopher A. Binckley, an assistant professor in the Department of Biology at Arcadia University, found that animals normally attuned to predators from their smell didn?t seem to detect the pirate perch. It could be the first animal discovered that is capable of generalized chemical camouflage that works against a wide variety of prey.

The team published their findings in the peer-reviewed journal The American Naturalist.

Thankfully, at five-and-a-half inches long, only insects, invertebrates, amphibians and other small fish need worry about the danger hiding near the bottom among the roots and plantlife, Resetarits said.

?We use the term ?camouflage,? because it is readily understandable,? he said. ?What we really are dealing with is some form of ?chemical deception.? The actual mechanism may be camouflage that makes an organism difficult to detect, mimicry that makes an organism difficult to correctly identify, or cloaking where the organism simply does not produce a signal detectable to the receiver.?

Resetarits said pirate perch aren?t really perch at all, but related to the Amblyopsid cave fish family. Fossils from this fish date back about 24 million years ago.

They make their homes in freshwater ponds and streams in the Eastern United States. Once considered for the aquarium market, the fish got its name because of its penchant for eating all tank mates.

?Pirate perch have some unique aspects to their morphology and life history, but they are generalist predators, and so should have been avoided by prey animals like all the other fish tested,? he said. ?For some reason, they weren?t avoided at all.?

To test their theory, Resetarits and Binckley ran a series of experiments in artificial pools housing 11 different species of fish, including pirate perch.

The fish were kept at bay at the bottom of the pools with screens so that they could not prey on the beetles and tree frogs that colonized the water.

When it came to choosing a pool, the beetles and frogs consistently steered clear of the water with other fish species in them, most likely because they could smell the presence of fish in the water. However, they had no qualms about moving into pools containing the pirate perch.

?We were incredibly surprised,? Resetarits said. ?It took a while for us to pull this all together. When we first observed it with tree frogs, we were very surprised and puzzled. But when the same lack of response was shown by aquatic beetles, we were quite literally flabbergasted. We continued to do experiments with other fish and always got the same results. All fish except pirate perch were avoided.?

Exactly what the pirate perch is doing to hide isn?t yet known, he said. Researchers want to determine how the pirate perch are either scrambling chemical signals or masking their odor. Once they have identified chemical compounds that might explain the behavior, they will return to the field to test with the same tree frogs and beetles as well as other organisms known to respond to fish chemical cues, such as mosquitoes and water fleas.

?We will also test whether this chemical deception works against the pirate perch?s own predators,? Resetarits said. ?Of course, other critical questions that we are working on include just how much advantage in terms of prey acquisition do pirate perch gain as a result of chemical deception. Does this phenomenon occur in closely related species, such as cavefish? Are there prey species that have found a way around the chemical deception? There are many questions now, and I think we have just scratched the surface.

?I think the most important aspect is not the bizarre, just-so story, but the fact that there is no reason to believe that chemical camouflage is less common than visual camouflage. Humans? sense of smell is just not very sophisticated, so we can?t simply ?notice? examples of chemical camouflage the way we do visual camouflage. I think chemical camouflage is likely quite common. We are starting pursuit of the larger question, starting with close relatives of pirate perch.?

Find Texas Tech news, experts and story ideas at www.media.ttu.edu and on Twitter @TexasTechMedia.

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Journal Reference:

1. William J. Resetarits, Christopher A. Binckley. Is the Pirate Really a Ghost? Evidence for Generalized Chemical Camouflage in an Aquatic Predator, Pirate PerchAphredoderus sayanus. The American Naturalist, 2013; : 000 DOI: 10.1086/670016

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/top_environment/~3/c5NbMbTJghI/130329085941.htm

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North readies rockets after U.S. flies stealth bombers over South

By David Chance and Phil Stewart

SEOUL/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - North Korea put its rocket units on standby on Friday to attack U.S. military bases in South Korea and the Pacific, after the United States flew two nuclear-capable stealth bombers over the Korean peninsula in a rare show of force.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un signed off on the order at a midnight meeting of top generals and "judged the time has come to settle accounts with the U.S. imperialists in view of the prevailing situation", official KCNA news agency said.

On Thursday, the United States flew two radar-evading B-2 Spirit bombers on practice runs over South Korea, responding to a series of North Korean threats. They flew from the United States and back in what appeared to be the first exercise of its kind, designed to show America's ability to conduct long-range, precision strikes "quickly and at will", the U.S. military said.

The news of Kim's response was unusually swift.

"He finally signed the plan on technical preparations of strategic rockets of the KPA, ordering them to be standby for fire so that they may strike any time the U.S. mainland, its military bases in the operational theaters in the Pacific, including Hawaii and Guam, and those in south Korea," KCNA said.

The North has an arsenal of Soviet-era Scud missiles that can hit South Korea, but its longer-range missiles are untested. Independent assessments of its missile capability suggest it may have theoretical capacity to hit U.S. bases in Japan and Guam.

The North has launched a daily barrage of threats since early this month when the United States and the South, allies in the 1950-53 Korean War, began routine military drills.

The South and the United States have said the drills are purely defensive in nature and that no incident has taken place in the decades they have been conducted in various forms.

The United States also flew B-52 bombers over South Korea earlier this week.

The North has put its military on highest readiness to fight what it says are hostile forces conducting war drills. Its young leader has previously given "final orders" for its military to wage revolutionary war with the South.

Despite the tide of hostile rhetoric from Pyongyang, it has kept open a joint economic zone with the South which generates $2 billion a year in trade, money the impoverished state can ill-afford to lose.

Pyongyang has also canceled an armistice agreement with the United States that ended the Korean War and cut all communications hotlines with U.S. forces, the United Nations and South Korea.

U.S. SAYS NORTH ON DANGEROUS PATH

"The North Koreans have to understand that what they're doing is very dangerous," U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel told reporters at the Pentagon.

"We must make clear that these provocations by the North are taken by us very seriously and we'll respond to that."

The U.S. military said that its B-2 bombers had flown more than 6,500 miles to stage a trial bombing raid from their bases in Missouri as part of the Foal Eagle war drills being held with South Korea.

The bombers dropped inert munitions on the Jik Do Range, in South Korea, and then returned to the continental United States in a single, continuous mission, the military said.

Thursday's drill was the first time B-2s flew round-trip from the mainland United States over South Korea and dropped inert munitions, a Pentagon spokeswoman said.

Victor Cha, a North Korea expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said the drill fit within the context of ramped efforts by the Pentagon to deter the North from acting upon any of its threats.

Asked whether he thought the latest moves could further aggravate tensions on the peninsula, Cha, a former White House official, said: "I don't think the situation can get any more aggravated than it already is."

Despite the shrill rhetoric from Pyongyang, few believe North Korea, formally known as the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, will risk starting a full-out war.

Still, Hagel, who on March 15 announced he was bolstering missile defenses over the growing North Korea threat, said all of the provocations by the North had to be taken seriously.

"Their very provocative actions and belligerent tone, it has ratcheted up the danger and we have to understand that reality," Hagel said, renewing a warning that the U.S. military was ready for "any eventuality" on the peninsula.

North Korea conducted a third nuclear weapons test in February in breach of U.N. sanctions and despite warnings from China, its one major diplomatic ally.

(Additional reporting by David Alexander in Washington; Editing by Warren Strobel, Paul Simao and Mark Bendeich)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/north-readies-rockets-u-flies-stealth-bombers-over-231837163.html

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The first thing they do, they?ll bankrupt the divorce lawyers! (Unqualified Offerings)

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Congress adds cyber-espionage review for government tech purchases, scrutinizes Chinese products from Lenovo, Huawei

Huawei's having a tougher time getting its network tech into the US, but Congress is apparently looking to shore up its security with other Chinese manufacturers too and has added a new purchase review law for NASA, Justice and Commerce departments of the government. Reuters reports that these branches won't be able to buy any IT system equipment without a federal law enforcement official giving it the okay, after assessing "any risk associated with such system being produced, manufactured or assembled" in China. The new restriction is folded into a 240-page spending law document and Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Hong Lei has already requesting that the US to abandon the law. While it's difficult to spell out the repurcussions yet, it could affect more than just the telecoms infrastructure that ZTE and Huawei were selling, with the ever-expanding Lenovo likely to be buffeted by the same new regulations -- stripped down or not.

Filed under: Misc, Lenovo

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Source: Reuters

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What ovarian cancer can teach us about medicine, as a whole ...

Maggie Koerth-Baker at 8:09 am Tue, Mar 12

The New York Times has a story on problems with the treatment of ovarian cancer that holds lessons for many aspects of modern medicine. The big issue here: Local doctors, even local specialists, might not have the information necessary to properly treat patients who come in with problems those doctors don't have a lot of experience with. And those doctors don't always refer patients to people with more expertise. In a world with constantly changing information, how do you get that information to the people patients are most in contact with? In a world with more and more evidence available, how do you change traditions in the medical community that apply treatments based on "what my teachers did" and "what I've always done"? Big questions here, not a lot of answers.

Source: http://boingboing.net/2013/03/12/what-ovarian-cancer-can-teach.html

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Stuck? How to get help on your taxes

Beth Pinsker , Reuters ? ? ? 2 hrs.

NEW YORK - Some formerly resolute do-it-yourselfers are giving up their calculators and turning to professional tax preparers for help with their returns, following the flood of tax changes that were enacted as part of the fiscal cliff deal at the beginning of 2013.

Aaron Shepherd, a 38-year-old Minneapolis editor of a personal finance site, has been doing his own taxes since he was a teen, but now he thinks "it's just too complicated" so he's hiring a pro - at a cost approaching $400 - to do it for him. And he's sort of an expert who follows tax developments for a living.

About 40 percent of taxpayers typically file their own returns, according to the National Taxpayer Advocate's 2012 Annual Report to Congress. That's been the case for years and probably will continue in the future, say experts.

But that number may temporarily shrink as Americans try to make sense of the new tax code that emerged from the fiscal cliff deal at the beginning of 2013. Some tax breaks slipped away, others were resurrected and still others were modified. Nothing got simplified.

Now taxpayers, even those who use programs like Intuit Inc's TurboTax software, seem to want at least a little extra expert guidance. Services that catered to do-it-yourselfers are rushing to provide advice in a way that might win them new clients.

"Over time, we've mostly acquired customers from people who were preparing their taxes manually. Now the opportunity is to attract customers from the national franchises," says TurboTax spokeswoman Julie Miller.

But those national franchises are fighting for market share too. H&R Block Inc spokesman Gene King says its strategy is to win over customers who usually like to use other companies' online software with some new inexpensive and automated tax services.

As a result, there are more low-cost advice options on the menu this year. Most cost far less than the $246 average that the National Society of Accountants says it costs for a personal preparer to do a return including itemized deductions.

Your own CPA
TurboTax has launched a new remote paid-preparer option called CPA Select that matches users with certified public accountants. Clients upload their documents and communicate with the preparer via phone, video chat or email. Costs vary depending on the complexity of the return, starting at $89.95.

Customer Tatum Vitale, a 29-year-old organ transplant coordinator from Belmar, N.J., used the service for her 2012 taxes after trying to do them herself first. "This was the first year we owed money, and I didn't want to pay more than we had to," she says. She communicated by email with the CPA, and in the end owed less than she had originally calculated - and all for the same $125 she paid last year to file her federal and state returns using software on her own.

TurboTax, which processed 25 million returns last year, also provides free phone support for tax questions and live chat for customers of its CD, online or mobile products, which range from a free 1040EZ to a $74.99 Home and Business federal edition.

H&R Block, the largest professional tax preparation company, is expanding its "Block Live" offering to iPads, provides a list of CPAs who can complete a return remotely via a video interface and uploaded documents. Costs start at $39.99 to complete a 1040EZ and go past $219 for complex returns, with exact costs determined by the tax professional.

The company, which had 14.9 million retail clients and 7.4 million software users last year, also offers a "best of both" package, which allows customers to start with a standard software package - which ranges from $19.95 to $64.95 - and then get their returns reviewed remotely by an H&R Block professional for $79.95.

Customers can get live chat and unlimited email support with software packages but only one free phone session with a tax pro; additional chats cost $9.95.

"We have found consumers would rather do quick chat. They are on a computer already," says King.

The other major storefront tax preparer, Jackson Hewitt Tax Service Inc, also markets self-prep products ranging from free for a basic federal return to $49.95, along with extra support. Its DIY products come with unlimited email and live chat support, but only the highest level and small business packages come with unlimited phone support.

Free help
There are other ways to get help, including going directly to the Internal Revenue Service; the phone hotline is 800-829-1040. The IRS also offers a free Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) program for people who make less than $51,000 and a Tax Counseling for the Elderly (TCE) program. (Find a program near you.)

For taxpayers earning less than $57,000, there is also free tax help available at myfreetaxes.com, a partnership of the United Way Worldwide, Goodwill Industries International, the National Disability Institute and the Walmart Foundation in collaboration with the IRS.

While the 2012 filing season may push do-it-yourself filers into the arms of paid providers, says Michael Millman, of Millman Research Associates, a research firm based in Short Hills, N.J., "they tend to then go back to their traditional ways once they have a feel for how it's done."

Copyright 2013 Thomson Reuters.

Source: http://www.nbcnews.com/business/stuck-how-get-help-your-taxes-1C8824838

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Asian shares inch up on record Dow, yen slips

By Chikako Mogi

TOKYO (Reuters) - Asian shares inched higher on Tuesday, following Wall Street's record close overnight as growing confidence in the U.S. economy overrode concerns in the euro zone, while the yen slipped to fresh lows on speculation over imminent monetary easing.

The benchmark Standard & Poor's 500 stock index extended its winning streak to seven sessions and touched its highest intraday level since October 15, 2007 on Monday while the Dow Jones industrial average closed at a record 14447.29.

Reflecting rising risk appetite in the wake of Friday's solid U.S. jobs data, the CBOE Volatility Index or VIX, which is often used as a gauge for risk, ended Monday at the lowest level since February 2007.

The MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan was up 0.1 percent.

Australian shares rose 0.1 percent after hitting a fresh 4-1/2-year high. South Korean shares opened up 0.2 percent.

Japan's Nikkei stock average opened 0.7 percent higher at a fresh 4-1/2-year high, encouraged by the yen's drop which helps boost the earnings outlook for exporters.

The dollar rose to 96.71 yen early in Asia on Tuesday, its highest since August 2009, while the Australian dollar climbed to fresh 4-1/2 year highs on the yen of 99.37 yen, aided by a report the incoming Bank of Japan governor might convene an extraordinary meeting soon after taking office later this month.

The Nikkei news reported Haruhiko Kuroda, the nominee for BOJ governor, may launch new monetary easing steps soon after he takes office next week, rather than waiting for the bank's first regular policy board meeting in early April.

"Dollar/yen was already very bid overnight, consistent with the backup in U.S. Treasury yields. The Nikkei story has just given it a bit of a kick and it's certainly adding to yen weakness," said Sue Trinh, senior currency strategist at RBC in Hong Kong.

The euro was trading up 0.3 percent against the yen at 126 yen.

Against the dollar, the common currency was down 0.1 percent at $1.3030, weighed by worries about Italy's inconclusive elections last month delaying the country's fiscal reform efforts.

U.S. crude was steady around $92.05 a barrel.

(Additional reporting by Ian Chua in Sydney; Editing by Eric Meijer)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/asian-shares-inch-record-dow-yen-slips-002002559--finance.html

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Tree Falls On Y'Anna Crawley's Maryland Family Home | Praise 104.1

The family of Sunday?s Best winner and DC-area native Y?Anna Crawley experienced a major setback last week. The high winds from last week?s snowstorm caused a tree to crash into the kitchen of her parents New Carrolton, MD home, which caused a small fire that had to be put out by fire fighters. Nobody was hurt but Y?anna?s mother was in the kitchen at the time of the crash. The family is currently unable to stay as the county?s home inspector deemed the house unsafe. They lived in the house for the past 21 years.

The family is accepting aid for basic essentials. You can donate through Y?anna?s non-profit.

The Promise Foundation ? The Jeter Family

8315 Nicholson Street

New Carrollton, Md 20748

For more information contact John Hart at 202.422.9231 or hart2heartmgmt@gmail.com

Source: http://praisedc.com/1360254/tree-falls-on-yanna-crawleys-maryland-family-home/

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Tiffani Thiessen thankful she missed TMZ era

This Feb. 6, 2013 file photo shows actress Tiffani Thiessen posing for a portrait in New York. Thiessen, best known for her former role as Kelly Kapowski on TV's "Saved by the Bell," says she had no idea at the time of how popular the show was. She says she's grateful she grew up in the limelight before TMZ and other 24 hour media outlets and gossip blogs came along. She currently stars in the USA series "White Collar." (Photo by Amy Sussman/Invision/AP)

This Feb. 6, 2013 file photo shows actress Tiffani Thiessen posing for a portrait in New York. Thiessen, best known for her former role as Kelly Kapowski on TV's "Saved by the Bell," says she had no idea at the time of how popular the show was. She says she's grateful she grew up in the limelight before TMZ and other 24 hour media outlets and gossip blogs came along. She currently stars in the USA series "White Collar." (Photo by Amy Sussman/Invision/AP)

This Feb. 6, 2013 photo shows actress Tiffani Thiessen posing for a portrait in New York. Thiessen, best known for her former role as Kelly Kapowski on TV's "Saved by the Bell," says she had no idea at the time of how popular the show was. She says she's grateful she grew up in the limelight before TMZ and other 24 hour media outlets and gossip blogs came along. She currently stars in the USA series "White Collar." (Photo by Amy Sussman/Invision/AP)

NEW YORK (AP) ? Tiffani Thiessen is probably best known for her role as Kelly Kapowski on "Saved by the Bell," but the actress says she had no idea at that time how popular the teenage sitcom was.

"I mean, I was so young. I was 15 when I started that show," Thiessen, now 39, said in a recent interview.

"I remember Mark-Paul (Gosselaar) and I touring the (United) States and going overseas. ... That was the first time that I realized what an impact that show had when 5,000, 6,000, 10,000 kids were showing up to these malls and these places where we would sit there for hours and do autograph signings and pictures and stuff," she said.

"That's when I was really like, 'Where am I? What is this?' Kids wanted my empty cup of water and, you know, things like that. It was strange. I had to constantly remind myself that what I was doing was a job and I enjoyed my job and I was going back to school and do homework like all these other kids who were sitting here."

"Saved by the Bell," which also starred Mario Lopez and Dustin Diamond, aired from 1989 to 1993.

The show now airs in syndication and remains a part of the pop culture zeitgeist. Jimmy Fallon tried ? unsuccessfully ? to rally the cast for a reunion in 2009. (They did pose for a People magazine cover.) Justin Bieber wore a T-shirt with the likeness of Kelly Kapowski to the MuchMusic Awards in 2011.

Thiessen is grateful that she grew up in the limelight before TMZ and other 24-hour media outlets and gossip blogs came along on the Internet.

"Thank God I missed that. The photographers that would follow us were like for Teen Beat and Bop (magazines)," she said.

She said the limelight got a little more intense with her next big role as Valerie Malone on the '90s romance drama "Beverly Hills, 90210." But it was "nothing like (what) the kids are going through now."

Thiessen credits Aaron Spelling, who was an executive producer of "90210," with giving her an interesting perspective on fame.

"Aaron Spelling said something to me a long time ago that was really interesting," she said. "He said ... movie stars are in big screens and you have to go see them in the theater. TV stars are in people's homes and they feel much more of a connection because you're watching them in your home, and I thought that was really interesting because it was kind of true. A lot of people you know would stop me on the street thinking they went to high school with me."

Thiessen divides her time between Los Angeles, where she lives with her husband and daughter, and New York City, where she films the USA series "White Collar," which aired its season four series finale this week.

Matt Bomer plays former con man Neal Caffrey, who is working with the FBI to catch white-collar criminals. Her character is married to agent Peter Burke, who supervises Caffrey.

"If I wasn't an actor, I probably would be an event planner, which is why my character, Elizabeth, on 'White Collar' is an event planner. It was kind of my idea. Presentation is huge for me. I love throwin' a good party. Absolutely. Like my daughter's birthday last year. I did all the catering, all the food, all the decor and I loved every minute of it. Of course, my husband's like, 'Do we have to do this much?' I just love doing it."

___

Online:

http://www.usanetwork.com/series/whitecollar/

___

Alicia Rancilio covers entertainment for The Associated Press. Follow her online at http://www.twitter.com/aliciar

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/4e67281c3f754d0696fbfdee0f3f1469/Article_2013-03-08-People-Tiffani%20Thiessen/id-b0381221bc9e46589794bd22de190504

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Out Of Hadhramout: Prophet Muhammad's Full Name and Family Tree

Normally, we ?know the name of the Founder of Islam by only his first and most known name: Muhammad ( ??? ???? ???? ????). But, for most Muslims, we know him by many names. And there is his longer name, which many Muslims too, know of - which traces his name way back to Adam, the first man on Earth. Prophet Muhammad was born in Makkah as a fulfilment of the prayer of Abraham. With respect to the lineage of Prophet Muhammad [pbuh], there are three versions: The first was authenticated by biographers and genealogists and states that Muhammad?s genealogy has been traced to ?Adnan. The second is subject to controversies and doubt, and traces his lineage beyond ?Adnan back to Abraham. The third version, with some parts definitely incorrect, traces his lineage beyond Abraham back to Adam [AWS]. Below, in Latin alphabets, is the Prophet's full name:

Muhammad; Ibn Abdullah; Ibn Abd al-Muttalib; Ibn Hashim; Ibn Abd Manaf; Ibn Qusay; Ibn Kelaab; Ibn Mar'ah; Ibn Ka'ab; Ibn Lo'ay; Ibn Ghalib; Ibn Fa'hr; Ibn Malik; Ibn Al'Nadhar; Ibn Kenana; Ibn Khuzaymah; Ibn Madrakah; Ibn Elias; Ibn Madhar; Ibn Nizaar; Ibn Ma'ad; Ibn Adnaan.

Most renowned Muslim scholars and ulamaa agree with Rasool Lal Lah's ?(??? ???? ???? ????)?name, tracing his family lineage up to Adnaan. But after Adnaan, there are many doubts and controversies. That's why most Muslims, when asked to name him through his family lineage, they would only give names up to Adnaan.

+?The Hadith of the Prophet Muhammad (??? ???? ???? ? ???) at your fingertips
+ QURAN & SCIENCE
+ Wikipedia: Family tree of Muhammad

Source: http://hadhramouts.blogspot.com/2013/03/prophet-muhammads-full-name-and-family.html

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It's a Boy! Jessica Simpson's Baby Reveals Are Too Cute

Source: http://www.ivillage.com/jessica-simpson-confirms-shes-having-baby-boy/1-a-525966?dst=iv%3AiVillage%3Ajessica-simpson-confirms-shes-having-baby-boy-525966

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Much has changed since last Dow record

Remember the world on Oct. 9, 2007? That was when the Dow Jones industrial average last set a record high.

It was a headier time back then: pre-financial crisis, pre-bailouts, pre-Great Recession. The stock market still felt like a party. The economy, salaries and investments seemed to go only up. Bernie Madoff was still running his Ponzi scheme. John Edwards was still a viable presidential candidate. Tiger Woods was still only known for his golf.

The Dow, a stock index that is followed as a gauge for the rest of the market, hit its highest close, 14,253.77, on Tuesday. Compare that with the day five years, four months, three weeks and six days ago, when it set its previous high of 14,164.53, and my, how things have changed.

OCCUPY WHAT STREET?

Back then, Bear Stearns still existed. So did Lehman Brothers, Wachovia and Washington Mutual. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were just mortgage lenders, not wards of the government. Far fewer people knew what it felt like to have their fortunes undone by a worldwide meltdown.

The vitriol against the banking industry was still pretty tame. "Occupy Wall Street" wasn't a thing. Mitt Romney, making a run for president, was criticized more for being a Mormon than for being a rich financier.

A "London whale" meant a whale from London, not the trader who caused a surprise $6 billion loss at JPMorgan Chase in 2012. TARP was something you used to cover a lawnmower. Now it's the Troubled Asset Relief Program, which the government used to bail out banks, carmakers and insurers, beginning in 2008.

Nobody outside Alaska had heard of Sarah Palin. Steve Carell was still on "The Office," and it was still funny. Barry Bonds was still a home run champion, not a convicted felon in a steroids case. The first iPhone was new on the market, and the top-selling phone in the U.S. was the Motorola Razr, a "dumb" folding phone.

A FILL-UP FELT LESS LIKE A STICK-UP

The worst of the economic calamity was almost a year away. And even now, though the panic of the financial crisis is gone, its repercussions linger.

In October 2007, gas cost $2.77 a gallon. The average had never soared to more than $4, as it would the following summer. It's now about $3.74.

This was when jobs were easier to come by. The unemployment rate was 4.7 percent. Nearly a quarter century had passed since it had last hit 10 percent, as it would in 2009. It's now at 7.9 percent, well above the desired rate of around 5 percent.

This was when the U.S. was growing consistently. The economy hadn't had a losing quarter, meaning it shrank rather than grew, since 2001. But starting in the first quarter of 2008, it would shrink for five of six quarters. The economy has been growing the past three years, though it expanded at an annual rate of just 0.1 percent in the fourth quarter.

HOMES WERE STILL SWEET

This was when people believed their income could rise every year. The median annual household income would start falling, after adjusting for inflation, in 2008. It's now around $50,054, according to the latest data available from the Census. In 2007, after adjusting for inflation, it was $54,489.

This was when Americans took for granted the idea that housing was a good investment. The median sale price of an existing home was almost $207,000, still close to the record of $230,000, according to the National Association of Realtors. It would start falling in the summer of 2008 and crater at $156,000 in early 2011. It's now around $174,000.

A TURNING POINT QUICKLY TURNED AROUND

If the 2007 record teaches anything, it's that milestones and celebrations can evaporate quickly and severely.

A month after the Oct. 9, 2007, record, the Dow had shed 8 percent of its value. A year after, it was down almost 40 percent. At its worst point in the Great Recession, in March 2009, it had dropped 54 percent from its peak to 6,547.05.

Joe Gordon, managing partner at Gordon Asset Management in North Carolina, remembers, and is underwhelmed by the latest Dow record.

"You can hit these milestones," Gordon says. "But then it can always end badly."

____

AP writers Ben Walker, Christopher S. Rugaber and Jonathan Fahey contributed.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/last-dow-record-things-changed-212531126.html

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Election bump over, Obama approval drops to 43 percent: Reuters/IPSOS poll

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Less than two months into his second term, President Barack Obama's approval rating has dropped and Americans blame him and his fellow Democrats almost as much as his Republican opponents for a fiscal mess.

A Reuters/Ipsos online poll released on Wednesday showed 43 percent of people approve of Obama's handling of his job, down 7 percentage points from February 19.

Most of that steep drop came in the week to February 26 when it was becoming clear that Washington was going to be unable to put aside partisan differences and agree to halt automatic budget cuts which started last Friday.

Confounding the White House's efforts to blame Republicans for the cuts, most respondents in the online survey hold both Democrats and Republicans responsible.

Obama shot out of the gate in January at the start of his second four years in the White House, promising gun control and immigration legislation as well as efforts to tackle climate change and expand gay rights.

But Ipsos pollster Julia Clark said the survey shows Obama's honeymoon is now over, partly due to the "sequestration" cuts which will likely curtail public services like air traffic control and national parks as well as funding for the Pentagon.

"People are seeing things are back to business as usual in Washington," she said. "They are reading about the immense fallout this is going to have in terms of how it's going to affect the military and individuals."

Thirty-eight percent of Americans believe all the political actors involved - Republican and Democratic members of Congress along with Obama - deserve most of the blame for the cuts.

Twenty-seven percent think Republicans in Congress are responsible, 17 percent blamed Obama and 6 percent thought Democrats were to blame. Nearly half of independent voters, 49 percent, said both sides deserve the blame.

"I think this frustration is being reflected certainly in their view of the president and Congress as well. This is a pox on everyone's house really," Clark said.

The fall in Obama's rating was similar to that in the Gallup three-day average tracking poll which shows his approval dropping 7 percentage points from late February to last weekend before recovering slightly.

WHITE HOUSE DEFENSIVE

That survey put the White House on the defensive on Tuesday. Spokesman Jay Carney cautioned that the result should not detract from Obama's efforts to fix thorny tax and spending issues after a convincing election defeat of Republican candidate Mitt Romney last November.

"Before we say anything is clear based on one poll, could we just remember, just think back a few months to the summer and fall of 2012, and understand that we're here focused on the president's agenda, getting the work done that we think is most beneficial to the middle class," he told a briefing.

Obama is now facing questions over whether he and fellow Democrats miscalculated the budget showdown and especially their messaging strategy of making frequent graphic warnings that public services were about to be decimated by cuts.

The strategy seemed aimed at having the public put pressure on Republican lawmakers to cede to White House demands to include tax increases as part of a solution to halt sequestration.

But tax hikes were always going to be a tough sell to Republicans, said William Galston, a Brookings Institution senior fellow who was a domestic policy adviser to President Bill Clinton

"Opposition to taxes is about the only thing holding the current Republican Party together," Galston said. "I can't imagine any Republican leader proposing a new deficit reduction package including tax increases and holding onto his job for very long."

While the budget battle are complex, the Reuters/Ipsos poll showed many Americans are paying attention. The poll found 35 percent of those surveyed are paying a little bit of attention to the fight, 27 percent a fair amount and 9 percent a great deal. More than a quarter, 28 percent, knew nothing at all about it.

In the poll, 1,797 adults were interviewed between March 1-5.

The precision of the Reuters/Ipsos online polls is measured using a credibility interval. In this case, the poll has a credibility interval of plus or minus 2.6 percentage points.

(Editing by Alistair Bell and Eric Walsh)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/election-bump-over-obama-approval-drops-43-percent-060900724--business.html

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Mirren reigns as Britain's queen in 'The Audience'

This undated image released by Boneau/Bryan-Brown shows Helen Mirren as Queen Elizabeth II in a promotional photo for Peter Morgan?s play "The Audience." National Theatre Live said Thursday, Feb. 21, it will broadcast to movie theaters a live performance of the West End world premiere on June 13. The broadcast from the Gielgud Theatre in London will have varying dates internationally and encore screenings throughout the summer. Tickets go on sale March 1. (AP Photo/Boneau/Bryan-Brown, Johan Persson)

This undated image released by Boneau/Bryan-Brown shows Helen Mirren as Queen Elizabeth II in a promotional photo for Peter Morgan?s play "The Audience." National Theatre Live said Thursday, Feb. 21, it will broadcast to movie theaters a live performance of the West End world premiere on June 13. The broadcast from the Gielgud Theatre in London will have varying dates internationally and encore screenings throughout the summer. Tickets go on sale March 1. (AP Photo/Boneau/Bryan-Brown, Johan Persson)

LONDON (AP) ? What is the point of a monarch?

"The Audience," Peter Morgan's new play about Queen Elizabeth II, suggests that in a democracy such as Britain, one role of the sovereign may be as unofficial counselor and therapist to the country's elected leaders.

The play stars Helen Mirren as Her Majesty, and focuses on the queen's relationship with the 12 prime ministers of her 60-year reign. Its title denotes the weekly meetings the two hold at Buckingham Palace. Intended to be completely candid and utterly confidential, they are a chance for politicians to brief the monarch on government business ? and for the queen to offer gentle advice.

"The Audience" is a clever, deft and sentimental play that has humor, pathos and even live corgis.

It seems destined to be a major ? but not universal ? crowd-pleaser, and garnered rave reviews from several British newspapers Wednesday. The Times and Daily Telegraph gave it five stars out of five, with the Telegraph's Charles Spencer declaring Mirren "magnificent" and The Times' Libby Purves calling the play "funny and truthful, good-hearted, spiky, full of surprises."

It's a superb vehicle for Mirren, who won an Academy Award in 2007 for playing Elizabeth onscreen in "The Queen" ? also written by Morgan ? and whose reprise of the role is one of the most-anticipated performances in London this year.

She has said she was reluctant to don the crown again. "I didn't want to become the actress who plays the queen, if you know what I mean," Mirren said this week. "I don't think that's very nice for me, and it's not very nice for the queen."

We don't know what the queen thinks, but theatergoers will be glad Mirren changed her mind.

With understated power, Mirren gives Elizabeth a sharp mind and wry sense of humor beneath a steely shell of dignity and duty. Mirren, who is 67, takes Elizabeth from uncertain ingenue to wise octogenarian while hinting at the core of solitude that comes from being in a role that few others can comprehend.

"When I walk into a room, heads fail to turn," says the resolutely uncharismatic Conservative Prime Minister John Major (Paul Ritter), in one of the play's well-honed one-liners.

"How lovely!" sighs the queen.

The movie "The Queen" was set after the 1997 death of Princess Diana ? a trauma for both country and monarchy ? and showed the queen adrift from public opinion, guided by savvy young Prime Minister Tony Blair.

In "The Audience," it's the queen who does most of the guiding, except in the early days, when a faltering but still forceful Winston Churchill (Edward Fox) gives the inexperienced monarch a key piece of advice ? never let them see you struggle.

Ably directed by the stage and screen veteran Stephen Daldry, the play leaps back and forth in time in a number of short scenes, and has surprising omissions. Blair, one of the longest-serving recent prime ministers, does not appear onstage, and is referred to only briefly. (Morgan, who has written three film and television dramas about Blair, may well be tired of him).

The play suggests that the queen was most fond of the less obviously confident and successful prime ministers. She gives kindly advice to Major and Gordon Brown ? both overshadowed by their charismatic predecessors, Margaret Thatcher and Blair respectively. And she forms a bond with Harold Wilson, a down-to-earth Labour leader with whom the monarch strikes up an unlikely rapport.

Standouts in a strong cast are Ritter as a touchingly insecure and humane Major, and Richard McCabe as Wilson, whose gentle, teasing friendship with the queen brings out the best in both of them.

Haydn Gwynne also makes a strong impression as the forceful Thatcher, distinctly un-awed in the presence of her sovereign.

No minutes are kept of the meetings between prime ministers and monarchs, so Morgan's script is based on imagination as well as research. It is a royal fantasy, and some viewers will fail to be swayed by Morgan's depiction of a monarch who is ? in the words of Wilson ? "basically a leftie," prepared to rebuke Thatcher over her stance on apartheid and caution a prime minister about the risks of entering a Middle East War. (The PM is Anthony Eden and the conflict the 1956 Suez Crisis, but the parallel to Blair and Iraq is resonant.)

The whole thing is often funny and ultimately affecting, but is it realistic? Who knows? For many, that will be the appeal of the play. Morgan imagines his way into two secret spaces: the inside of that palace meeting room and ? more tantalizingly ? the inside of the queen's head, and her heart.

"The Audience" runs at the Gielgud Theatre in London until June 15. The June 13 performance will be broadcast live to movie theaters around Britain, and on varying dates to cinemas around the world.

___

Online: http://www.theaudienceplay.com/

Jill Lawless can be reached at http://Twitter.com/JillLawless

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/4e67281c3f754d0696fbfdee0f3f1469/Article_2013-03-06-Britain-Theater%20Review-The%20Audience/id-bb6502a8aa5743628a903e1c7892dc2b

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Expectant parents die in crash; baby born at scene

By Alexander Smith, BreakingNews.com, and Tracy Connor, NBC News

A young couple en route to a hospital to have their first child was killed in a car crash in New York City early Sunday but the baby was born at the scene and survived.

Nathan and Raizy Glauber, both 21 and Orthodox Jews, were using a car service to go to the hospital when another vehicle crashed into the side of theirs at an intersection in the Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn, Hasidic community activist and family friend Isaac Abraham said.

Nathan Glauber was pronounced dead at Beth Israel Hospital, while his wife died at Bellevue, the New York Post and The Associated Press reported.

Pictures of the scene were posted on Vos Iz Neias, a news site that covers the Jewish community.

The couple's son was delivered at the scene and was taken to a hospital in serious condition, said Abraham, who is also a neighbor of Raizy Glauber's parents and lives two blocks from the scene of the crash.

Abraham said: "The child is in a serious condition in Beth Israel Hospital, in Manhattan. Now we just pray with the child that all medical efforts keep him alive."

He added: "I know Raizy because I saw her grow up from a child."

The driver of the vehicle that hit the couple's car fled, police told the AP. No arrests have yet been made.

The Post reported that a BMW was involved and that it was the driver of the BMW who fled the scene, at the intersection of Kent Avenue and Wilson Street.

The condition of the car service's driver is unclear, police said, according to the AP.

Brooklyn is home to the largest community of ultra-orthodox Jews outside Israel, more than 250,000.

Alastair Jamieson, ?NBC News, and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

This story was originally published on Sun Mar 3, 2013 6:06 AM EST

Source: http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/03/03/17166773-expectant-parents-killed-in-nyc-crash-baby-born-at-scene?lite

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Why Every Office Should Switch To Walking Desks

Man was not meant to spend all day hunched over a dimly lit screen; disturbingly high incidences of obesity, joint pain and fatigue are our bodies’ not-so-subtle ways of saying they want to get up and move around. After piloting a walking desk – a standing desk attached to a treadmill – for a month, I’m convinced they should become the default workstation. Immediately, my daily calorie burn jumped 30.7 percent, and I lost 3 pounds and a percent of body fat in a week. I also experienced less joint pain throughout the day. What Is A Walking Desk? The Lifespan TR-1200-DT5 (retail: $1,500) places a square standing desk atop standard-size treadmill (74″). Instead of a large front dashboard, a relatively discrete control panel for speed is attached on the body-facing side of the desk. Speed varies from .4 MPH to 4MPH (about the pace of a light run). Getting Started With Slow But Steady Adjustments Migrating to the walking desk was relatively easy: I just plopped my laptop and monitor down on the squarish 46-inch desk and got to work. The intuitive interface lets you choose several tracking mechanisms for calorie burn and distance. The first day I couldn’t walk more than an hour at a time before I felt like I was losing concentration. It also takes some getting used to walking like a Tyrannosaurus rex (arms tucked-in and elbows bent at the keyboard). At first, I would work for an hour walking, and then sit for 30 minutes. The first day I walked about four hours. Now I only rest once a day. It also took a bit to develop the musculature in my upper back to support raised arms for hours on end. This is no longer a problem. After experimenting with different speeds, I now vary between .8 and 1.2, picking up speed in the late morning/early afternoon to offset the natural fatigue that precedes the morning news rush. Every so often I have to lean on my elbows or straddle the rails to take a break. Burning More Calories While it’s intuitive to think that walking for an extra 5 to 8 hours a day would burn more calories, recent scientific evidence suggested otherwise. A study of “exergames” – video games that require full-body movement – found “no evidence that children receiving the active video games were more active in general, or at any

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/97pY8HXI4Dk/

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Shiri Appleby Bares Her Bump In a Bikini

With Appleby due mid-March, the countdown to Baby Shook's big arrival is officially on.

Source: http://feeds.celebritybabies.com/~r/celebrity-babies/~3/cCAxi370LMg/

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