Pennsylvania Man Faces Charges After He Was Found Living With 12 Girls
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Posted:Jun 20, 2016 5:27 pm
Last Updated:May 11, 2024 4:48 pm
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A Pennsylvania man faces several charges after authorities found him living with 12 girls whose ages ranged between six months to 18 years old.
Lee Kaplan, 51, was charged with statutory sexual assault, aggravated indecent assault and other offenses after police followed up on a neighbor’s tip and made the discovery Thursday at his Feasterville home, the Associated Press reports.
The apparently home-schooled girls were “living in the basement” and “hiding in the chicken coop,” Robert Hoopes, Lower Southampton’s director of public safety, told USA Today. They were in relatively good condition, Hoopes said.
Authorities were working over the weekend to find answers as to how the dozen girls came under Kaplan’s care and to identify all the girls in the house.
An 18-year-old in the home told police she and Kaplan had a 3-year-old and a 6-month old together, according to USA Today. The was given to Kaplan as a “gift” from her biological parents, who told authorities they didn’t have enough money to raise her, the newspaper reports.
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80-Year-Old Body Builder: 'Age is Nothing But a Number'
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Posted:Jun 20, 2016 5:26 pm
Last Updated:Jun 21, 2016 1:03 pm
5666 Views
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One of the world’s oldest female body builders, Ernestine Shepherd, just gained another year in what she’s called her “long happy journey” of life. Now 80, the fitness trainer, model, competitive body builder, and new author celebrated her June 16 birthday with a Facebook post declaring her continued determination, dedication, and discipline. “I am 80 years young today and I thank God for bringing me this far. I’m still determined, I’m still dedicated and I’m still disciplined to be fit!” Shepherd wrote, inspiring more 18,000 likes of encouragement.
After being named the oldest female body builder by the Guinness Book of World Records in both 2010 and 2011, Shepherd began to publicly share the story of how she came to live a life of tenacity and perseverance beginning at the age of 56. What started as a modest curiosity about working out turned into a life-changing route to happiness once her sister died suddenly from a brain aneurysm, she told HooplaHa. In an attempt to fulfill the fitness goals Shepherd had created with her late sister, she developed a following and a legacy admired by people of all ages.
Shepherd celebrated her current success with the release of her book The “Ageless” Journey of Ernestine Shepherd, in which she writes about the secrets to her health and well-being. The book, which was released earlier this month, details the keys to her motivation, including:
“Age is nothing but a number.” In addition to her mantra, “Determined, dedicated, disciplined to be fit,” Shepherd believes that “being out of shape as we age truly is merely an option – NOT a mandate!”
Eat clean. Shepherd sticks to a daily diet of 1,700 calories, which includes egg whites, chicken and vegetables.
Do the same workout every day. In an interview with Oprah, Shepherd revealed, “I do the same thing day in and day out.” This daily routine includes a workout that begins at 3 or 4am with a 10-mile run.
Find what you like to do. The fitness trainer teaches classes of her own, but encourages people to exercise in whichever way they like. “Not everybody wants to be a body builder, not everybody wants to be a runner. But find what you like to do,” she told Oprah.
Have something that motivates you. Although Shepherd finds strength in prayer, she says she owes most of her motivation to her late sister.
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What Black Americans Say About ‘Black-on-Black’ Gun Violence We understand that police violence and
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Posted:Jun 3, 2016 1:32 pm
Last Updated:Jun 3, 2016 6:13 pm
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Over Memorial Day weekend, at least 69 people were shot in Chicago. If past trends continue, most of them are people of color. Mass shootings in places like Newtown, Aurora, and San Bernardino grab national attention, but gun violence is a regular part of life in many communities of color. Among boys and men ages 15-34, for example, African Americans are over 20 times more likely than whites to be victims of gun homicide
THIS WILL BE A HISTORIC (AND TERRIFYING) ELECTION FOR GUN CONTROL
George Zornick
While more attention to gun violence in communities of color is sorely needed, too often existing coverage focuses on “black-on-black” dysfunction rather than structural causes and potential solutions.
A recent New York Times story provides an example. “A Drumbeat of Multiple Shootings, but America is Not Listening” chronicled the victims of 358 shootings with four or more deaths or injuries. Many stemmed from arguments over a petty grievance, an insult, or another sign of disrespect. The story emphasized the “black-on-black” nature of gun violence, and suggested black activists expend too much energy protesting police violence against African Americans and too little energy focused on “routine gun violence.” While the story’s narrative describing the death of an innocent bystander put a compelling face on statistics, the story did not offer meaningful solutions.
The problem of gun violence stems not just from petty grievances among impulsive youth of color, however, but from larger structural issues such as credibility of law enforcement, easy access to guns, and a lack of job skills and opportunities. Communities of color care about both gun violence and police violence. Further, communities of color are not simply sources of problems—they also provide important solutions.
Last month, the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, the Urban Institute, and the Joyce Foundation released Engaging Communities in Reducing Gun Violence: A Road Map for Safer Communities. Our research debunked the notion that African Americans are less attentive to the problem of gun violence than police violence.
In compiling this report, we brought together and listened to residents of communities hard-hit by gun violence—faith leaders, formerly incarcerated individuals, law enforcement, elected officials, social service providers, community activists, and others. Most of the participants were black or Latino—people like Fathers & Families of San Joaquin Executive Director Sammy Nunez; Petersburg, Virginia, Police Chief John Dixon; and Wanda Montgomery of ’s Hospital of Wisconsin. Others were members of our steering committee and have devoted their careers to building safer communities—people like Gary, Indiana, Mayor Karen Freeman-Wilson; Rev. Michael McBride of PICO National Network; and Kayla Hicks of the Educational Fund to Stop Gun Violence. We then tested the ideas that emerged against a nationwide survey of 600 African Americans and 600 Latinos conducted by Benenson Strategy Group (BSG) and Ron Lester and Associates.
While about half of African Americans we surveyed nationally described police brutality (54 percent) and police misconduct (50 percent) in America as extremely serious problems, 80 percent of African Americans described gun violence in America as an extremely serious problem. Indeed, rather than discounting gun violence or seeing it in a silo isolated from police violence, many African Americans see the problems as interconnected. For example, 61 percent of African Americans agreed with the statement that “fewer guns on the streets would improve the relationship between the police and the communities they serve.”
Similarly, the communities with which we met thought improving police-community relationships was a key factor in reducing gun violence. Distrust that stems from arbitrary stops and discriminatory enforcement makes residents less willing to work with police, and makes communities less safe.
Solutions put forth by community members were supported by the survey research. Over 90 percent of African Americans and Latinos supported strengthening police accountability through civilian review boards, body-worn cameras, and racial bias assessment and training of police (including new recruits). Over 76 percent of both groups support prioritizing enforcement on higher-level gun violence offenders rather than lower-level “broken windows” offenders.
Community members also emphasized other solutions that address structural factors that underlie gun violenc
For example, community residents recommended limiting access to guns by the small group of people at high risk of engaging in violence—sometimes no more than 0.25 to 1 percent of a city’s population. Rather than looking to greater penalties for handgun possession that could increase mass incarceration, community members emphasized universal background checks, mandatory reporting for lost and stolen firearms, and increased oversight of licensed firearm dealers. Each proposal was supported by over 86 percent of African Americans and Latinos in the survey research. These restrictions are seen as reducing rather than fueling mass incarceration. About three-quarters of both African Americans and Latinos agreed that “if we keep guns out of the wrong hands, we can also help decrease the number of people who are in prison.”
Community members also recognized that areas hardest hit by gun violence often have suffered disinvestment of resources by companies and the public sector, and that many of those at high risk to commit or to be victimized by gun violence face a lack of job skills and opportunities, addiction, and other challenges. Thus, our report recommends increased investment in social services targeted at high-risk populations and their families, such as drug treatment, mental health services, job training and placement, and conflict interrupters who mediate disputes and discourage retaliation. Over 92 percent of African Americans and over 88 percent of Latinos support solutions like job training, life skills support, and mental health counseling available to young people and people just released from jail or prison.
In addition to these solutions, we heard a deep desire for community members to engage with law enforcement, elected officials, and other community leaders in developing and implementing solutions to gun violence.
While we should be honest and give much-needed attention to gun violence in communities of color, we need to consider all the facts. Focusing largely on shallow black-on-black spats makes gun violence a “black and brown” problem, masks deeper structural causes of gun violence, and obscures the responsibility of all Americans to help solve the problem. Our new research suggests that communities that are most affected by gun violence understand the challenges, know the solutions that will have the greatest impact, and are eager to be at the table to drive those solutions forward.
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Eat These Three Foods Almost Every Day
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Posted:May 24, 2016 12:37 pm
Last Updated:May 11, 2024 4:48 pm
5933 Views
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Apples
Remember learning in kindergarten “A is for apple?” That “A” I think stood for “amazing.” Apples are one of the most popular fruits with some amazing health benefits keeping us well–there’s a reason for the saying “An apple a day keeps the doctor away.”
Apples provide a rich supply of phytochemicals, antioxidants, flavonoids, vitamin A and dietary fiber. They are also rich in the powerful flavonoid quercetin which acts as an antioxidant and may prevent some cancers and protect arteries and the heart. Eating a whole apple is better than apple juice which loses 80 percent of it quercetin during processing.
In addition to their crunchy goodness, it also appears that apples may improve several health conditions as follows:
A study in the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition demonstrated apple consumption seemed to be related to a decreased risk of thrombotic stroke.
Another study found people who ate three servings of apples weekly had a 7 percent lower risk of developing type 2 diabetes compared to those who did not.
To top it off, apples may have an influence in preventing dementia. A 2008 study in the Journal of Food Science found eating an apple a day may protect neuron cells against oxidative stress-induced neurotoxicity possibly reducing Alzheimer’s disease.
Store apples in the crisper drawer in the fridge and lay a slightly dampened paper towel on top of the apples.
Carrots
Carrots are one of the most favorite vegetables in the world, primarily because they are easy to grow and they are very versatile in cooking. They can be easily added to soups, stews or smoothies, shredded over salads, steamed, stir-fried or eaten raw.
We tend to think carrots come in only one color–orange. How wrong we are. Carrots in the colors of purple, white, yellow, and red are around just not as common.
Carrots health benefits come from their beta carotene and fiber content. They are also known to be a rich source of vitamin A, pantothenic acid, folate, potassium, copper and manganese.
Some important health benefits carrots provide are in maintaining good digestive functioning. Carrot’s high fiber content–4.6 grams in one cup–adds bulk to bowel movements preventing constipation while stimulating peristaltic motion and the secretion of gastric juice.
You never see rabbits wearing glasses and they love carrots and for a very good reason – carrots may reduce risk of macular degeneration. Research has found people who ate foods with the most beta carotene had a 40 percent lower risk of macular degeneration than those who did not. Beta carotene is the precursor to vitamin A which boosts our vision.
Another benefit of beta carotene is it has been linked to a reduction in lung cancer. Researchers found when beta carotene consumption went from 1.7 to 2.7 milligrams per day it reduced lung cancer by 40 percent. Carrots contain about 3 milligrams of beta carotene.
To keep carrots fresh, store them in a plastic bag in the refrigerator’s vegetable bin. Avoid storing them next to apples, which emit ethylene gas that can give carrots a bitter taste.
Walnuts
When it came to choosing walnuts, it was a toss-up between all the other nuts available. Walnuts came out the winner as they are the only nut–and one of the few foods–that provide an excellent source of alpha-linolenic acid (ALA), the plant-based form of omega-3. A ¼ cup of walnuts contains 2.5 grams of ALA more than eight times the amount found in the next highest nut which is good news for our heart health and in reducing inflammation.
Walnuts also contain the amino acid l-arginine important for vascular health. In fact, walnuts positively affect various heart health markers from reducing total cholesterol, lowering LDL cholesterol, raising HDL cholesterol, and decreasing blood pressure
Diabetes is another disease walnuts can have a beneficial effect on. Research shows that consuming 2 ounces a day can significantly improve endothelial function in people with type 2 diabetes and they may also play a role in managing metabolic syndrome.
To maximize the shelf life of walnuts store them in a cool, dry area. Once the package is opened, place them in a sealed airtight container to maintain freshness.
Visit http://Adult Dating zone.com type in the food name for additional information on the nutritional content of apples, carrots and walnuts.
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Black women at West Point caught up in photo controversy
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Posted:May 16, 2016 5:20 pm
Last Updated:May 17, 2016 1:25 am
6396 Views
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Self-expression is hardly a part of life for cadets at the U.S. Military Academy.
So it was far from ordinary when 16 black women put their own spin on the traditional graduation photo, hoisting their fists in the air while posing in their dress uniforms, swords at their sides.
A social media firestorm followed. So did an internal inquiry at the school.
Some viewed the cadets' pose as a gesture of racial solidarity and strength. Others questioned whether it was a statement of support for Black Lives Matter.
West Point officials decided last week that the photo was not politically motivated and no punishment was warranted. Still, that outcome left some black female graduates confused: Why would anyone see controversy in how those 16 women celebrated their experience in the Long Gray Line?
"When I saw it, I said, 'I wish me and my classmates had taken a picture like that,'" said Shalela Dowdy, a 2012 graduate and a friend of some of the women in the photograph. "But something clicked in my mind that not too many people would be happy about that picture. The fist stands for unity and solidarity, but some people are going to take this the wrong way."
None of the 16 women would agree to be interviewed for this story. Speaking through black alumnae, they cited a need to focus on their graduation next Saturday, when Vice President Joe Biden will give the commencement address, and life after West Point. For some, that will mean active-duty service in the Army. They will become Army officers after leaving the academy.
The picture was one of several the women took in their traditional dress uniforms. A different photo, without the raised firsts, was tweeted by the chairwoman of West Point's Board of Visitors.
Mary Tobin, who has mentored other black female cadets since graduating in 2003, said few are inclined to discuss their experiences publicly.
"To be a black woman at West Point is essentially to make a choice going in ... that the majority of the time, you can never fully express your womanhood or your blackness," Tobin said. "We're told we're all green. We don't ever talk about it, because it's hard enough for everyone at West Point to graduate."
The cadets pictured are joining a rare but proud group of black women who have broken barriers on dual fronts at West Point. In interviews with The Associated Press, black alumnae describe a rewarding experience with challenges that included navigating racial incidents.
Established in 1802, West Point went co-ed in 1976. Four years later, there were 62 female graduates. In that class were the first black female graduates, Joy Dallas and Priscilla "Pat" Walker Locke. West Point has graduated 357 black women in its 114-year history, and the Class of 2016 includes 18 black women.
Blacks have contributed to West Point's legacy for centuries, from the first African-American cadet, Henry O. Flipper, who graduated in 1877, to 2nd Lt. Emily Perez, a black woman who was the first member of the "Class of 9/11" to die in combat, in 2006.
According to admissions director Col. Deborah McDonald, about 15,000 students apply to West Point each year, and about 9 percent enroll. There were 1,859 black applicants for the incoming freshman class, and 14 percent of them were accepted, McDonald said.
West Point's numbers are mirrored at the other U.S. military service academies. The Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, counts 20 women who identify as African-American in its 2016 graduating class of 1,215. The Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colorado, has a graduating class of 827, of whom 11 are African-American women. The Coast Guard Academy, in New London, Connecticut, didn't have a gender breakdown by race, but said three students identifying as African-American are in the graduating class of 186.
The application process at West Point is rigorous. Most cadets get in with a letter of recommendation from a member of Congress or the vice president. A medical and physical test is required.
Once enrolled, students are immersed in a campus environment that doesn't focus on individuality, explained Donald Outing, West Point's chief diversity officer.
"It's about adopting the culture and the values of the military as an institution," Outing said. "The mission requires us to develop soldiers and leaders to function and fight as one team."
Sakima Brown, a 1998 graduate who was the first person from her hometown of Poughkeepsie, New York, to attend West Point, said making it at the storied military academy meant you had to "shrink your blackness." When she and the other eight black women in her class saw each other on campus, they would greet each other briefly and move on.
Brown, Dowdy and Tobin described a campus life where even the most casual interactions among black students piqued curiosity. For example, they said, fellow cadets, and sometimes staff or faculty, took notice when more than a handful of blacks came together for meals on Sundays, when cadets were not required to eat with their companies.
"There were times we would sit at a table, and if there were more than two or three African-Americans, it was a problem," Brown said. "People would come over and ask, 'What are you guys doing?' I have never seen 10 African-Americans sitting together at West Point. At three or four, the table would get broken up."
Still, forging friendships was possible. Brown recalled the day an upperclassman stopped her on campus and whispered quickly, "Join the gospel choir."
"She didn't ask if I could sing or not sing," Brown said. "You just joined the gospel choir. It wasn't just about the singing. It was praying together, the support system. That was the only place you were allowed to be together, and it was once a week for two hours. During that time, you could talk about what was going on. It was the only place we were safe being together."
Dowdy, now stationed at Fort Bliss, Texas, said when Barack Obama was elected the country's first black president — and the cadets' new commander in chief — in 2008, some on campus "were mad, they were disrespectful, saying the n-word."
Dowdy said she was often the only black woman in her company. Sometimes, she was the only black person or the only woman in her classes. Support from other black women on campus helped her get through.
"They motivated me when I doubted myself," she explained. "Sometimes things happen at the school and you don't know if you want to bring it up, but they were family. I talk to all of them every day still, right now."
Which is why, Brown said, the backlash over the photograph was hurtful.
"I couldn't understand why they didn't see the pride that I saw," Brown said.
Tobin, who has served as a mentor to some of the women pictured, said she believed all along that their motive was simply to express their joy over graduation.
"You're looking at each other like, 'We made it and we did it together,' and we did it in an environment that still fights the ghosts of discrimination, sexism and homophobia," said Tobin. "You raise your fist as a sign of victory."
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Priest shot while trying to ‘do some good’
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Posted:May 9, 2016 5:15 pm
Last Updated:May 10, 2016 1:35 am
5617 Views
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A Catholic priest tried to talk some sense into a man involved in a street-corner drug deal yesterday in Queens — and ended up with a bullet for his efforts.
Father Damien Ekete was waiting for a cab outside the Habibi Gourmet Deli on Rockaway Boulevard in Jamaica at around 12:15 a.m. when he noticed a few men acting suspiciously nearby, law-enforcement sources said. Cops say a drug deal appeared to be going down.
Ekete — who was on his way back to his Bronx rectory after attending a party in the Queens neighborhood — walked over to one of the men and began talking to him about his dangerous lifestyle,
sources said.
Suddenly, a green Nissan Altima pulled up, and someone inside fired off a round at the man top whom Ekete was talking.
But the shooter missed his intended target and instead hit the priest in his right biceps, sources said.
Father Damien Ekete
“It sounds like he went over to them to do some good, and he got shot,’’ a law-enforcement source said of Ekete.
Ekete, a 49-year-old Nigerian native who has worked at the Church of the Holy Spirit in Morris Heights, The Bronx, for five years, walked 10 minutes to the St. Clement Pope Church on 123rd
Avenue, according to a nearby church employee who spoke to police about the incident.
But nobody was at St. Clement, so the priest walked back to a gas station on Rockaway Boulevard for help.
He was taken to Jamaica Hospital for treatment and then discharged around noon dressed in black suit pants and a blue short-sleeved hospital shirt that showed his bandaged right arm. He was flanked by two plainclothes cops.
After Ekete was interviewed at the 106th Precinct, police dropped him off at his Bronx church. He remained in the rectory for the rest of the evening.
During Mass there Sunday, the Rev. Ricardo Fajardo informed the congregation about the incident in his sermon.
“We are all praying for his recovery,” Fajardo said.
Church volunteer Brian Bonnah, 21, added, “I know a stray bullet has no respect for who it’s going to hit, but the fact that it’s our priest, it makes me feel uneasy. I guess anything can happen in Jamaica, Queens.”
Timothy Cardinal Dolan was notified about the shooting but was not able to visit the injured priest because he was in St. Louis with his mom for Mother’s Day, a rep for the archdiocese said.
“It was not a more serious or life-threatening injury, thanks be to God,” said the spokesman, Joseph Zwilling.
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'Make America Mexico Again': Why Americans are fed up with illegals
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Posted:May 2, 2016 4:29 pm
Last Updated:May 3, 2016 12:19 pm
6362 Views
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There is something a bit unsettling about watching violent, foul-mouthed protesters waving the Mexican flag on American soil.
Over the weekend, Hispanic lined the streets in Fort Wayne, Indiana – hurling filthy insults at Donald Trump supporters.
Click here to join Todd’s American Dispatch: a must-read for Conservatives!
“F*** you,” the youngsters shouted as they flipped off passerby. “F*** you.”
Video captured images of the angry protesters wearing sombreros and holding signs that read, “Brown Pride.”
What kind of a parent would allow their to behave that way in public?
A similar protest turned violent last week in Southern California – as a horde of illegals and their supporters violently attacked Trump supporters, police and even a .
Yes, a .
Cole Bartiromo, identified by local media as a Trump supporter, needed a half-dozen stiches after the mob bashed open his head.
“Suddenly, out of nowhere I felt this thud in the front of my head,” Bartiromo told CBLA.com. “I started panicking – getting scared, thinking, ‘When are they going to stop? Are they going to kill me? I mean, these aren’t rational people.’”
The California mob spilled into the streets – blocking roadways and smashing police cars. They intended to shut down a Trump rally. They intended to silence Mr. Trump and his supporters.
They were angry about the wall he plans to build – to secure our border from the invading **horde** of illegals. They were angry about Mr. Trump speaking the truth – about how illegals are killing Americans – on American soil.
One of the most disturbing images in recent days came from California – a small – holding a sign. It read, “Make America Mexico Again.”
There was a time in this nation’s history when having 13 million people breach your border would have been considered an invasion. We used to fight wars over such a hostile act.
But these days instead of repelling the invaders, the Obama administration gave them food stamps, free health care, and a voter registration card.
We’ve been invaded and our government has provided aid and comfort to the enemy.
In both Indiana and California the protesters tried to bully and intimidate law-abiding Americans into silent submission. They tried – but they failed.
You see, the illegals need to understand something – “We the People” will no longer be silent. We will not allow our sovereignty to be violated anymore.
The American taxpayers have reached a boiling point. We are tired of illegals taking American jobs. We are tired of illegals living off our tax dollars. We are tired of illegals causing mayhem in our streets.
And more than anything, we are tired of lawmakers who refuse to defend American sovereignty.
The truth is we don’t know who or what has been coming across our southern border. We don’t know what dangers lurk in our neighborhoods.
And we want a president who will put American lives first. We want a president who will do whatever it takes to keep our families safe. We want a president who will defend our sovereignty.
And if I see one more foul-mouthed protester waving a Mexican flag on American soil – I’ll personally donate a pile of bricks to help build Mr. Trump’s wall.
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Obamacare disaster will be Obama’s enduring domestic legacy
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Posted:Apr 25, 2016 5:01 pm
Last Updated:May 11, 2024 4:48 pm
5891 Views
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Historian David Maraniss notes, in Sunday’s Post, that President Obama came to office with the goal of changing “the trajectory of America” and leaving “a legacy as a president of consequence, the liberal counter to [Ronald] Reagan.”
On the foreign-policy front, he is the anti-Reagan for certain. Reagan defeated Soviet communism and left us a safer world; Obama presided over the rise and metastasis of the Islamic State and left us a far more dangerous one.
Domestically, Ronald Reagan told the American people: “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are ‘I’m from the government, and I’m here to help.’ ” Obama wanted to convince Americans that they were not terrifying. And the way he was going to do it was through the only great liberal legislative achievement of his presidency: Obamacare.
He failed. Even before he leaves office, Obamacare has begun unraveling.
The law was passed over the objections of a majority of Americans, it is still opposed by a majority of Americans — and their opposition has been vindicated. Last week, UnitedHealth Group announced that, after estimated losses of more than $1 billion for 2015 and 2016 under Obamacare, the company was pulling out of most of its ill-fated exchanges.
Remember when HealthCare.gov didn’t work? So does Obama Embed
Share Play Video2:04
Speaking during an appearance at SXSW, President Obama discussed the many problems that occurred during the rollout of the Affordable Care Act’s website, HealthCare.gov. (Reuters)
In fact, commercial insurers across the country are hemorrhaging money on Obamacare at alarming rates. Health Care Service Corp. (which owns Blue Cross and Blue Shield affiliates in Illinois, Montana, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Texas) has lost “well north of $2 billion” in its first two years — twice as much as UnitedHealth. Highmark, the nation’s fourth-largest Blue Cross plan, lost nearly $600 million in 2015. Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina has projected it will lose more than $400 million in the first two years, and the company has said it may leave the exchanges entirely next year.
The president promised these insurers taxpayer bailouts if they lost money, but Congress in its wisdom passed legislation barring the use of taxpayer dollars to prop up the insurers. Without the bailouts, commercial insurers are being forced to eat their losses — while more than half of the Obamacare nonprofit insurance cooperatives created under the law failed.
So what happens now? Because commercial insurers are not going to keep bleeding cash to prop up Obamacare, they have three choices: 1) scale back coverage, 2) raise prices or 3) get out of the exchanges entirely. More and more are going to choose option 3.
Does this mean that Obamacare is finally entering its “death spiral”? Not exactly. As my American Enterprise Institute colleague Scott Gottlieb explains, while commercial insurers are starting to leave Obamacare, they are being replaced by Medicaid health maintenance organizations (HMOs) offering skimpy plans that mirror what they offer in Medicaid — our nation’s emergency health insurance program for the poorest of the poor.
This is a catastrophe for people stuck in Obamacare. According to a 2014 McKinsey survey, about three-quarters of those in the exchanges were previously insured on commercial plans, either through their employers or the individual market. They were doing fine without taxpayer-subsidized insurance but were pushed into Obamacare. They now face rising premiums and smaller provider networks — and as commercial insurers flee, they will increasingly be stuck in horrible, Medicaid-style plans.
This is not what the president promised when he sold Obamacare to the American people.
The president promised Obamacare would provide “more choice, more competition, lower costs.” Instead, Americans have less choice, less competition and higher costs. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, if UnitedHealth “were to leave the exchange market overall, 1.8 million Marketplace enrollees would be left with two insurers, and another 1.1 million would be left with one insurer.” As more commercial insurers do the same, there will be even less competition — and higher premiums.
The president promised “if you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor.” But commercial insurers who stay in Obamacare are responding to massive losses by narrowing provider networks, with fewer doctors and hospitals to choose from. And those that quit are being replaced by Medicaid HMOs with even less doctor choice.
The president promised Obamacare would “lower premiums by up to $2,500 for a typical family per year.” But insurers are raising premiums instead to cover the massive losses, and even Marilyn Tavenner — the former Obama administration official who ran Obamacare — has predicted premiums will rise even further next year.
As they do, young, healthy individuals will be priced out of the exchanges — and the only people who will be able to afford Obamacare will be high-risk patients who qualify for federal subsidies. Without enough healthy people in the exchanges to pay for the sick ones, taxpayers will be stuck with more and more of the costs over time — a situation that is unsustainable in the long run.
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Science These Mysteriously Aligned Supermassive Black Holes Are Puzzling Scientists
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Posted:Apr 22, 2016 5:23 am
Last Updated:Apr 22, 2016 11:30 am
5114 Views
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Science
A cluster of supermassive black holes in deep space are mysteriously aligned, and the new discovery could tell us a lot about how the early universe formed.
The black holes sit in a distant region of space called ELAIS-N1, and they're all spitting out bursts of radio waves in the same direction. Here you can see the radio bursts all aligned, like needles on compasses:
These Mysteriously Aligned Supermassive Black Holes Are Puzzling Scientists
Source: Andrew Russ Taylor
Astronomers made the discovery by accident while sifting through data from a three-year radio survey using the Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope in India. The finding was totally unexpected because aligned supermassive black holes that span multiple galaxy clusters don't fit in with any of our theories about how the early universe formed.
"Since these black holes don't know about each other, or have any way of exchanging information or influencing each other directly over such vast scales, this spin alignment must have occurred during the formation of the galaxies in the early universe," astronomer Andrew Russ Taylor, who worked on the research, said in a statement.
The team thinks cosmic magnetic fields or cosmic strings could be responsible for the alignment. Astronomers will compare this observation with simulations of how the large-scaled structure of the universe formed. It could give them hints about fluctuations in the primordial soup that came from the Big Bang, and why such larges patches of space appear aligned.
"We're beginning to understand how the large-scale structure of the universe came about, starting from the Big Bang and growing as a result of disturbances in the early universe, to what we have today, and that helps us explore what the universe of tomorrow will be like," Taylor said in a statement.
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Defying radiation, elderly residents cling on in Chernobyl
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Posted:Apr 18, 2016 11:58 am
Last Updated:Apr 19, 2016 2:25 pm
5455 Views
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Chernobyl (Ukraine) (AFP) - Defying radioactive contamination and a government evacuation order, Yevgeny Markevich returned to his beloved Chernobyl shortly after it suffered the world's worst nuclear accident 30 years ago this week.
The sturdy 78-year-old former teacher is among 158 people still living in the 30 kilometre (19 mile) exclusion zone around the Ukrainian nuclear power plant where reactor number four exploded on April 26, 1986.
The area remains contaminated by radiation and is deemed uninhabitable by Ukrainian authorities.
"I only want to live in Chernobyl," said Markevich, whose family moved there in 1945 when he was eight.
"I can't explain why people want to live here. Are they following their hearts? Are they nostalgic? Who knows."
The move to Chernobyl, where the soil was once rich and fertile, helped Markevich's family survive famine in the years immediately after the war, he said.
"Here we could plant crops and harvest our own food. I have never wanted to leave," he said.
The nuclear disaster, which the Soviet authorities initially sought to cover up, was directly responsible for the deaths of more than 30 people although a 2005 United Nations report estimated that radiation could eventually claim up to 4,000 lives.
On the day of the accident, a Saturday, Markevich was teaching a class at a local high school, not suspecting that the explosion nearby would forever transform the town and the lives of its people.
"We knew something had happened because buses and military vehicles were driving toward Pripyat," he said, referring to the nuclear workers' town located three kilometres from the Chernobyl power plant.
"Nobody told us anything. There was only silence."
Markevich, along with almost 116,000 other people living in the area, was forced to evacuate in 1986. But he wanted to return home immediately and began creating excuses to re-enter the exclusion zone.
"Once I came here pretending I was a sailor, another time I said I was a police officer overseeing oil deliveries," he said.
During one of these incursions into the exclusion zone, Markevich met the head of the radiation monitoring station and asked him for a job.
He was hired on the spot and has not left the area since, boasting that he has never been ill despite years of eating vegetables grown in contaminated soil.
"There is an element of risk," he conceded.
- 'Crying and screaming' -
Maria Urupa, who is in her early 80s, also calls the exclusion zone home but is less enthusiastic about her living environment.
Like most of the "samosely", or self-returners as inhabitants of the exclusion zone are known, she lives in a dilapidated wooden house in spartan conditions.
These illegal residents, whose average age is 75, never accepted the forced evacuation of the zone surrounding the now shuttered power plant.
In the aftermath of the explosion, which spewed out clouds of poisonous radiation that spread across Europe, more than 1,000 people returned to live in the officially sealed-off area.
Urupa survives off vegetables she grows in her garden as well as the food supplies brought by visitors.
Other residents venture outside the exclusion zone to the town of Ivankiv, where the nearest market is located.
Urupa says she considered hiding in her basement with her husband to avoid the initial evacuation in 1986, but their plan was not to be.
"It was sad. There was crying and screaming," she said.
After spending two months in a displaced persons camp, Urupa opted to return to the area "in a group of six people, walking through the forest like guerrilla fighters".
Another inhabitant of the exclusion zone, Valentina Kukharenko, 77, said she regrets that members of her family have to show their identity papers to visit her and are limited to three-day visits to prevent radiation exposure.
"They say radiation levels are high. Maybe radiation affects outsiders, people who have never come here. But what are old people like us afraid of?" she said.
Kukharenko said that she feels like a "stranger" outside the exclusion zone and rarely ventures outside the area.
"I'm not a nationalist but I love my native land," she said.
"I hope 's laughter resounds again here, even if it takes years."
A baby girl named Maria was born in the exclusion zone in 1999 to a settler couple, the first to be born in the disaster-hit area.
Born suffering from anaemia, Maria left Chernobyl with her family just a year after her birth. Her whereabouts today are unknown.
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Monica Lewinsky After Clinton Sex Scandal: 'The Shame Sticks to You Like Tar'
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Posted:Apr 17, 2016 2:04 pm
Last Updated:Apr 18, 2016 11:56 am
5220 Views
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Monica Lewinsky knows the trauma and triggers that follow that shame, for years.
In fact, she had many different ways of describing that pain, in a rare and insightful Guardian interview, published Saturday, on the topic of bullying and public shaming.
"I felt like every layer of my skin and my identity were ripped off of me in '98 and '99," Lewsinky told the paper of the international fall-out following her sexual relationship, as an intern, with then-President Bill Clinton.
"It's a skinning of sorts," she said. "You feel incredibly raw and frightened. But I also feel like the shame sticks to you like tar." At other points in her talk with writer Jon Ronson, Lewinsky likened the bullying she and others have faced as "similar to cutting." "People who cut are trying to localize their pain," she said. "I think with bullying, people are suffering for myriad reasons and are projecting it. Instead of cutting themselves, they're cutting someone else." And of the widespread condemnation Lewinsky faced – not just online or in Washington, but on late-night TV and in interviews with many, many public figures – she said, "I think it's fair to say that whatever mistakes I made, I was hung out to dry by a lot of people – by a lot of the feminists who had loud voices." "I wish it had been handled differently," Lewinsky said. "It was very scary and very confusing to be a young woman thrust on to the world stage and not belonging to any group. I didn't belong to anybody." She also touched on comments she has made in the past about her suicidal thoughts during that time period, revealing she had planned how she would commit suicide.
For years, Lewinsky said she avoiding any public attention, but couldn't escape the narrative that had built up around her image – until one day, upon the advice of a former professor, she decided to create a counter-narrative of her own. Now a noted anti-bullying advocate, Lewinsky has embraced a particular public role, as "patient zero" of mass-scale shaming.
As she said in her 2015 TED Talk, "If I'm stuck with my past, giving it purpose feels meaningful to me."
She has also launched a line of anti-bullying GIFs and emoji.
As she told The Guardian, there was a moment in 2014, on the night before she published an essay in Vanity Fair discussing these issues – her first public statements in years – when a friend shared a quote with her.
It was from Anaïs Nin: "And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom."
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People all over the world are flocking to these mysterious hills that seem to defy gravity
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Posted:Apr 14, 2016 12:01 pm
Last Updated:Apr 14, 2016 2:52 pm
5365 Views
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What goes up must come down, and not the other way around, right?
Wrong. Drive somewhere like Confusion Hill in California or Magnetic Mountain in Canada, put your car in neutral, and watch one of the most widely accepted laws of physics turn on its head. Your car will seem to defy gravity, slowly rolling uphill.
Gravity hills, also known as magnetic hills, mystery spots, and spook hills, have been popping up by the hundreds all over the world. Visitors are flooding to these sites, even paying small fees to experience the eery, seemingly supernatural effects of what has been referred to as “antigravity.”
So what's really going on?
There are many possible explanations for what could make an object break one of the sacred laws of science: Mysterious magnetic sources beneath the earth’s surface could be slowly pulling you towards them. A glitch in spacetime could cause the laws of physics to unravel into backwards chaos. An army of angry ghosts could be muscling your car to the top of the hill with nothing but their bare ghost hands.
Or maybe it’s just an optical illusion.
All of these sites have one thing in common (other than their apparent disregard for gravity): the horizon is either curved or obstructed from view. This is key. Horizons provide us with a very useful reference point when we're trying to judge the slope of a surface. A study published in Psychological Science in 2003 found that false horizon lines can be deceiving to observers perceiving landscapes.
Without a true horizon in sight, objects such as trees and walls — which your eyes use as visual clues to determine perpendicularilty — can play tricks on you. If these objects are leaning slightly, they might make you think you're looking at a downward slope, when in actuality you may simply be looking at a flat (or even uphill!) surface.
As a result, anything you rest upon the surface — whether it’s a rubber ball, a stream of water, or a 4,000-pound car — will appear to fight the flow of gravity and travel uphill. And while the thought of ghosts or supernatural forces carrying these objects is tempting, the most likely explanation is that your eyes are just playing tricks on you
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What Happens When ‘Religious Liberty’ Meets The Flying Spaghetti Monster?
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Posted:Apr 14, 2016 11:57 am
Last Updated:May 11, 2024 4:48 pm
4149 Views
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Stephen Cavanaugh wants to dress like a pirate.
Ordinarily, he’d be free to dress however he wants, but Cavanaugh is also an inmate in the Nebraska State Penitentiary, where his clothing options are far more limited. So, in what appears to be an epic act of trolling, Cavanaugh sued demanding the right to practice his “Pastafarian” faith.
Pastafarians profess that the Earth was created by a Flying Spaghetti Monster, who made the world “much as it exists today, but for reasons unknown made it appear that the universe is billions of years old (instead of thousands).” When scientists conduct experiments that seem to demonstrate that the universe is much older or that humans evolved from lower life forms, according to Pastafarianism, “we can be sure that the FSM is there, modifying the data with his Noodly Appendage. We don’t know why He does this but we believe He does, that is our Faith.”
Also, they claim that heaven “has a Beer Volcano and Stripper Factory.” They wear pirate costumes. And they take communion by eating “a large portion of spaghetti and meatballs.”
Pastafarianism, in other words, appears to be an elaborate joke. As federal District Judge John Gerrard explains in his opinion disposing of Cavanaugh’s case, the Church of the Flying Spaghetti monster “is a riposte to intelligent design.” “The conceit of FSMism,” Gerrard writes, “is that, because intelligent design does not identify the designer, its ‘master intellect’ could just as easily be a ‘Flying Spaghetti Monster’ as any Judeo-Christian deity.”
But is it a religion? And does Cavanaugh’s professed belief in an all-powerful clump of pasta and meatballs grant him the freedom not to follow certain legal restrictions in much the same way that the owners of Hobby Lobby do not need to provide their employees with birth control coverage?
This question, Gerrard writes, turns out to be much more difficult than it initially may seem. “Candidly,” the judge admits in his opinion, “propositions from existing caselaw are not particularly well-suited for such a situation, because they developed to address more ad hoc creeds, not a comprehensive but plainly satirical doctrine.”
As Gerrard notes, a court of appeals decision that is binding in his court considered factors such as whether a professed belief “addresses fundamental and ultimate questions having to do with deep and imponderable matters” and whether it “consists of a belief system as opposed to an isolated teaching” to determine if that belief constitutes a religion. Pastafarianism, at least on the surface, meets this test. “This case is difficult,” Gerrard says, “because FSMism, as a parody, is designed to look very much like a religion.”
Supreme Court doctrine, moreover, instructs judges to be very cautious about probing the legitimacy of a professed religious belief. In the Hobby Lobby dispute over birth control, the five justice majority concluded that the plaintiffs in that case “sincerely believe that providing the insurance coverage demanded by the HHS regulations lies on the forbidden side of the line, and it is not for us to say that their religious beliefs are mistaken or insubstantial.” If Cavanaugh genuinely believes that a giant mass of noodles compels him to dress like a pirate, then Judge Gerrard is forbidden from probing whether a belief in divine and sentient spaghetti is wrong.
Nevertheless, Gerrard ultimately rejects Cavanaugh’s claim. “This is not a question of theology,” he concludes, “it is a matter of basic reading comprehension. The FSM Gospel is plainly a work of satire, meant to entertain while making a pointed political statement.”
That may be sufficient to dispose of this case, but the line between political and religious beliefs will not always been so clear cut. In Eden Foods v. Burwell, for example, a case that raised largely the same issues at the Hobby Lobby birth control case, the owner of Eden Foods suggested to reporter Irin Carmon that his supposedly religious objections to birth control were actually much more secular in nature. “I’ve got more interest in good quality long underwear than I have in birth control pills,” he told Carmon. “I don’t care if the federal government is telling me to buy my employees Jack Daniel’s or birth control. What gives them the right to tell me that I have to do that? That’s my issue, that’s what I object to, and that’s the beginning and end of the story.”
It was a profoundly stupid thing for a litigant in a religious liberty case to say, because it raised a serious cloud of doubt over whether his professed religious objections to birth control were sincere. As one federal appeals court concluded, the businessman’s “‘deeply held religious beliefs’ more resembled a laissez-faire, anti-government screed.” (The Justice Department ultimately decided not to contest this issue after it lost Hobby Lobby.)
Yet, the reality is that religious and political views often merge together. Devout Catholics may oppose abortion or the death penalty due to church doctrine, and support politicians with similar views. Other people of faith may feel compelled to support policies that benefit the least fortunate. As historians Kim Phillips-Fein and Kevin Kruse have both documented, twentieth century conservatives quite intentionally worked to blur the line between libertarian economics and conservative Christian faith.
As Hobby Lobby demonstrates, lawsuits brought by these individuals may very well prevail — at least so long as Hobby Lobby remains good law — even if Cavanaugh won’t be able to dress like a pirate and feast on spaghetti and meatballs while he is incarcerated.
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