In Brazil, a blind woman was able to “see” her unborn son thanks to 3D printing technology. 30-year-old Tatiana Guerra is 20-weeks pregnant and never thought she would get the chance to see her son’s facial features. However, through touch, Guerra was able to feel her unborn babies face.
According to the Daily Mail, in a video created as part of a campaign for the diaper brand Huggies, Guerra asks her doctor if her son looks like her. The doctor responds: “If you could touch him, would that let you know what he’s like?” She said yes and then the doctor handed her a 3D-printed image wrapped in a white cloth and says: ‘That’s your son’.
(Read more from “Blind Pregnant Woman Gets To “See” Her Unborn Son and Her Response Is Priceless” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2015-05-11 01:31:332015-05-11 01:31:33Watch: Blind Pregnant Woman Gets To “See” Her Unborn Son and Her Response Is Priceless
The Social Security Administration projects that its trust funds will be depleted by 2033—not an optimistic forecast. But it may be even bleaker than that.
New studies from Harvard and Dartmouth researchers find that the SSA’s actuarial forecasts have been consistently overstating the financial health of the program’s trust funds since 2000.
“These biases are getting bigger and they are substantial,” said Gary King, co-author of the studies and director of Harvard’s Institute for Quantitative Social Science. “[Social Security] is going to be insolvent before everyone thinks.”
The Social Security and Medicare Trustees’ 2014 report to Congress last year found trust fund reserves for both its combined retirement and disability programs will grow until 2019. Program costs are projected to exceed income in 2020 and the trust funds will be depleted by 2033 if Congress doesn’t act. Once the trust funds are drained, annual revenues from payroll tax would be projected to cover only three-quarters of scheduled Social Security benefits through 2088.
Researchers examined forecasts published in the annual trustees’ reports from 1978, when the reports began to consistently disclose projected financial indicators, until 2013. Then, they compared the forecasts the agency made on such variables as mortality and labor force participation rates to the actual observed data. Forecasts from trustees reports from 1978 to 2000 were roughly unbiased, researchers found. In that time, the administration made overestimates and underestimates, but the forecast errors appeared to be random in their direction. (Read more from “Social Security Is in Worse Shape Than You Thought” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2015-05-09 00:19:512015-05-09 00:19:51Social Security is in Worse Shape Than You Thought [+video]
Experts say too many patients are being prescribed opioid painkillers by emergency room doctors, and a program created by Obamacare could be enabling the problem.
A new study released this week found 17 percent of nearly 20,000 patients were discharged from emergency rooms with an opioid prescription. Experts and lawmakers say a push under Obamacare for hospitals to get good patient satisfaction scores is one cause of the problem.
America is in the midst of an opioid “epidemic,” according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Painkillers killed more than 16,000 people in 2013. A huge part of the problem is the prescribing of painkillers, which quadrupled from 1999 to 2013.
Emergency room prescriptions are part of this trend, but data are lacking on the reasons opioids are given out, according to the study published in the Annals of Emergency Medicine.
Patients with back pain got the most opioids, followed by those with abdominal pain. “The majority of prescriptions had small pill counts and almost exclusively immediate-release formulations,” according to the study. (Read more from “Obamacare Program May Be Linked to ER Opioid Prescriptions” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2015-05-08 00:32:022015-05-08 00:32:02Obamacare Program May Be Linked to “Epidemic” Opioid Addiction [+video]
The faith-based historical action drama Beyond the Mask is set to get a nationwide theatrical rollout following its on-demand debut in April. Freestyle Releasing is distributing the film, saying it will debut in 100 cities.
The film opened through the Gathr on-demand platform in 440-plus theaters nationwide last month. “Gathr allows us to continue to schedule premieres across the country. So if the film isn’t in a city, fans just reserve a theater and bring it,” producer Aaron Burns said in a statement.
(Read more from “Faith-Based Action Film ‘Beyond the Mask’ Nabs Distribution Deal” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2015-05-07 03:30:332015-05-07 03:30:33Faith-Based Action Film ‘Beyond the Mask’ Nabs Distribution Deal [+video]
By Paul Bedard. America’s Hispanic population is projected to soar in the coming two decades to 85,543,000, faster than some have expected, according to a new Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report on Latinos.
CDC on Tuesday said the Hispanic population will total 22.8 percent of the U.S. population by 2035.
Others like the Brookings Institution predicted the Hispanic population would be a slightly higher 25.1 percent of the U.S. population but a whole decade later, in 2044. It is currently 17.7 percent of the U.S. population, at 56,754,000, said CDC.
The report studied the health and causes of death of the American Hispanic population and found that despite more living in poverty than whites, Hispanics live an average of two years longer than whites. (Read more from “CDC: Hispanics to Reach 23% of U.S. Population by 2035, Faster Than Expected” HERE)
Spanish-Language Spelling Bees Taking off in the U.S.
By Soni Sangha. How do you spell success? At the mini-national spelling bee in Foxboro, Massachusetts, students spelled it en Español.
A growing number of schools, like the Foxborough Regional Charter School, are holding Spanish spelling bees, where students compete in much the same way as a traditional bee but they spell Spanish words (which can be translated for them into English if they need clarification) using the alphabet in Spanish, denoting a y as “y griega” or a v as “b corta,” for example.
“I believe you will be seeing more of these,” said David Briseño, executive director of the New Mexico Association for Bilingual Educators.
The association launched New Mexico’s state Spanish spelling bee in 1994. The spelling bee became so popular that the association began including other states into its fold. About eight states are participating in the regional contest and more are expected to be added. (Read more from this story HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2015-05-05 22:48:292015-05-05 22:48:29CDC: Hispanics to Reach 23% of U.S. Population by 2035, Faster Than Expected [+video]
Federal Communications Commission (FCC) member Ajit Pai said over the weekend that he foresees a future in which federal regulators will seek to regulate websites based on political content, using the power of the FCC or Federal Elections Commission (FEC). He also revealed that his opposition to “net neutrality” regulations had resulted in personal harassment and threats to his family.
Speaking on a panel at the annual “Right Online” conference in Washington, D.C., on Saturday, Pai told audience members, “I can tell you it has not been an easy couple of months personally. My address has been publicly released. My wife’s name, my kids’ names, my kids’ birthdays, my phone number, all kinds of threats [have come] online.”
Pai, one of two Republicans on the five-member FCC, has been an outspoken critic of net neutrality regulations passed by the agency on Feb. 26. The rules, which are set to take effect on June 12, reclassify Internet providers as utilities and command them not to block or “throttle” online traffic.
However, Pai said it was only the beginning. In the future, he said, “I could easily see this migrating over to the direction of content… What you’re seeing now is an impulse not just to regulate the roads over which traffic goes, but the traffic itself.”
Continuing, he said, “It is conceivable to me to see the government saying, ‘We think the Drudge Report is having a disproportionate effect on our political discourse. He doesn’t have to file anything with the FEC. The FCC doesn’t have the ability to regulate anything he says, and we want to start tamping down on websites like that.’” (Read more from “FCC Commissioner Threatened, Warns Feds May Come for Drudge” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2015-05-05 00:10:482015-05-05 00:10:48FCC Commissioner Threatened, Warns Feds May Come for Drudge [+video]
The NYPD officer who was shot in the head while sitting in an unmarked patrol car in Queens over the weekend has died.
Officer Brian Moore, 25, died Monday afternoon after being taken off life support at Jamaica Hospital two days after the shooting in Queens Village. Moore had been put in a medically induced coma and had undergone surgeries for “severe injuries to his skull and brain.”
The son of a cop from a strong NYPD family, Moore proved himself an exceptional officer since joining the force in 2010, making 150 arrests and winning four medals for his police work, Police Commissioner Bill Bratton said . . .
The commissioner said it was a particularly rough day for the officers in Moore’s precinct, the 105th, because they had just returned that morning from the funeral of another officer who died suddenly from an illness that may be related to 9/11.
After Bratton delivered the grim news, an NYPD honor guard assembled as Moore’s remains were taken from the hospital. Authorities said more details about the investigation would be given at a press conference later Monday. (Read more from “‘Exceptional’ NYPD Officer Dies From Gunshot Wound to Head” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2015-05-04 23:17:072015-05-04 23:17:07‘Exceptional’ NYPD Officer Dies From Gunshot Wound to Head [+video]
Ethos, the Starbucks-owned water company founded on the principle of helping others, is bottling water in the heart of drought-ravaged California.
At least some of Ethos Water’s supply comes from a plant in Merced, a Northern California city currently experiencing “exceptional drought,” according to a new report by Mother Jones.
Ethos Water was founded in 2002 with a promise to donate to charities working to improve worldwide access to clean water. Starbucks bought the company three years later, and since 2005, the coffee giant has donated 5 cents for every bottle sold to the Ethos Water Fund . . .
Starbucks uses the Merced plant — which processes water collected from private springs in Baxter, about 160 miles north — to supply its West Coast stores, according to Mother Jones. A Pennsylvania water source provides bottles for the East Coast.
Both Merced and Baxter are under an “exceptional drought,” the U.S. Drought Monitor reported. Much of California has been ravaged by the dry spell, which has prompted the state to crack down on water-wasters, impose restrictions across the state and pass appliance efficacy mandates. (Read more from “Starbucks’ Ethos Water Bottling in Drought-Stricken California” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2015-05-04 23:16:572015-05-04 23:16:57Starbucks-Owned Ethos Water Bottling in Drought-Stricken California [+video]
Amongst all the chaos in Seattle during Friday’s May Day riot, a man was seen walking through the crowd wearing a tactical vest with an SKS rifle slung over his shoulder.
Identified as Shayne Butts, he tells reporters “I’m here to ensure peoples’ civil rights get respected, just the basics, First Amendment right to peacefully assemble, to free speech… I don’t like communism, but these people have a right to free speech.”
(Read more from “May Day Crowd Freaks out Over Open Carrier” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2015-05-04 23:08:002015-05-04 23:08:00May Day Crowd Freaks out Over Open Carrier [+videos]
Lyndon McLellan, a rural North Carolina convenience store owner, woke up one day to discover the IRS had seized every penny of the $107,000 in his bank account. It was all the money he had put away over the course of 13 years of assiduous, hard work.
“This is all I’ve ever done. I was raised in the store business; I’m here 12-13 hours a day, seven days a week,” he explains. “To make this kind of money selling soft drinks, cigarettes and hot dogs, somebody’s gotta work, okay? It wasn’t just handed to us. It was taken from us – but it wasn’t handed to us.”
McLellan hasn’t been accused of a crime. The IRS just seized his money. And even though the IRS announced it was changing its civil forfeiture policy in October of last year – a result of growing public outcry in opposition to the practice – it didn’t relent in McLellan’s case, which predated the announcement by a few months.
For years, McLellan had been making periodic cash deposits into his account. The federal government requires that bank customers fill out a currency transaction report to document any single deposit in excess of $10,000. But McLellan had been depositing his earnings in increments beneath that threshold – for more than a decade.
The IRS had, until its policy change last year, exercised its own discretion in invoking its power of civil asset forfeiture against these smaller depositors. The spirit of the forfeiture law, as it applies to McLellan’s case, assumes that he was sitting on a stack of currency but elected to deposit it in small increments to avoid the government’s reporting requirements. (Read more from “IRS Seizes Rural Convenience Store Owner’s Career Savings in Another Horrible Abuse of Civil Forfeiture” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2015-05-02 02:37:432015-05-02 02:37:43IRS Seizes Rural Convenience Store Owner’s Career Savings in Another Horrible Abuse of Civil Forfeiture [+video]
