| Info Chief to get more power |
| The Register Headlines, Fri, 18 Jun 2010 |
| Cabinet Office releases reform plan The government is planning to increase the power of its chief information officer as part of a range of measures within the Cabinet Office Structural Reform Plan.… Free White Paper - Finding an upside in the downturn with data quality |
| Utah firing squad executes death row inmate |
| The Guardian World latest, Fri, 18 Jun 2010 |
| Convicted US killer Ronnie Lee Gardner put to death in first such execution for 14 years At 12.20am and 20 seconds in Utah today Ronnie Lee Gardner became the first American in 14 years to be put to death by firing squad, his heart ripped to pieces by bullets blasted from the rifles of five expert marksmen hidden behind a brick wall. With relatives of the condemned man's victims looking on behind bullet-proof glass, he became only the third person to die by firing squad in the US since 1977. All three took place in this western state, which has long prided itself on its passionate embrace of the gun. Utah is the only state in the US other than Oklahoma that lists the firing squad as a possible means of execution, offering condemned men the choice between that and the lethal injection. In April, Gardner chose to die by the gun, telling a judge: "I would like the firing squad, please." The manner of the execution shocked many across America, with critics claiming it was a throwback to the brutal blood-begets-blood mentality of the frontier era. Demonstrations were held on the steps of the Utah State Capitol building in central Salt Lake City and a prayer vigil was held at the Catholic cathedral. The prisoner's extended family of about 20 brothers, sisters, daughters and grandchildren were assembled outside the prison, having strung up dozens of coloured balloons, which they released as soon as news came through of Gardner's death, as a symbol of his soul going up to heaven. His daughter Brandie told the Guardian that Gardner explained to her why he opted for the firing squad. "He told me: 'I lived by the gun, I murdered with a gun, so I will die by the gun'." Brandie, 33, said she was strongly opposed to the death penalty, even though Gardner approved of it. "I oppose it not because of my dad but because there are 10 commandments and one says thou shalt not kill." The family of one of the victims – Nick Kirk, who was shot in the stomach as Gardner tried to escape from a courthouse and died 10 years later – were also outside the prison, demonstrating their support for his execution. "You don't want to wish somebody dead," said Kirk's daughter Barb Webb. "But our family wants this finished – we need to heal." Kirk's wife, BelDean, and granddaughter Jamie were among 25 people who watched the execution from two witness rooms protected from the risk of ricochet by the bullet-proof glass. The shooting was carried out in a specially designed execution chamber inside Utah state prison, a simple room measuring 6 metres by 7 metres (20ft by 24ft). Gardner was taken into the chamber shortly after midnight (7am BST), having spent his final hours sleeping, watching the Lord of the Rings trilogy of films and reading the thriller Divine Justice. He was strapped to a black chair with a metal tray placed beneath it to collect his blood, had a hood placed over his head, and a white circular target pinned to his chest to mark his heart – the precise location of which had been identified earlier by a prison doctor. Then five local police officers, chosen for their skills as marksmen and kept anonymous by law to minimise the risk of reprisals, were ushered into the chamber and lined up behind a brick wall at the other end of the room about 7.5 metres away. They were handed .30-calibre rifles, the muzzles of which they inserted through a gap in the wall to point at the condemned man. Four of the rifles were loaded with a single live bullet. The fifth contained an "ineffective" round – which unlike a blank gives the same recoil as a live round; that way none of the five executioners know whether they delivered the fatal shot, thus lessening their psychological burden. Gardner never disputed his guilt or sought to minimise the terrible acts he had committed. In 1980 he was convicted of robbery and sent to Utah state prison, where his life would end 30 years later. In 1984 he escaped, and on 9 October, high on cocaine, he shot and killed a barman, Melvyn Otterstrom, at Salt Lake City's Cheers Tavern. On trial for that murder, he made another escape attempt on 2 April 1985, arranging for a gun to be slipped to him by a female accomplice as he was being brought to Salt Lake City's central courthouse. In the melee, he shot a lawyer called Michael Burdell in the right eye. Burdell died in hospital 45 minutes later. Burdell's family has consistently opposed the execution of Gardner. His niece, Donna Taylor, speaking to the Guardian outside the prison, said her uncle had always been against the death penalty. "He just didn't like the idea of killing anybody. He wouldn't have wanted this." Utah Capital punishment United States US domestic policy Ed Pilkington guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds |
| ETA News Release: Unemployment Insurance Weekly Claims Report [06/17/2010] |
| Moreover World US social policy news US social policy, Fri, 18 Jun 2010 |
| Department of Labor Jun 17 2010 9:27PM GMT |
| UPDATE 2-U.S. Medicare to revisit coverage of anemia drugs |
| Moreover World US social policy news US social policy, Fri, 18 Jun 2010 |
| Reuters UK Jun 18 2010 1:10AM GMT |
| Health Care Reform Law's Anti-Fraud Provisions |
| Moreover World US social policy news US social policy, Fri, 18 Jun 2010 |
| New Jersey Law Journal Jun 18 2010 1:32AM GMT |
| Nurses 'Beating Heart of Healthcare' Obama Tells ANA Delegates |
| Moreover World US social policy news US social policy, Fri, 18 Jun 2010 |
| Advance for Nurses Jun 18 2010 1:41AM GMT |
| Senate Rejects "Doc Fix," Medicare Fees Cut 21% |
| Moreover World US social policy news US social policy, Fri, 18 Jun 2010 |
| Abstracts in Hematology and Oncology Jun 18 2010 2:46AM GMT |
| Gates: Budget request reflects Pentagon's reform agenda |
| Moreover World US security news US security, Fri, 18 Jun 2010 |
| United States Army Jun 18 2010 12:28AM GMT |
| Parsonage Fire Investigated |
| GA WXIA 11 Alive - Local, Fri, 18 Jun 2010 |
| State Insurance and Safety Fire Commissioner John Oxendine says an investigation has begun into a fire that damaged a church parsonage and destroyed two 12-passenger vans. |
| Judge Stays Oxendine Ethics Hearing |
| GA WXIA 11 Alive - Local, Fri, 18 Jun 2010 |
| A Fulton County judge has blocked a state ethics commission hearing on insurance industry comtributions to Republican gubernatorial hopeful John Oxendine. |
| What's at center of ethics inquiry into Price? |
| AJC - Metro, Thu, 17 Jun 2010 |
| WASHINGTON -- A day before voting against financial industry reform legislation, Republican U.S. Rep. |
| Before duty called: pictures show Aung San Suu Kyi as a wife and mother |
| The Guardian World latest, Thu, 17 Jun 2010 |
| Burmese pro-democracy leader and Nobel laureate's family life in Britain is depicted in photographs released for her 65th birthday • View all the previously unseen Aung San Suu Kyi photographs She is known to the world as a human rights activist who has spent 14 of the last 20 years under house arrest as punishment for demanding democracy in her home country. But in these photographs Burmese opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi is shown not as the fearless campaigner who has given up her liberty for the sake of her nation, but as a young woman in love and a doting mother. Many of these pictures come from the private collection of her late husband, the Oxford academic Michael Aris, who died from prostate cancer in 1999. Almost all are today published for the first time, and now belong to the private Aris family trust, which has released them to the Guardian to mark and celebrate Aung San Suu Kyi's 65th birthday tomorrow. As she has done for most of the past two decades, the Nobel laureate will celebrate not with her two sons and family, but in her crumbling villa on University Avenue in Rangoon, surrounded by barbed wire and guarded by armed soldiers. Under the terms of her current imprisonment she will not be released until early 2011, though many of her supporters fear Burma's military rulers will find, yet again, a new spurious reason to keep her locked away once she has served her term. The United Nations believes she should not be imprisoned at all, and this week the UN working group on arbitrary detention pronounced her continued detention a breach of international human rights law. The current excuse for her imprisonment is that she breached the conditions of her last house arrest, when an uninvited American man with mental health problems took it upon himself to swim across the lake to visit her home. Perhaps the most striking picture in the collection shows Aung San Suu Kyi walking down a snowy track in the mountains of Bhutan. She could easily be a young girl of 13 in her oversized Tibetan gown and boots and men's gloves, but this picture was taken in January 1971, when she was 25 years old and already an established figure at the United Nations, where she worked in New York (and where her Burmese passport, right, was issued). The Bhutan photo marks a milestone in her life: she has just accepted a proposal from Michael Aris, who was then working as a tutor to the Bhutanese royal family. She had flown from the US to the landlocked Himalayan country to visit her beloved, and on a trip to visit Taktsang, "the lair of the pregnant tigeress", a complex of temples which make up one of the oldest and most sacred shrines in Bhutan, Aris proposed. They married on New Year's Day the following year. Pictures here show the couple in the London registry office where their marriage was made official before being blessed at a private Buddhist ceremony at a friend's home. The workaday surroundings belie the extraordinary union – the Oxford don marrying the beautiful young woman with a nation's hopes on her slim shoulders. In the background of one shot is a stern sign ordering guests not to celebrate with confetti or rice. Other images come from the next stage in Aung San Suu Kyi's life, when she has become a mother. The family were living in Oxford by then, as Michael researched Tibetan and Bhutanese studies, and one shot records their first visit back to Burma after the birth of their first son, Alexander, in 1973. Alexander is in the arms of his grandmother, Daw Khin Kyi, widow of General Aung San, the Burmese revolutionary who was instrumental in bringing about Burma's independence from British colonial rule. In 1977 Aung San Suu Kyi gave birth to her second son, Kim, and devoted much of her time and energy to motherhood. One photograph shows her outside the Oxford terrace where the family lived, and where Burmese exiles still visit today. Three other pictures show family holidays in the UK. One, taken in Grantown-on-Spey in the Cairngorms, could show any other late 70s family on a typically chilly British picnic. Everyone is bundled up in thick jumpers or coats, surrounded by Tupperware and eating sandwiches. Another Scottish scene takes place in more clement weather, as Aung San Suu Kyi bends down to speak to her two boys, playing on the croquet lawn at their paternal grandfather's house in Grantown-on-Spey. In another photo the future leader of the Burmese Democracy Movement is tending a barbecue on the Norfolk Broads, where the family were enjoying a narrow boat holiday with friends. Within 10 years she was back in Burma, leaving them all behind in order to fight for what she believed in. It was her destiny, she said, and her family accepted it: before her marriage to Michael Aris, she told him: "I only ask one thing, that should my people need me, you would help me to do my duty by them." Burma Human rights Protest Freedom of speech Helen Pidd guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds |
| Insurance company to be dismissed from lawsuit |
| Macon.com - Local, Thu, 17 Jun 2010 |
| Prosecutors and an attorney for Scarbrough Insurance Agency have filed a joint stipulation recommending a lawsuit against the company be dismissed without prejudice, according to federal court records. |
| Clayton offers $20,000 to police, teachers who buy foreclosed homes |
| AJC - Metro, Thu, 17 Jun 2010 |
| Clayton County is waging its own fight against the real estate market collapse by offering public safety officers, educators, military personnel and health care workers $20,000 in federal money toward the purchase of foreclosed homes. |
| Death revives warnings about rogue stem-cell clinics |
| Newscientist Breaking News, Thu, 17 Jun 2010 |
| A post-mortem has blamed an untested treatment for killing a woman who tried "stem-cell tourism" to cure her kidney disease |
| Airlines struggle to satisfy customers |
| AJC - Business, Thu, 17 Jun 2010 |
| What industry has worse service ratings than fast-food outlets and even insurance companies? Flying the not-so-friendly skies, according to two recent airline customer satisfaction studies. |
| Teen Shows Off Surgical Technique To Doctors |
| GA WSB TV - Local, Thu, 17 Jun 2010 |
| Tony Hansberry isn't your typical 15-year-old. While most teens his age are out of school for summer break, the magnet school student spent the day demonstrating a surgical stitching technique he created to doctors at Northside Hospital. |
| Vuvuzelas don't spread swine flu shock |
| Newscientist Breaking News, Thu, 17 Jun 2010 |
| The trumpet-like instruments may be annoying, but claiming that they spread disease is going a bit far, says Debora MacKenzie |
| Doctors Recouped Cuts in Medicare Pay, Study Finds |
| New York Times - Health, Thu, 17 Jun 2010 |
| As Congress tried to reduce spending, more lung cancer patients received chemotherapy treatments. |
| Harlem Hospital Finishes Heart Test Reviews |
| New York Times - Health, Thu, 17 Jun 2010 |
| The investigation found that 14 patients might have been misdiagnosed because their tests were not handled properly. |
| Crowd of Republicans want to be Georgia's insurance commissioner |
| AJC - State News, Wed, 16 Jun 2010 |
| A crowded field of candidates is battling it out to become the state's next insurance commissioner, with several vowing to fight the new federal health care law. |
| Report Cites Cancer Survivors Forgoing Medical Care Because of Cost |
| GA WPBA TV - Local, Wed, 16 Jun 2010 |
| A report from the American Cancer Society indicates many U.S Cancer survivors are forgoing medical care due to a lack of insurance or money to continue with treatments. WABE's Rose Scott reports: |
| Portland Shellfish Company Recalls Lobster Meat |
| GA WXIA 11 Alive - Consumer, Wed, 16 Jun 2010 |
| Agriculture Commissioner Tommy Irvin is alerting consumers to the recall of some lobster meat due to possible health risks. |
| College and Hospital Team Up to Revitalize Industrial Site |
| New York Times - Education, Wed, 16 Jun 2010 |
| In Lancaster, Pa., Franklin & Marshall College and Lancaster General plan to move their expanded operations to a 77-acre tract that will include a reconfigured rail yard. |
| J.&J. Unit Recalls Additional Over-the-Counter Drugs |
| New York Times - Health, Wed, 16 Jun 2010 |
| McNeil Consumer Healthcare, which is under investigation by a House panel, said some lots of Benadryl and Tylenol were “inadvertently omitted” from an earlier recall. |
| Medical School Rankings |
| GA WPBA TV - Local, Tue, 15 Jun 2010 |
| A NEW STUDY RANKED AMERICAN MEDICAL SCHOOLS ON HOW THEIR GRADUATES ARE MEETING THE COUNTRY'S HEALTH CARE NEEDS. MOREHOUSE SCHOOL OF MEDICINE TOPPED THE LIST. SUSAN MITTLEMAN REPORTS. |
| Seeing Threat to Individual Policies, State Officials Urge a Gradual Route to Change |
| New York Times - Health, Tue, 15 Jun 2010 |
| A requirement of the new health care law that insurers spend more of each premium dollar to benefit consumers may chase some companies from the market, officials say. |
| Rising Costs: A Health Care Challenge For Democrats |
| NPR - Health & Science, Tue, 15 Jun 2010 |
| After the bitter battle to get the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act passed, Democrats are on the defensive amid an expected increase in Americans' health care costs. |
| Work Begins on Compromise Financial Reform Bill: A Conversation with Conference Committee Member Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-GA) |
| GA WPBA TV - Local, Mon, 14 Jun 2010 |
| On Tuesday, June 15th, a House-Senate conference committee will begin three days of work on a compromise version of the complex, and controversial, financial reform bill. Each chamber has passed its own version. WABE's Denis O'Hayer spoke with Georgia Republican Senator Saxby Chambliss, a conference committee member, about the issues facing Congress, and the nation's financial system. |
| Safety of sunscreen products for kids is questioned |
| Macon.com - Family, Mon, 14 Jun 2010 |
| Sunscreen can help prevent those painful episodes of childhood sunburn, a risk factor for skin cancer later in life. But although sunscreen is recommended for infants older than 6 months by everyone from the National Institutes of Health to the American Academy of Pediatrics, there’s growing concern by advocacy groups, parents and some doctors that some of the chemicals in the products are endocrine disruptors and may pose risks to children. |
| In Desperately Poor Rwanda, Most Have Health Insurance |
| New York Times - Health, Mon, 14 Jun 2010 |
| Ninety-two percent of Rwanda is covered by a national health plan, and the premiums are $2 a year. |
| Personal Health: Getting On With Life After a Partner Dies |
| New York Times - Health, Mon, 14 Jun 2010 |
| Every year millions of Americans are thrust into the role of widow and widower, forced to learn how to cope on their own. |