VSNL

Greenville’s Kathy Taft, who was severely beaten Saturday in a Raleigh home, died peacefully at 11:58 a.m. Tuesday her priest confirmed.

The Rev. Bob Hudak of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church said he performed last rites and the family shared communion in a private service in Taft’s hospital room.

“I was at her bedside with her daughters and sons and sisters and brother,” he said. “She died peacefully.”

kathy taft

Taft, 62, a member of the State Board of Education, was discovered assaulted Saturday morning in a Raleigh home reportedly owned by Raleigh attorney John M. Geil. The News and Observer of Raleigh said Geil was out of state when the attack occurred.

Friends reported that Taft was staying at the home after under going minor surgery. Her sister was staying with her and discovered Taft.

Raleigh police on Monday continued to say their investigation has not determined whether the assault was a random act. No updates were provided Tuesday.

Detectives investigating the case said that anyone with information or who may have seen or heard anything unusual in or near the 2700 block of Cartier Drive between Friday night and Saturday morning can call Raleigh CrimeStoppers at (919) 834-HELP.

State leaders and local officials mourned Taft’s death.

“I have known Kathy Taft as a dear friend for more than 25 years,” Gov. Beverly Perdue said. “The kindness she showed me, as a fellow woman from down east working to make a difference, is something I will never forget. Her passion for education and for finding every opportunity to better serve North Carolina’s children has clearly made this state a better place to live and raise a family,” Perdue said. “For that, we all owe Kathy a debt of gratitude. I will miss her terribly.”

The educational community lost a friend, Pitt County Schools’ Superintendent Beverly Reep said.

“Kathy remained steadfastly loyal in her commitment to improving educational opportunities for the students in Pitt County and throughout the state,” Reep said.

“She was never afraid to tackle the tough issues and she challenged all of those with whom she worked to keep their attentions focused clearly on what was best for the children,” she said. “Words cannot express how much she will be missed by all of us in the education community.”

The state has been diminished by Taft’s death, said State Board of Education Chairman Bill Harrison.

“Ms. Taft has been an instrumental member of the State Board of Education for 15 years and a stalwart supporter of the 1.5 million public school students in our state,” Harrison said.

“Ms. Taft’s service to the board and to the citizens of North Carolina has included many important milestones such as the state’s initial accountability model for schools, the development of charter schools and current efforts to ensure that our state prepares students for the 21st century.”

Hudak said Taft’s family has been keeping vigil since she was hospitalized.

“The depth of compassionate care and support for one another was truly inspiring and a real tribute to Kathy’s spirit, of her love of God and concern for others,” he said. “It was a privilege for me as her pastor to be with her family and friends at this precious and sacred time.”

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There are conflicting reports in regards to Roethlisberger’s behavior on the night of the alleged sexual assault.  While some have said he was friendly and very accommodating to his fans, there have been others who have said he was rude and arrogant especially with the females who were allowed into his VIP section.

The strongest comment about that behavior has come from Amber Hanley a 21 year old college student who hung out briefly with Roethlisberger and his entourage in the VIP.

Amber Hanley

Here is what she had to say:

Amber Hanley, a 21-year-old college student, said she and a few friends were also in the VIP area with Roethlisberger. She said she asked the quarterback to take a with her friend, whose boyfriend was a fan, but he seemed disappointed that’s all she wanted. Hanley said she rolled her eyes, and Roethlisberger called her an expletive and walked away. Later, Roethlisberger was aggressively hitting on another girl, Hanley said.

Miss Hanley is not the accuser nor do we know if she knows the accuser in any way besides the fact they attend the same school.

The one thing you can take from the quoteis that it is quite obvious that Roethlisberger was in a setting he didn’t need to be in considering he was still dealing with rape allegations less than a year old.

I am not saying lock yourself in the house, but you are almost a thirty year old man hanging out with the 18-21 college crowd in an area that isn’t use to celebrities bar hopping. It just isn’t smart on his part.

As I said on a few radio appearances yesterday, Roethlisberger should be praying that his only crime is being an idiot, because if it comes to light these accusations are true he should be behind bars.

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The Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) Men’s Basketball Player of the Year is a basketball award given to the men’s basketball player in the Atlantic Coast Conference voted by members of the Atlantic Coast Sports Media Association as the most outstanding player. The award was first given following the 1953–54 season, the first year of the conference’s existence, to Dickie Hemric of Wake Forest.

Atlantic Coast Conference

Two players have won the award three times: David Thompson of North Carolina State and Ralph Sampson of Virginia.Hemric, Len Chappell, Larry Miller, John Roche, Len Bias, Danny Ferry, Tim Duncan and J. J. Redick have won the award twice. There has been one tie in the award’s history, which occurred at the end of the 2000–01 season, when Joseph Forte of North Carolina and Shane Battier of Duke shared the award.

Twelve players have received either the Naismith or Wooden National Player of the Year awards in the same year that they received an ACC Player of the Year award.^[a] North Carolina’s Tyler Hansbrough is the most recent player to achieve this; the consensus National Player of the Year in 2008, he won every major national award in addition to the conference Player of the Year award. Duke has had the most ACC Players of the Year winners with 13, while its in-state rival North Carolina is second with 12. Each of the original 1953 ACC members have had at least one of its students win the award. Florida State, Miami (FL), and Virginia Tech are the only schools without a winner. As of 2010, the award has been given 58 times in 57 seasons. Forty-five different players from ten schools have received the award: thirty-one seniors, twenty-two juniors, six sophomores, and no freshmen.

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China supplies most of the rare earth minerals found in technologies such as hybrid cars, wind turbines, computer hard drives and cell phones, but the U.S. has its own largely untapped reserves that could safeguard future tech innovation.

Those reserves include deposits of both “light” and “heavy” rare earths – families of minerals that help make everything from TV displays to magnets in hybrid electric motors. A company called U.S. Rare Earths holds the only known U.S. deposit of heavy rare earths with a concentration worth mining, according to a recent report by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS).

U.S. Sitting on Mother

Light rare earths include the minerals ranging from lanthanum to gadolinium on the periodic table of elements, while heavy rare earths range from terbium to lutetium.

Averting disaster

If developed, such deposits could help the U.S. avoid a possibly crippling rare earth shortage in the next decade. China has warned that its own industrial demands could compel it to stop exporting rare earths within the next five or 10 years.

“There is already a shortage, because there are companies that already can’t get enough material,” said Jim Hedrick, a former USGS rare earth specialist who recently retired. “No one’s trying to expand their use of rare earths because they know there’s not more available.”

U.S. Rare Earths practically stumbled upon its first rare earth deposit at Lehmi Pass, on the border between Idaho and Montana, about 15 years ago. The company founders coveted the area’s reserves of thorium – an alternative nuclear fuel – and took little interest in the rare earths that were only used, at the time, in lighter flints and tracer bullets for the military.

Their view changed over the years as rare earths became practically irreplaceable in high-tech products used by millions of people today. The company only recently changed its name to U.S. Rare Earths after staking out another deposit at Diamond Creek, Idaho.

“The fact is, the Diamond Creek property is today, the most accessible, undeveloped rare earth resource with significant [heavy rare earths] that there is in North America,” said Jack Lifton, an independent consultant who works with U.S. Rare Earths.

Recent USGS figures estimate that the U.S. holds rare earth ore reserves of up to 13 million metric tons. By contrast, the entire world produced just 124,000 metric tons in 2009 – but it would take both time and money for the U.S. to become self-sufficient in producing rare earths.

Deposits near civilization

The Diamond Creek location has the added advantages of being in mining-friendly Idaho and having access to nearby highways and power lines – factors that would make opening a mine much easier.

“We have power, light and roads, so we’re not in the middle of the wilderness,” said Ed Cowle, CEO of U.S. Rare Earths.

Cowle hopes to attract enough funding over the next six months to do some exploratory drilling at his company’s deposits. He also pointed to growing interest from national legislators in prodding the federal government to take action.

“Many times opening a mine takes a certain period of time, but if there’s a strategic need for material from government, that time period can be lessened,” Cowle told TechNewsDaily. “We’re hopeful of that because of the nature of what’s in the ground.”

An expensive proposition

Another company, Molycorp Minerals, has already begun processing “light” rare earths, such as lanthanum and neodymium, from a stockpile it accumulated at its mine in Mountain Pass, California. But it still has to ship its rare earths to China for final processing, because only China currently has the equipment needed for the job.

“No one [in the U.S.] wants to be first to jump into the market because of the cost of building a separation plant,” Hedrick explained. The former USGS specialist said that such a plant requires thousands of stainless steel tanks holding different chemical solutions to separate out all the individual rare earths.

The upfront costs seem daunting. Hedrick estimated that opening just one mine and building a new separation plant might cost anywhere from $500 million to $1 billion and would require a minimum of eight years.

Lifton has also suggested that many U.S. companies have not jumped into the market because China’s state-owned mines keep rare earth prices artificially low. But if U.S. companies do not begin mining American rare earth deposits soon, they may be left scrambling if China does one day stop exporting rare earths.

But Cowle, the CEO of U.S. Rare Earths, seems hopeful that momentum has already begun building for the U.S. government to encourage development of its own rare earth deposits.

“From what I see, security of supply is going to be more important than the prices,” Cowle said.

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Lindsay Lohan is reportedly suing the financial company E-Trade, insisting that the company’s new commercial about a boyfriend-stealing, “milkaholic” baby — who happens to be named Lindsay — was modeled after her. Lohan reportedly wants $100 million, The NY Post reports. Lohan’s lawyer, Stephanie Ovadia, told the newspaper that the actress has the same single-name recognition as Oprah or Madonna. “Many celebrities are known by one name only, and E-Trade is using that knowledge to profit,” Ovadia said.

Lindsay Lohan

The actress filed a lawsuit yesterday in Nassau County Supreme Court over the commercial, which debuted during the Super Bowl this year. In the ad, a baby boy apologizes to his girlfriend via video chat for not calling her the night before. The suspicious girlfriend asks, “And that milkaholic Lindsay wasn’t over?”

“Lindsay?” the boy replies, just before a baby girl sticks her head into the frame and slurs, “Milk-a-what?” Watch: They used the name Lindsay,” Ovadia said. “They’re using her name as a parody of her life. Why didn’t they use the name Susan? This is a subliminal message. Everybody’s talking about it and saying it’s Lindsay Lohan.”

According to the NY Post, Ovadia said, “E-Trade has violated Lohan’s rights under New York state civil-rights law and used her ‘name and characterization’ in business without paying her or getting her approval.”

Ovadia wants to force the spot off the air, claiming Lohan is owed $50 million in exemplary damages and another $50 million in compensatory damages.

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A Tornado Hit the Small Town of Hammon, Oklahoma on Monday. Fortunately, There Were No Injuries. There is, However, Plenty of Video

A tornado hit the small town of Hammon, Oklahoma. Five homes and a barn were destroyed in the Hammon, OK tornado. Fortunately, most residents of Hammon had plenty of advanced warning and managed to get out of town before the twister struck.

Hammon Oklahoma Tornado

The National Weather Service said a television storm spotter reported the tornado 110 miles west of Oklahoma City. The tornado was on the ground for around 15 minutes, traveling across open countryside before hitting Hammon.
Leach said she took cover just in time, “My kids were outside playing on the trampoline, and one of them came and said, ‘Mom, there’s a tornado.’ I said, ‘Yeah, right.’ Then, I came outside and I watched it for about 20 minutes, and it was coming right at me, and as soon as we got the door closed to the cellar, we heard it.”

Not surprisingly, school was canceled in Hammon Tuesday.

The Hammon OK tornado may signal an early start to US tornado season. The National Weather Service said Oklahoma averages 4.2 tornadoes in the month March. Last year, there was just one tornado in Oklahoma. Thus far, there have been five tornadoes in Oklahoma this March.

More severe weather could be on the way. The Storm Prediction Center has stated that severe weather could hit Eastern Oklahoma, Southern Missouri, Northeastern Texas, Arkansas, Northern and Southeastern Louisiana, much of Mississippi, extreme Western Tennessee and Southwestern Alabama on Wednesday.

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WEDNESDAY, March 19 (HealthDay News) — In the latest research to cast a shadow on the safety of a popular bone-strengthening medication, researchers report that long-term use of Fosamax is associated with unusual fractures of the thigh bone.

The fractures were low-energy fractures, meaning that they all occurred from a fall from standing height or less, and the bone cracks were in an unusual horizontal pattern. About one-third of women with these types of fractures were on long-term therapy to prevent osteoporosis, the researchers noted. Of these women, two-thirds were taking Fosamax (alendronate), for an average of more than seven years.

Fosamax Linked to Unusual Femur Fractures

Fosamax is a bisphosphonate, a class of drugs used to increase bone mass and reduce the risk of fracture in those who have osteoporosis.

“These were peculiar fractures that would occur when the women were basically doing nothing,” said the study’s senior author, Dr. Joseph Lane, chief of metabolic bone disease at the Hospital for Special Surgery at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York City.

Fifteen women were included in Lane’s analysis. The average time on Fosamax was 5.4 years before they experienced the unusual femur fracture. Of these 15, 10 women had similar, atypical fractures. These women had been taking Fosamax for an average of 7.3 years, while the remaining five had only been on the drug for an average of 2.8 years.

“Our results provide further evidence of a potential link between alendronate use and low-energy fractures of the femur,” the authors said in a letter reporting their findings, which is published in the March 20 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine. But, the authors acknowledge the limitations of their retrospective analysis and suggest that these findings need to be confirmed in a prospective study.

Lane said there are several theories as to how alendronate could be related to these fractures. One is that the drug slows down the development of new collagen, and he said new collagen is very strong. Another could be because there is slower bone turnover on the medications. That could mean there may be accumulated microdamage in the bone, making it more susceptible to fracture in certain women.

Lane said that women taking this medication should keep taking it, and these findings shouldn’t cause them alarm. “This is a great drug that does wonderful things. Bisphosphonates have dropped the rate of hip fractures,” he added.

Ron Rogers, a spokesman for Merck, which manufactures Fosamax, said, “Fosamax has not been associated with an increased risk of fracture at any skeletal site.” Rogers also noted that this study didn’t prove a cause and effect relationship between the drug and these unusual fractures, and that the researchers noted that 63 percent of women treated for low-energy fractures weren’t taking bisphosphonates at all.

Dr. Loren Wissner Greene, co-director of the osteoporosis and metabolic bone disease program at the New York University School of Medicine, agreed that this study has just pointed out an association between Fosamax use and these fractures, not proven a causal relationship.

Still, Greene said she believes these atypical breaks probably are related to the medication, although she added, “If this is a related complication, it appears to be very rare.”

Like Lane, she said, “Alendronate is still a very valuable drug in decreasing the risk of hip fracture.” But, she said, what would be helpful is a test that could identify who is in the sub-population that might have a problem on this medication.

Lane said that women who’ve been taking this medication for a long time and have test results that suggest low bone turnover, may want to take a “bone holiday,” and stop taking the medication for a year. But, he added, this shouldn’t be done on your own. “If you’ve been on alendronate for a long time, talk to your doctor,” he suggested.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration in January issued an alert to physicians about the possibility of severe bone pain occurring as a result of bisphosphonate therapy. Additionally, last year Fosamax was also implicated in some cases of atrial fibrillation — a serious type of irregular heartbeat — though the FDA hasn’t found evidence to support this association.

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The Food and Drug Administration has recommended that Procter & Gamble recall some of its Pringles potato chips. The recalled chips contain hydrolyzed vegetable protein (HVP) made by Basic Food Flavors, Inc. – a company that issued a recall last week because it found Salmonella in its equipment that got into its products.  Pringles is only one of many popular food stuffs that use Basic Food Flavors HVP – thousands of food items may be affected.  HVP is commonly used as a flavor enhancer in processed foods including soups, sauces, chilis, stews, hot dogs, gravy, seasoned snack foods, dips and dressings.

Pringles Recall

“We don’t know precisely how large this recall will get,” says Dr. Jeff Farrar, associate commissioner for food safety, FDA’s Office of Foods. “We expect this to get larger over the next several days to several weeks.”  However, Farrar adds, “Many of the products with the flavor enhancer contain a “kill step” designed to destroy salmonella.  Those products will not be recalled.”

Apparently the FDA discovered the problem with Basic Food after receiving a tip.  They investigated the suspect equipment in the Basic Food Flavors plant and discovered the Tennessee strain of Salmonella. Their findings have led the company to recall all hydrolyzed vegetable protein in powder and paste form that they had produced since September 17th, 2009.

Salmonella can cause fever, diarrhea, nausea, vomiting and abdominal pain.  Most healthy people recover from Salmonella poisoning in four to seven days – young children, the elderly or those with immune deficiencies may be more severely, even fatally, affected.

The following Pringles flavors are being recalled:

Restaurant Cravers Cheeseburger, Super Stack Canister: 181 grams, UPC code: 37000 26936, with best by dates of 02/2011, 04/2011

Pringles Family Faves Taco Night, Super Stack Canister: 181 grams, UPC code: 37000 26773, with best buy dates of 03/2011, 04/2011, 05/2011

“This situation clearly underscores the need for new food safety legislation to equip FDA with the tools we need to prevent contamination.” Farrar says.  Check www.foodsafety.gov for a full list of recalled products and report symptoms of Salmonella to a local health care professional immediately if you experience them.

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Shares of Cisco /quotes/comstock/15*!csco/quotes/nls/csco (CSCO 26.31, +0.18, +0.69%) gained 3.65% to close at $26.13 Monday, hitting a new 52-week high of $26.36 intraday, as some analysts speculated that the tech giant is rolling out new gear to help wireless phone companies cope with rising video Web traffic.

The San Jose, Calif.-based Cisco had sent out invitations to analysts and the media for a “significant announcement” that it says “will forever change the Internet and its impact on consumers, businesses and governments.”

The invitation followed Google Inc.’s /quotes/comstock/15*!goog/quotes/nls/goog (GOOG 562.05, -0.43, -0.08%) February announcement that the Internet giant was working on building a high-speed broadband network that would be 100 times faster than today’s connections.

This triggered some speculation that Cisco may be planning a similar initiative. But spokesman David McCulloch reiterated in an e-mail, “our strategy remains to partner very closely with service providers to enable advanced new telecommunications services versus building out public networks ourselves.”

In fact, other analysts believe Cisco will unveil new technology related to the rising tide of video traffic on the Internet, a growing challenge for wireless phone companies.

Cisco dominates the market for information technology equipment, or what’s known as the plumbingused to connect computer systems in a network or with the Internet.

Ticonderoga Securities analyst Brian White said in a note that the announcement likely “will focus on Cisco’s core technology platforms.”

Analysts cite Cisco’s recent acquisition of Starent Networks, which makes gear that helps mobile carriers connect wireless phone users to the Internet.

“The single largest opportunity in networking today on the carrier side is in mobile networking,” Yankee Group analyst Zeus Kerravala said. “Starent was a key acquisition for them.”

Steve Allen of Sierra Tech Research said high-definition video content on the Web is “starting to dominate” leading to the need for “a much more robust system.”

“This is something that has been brewing for a couple of years,” he said. “Video is not just more data. It’s a different type of data.”

Allen also speculated that, while Cisco may not be following Google’s lead in developing in its own network, the timing and dramatic tone of the announcement may, in fact, have something to do with the Internet powerhouse.

“One thing that may be leading them to be more dramatic is the Google announcement,” Allen said. “They might need to remind the world that Google is not the leader in Internet infrastructure. It’s Cisco. … It’s all about letting the world know, ‘All this is being brought to you by Cisco.’”

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Laverne Cox, Jamie Clayton and Nina Poon understand transformation. According to PR Newsire, the three women have teamed up with VH1 and Left-Right Inc. for a new fashion makeover show, Transform Me. Each half-hour episode follows the makeover of one woman badly in need of a transformation — on the outside and inside. The subjects quickly find out this won’t be your typical makeover, since Laverne, Jamie and Nina are all transgender women.

Laverne Cox Leads Transgender

Laverne Cox (from VH1’s I Want to Work For Diddy) will lead the ultra-glamorous makeover team as they travel across the country answering “style 911 calls” in their deluxe fashion ambulance, helping subjects find the right style — and the confidence that comes with it.

“Transform Me is a show about everyone who’s ever felt that the person they are on the inside isn’t quite reflected in who is seen on the outside,” Laverne explained. “Transgender folks are in many ways the ultimate example of this. We’ve taken extraordinary steps to bring who we are on the inside…out, and we’re committed to helping other women do the same thing. If we can do it, anyone can!”

Laverne became the African American transgender woman to appear on an American reality show with her appearance on I Want To Work For Diddy. She’s also acted in Law and Order: SVU and HBO’s Bored to Death.

You can catch a sneak peek of Transform Me’s premiere on Friday, March 12 on VH1.com. The show premieres Monday, March 15, 2010 at 10:30PM ET/PT.

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