Wesley Snipes was sentenced to three years in prison on tax
charges
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Judge sentences Snipes to 3 years for tax convictions - MSN Movies News - 0 views
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U.S. District Judge William Terrell Hodges said Snipes exhibited a "history of contempt over a period of time" for U.S. tax laws,
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one year for each of Snipes' convictions of willfully failing to file a tax return.
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"I am an idealistic, naive, passionate, truth-seeking, spiritually motivated artist, unschooled in the science of law and finance," Snipes said.
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alleged Snipes made at least $13.8 million for the years in question and owed $2.7 million in back taxes.
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Fewer U.S. teens are getting pregnant - Pregnancy- msnbc.com - 0 views
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Fewer U.S. teens got pregnant in 2004 but more women in their 20s had out-of-wedlock pregnancies, according to new federal statistics
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more women are keeping their babies even if they are not married, with the exception of black women.
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45 percent of all pregnancies are among women who are not married,
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typical "unwed mother" is no longer a teenager but in fact an older woman
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38 percent of pregnancies in 2004 were to women under the age of 25, which is down from nearly 43 percent in 1990.
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12 percent of all pregnancies were to teenagers, compared to 15 percent in 1990.
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6.4 million pregnancies in 2004 among U.S. women of all ages, down 6 percent from 1990.
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4.11 million babies were born. There were 1.22 million abortions and 1.06 million stillbirths and miscarriages. That means 64 percent of all pregnancies resulted in a live birth.
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pregnancy rates fell the most among sexually experienced teens, suggesting that better use of contraception may be responsible.
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more women are delaying childbearing.
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Mayor, sheriff fight over immigration sweeps - Life- msnbc.com - 0 views
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mayor wants the FBI to investigate whether the local county sheriff has violated any civil rights laws with his recent high-profile crackdowns on illegal immigrants.
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drawn protests from civil rights and immigrant-rights advocates, but they have drawn support from backers of Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio and from people who believe the government hasn't done enough against illegal immigration.
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"saturation patrols"
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discriminatory harassment and improper stops, searches, and arrests by sheriff's deputies
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"Over the past few weeks, Sheriff Arpaio's actions have infringed on the civil rights of our residents," Gordon
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letter the same day U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials observed his deputies arresting residents and illegal immigrants in the town of Guadalupe and approved of the sheriff's work.
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past month, sheriff's deputies and trained volunteers have gone into neighborhoods with large Hispanic populations, stopping people for routine traffic violations and asking some of them about their immigration status.
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American Jewish Committee issued a joint letter saying the patrols "evoked a 'police state' atmosphere"
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Guilty plea in Craigslist assassin case - Crime & courts- msnbc.com - 0 views
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A Michigan woman who advertised online for a hitman to kill her lover's wife pleaded guilty to the murder-for-hire scheme
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Anne Marie Linscott, 49, faces 10 years in prison for each of three federal charges,
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intent to commit murder
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defendant asked two of the respondents via e-mail to "eradicate" the victim and provided the victim's name, age and employment address.
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looking for "silent assassins" and offered to pay $5,000 to kill the victim,
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Her account name was "bourne2run."
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a resident of Rockford, Michigan
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carried on a sexual affair
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prosecutors agreed to drop charges she had left an incendiary device outside her rival's house
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Testing may kill animals needlessly - Washington Post- msnbc.com - 0 views
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American doctors inject more than 3 million doses of Botox to temporarily smooth their patients' wrinkles and frown lines. But before each batch is shipped, the manufacturer puts it through one of the oldest and most controversial animal tests available.
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check the potency
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injects mice with Botox until it finds a dose at which half of the animals die
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poster child for everything that's wrong with animal testing," said Martin Stephens,
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no choice.
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Without a federally approved safety test that does not use animals,
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A decade after Congress created a panel to spur the development of non-animal tests, only four such tests have been approved out of 185 reviews
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Instead of acting as an advocate for companies and nonprofits proposing non-animal tests, the panel has become an obstacle,
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executive director of the U.S. panel, William S. Stokes, said in a statement that his group "has successfully reviewed over 185 test methods"
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Will a 9-Year-Old Change the Vaccine Debate? - Well - Tara Parker-Pope - Health - New Y... - 0 views
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9-year-old Hannah Poling of Athens, Ga.,
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fueled the controversy about childhood vaccines
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Hannah was 19 months old and developing normally until 2000, when she received five shots against nine infectious diseases. She became sick and later was given a diagnosis of autism.
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vaccines may have aggravated an underlying disorder affecting her mitochondria,
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government has finally conceded that vaccines cause autism
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federal government’s first-ever public meeting to discuss a government-wide research agenda to explore the safety of vaccines.
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More than 200 dead as battle rages in Baghdad - Times Online - 0 views
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toll from fierce fighting in Baghdad’s Sadr City has risen to at least 200 dead and more than 1,000 injured, according to doctors in the besieged suburb.
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reports from Sadr City hospitals suggest far higher casualty figures than previously reported, although they cannot be independently verified
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doctors claimed only a minority of the dead appeared to be militants.
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most had died from shrapnel wounds.
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Iraqi government yesterday briefly lifted a blockade of the suburb, and allowed about 20 lorries loaded with food, blankets and medical supplies to enter the area.
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American convoy was struck by at least 10 roadside bombs while moving in to support Iraqi soldiers setting up a checkpoint in the west of the city, the US military reported.
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“Children, women and old men have been injured and killed and there are no ambulances,” said Um Ali, a housewife, by telephone from her home in Sadr City.
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Nation & World | Roll of dice linked to roll in hay | Seattle Times Newspaper - 0 views
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Roll of dice linked to roll in hay
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A new brain-scan study may help explain what's going on in the minds of financial titans when they take risky monetary gambles: sex.
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When young men were shown erotic pictures, they were more likely to make a larger financial gamble than if they were shown a picture of something scary, such as a snake, or something neutral, such as a stapler, university researchers reported
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he arousing pictures lit up the same part of the brain that lights up when financial risks are taken.
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"You have a need in an evolutionary sense for both money and women. They trigger the same brain area,"
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said Camelia Kuhnen, a Northwestern University finance professor who conducted the study with a Stanford University psychologist.
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The study involved 15 heterosexual men in the 18-26 age range at Stanford University. It focused on the sex and money hub, the V-shape nucleus accumbens, which sits near the base of the brain and plays a central role in what you experience as pleasure.
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When that hub was activated by the erotic images, the men were far more likely to bet high on a random chance game that would earn them either a dollar or a dime.
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Each man made more than 50 gambles under brain scans.
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it's all about the power of emotion and arousal and our financial decisions. The trigger doesn't have to be sex; it could be chocolate or a winning lottery ticket.
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"It didn't matter if the sexy woman didn't tell you anything about the odds of winning a roulette game,"
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"What really matters is that the sexy woman is having an emotional impact. That bleeds over into your financial decisions."
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The study conforms with recent research that indicates men shown a pornographic movie were more likely to make riskier sexual decisions.
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AP Wire News - nvdaily.com - 0 views
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Food price inflation changes how we shop
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Ground beef, milk, chicken, apples, tomatoes, lettuce, coffee and orange juice are among the staples that cost more these days, according to the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics.
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The worst case of food inflation in nearly 20 years has more Americans giving up restaurant meals to eat at home. We're buying fewer luxury food items, eating more leftovers and buying more store brands instead of name-brand items.
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For Peggy and David Valdez of Houston, feeding their family of four means scouring grocer ads for the best prices, taking fewer trips as a way to save gas and simply buying less food, period.
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Record-high energy, corn and wheat prices in the past year have led to sticker shock in the grocery aisles. At $1.32, the average price of a loaf of bread has increased 32 percent since January 2005. In the last year alone, the average price of carton of eggs has increased almost 50 percent.
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Steadily rising food costs aren't just causing grocery shoppers to do a double-take at the checkout line - they're also changing the very ways we feed our families.
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Soaring prices are causing shoppers to rethink long-held habits such as store loyalty.
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Wal-Mart and other supercenters that sell food now account for 24 percent of the market, according to the most recent annual survey of shopping habits by Hammonds' organization.
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Nationwide, a family of four on a moderate-cost shopping plan now spends an average of $904 each month for groceries, an $80 increase from two years ago, according to the USDA
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more canned food instead of fresh produce.
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Portions are smaller
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corn, now in high demand because of increased ethanol production, to wheat that has tripled in price over the past 10 months - has some industry observers suggesting that higher food prices aren't a temporary fluctuation but instead may be here to stay.
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Norwegian hospital to equip babies with anti-theft alarms - 0 views
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Norwegian hospital to equip babies with anti-theft alarms
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A Norwegian hospital said Monday it was planning to equip all newborn babies with anti-theft alarms to protect them from kidnappings and help avoid identity mix-ups.
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"The main reason is that we want to emphasise security," Erik Normann, head of the Akershus University Hospital near Oslo told AFP.
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"There was a period in which Norway experienced several infant kidnappings and that is something we want to avoid,"
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The alarm system consists of two small chips, one attached to a bracelet clasped around the baby's ankle as soon as it is born and the other stuck on the mother's bracelet.
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When the two chips are separated by a certain distance the alarm is set off. If a woman tries to leave with a baby who is not her own, or if someone tries to rip the bracelet off an infant, the hospital doors automatically lock shut and the hospital elevators grind to a halt.
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The Akershus hospital, which has one of Norway's largest maternity wards with some 4,200 babies delivered there each year, has never experienced an infant kidnapping, Normann said.
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Land reforms could reshape Cuba - Americas- msnbc.com - 0 views
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Communist Cuba is opening up unused land to private farmers and cooperatives as part of a sweeping effort to step up agricultural production.
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Raul Castro, who vowed when he took over from his brother Fidel to remove some of the more irksome limitations on the daily lives of Cubans
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Cubans snapped up DVD players, motorbikes and pressure cookers for the first time since the new government loosened controls on consumer goods.
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Tourism Ministry announced that any Cuban with enough money can now stay in luxury hotels and rent cars, doing away with restrictions that made ordinary people feel like second-class citizens. And last week, Cuba said citizens will be able to get cell phones legally in their own names, a luxury long reserved for the lucky few.
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Dr. Death Kevorkian plans to run for Congress | Politics | Reuters - 0 views
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Jack Kevorkian
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he will run for the U.S. Congress.
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announced his bid to run as an independent less than a year after being released from prison
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His candidacy will pit Kevorkian against Republican incumbent Joe Knollenberg and Democrat Gary Peters in Michigan's 9th District
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representing the Detroit suburbs
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planned to run against the "tyranny" of the U.S. Supreme Court which he said has robbed Americans of their rights.
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upscale suburbs of Bloomfield Hills and Birmingham.
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Hype Machine: Searching for ZAP's Fleet of No-Show Green Cars - 0 views
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In February 2007, he asked when exactly the company intended to begin delivering the ZAP-X. "Gary Starr told me, Well, it may be two years out, it may be four years out, it may never happen.'
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ZAP has taken millions from investors and dealers eager to see the company's line of green cars hit the road. But that line has never materialized. Of nearly a dozen groundbreaking eco-vehicles ZAP has promised in public announcements and on its Web site, only the Xebra and its sibling, a truck version, have ever made it to market. As a result, fans of electric cars have grown disillusioned, while individuals like Youssef have been financially devastated. What's more, investment firms around the country have become cautious about financing electric vehicles after being repeatedly misled by one of the industry's most visible companies.
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Former Pentagon official pleads guilty in China spy case | csmonitor.com - 0 views
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former Pentagon official pleaded guilty in court Monday to an espionage charge over the disclosure of secret data to an alleged Chinese agent in the US. Gregg Bergersen said he was unaware that the Taiwan-born businessman was passing the information to China.
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Pentagon revealed that it had sent nuclear fuses to Taiwan by mistake in 2006
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raised eyebrows over US safeguards on nuclear-related technology
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Associated Press reports that Taiwanese military officials have said that Bergersen's disclosures were damaging but hadn't compromised key defense technology.
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Taking a bath on water tax :: CHICAGO SUN-TIMES :: Metro & Tri-State - 0 views
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Taking a bath on water tax
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BUDGET | Revenue from new fee far below what was expected
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Are Chicagoans trekking to the suburbs to buy cases of bottled water -- and avoid a new nickel-a-container tax that adds $1.20 to the price of a 24-pack? Or are they making the switch to tap water to save money?
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Revenues from Chicago's new bottled water tax are trickling in -- at a rate nearly 40 percent below projections -- exacerbating a budget crunch that has already prompted Mayor Daley to order $20 million in spending cuts.
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January collections were $554,000. That's far short of the $875,000-a-month needed to meet the city's $10.5 million-a-year projection.
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"Since January is generally one of the coldest months of the winter, we don't think January collections are a strong indicator of potential revenue for the remainder of the year," she said.
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But that doesn't explain away what Vite calls "enormous increases" in suburban bottled water sales, particularly in stores near the Chicago border.
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Suicide Robot: Man Kills Himself In Australia |Sky News|Technology - 0 views
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Man Kills Himself With 'Suicide Robot'
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An Australian pensioner has reportedly killed himself after building a "suicide robot" from plans downloaded from the internet.
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The 81-year-old, from Queensland, set up the machine to remotely fire a semi-automatic pistol.
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When he activated it, it fired several shots into his head.
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The man, who lived alone, left a suicide note saying he was unhappy at being forced by relatives to move into care home.
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Full details of how the machine worked have not been released.
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The man explained in his notes that he set the machine up on his driveway as he knew there were builders next door, and they would be alerted by the sound of gunshot.
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There has been a recent increase in the use of robots for military purposes.
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"Once the new weapons are out there, they will be fairly easy to copy. How long is it going to be before the terrorists get in on the act?"
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Universe Today » 13.73 Billion Years - The Most Precise Measurement of the Ag... - 0 views
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13.73 Billion Years - The Most Precise Measurement of the Age of the Universe Yet
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NASA's Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) has taken the best measurement of the age of the Universe to date. According to highly precise observations of microwave radiation observed all over the cosmos, WMAP scientists now have the best estimate yet on the age of the Universe: 13.73 billion years, plus or minus 120 million years (that's an error margin of only 0.87%… not bad really…).
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Sun-Earth second Lagrangian point (L2)
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1.5 million km from the surface of the Earth on the night-side
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The reason for this location is the nature of the gravitational stability in the region and the lack of electromagnetic interference from the Sun.
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Constantly looking out into space, WMAP scans the cosmos with its ultra sensitive microwave receiver, mapping any small variations in the background "temperature" (anisotropy) of the universe.
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3.3-13.6 mm
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This microwave background radiation originates from a very early universe, just 400,000 years after the Big Bang, when the ambient temperature of the universe was about 3,000 K.
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These measurements refine our understanding about the structure of our universe around the time of the Big Bang and also help us understand the nature of the period of "inflation", in the very beginning of the expansion of the Universe.
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BBC NEWS | Scotland | Brown criticised over embryo bill - 0 views
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Brown criticised over embryo bill
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The leader of the Roman Catholic church in Scotland has urged the prime minister to rethink "monstrous" plans to allow hybrid human-animal embryos.
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The prime minister has said the bill would improve research into many illnesses.
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Supporters of the bill believe hybrid embryos could lead to cures for diseases including multiple sclerosis and Alzheimer's disease.
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Leading scientists accused the Roman Catholic Church of "scaremongering" over research which had the potential to save many lives.
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Cardinal O'Brien, who is the Archbishop of St Andrews and Edinburgh, also wants Catholic ministers serving in the Cabinet to stand down rather than support the bill.
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The cardinal describes the practice as "grotesque" and "hideous".
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"There will be a limit of 14 days' development of the embryo, and they cannot be put in a woman or an animal," she added.
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"This is not about 'creating monsters'. It is purely laboratory research, and is aimed at increasing knowledge about serious diseases and treatments for them."
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Lib Dem MP Dr Evan Harris
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"He is entitled to reject any treatment coming from this research on behalf of himself and his more devout followers but the millions of people hoping for medical research breakthroughs using stem cell technology would regard his attempt to veto this for them as well to be 'monstrous'."
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Sydney goes dark for Earth Hour - World environment- msnbc.com - 0 views
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Sydney’s iconic Opera House and Harbour Bridge went dark
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as the world’s first major city turned off its lights for this year’s Earth Hour
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Most businesses and homes were already dark as Sydney residents embraced their second annual Earth Hour with candlelight dinners, beach bonfires and even a green-powered outdoor movie.
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250 of the 350 commercial buildings there had pledged to shut off their lights completely.
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2.2 million people and more than 2,000 businesses shut off lights and appliances, resulting in a 10.2 percent reduction in carbon emissions during that hour.
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26 major world cities and more than 300 other cities and towns have signed up for the event.
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One of the last major cities to participate will be San Francisco
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“What’s amazing is that it’s transcending political boundaries and happening in places like China, Vietnam, Papua New Guinea,” said Earth Hour executive director Andy Ridley.
