Major Shift: New Baby Names Suggest High Hopes

Seal of the United States Social Security Administration. It appears on Social Security cards. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

WASHINGTON – Talk about high expectations for a newborn:  King and Messiah are among the fastest-rising baby names for American boys.

They’re just a little behind Major, the boy’s name that jumped the most spots on the Social Security Administration‘s annual list of popular baby names.

Jacob is the most popular for boys – again – and Sophia is the top name for girls, according to the list released Thursday.

It was Jacob’s 14th straight year at the top. Next were Mason, Ethan, Noah and William. Liam cracked the top 10 for the first time, coming in at No. 6.  Daniel slipped out of the top 10 for the first time since 1998, to No. 11.

Read more: http://readingeagle.com/article.aspx?id=476346

Wilmington, New Castle County Officials Hail New Police Strategy

Map of Delaware (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

WILMINGTON, DE — As dozens of Wilmington and New Castle County police officers were sworn into adjoining jurisdictions Friday, officials championed a new level of cooperation among law enforcement agencies.

“We have to team up, we have to work together,” county police Chief Elmer Setting said. “And the idea that we’re driving up to an invisible line and turning around is not a good thing. We’ve got to be able to go over those lines.”

Those words might have been a bit of overselling the change, considering state law already allows police to pursue anyone suspected of committing a felony, misdemeanor or motor vehicle code violation anywhere within the state regardless of original jurisdiction.

Even with that in mind, Ken Haas, a professor of criminology and criminal justice at the University of Delaware, believes the move could ease the tribalism and competitiveness often found among law enforcement agencies. That could lead to an increased emphasis on getting the job done instead of confrontations about who should get credit, he said.

Read more: http://www.delawareonline.com/article/20130504/NEWS/305040032/Crossing-lines-public-safety?nclick_check=1

Baltimore Co. Hopes To Attract Thousands Of Jobs To Sparrows Point

BETHLEHEM STEEL PLANT AT SPARROWS POINT – NARA – 546808 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

A new marine terminal could bring 9,000 jobs to the Sparrows Point peninsula, Baltimore County Executive Kevin Kamenetz said Friday as he laid out the county’s vision for remaking the land around its closed steel mill.

A terminal in the peninsula’s Coke Point area could take 10 to 12 years to become a reality, he said, and plans depend on the Maryland Port Administration‘s negotiations with the land’s private owners, among other factors.  The area has complicated environmental problems, but county leaders say the peninsula offers an exceptional location and the infrastructure to attract new investment.

Kamenetz formed the Sparrows Point Partnership last spring to study how the area’s 3,300 acres could be redeveloped if the steel mill closed, and the group’s recommendations were released Friday.  The mill, once the world’s largest and an employer of tens of thousands, laid off the roughly 2,000 workers remaining last year after owner RG Steel declared bankruptcy.

“Even though things looked bleak, we’ve remained optimistic in this county,” Kamenetz said.  ”We were determined to overcome this obstacle in order to bring thousands of good jobs back to Sparrows Point.”

Read more: http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/baltimore-county/dundalk/bs-md-co-sparrows-point-future-20130503,0,3115241.story#ixzz2SN1zCjTX

Funeral Home: No One Wants To Bury Bomb Suspect

Map of Massachusetts (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

BOSTON – A funeral home director was scrambling to find a cemetery that would bury a suspect in the Boston Marathon bombings, ignoring protesters gathered outside his business and saying everybody deserves a dignified burial service no matter the circumstances of his or her death.

Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, died from “gunshot wounds of torso and extremities” and blunt trauma to his head and torso, said Worcester funeral home owner Peter Stefan, who has Tsarnaev’s body and on Friday read details from his death certificate. The certificate lists the time of his death as 1:35 a.m. on April 19, four days after the deadly bombing, Stefan said.

Tsarnaev died after a gunfight with authorities who had launched a massive manhunt for him and his brother, ethnic Chechens from Russia who came to the United States about a decade ago. Police have said he ran out of ammunition before his younger brother dragged his body under a vehicle while fleeing.

Tsarnaev’s family was making arrangements Friday for his funeral as investigators searched the woods near a college attended by 19-year-old Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who was captured less than a day after his brother’s death.

Read more:  http://www.philly.com/philly/news/nation_world/20130504_ap_funeralhomenoonewantstoburybombsuspect.html

Richest 7 Percent Got Richer During Recovery, Report Says

English: Map of the United States. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The richest Americans got richer during the first two years of the economic recovery while average net worth declined for the other 93 percent of U.S. households, says a report released today.

The upper 7 percent of households owned 63 percent of the nation’s total household wealth in 2011, up from 56 percent in 2009, said the report from the Pew Research Center, which analyzed new Census Bureau data released last month.

The main reason for the widening wealth gap is that affluent households typically own stocks and other financial holdings that increased in value, while the less wealthy tend to have more of their assets in their homes, which haven’t rebounded from the plunge in home values, the report said.

Tuesday’s report is the latest to point up financial inequality that has been growing among Americans for decades, a development that helped fuel the Occupy Wall Street protests.

Read more:  http://readingeagle.com/article.aspx?id=471710

Woe And Wonder: Surveillance Cameras Were The Key In Boston

It’s been an extraordinary week of fast-moving events — a week of tragedy, tears, anger and fear. Yet the bombs that on Monday shattered the joyful celebration of a storied event, the Boston Marathon, killing three people and injuring nearly 200, never blew a hole in the social fabric.  Too many helping hands — heroic first responders, brave ordinary citizens — stood ready to hold it together.

Then swiftly followed brilliant police work by the FBI, and other law-enforcement agencies aided immeasurably by the tools of the modern age — surveillance cameras in public spaces and video and photos shot on cell phones and digital devices in the hands of spectators. Those images proved decisive.

By late Thursday, after the FBI released video and photos, the tips were pouring in and the suspects — Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, and his brother Dzhokhar, 19 — were on the run.

Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/stories/opinion/editorials/woe-and-wonder-surveillance-cameras-were-the-key-in-boston-684246/#ixzz2R17HeZSf

BOSTON BOMB SUSPECT IS CAPTURED

BOSTON — The teenage suspect in the marathon bombings, whose flight from the police after a furious gunfight early Friday morning sparked an intense manhunt that virtually shut down the entire Boston metropolitan area all day, was taken into custody Friday night after the police found him hiding in a boat in the backyard of a house in Watertown, Mass., a senior law enforcement official said.

Two law enforcement officials said that the suspect, Dzhokhar A. Tsarnaev, 19, was found in a boat parked behind a house there.  It was not immediately clear what condition he was in.

A police officer at the scene said that the man was covered in blood when he was captured.  An ambulance was already there. The Boston Police Department announced on Twitter:  “Suspect in custody.  Officers sweeping the area.”  And Mayor Thomas M. Menino posted, “We got him.”

As around 30 law enforcement officers — wearing helmets — walked away from the scene of what had been a tense standoff only minutes earlier, neighbors who had gathered on an adjacent street applauded and shouted, “Thank you! Thank you!”

Read more:  http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/20/us/boston-marathon-bombings.html?hp&_r=0

1 Of 2 Boston Bomb Suspects Dead; Suburbs Shut Down

WATERTOWN, Mass. (AP) — Two suspects in the Boston Marathon bombing killed an MIT police officer, injured a transit officer in a firefight and threw explosive devices at police during their getaway attempt in a long night of violence that left one of them dead and another still at large Friday, authorities said as the manhunt intensified for a young man described as a dangerous terrorist.

The suspects were identified to The Associated Press as coming from the Russian region near Chechnya, which has been plagued by an Islamic insurgency stemming from separatist wars. A law enforcement intelligence bulletin obtained by the AP identified the surviving bomb suspect as Dzhokhar A. Tsarnaev, a 19-year-old who had been living in Cambridge, just outside Boston, and said he “may be armed and dangerous.”

Two law enforcement officials told the AP that Tsarnaev and the other suspect, who was not immediately identified, had been living legally in the U.S. for at least one year.

In Boston, still on edge over the attack on the marathon, and its western suburbs, authorities suspended mass transit and urged people to stay indoors as they searched for the remaining suspect, a man seen wearing a white baseball cap on surveillance footage from Monday’s deadly bombing at the marathon finish line.

Read more:  http://www.pottsmerc.com/article/20130419/NEWS04/130419074/1-of-2-boston-bomb-suspects-dead-suburbs-shut-down#full_story

NASA Discovers Two Earth-Like Planets; Penn State Grad On Scientific Team

An artist’s depiction of an extrasolar, Earthlike planet.. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Two planets orbiting a distant star represent the first Earth-sized planets to be discovered at a distance from the host sun that allows them to be warm enough to sustain liquid water, an essential element to support life.

The NASA-led project, involving a Beaver Falls native and 2003 graduate of Penn State Erie, discovered five planets orbiting the star Kepler-62 that lies 1,000 light-years from Earth.  One of those planets is 1.6 times the size of Earth and another is 1.4 times Earth’s size.

Planets as large as three times the size of Earth are terrestrial, or made of rock.  Larger planets typically comprise gases or a combination of gases and rock, which would not support life, said Justin R. Crepp, now an assistant professor of physics the University of Notre Dame.

While Earth-like planets within the habitable zone represent the holy grail of astronomy, technology in development will be necessary to determine whether the two planets contain oxygen, carbon dioxide, methane or water — all elements necessary for life.

Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/stories/news/science/nasa-discovers-two-earth-like-planets-penn-state-grad-on-scientific-team-684053/#ixzz2QqgVJ0qg

A Perfect Marathon Day, Then The Unimaginable

Map of Massachusetts (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

It was as good a ­Patriots Day, as good a Marathon day, as any, dry and seasonably warm but not hot like last year.  The buzz was great.  While the runners climbed Heartbreak Hill, the Red Sox were locked in another white-knuckle duel with the Tampa Bay Rays at Fenway Park.  The only thing missing was Lou Reed crooning “Perfect Day” in the background.

The winners and the elite runners had long ago finished, when in the Fens, at shortly after 2 p.m., Mike ­Napoli kissed a ball off The Green Monster in the bottom of the ninth, allow­ing Dustin Pedroia to scamper all the way home from first base, giving the Red Sox a walk-off win.

Many of those jubilant Sox fans had walked down through Kenmore Square toward the Back Bay to watch the Marathon.

Some of them had just got to the finish line when the first bomb went off, shortly before 3 p.m.

In an instant, a perfect day had morphed into something viscerally evil.

Read more:  http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2013/04/15/perfect-day-turns-evil/W7KQHq1NWFqukte3VQ14DJ/story.html

Rooftop Gardens Spring Up In The Pee Dee

FLORENCE, S.C. (AP) — If agave, yucca and asparagus plants slowly waking up from winter atop the facilities building at the Moore Farms Botanical Gardens building in Lake City had faces — you know, like those pansies and roses in “Alice in Wonderland” — they’d doubtless be full of surprise and wonder.

Which would make them a perfect match for looks they receive from the people down below.

Plants on the roof? A gable garden? What the heck is going on?

The 6,000-square foot green roof at the Moore facility, the garden center built by Lake City philanthropist Darla Moore last January.  It is one of a handful of new “green roofs” that are springing up in the Pee Dee.  They are part of a national experiment in green building design.  The roofs can save money and help mitigate environmental impact by cutting down on energy use and mitigating storm water runoff.

The J.L. McMillan Federal Building in Florence and the McNair Science Building at Francis Marion University are also experimenting with green roofs.

Read more:  http://www.philly.com/philly/home/Rooftop_gardens_spring_up_in_the_Pee_Dee.html

Weather Does Please, But It’s Just A Tease

Ah, at long last, golfing weather.

Abundant sunshine, temperatures near 60 and the Easter spirit got Willy Quick in the mood Saturday to practice chipping and putting.

“This is a good golfing day,” declared Quick, 68, toting an 8-iron at Reading’s Third & Spruce Recreation Center.

Not to put a damper on things, but the scent of spring is likely to be short-lived.

Read more:  http://readingeagle.com/article.aspx?id=464630

North Korea Says It’s In State Of War With South Korea

English: Own work, based on Wikipedia blank map. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Editor’s note:  Nut jobs with nukes!  Never a good combination!

SEOUL, South Korea – North Korea issued its latest belligerent threat Saturday, saying it has entered “a state of war” with South Korea a day after its young leader threatened the United States because two American B-2 bombers flew a training mission in South Korea.

Analysts say a full-scale conflict is extremely unlikely and North Korea’s threats are instead aimed at drawing Washington into talks that could result in aid and boosting leader Kim Jong Un’s image at home.  But the harsh rhetoric from North Korea and rising animosity from the rivals that have followed U.N. sanctions over Pyongyang’s Feb. 12 nuclear test have raised worries of a misjudgment leading to a clash.

In a joint statement by the government, political parties and organizations, North Korea said Saturday that it will deal with all matters involving South Korea according to “wartime regulations.”  It also warned it will retaliate against any provocations by the United States and South Korea without “any prior notice.”

The divided Korean Peninsula is already in a technical state of war because the 1950-53 Korean War ended in a cease-fire, not a peace treaty.  But Pyongyang said it was scrapping the war armistice earlier this month.

Read more:  http://www.philly.com/philly/news/nation_world/20130330_ap_nkoreasaysitsinstateofwarwithskorea.html

Well Before Summer, Hamptons Luxury Real Estate Is Scorching

Editor’s note:  Just is case you were wondering how the other half lives….

The emerald hedgerows that are a natural euphemism for Hamptons exclusivity (out here, good hedges, not good fences, make for felicitous neighbors) are hanging tight.

Most of the double-decker dunes that define the East End’s ocean coastline ar

English: MONTAUK POINT LIGHTHOUSE, LONG ISLAND, NY (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

e hanging tight, too.  That unfortunately can’t be said for patches of Long Island, Fire Island, New Jersey and Connecticut, where the extraordinary weather events of autumn 2012 transformed undulating beaches and waterfront homes to sodden pancakes.  On the South Fork of Long Island, where the array of villages and hamlets includes Southampton, Bridgehampton, Sag Harbor and Montauk, agents and town officials say only one home, owned by the Lauder family and precariously perched at water’s edge in Wainscott, drowned in the maelstrom created by Hurricane Sandy.  But erosion is a perennial enemy, and efforts to rebuff it, continual.

Otherwise, it’s back to business bolstering the bulkheads and merchandising the seductive strata of housing stock (from darling shingled cottages to resorts-masquerading-as-mansions), with brokers forecasting yet another pricey summer season.  “Nobody really suffers from Hamptons sticker shock anymore,” said Judi Desiderio, the founder of Town and Country Real Estate.

Harald Grant, a senior vice president of Sotheby’s International Realty, has already rented out an oceanfront house in Southampton for $550,000 for the month of August alone and has a stack of 14 contracts and purchase memos on his desk representing pending sales of $4.5 million to $25 million.  Not to worry: the most expensive oceanfront property in the Hamptons, on East Hampton’s Lily Pond Lane and co-listed by Tim Davis of the Corcoran Group and Diane Saatchi of Saunders & Associates, is still available for $40 million.

Read more:  http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/24/realestate/another-pricey-summer-season-in-the-hamptons.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&adxnnl=1&hpw&adxnnlx=1364236942-aFd3D8FKOG7ZWJiPOfjrnQ

Days Of Promise Fade For Ethanol

Editor’s note:  Wondering when we will end our dependence on foreign oil?  This isn’t the way to do it!

Backed by government subsidies and mandates, hundreds of ethanol plants rose among the golden fields of the Corn Belt, bringing jobs and business to small towns, providing farmers with a new market for their crops and generating billions of dollars in revenue for the producers of this corn-based fuel blend.

Those days of promise and prosperity are vanishing.

Nearly 10 percent of the nation’s ethanol plants have stopped production over the past year, in part because the drought that has ravaged much of the nation’s crops pushed commodity prices so high that ethanol has become too expensive to produce.

A dip in gasoline consumption has compounded the industry’s problem by reducing the demand for ethanol.

Read more:  http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/17/us/17ethanol.html?hp&_r=0

New World Pope

emblem of the Papacy: Triple tiara and keys Français : emblème pontifical Italiano: emblema del Papato Português: Emblema papal. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

VATICAN CITY – Jorge Bergoglio of Argentina was elected pope Wednesday, becoming the first pontiff from the Americas and the first from outside Europe in more than a millennium.

He chose the name Francis, associating himself with the humble 13th-century Italian preacher who lived a life of poverty.

Francis shyly waved to the crowd of more than 100,000 people who packed a rain-soaked St. Peter’s Square for the announcement, marveling that the cardinals needed to look to “the end of the earth” to find a bishop of Rome.

In choosing a 76-year-old pope, the cardinals clearly decided that they didn’t need a vigorous, young pope who would reign for decades but rather a seasoned, popular and humble pastor who would draw followers to the faith and help rebuild a church stained by scandal.

Read more:  http://readingeagle.com/article.aspx?id=458749

Daylight Saving Time: Why Do We Do It?

As we set our clocks forward an hour this Sunday, there are at least a few things we can be sure of:

• There will be lots of groaning about losing an hour of sleep,

• People will be cheery about the growing length of the day (and sunshine), and

• Lots of people will debate why we even have Daylight Saving Time.

The government tells us that DST does three fundamentally good things — saves energy, saves lives by preventing traffic injuries, and reduces crime. But where’s the proof? Where are the studies?

“There’s really not anything recent that’s been done,” said Bill Mosley, public affairs spokesman for the Department of Transportation, which oversees the nation’s time zones and observance of DST.

Read more:  http://www.pottsmerc.com/article/20130309/NEWS01/130309404/daylight-saving-time-why-do-we-do-it-

The Holocaust Just Got More Shocking

THIRTEEN years ago, researchers at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum began the grim task of documenting all the ghettos, slave labor sites, concentration camps and killing factories that the Nazis set up throughout Europe.

What they have found so far has shocked even scholars steeped in the history of the Holocaust.

The researchers have cataloged some 42,500 Nazi ghettos and camps throughout Europe, spanning German-controlled areas from France to Russia and Germany itself, during Hitler’s reign of brutality from 1933 to 1945.

The figure is so staggering that even fellow Holocaust scholars had to make sure they had heard it correctly when the lead researchers previewed their findings at an academic forum in late January at the German Historical Institute in Washington.

Read more:  http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/03/sunday-review/the-holocaust-just-got-more-shocking.html?pagewanted=1&_r=0&hp

Mayer Tells Yahoo Staffers They Can’t Work From Home

Deutsch: Logo von Yahoo (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

SAN FRANCISCO — Corporate America’s most famous working mother has banned her employees from working at home.  Now the backlash is threatening to overshadow the progress she has made turning around Yahoo Inc.

Marissa Mayer, one of only a handful of women leading Fortune 500 companies, has become the talk of Twitter and Silicon Valley for her controversial move to end telecommuting at the struggling Internet pioneer.

From the start, Mayer, who at 37 is one of Silicon Valley’s most notorious workaholics, was not the role model that some working moms were hoping for.  The former Google Inc. executive stirred up controversy by taking the demanding top job at Yahoo when she was five months pregnant and then taking only two weeks of maternity leave.  Mayer built a nursery next to her office at her own expense to be closer to her infant son and work even longer hours.

Now working moms are in an uproar because they believe that Mayer is setting them back by taking away their flexible working arrangements.  Many view telecommuting as the only way time-crunched women can care for young children and advance their careers without the pay, privilege or perks that come with being the chief executive of a Fortune 500 company.

Read more:  http://www.mcall.com/news/nationworld/chi-mayers-tells-yahoo-staffers-they-cant-work-from-home-20130225,0,2512436.story

Gas Prices Soar Across U.S.

WASHINGTON – The average price of a gallon of regular gasoline has jumped 45 cents in the past 31 days, according to AAA, the fastest run-up since 2005.

Retail gasoline prices have climbed for 33 days in a row.  A month ago, a gallon of regular gasoline cost $3.30; on Tuesday it stood at $3.75 nationwide.

Gasoline prices have risen to within a nickel of $4 a gallon in the District of Columbia as pump prices nationwide have been marching higher – the result of refinery closures and maintenance, lower oil production by Saudi Arabia, market anxiety about tensions in Iran and Iraq, and guarded optimism about the prospects for economic recovery in the United States, Europe and China.

Read more:  http://business-news.thestreet.com/the-mercury/story/gas-prices-soar-across-us/1