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2 Babies Get Herpes After Jewish Circumcision Ritual ANCIENT RITUAL INVOLVES SUCKING BLOOD FROM WOUND, SPITTING IT ASIDE By Elizabeth Armstrong Moore, Newser Staff Posted Jul 29, 2014 (NEWSER) – An ancient and now rare type of circumcision called metzitzah b'peh, which is sometimes performed by Orthodox Jews on newborn boys, appears to be behind the spread of herpes simplex virus type 1 (HSV-1) to two newborns in New York this month. Both boys were born to mothers who carried full-term and had normal deliveries, reports WNBC-TV. During the ritual, however, the person doing the circumcision uses direct oral suction...

DIAMOND LAKE, Mich. (WOOD) — A man walking his dog in the Diamond Lake area Monday morning came upon a newborn baby abandoned on the side of the road by a young mother. The baby, who is recovering at the hospital, was discovered on the side of a dirt road around 10:30 a.m. in the area of Marion Road, north of White Cloud. Jeff Kopp said he normally doesn’t walk along Marion, but his dog Bobby seemed to be on a mission Monday morning, pulling him down the road and toward a satellite dish. “He brought me over to about...

Hispanics make up 62 percent of the uninsured, and that demographic group presents a particular challenge for insurance-expansion advocates. Nearly half of the uninsured Hispanics are ineligible for either Medi-Cal or Obamacare plans because they are undocumented immigrants. A total of 37 percent of those eligible, documented Hispanics told researchers that they were "very worried" or "somewhat worried" that if they signed up for health insurance it "will draw attention" to their own or a family member's immigration status.

A high-risk sex offender is on the move again as public outrage mounts over a warning from police that he would be living in the city's east end. Hamilton police issued a rare community safety notification Friday for Keith Theodore Constantin, who was released from custody last week after serving a five-year sentence for sexually assaulting a young woman in the basement of his parents' Hamilton home.

The general consensus is that the jobs most affected will be menial, low-paying ones – but this may not be the low-hanging fruit at all. Folks will work less and have far more time to spend on wonderful things because they'll share jobs. (they'll also make far less money, likely falling under the threshold where their employers pay for medical coverage.)

The European Union and the United States are imposing the strongest sanctions against Russia since the Cold War in an attempt to prevent further destabilisation of Ukraine. The sanctions will now hit Russian banks and its energy and defence sectors. US president Barak Obama says Russia must pay an economic price for meddling in Ukraine and should brace for an even bigger hit if it continues to support the rebels.

There are no gorillas in West Africa, so specialists think this outbreak is linked to fruit bats. In 2007 in Uganda, an Ebola outbreak was traced to “a couple of kids playing with fruit bats in a cave. They came home with two dead fruit bats and the mothers cooked them,” said Dr. Estrella Lasry, a tropical medicine advisor to Doctors Without Borders. Researchers still don’t know the exact cause of this particular outbreak, but it might have to do with the local practice of eating bats for food, according to Jonathan Epstein, an epidemiologist at EcoHealth Alliance. “It's unclear...

The organizations are planning to move the 60 people out of Liberia to another area of Africa in the next couple of days. That group will stay in Africa for a 21-day fever watch to make sure they do not have the Ebola virus. Johnson said, the two groups are working with the CDC and state department to make sure the 60 people are cleared before coming back to the states. Right now, none of them are showing signs of the disease. "It's a safety precaution for some of the children that we have there and some of the spouses....

Business executives and politicians endlessly complain that there is a "shortage" of qualified Americans and that the U.S. must admit more high-skilled guest workers to fill jobs in STEM fields: science, technology, engineering and math. Yet within the past month, two odd things occurred: Census reported that only one in four STEM degree holders is in a STEM job, and Microsoft announced plans to downsize its workforce by 18,000 jobs.

The College Football Czar: 2014 Season Preview a sports publication from The Shinbone by Daniel Clark Welcome to the 2014 season preview issue of The College Football Czar, a seasonal sports publication by the author and editor of The Shinbone. In the coming months, you will find weekly analyses of upcoming college football action posted at this site. To find out more, please see the Ground Rules. This issue contains the Czar's rankings for all 128 teams in Division I-A football, as well as conference preview capsules, potential upsets to watch for, bowl projections, and a guide to help you...

A Pennsylvania fracking mogul bid more than $1 billion for the Buffalo Bills on Tuesday — making it likely the team will attract a record sales price for an NFL team, The Post has learned. Terrence Pegula, who owns the NHL Buffalo Sabres, is one of only two known bidders for the storied football franchise, which was put on the block last spring following the March 25 death of owner Ralph Wilson Jr.. Donald Trump also made a first-round bid for the Bills — bids were due by 5 p.m. Tuesday. It could not be learned whether other bids were...

Alaskans living on an isolated Aleutian Island, miles from emergency medical care, sued the Obama administration in 2013 for blocking a gravel road that would wind through the Izembek National Wildlife Refuge and allow residents to reach a vital airport. Since then, the administration has not budged – and Interior Secretary Sally Jewell (pictured) reportedly told concerned state lawmakers to "get over it" on Friday. Majority Leader Lance Pruitt told KTUU News that the Secretary made the dismissive comments while meeting with him in Washington, D.C., on Friday. “[Jewell] wishes Alaskans would just get over this,” Pruitt said. “She implied...

Patrons had to buy the potential presidential candidate's new book, "Hard Choices," from the store in advance. A total of 1,000 people did. Clinton was to dash off her signature only, so no personal requests would be allowed and no other memorabilia signed, according to the bookstore's website. Children over age 6 were required to have their own book and ticket, and patrons were not allowed to bring bags or personal items into the store.

GREENWOOD, S.C. —A 23-year-old Greenwood man who posed as a Charlotte-area pastor and State Bureau of Investigation agent to scam people out of money was arrested following an investigation, according to the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation. Justin DeWayne Moore was arrested late Monday by deputies with the Greenwood County Sheriff’s Office and taken into custody based on North Carolina arrest warrants on charges of extortion and impersonating a law enforcement officer. Moore faces extradition to Mecklenburg County, Attorney General Roy Cooper said Tuesday. The SBI alleges that Moore ran the scheme along with two family members, including one...

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — North Carolina authorities say a South Carolina man posed as a Charlotte pastor and a State Bureau of Investigation agent to scam people out of money in a scheme involving nude pictures and supposedly broken church windows. Cooper says the scam started with a woman sending the victims nude photos.... (AP Article)

While some studies have associated unemployment with increased risk of death, others claim that recessions reduce mortality. Results of the study revealed that losing a job is associated with a 73% higher risk of death, which the team says is the equivalent of adding 10 years to a person's age. Every percentage-point increase in a person's state unemployment rates was a linked to a 9% reduction in the risk of death - the equivalent of reducing a person's age by 1 year.

(VIDEO-AT-LINK)Meghan McCain won’t be tuning into the Sarah Palin Channel any time soon. “I am not going to subscribe to Sarah Palin’s $9.95 per month,” McCain said on Monday during her Pivot show TakePart Live. “I got all the Sarah Palin I need for one lifetime.” Palin, the 2008 running mate of McCain’s father Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), announced Sunday that she will be starting her own Internet television news channel, the Sarah Palin Channel. “This is a news channel that really is a lot more than news,” Palin said in a video posted to Facebook on Sunday. “This is...

A recent report by JP Morgan’s Michael Cembalest provides a fresh look at the problem of state indebtedness. Cembalest, global head of investment strategy, is best known for his writings on housing and for flagging Bernard Madoff’s fund and refusing to invest in it, even while other divisions at JPMorgan gleefully did so. Cembalest looks at state governments’ annual payments towards bonded debt interest and retirement liabilities (defined-benefit and defined-contribution pensions as well as retiree healthcare benefits) expressed as percentage of total annual revenue. In addition to assessing states’ default risk, this approach quantifies exactly how much debt expenditures are...

"(A natural EMP event) today would cause a massive disruption to the electric grid, possibly shutting it down entirely for months or longer, with unimaginable consequences," Singer wrote. "Only two years ago, the sun let loose with a Carrington-magnitude burst, but the position of the earth at the time prevented the burst from hitting it. The chances of additional events of such magnitude may be far greater than most people think." Carrington refers to a solar storm in 1859 that caused telegraph systems to fail around the world. Singer warned that a man-made EMP attack would be even worse.

I just thought I would point out - as a matter of curiosity - that here we are, at the end of July, about to go into August, and the temperature at my house (in upstate New York) is at present 51° F. When I was growing up in this same neck of the woods, we would typically have a week or so of temperatures above 90° right about now, and a few times would go over 100°, at least for a day or two. Also interesting to note that - at this very moment - "AccuWeather" is saying that...

Inside Hoboken’s combined junior-senior high school is a storage closet. Behind the locked door, some mothballed laptop computers are strewn among brown cardboard boxes. Others are stacked one atop another. Dozens more are stored on mobile computer carts, many of them on their last legs. That’s all that remains from a failed experiment to assign every student a laptop at Hoboken Junior Senior High School. It began five years ago with an unexpected windfall of stimulus money from Washington, D.C., and good intentions to help the district’s students, the majority of whom are under or near the poverty line, keep...

Dating website OKCupid has revealed that it experimented on its users, including putting the "wrong" people together to see if they would connect. It revealed the tests after the uproar over Facebook manipulating the feeds of its users. "If you use the internet, you're the subject of hundreds of experiments at any given time, on every site," it said. "That's how websites work." OKCupid said one revelation was that "people just look at the picture". As well as allowing users to upload pictures and set up dating profiles, OKCupid asks users questions and matches them with potential partners based on...

Sharknado 2: The Second One," set in New York, premieres July 30 on Syfy. The cable movie, which will also be in theaters for one night on August 21, is part of a whole "Sharknado Week" that kicked off Saturday, beating Discovery’s Shark Week to the bloody punch. ... The actual ratings — 1.4 million for the premiere — weren’t great. ... The TV movie "Sharknado," which was about exactly what it sounds like — a storm in which sharks funnel out of tornadoes to rain down on horrified victims — drew 318,232 tweets during its premiere last July. Nielsen...

I remember years ago, we "melted" the phones in DC over the amnesty issue. I am also well aware of the fact that DC learned their lesson that day. We have melted the phones since then; the difference is that the staffers in DC stopped admitting it, and the media stopped reporting it. I have heard it straight from one Congressman's mouth- the staffers themselves have said, "their just people." How many times have you heard friends, family, co-workers, etc claim they don't vote, because their vote doesn't matter anyway? We here at Free Republic are all very well aware...

Big thanks to Martin Archer for help with this episode. And thanks to Guy Larsen for his shadow magic.

WASHINGTON — More than 35% of Americans have debts and unpaid bills that have been reported to collection agencies, according to a study released Tuesday by the Urban Institute. These consumers fall behind on credit cards or hospital bills. Their mortgages, auto loans or student debt pile up, unpaid. Even past-due gym membership fees or cellphone contracts can end up with a collection agency, potentially hurting credit scores and job prospects, said Caroline Ratcliffe, a senior fellow at the Washington-based think-tank. “Roughly, every third person you pass on the street is going to have debt in collections,” Ratcliffe said. “It...

SANTA ANA (CBSLA.com) — An Orange County man was found guilty Tuesday of killing his roommate in 2013. Kwang Joy, 54, was convicted of second-degree murder for the death of Iraqi war veteran and Cal State Fullerton student Maribel Ramos. Officials believe Ramos, 36, and Joy got into an argument on May 2, 2013 after the victim told him he needed to move out of her home in Orange. Ramos’ body was found in Modjeska Canyon off Santiago Canyon Road two weeks later. During the search for the victim, Joy maintained his innocence and repeatedly talked about his love for...

A jury awarded former Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura $1.8 million on Tuesday in his lawsuit against the estate of “American Sniper” author Chris Kyle. On the sixth day of deliberations, the federal jury decided that the author of the 2012 best-selling book defamed Ventura in its description of a bar fight in California in 2006. Kyle, regarded as the deadliest military sniper in U.S. history, wrote that he decked a man whom he later identified as Ventura after the man allegedly said the Navy SEALs “deserve to lose a few.” Ventura testified that Kyle fabricated the passage about punching him....

Where Is Your Government? The Constitution is solely about how government functions within the enumerated legislative powers it grants Congress. The Constitution is not about what the people can and cannot do; the Constitution is about what the government can and cannot do. America’s founders documented their vision for a free people by limiting legislative powers to the Congress. The founders’ words are clear concise proper English grammar. Article 1. Section 1 says that All legislative Powers shall be vested in a Congress. The word “all” means all, not most, and not some; it means all. The founders’ wisdom limited...

Baltimore Ravens fans gave running back Ray Rice a standing ovation as he jogged onto the field during training camp practice on Monday, according to the team's website. Rice acknowledged the cheering fans by pointing to the crowd. Rice was seen on video in February dragging his then-fiancée out of an Atlantic City casino elevator. He was charged with third-degree aggravated assault after Janay Palmer, whom he later married, was left unconscious following the incident. Rice agreed to enter into a diversion program to avoid a jail sentence. More: Lenient penalty for Ray Rice troubling proof of where NFL's priorities...

CHICAGO -- There's a statement to be made, a huge one at Penn State. A nation's outrage may not have diminished over the Jerry Sandusky scandal but the story is certainly off the front page. It was two years ago this month that the NCAA overreached into a sordid criminal matter, forever changing history. So much upheaval, so much collateral damage. The group of innocents from that day two years ago are still being punished. They don't talk about it much anymore, but they live it each day. "I think we've done everything right," Penn State linebacker Mike Hull said....

Three reporters for a food safety publication have been subpoenaed in the $1.2 billion defamation lawsuit against ABC related to the network’s coverage of a meat product derided as “pink slime.” […] Beef Products Inc. sued ABC in 2012 alleging that its reports led to plant closures and layoffs because it misled consumers into believing the product was unsafe. …

I am planning to develop an online music instruction course which I intend to make available online to paying subscribers. The content will be a combination of text, narration, videos/visual images with and without animation, and music audio tracks which will synch with the video/visual imagery. I will not be using videos of myself in the course material. When I first got the idea for this series of lessons, I was thinking in terms of making and selling it as a DVD, but now I think that idea is obsolete. Ideally, a user should only need a laptop or tablet...

On July 13, Josie Garcia’s husband was pulled over by Houston PD for failure to use a turn signal. The routine traffic stop lead to a search and prescription drugs belonging to the passenger were found. Both men were subsequently arrested and the SUV was impounded. Charges against her husband were dropped days later. Unfortunately, Garcia’s 14 year old chihuahua, Guero, was along for the ride. As the men were being taken into custody and the SUV towed, Guero was removed from the vehicle and left on the side of Highway 59. Garcia’s husband plead with the officer to let...

In this video-clip, Iranians are seen enjoying themselves at a funfair in Shiraz marking Qods Day, shooting with air rifles at images of U.S. President Obama with the caption "Death to America" and of Israeli PM Netanyahu, with the caption "Death to Israel." Pictures of Iranian opposition leaders Mousavi, Karroubi, and others also feature as targets. The video-clip was posted on the Internet on July 28, 2014.

A Minnesota jury has awarded former Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura $1.8 million Tuesday in his lawsuit against the estate of American Sniper author Chris Kyle. On the sixth day of deliberations, the federal jury decided that the 2012 best-selling book defamed Ventura in its description of a bar fight in California in 2006. Kyle wrote that he decked a man whom he later identified as Ventura after the man allegedly said the Navy SEALs 'deserve to lose a few.'

Gig Harbor, Washington. -- In the Pacific Northwest, we live among behemoths — snowcapped volcanoes, towering trees, great splashing salmon and lattes as big as a child’s head. Yet one of the region’s undeniably superlative titans has slipped beneath everyone’s radar.

Exposure to light at night, which shuts off nighttime production of the hormone melatonin, renders breast cancer completely resistant to tamoxifen, a widely used breast cancer drug, says a new study by Tulane University School of Medicine cancer researchers. The study, "Circadian and Melatonin Disruption by Exposure to Light at Night Drives Intrinsic Resistance to Tamoxifen Therapy in Breast Cancer," published in the journal Cancer Research, is the first to show that melatonin is vital to the success of tamoxifen in treating breast cancer. Principal investigators and co-leaders of Tulane's Circadian Cancer Biology Group, Steven Hill and David Blask, along...

Editor's Note: This column contains spoilers and plot details for the upcoming movie The Giver. With his approval numbers sinking to 39 percent a week ago, according to the Gallup tracking poll, President Obama isn't alone in having a bad summer. So is Hollywood. Entertainment Weekly calls gross receipts for what should have been a blockbuster July 4-6 weekend "downright terrifying." Writes EW, "Not only were grosses down 45 percent from last year's holiday, according to Boxofficemojo.com, but it was Hollywood's worst July 4 weekend since 1999. (And that's not taking into account inflation. In fact, this was the worst...

Very interesting and informative talk and video presentation on how to learn basic Chinese characters.................

NORRISTOWN, Pa. (CBS) — A major pharmaceutical company is planning another round of layoffs that again will hit Montgomery County hard. On the heels of more than 650 job cuts at its West Point manufacturing and research plant in late 2013 and earlier this year, Merck plans to let go another 600 employees by the end of August. The company has already filed notices with the Pennsylvania Department of Labor which says the jobs are being cut in North Wales and Lansdale. County Commissioner Josh Shapiro is disappointed with the news, but says they’re working to help those affected.

According to proposals on the table at the Texas Department of Transportation, the highway system around Downtown Houston may be subject to a significant transformation. This well may be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for the city to reconnect neighborhoods long bifurcated by highway IH-45 while also improving traffic capacity of the highways. How to change and improve the highway system is of great debate. As the Department of Transportation follows through on its federally required processes to propose and examine alternatives to the expansion of IH-45, also called the North Houston Highway Improvement Project, itÂ’s winnowing the options quickly. Now is...

The Commonwealth Games, which opened last week in Glasgow, Scotland in the presence of the Queen, was, like all sporting events these days, ushered into existence to the accompaniment of a lavish and visually impressive opening ceremony. But amidst the dancing mechanical giants and gay kisses, the organizers also sought to celebrate Scottishness by having each team led out by Scottie dogs wearing tartan coats embroidered with the name of the team. Social media, predictably, fell in love with the doggies, however now political and religious leaders in Malaysia have cried foul, and are accusing the organizers of disrespect towards...

Case Western Reserve University (CWRU) in Cleveland, Ohio, has "beefed up security measures" after four students were robbed in one of the university's commons "in broad daylight" this past weekend. The CWRU online student handbook clearly "prohibits the possession of firearms" on campus. According to Cleveland.com, the students were studying in CWRU's Wade Commons around 4:30 in the afternoon, when "three men, with hooded sweatshirts tied around their face and red bandanas, came into the RedCats room, pulled out a silver handgun and demanded belongings." On June 10, a woman walking on campus in front of the business school building...

Penelope Cruz, Javier Bardem, Pedro Almodovar, and other members of the Spanish film industry sent a public letter to the European Union on Tuesday denouncing Israel for “genocide.” Dozens of Spanish actors, writers, musicians, directors, and other entertainment representatives asked the EU to “condemn the bombing by land, sea, and air against the Palestinian civilian population in the Gaza Strip.”

This kitten is evidently not a fan of strangers in the house, and she knows a few kung fu moves to put some fear into the... ceramic cat. Although it's unlikely the ceramic cat will fight back, it doesn't stop this brave kitten from putting on a fight.

I was in another thread and somehow my brain decided to come up with a new apt term to describe liberal control freak policies... The 3lbs of grey matter between my ears came up with the term "Feel Good Fascism". I think it encapsulates their ideology quite well. Fat People are bad and drink too much soda, so ban people from buying soda = Feel Good Fascism. Poor People Exist, so you Steal using government power to give help to people who are unable to or unwilling to work = Feel Good Fascism. Liberal policies have two components, One is...

The entrance is a wet hole in the earth little bigger than an animal burrow, obscured by thorny brush in a secluded wood in northeastern France. I’m following Jeff Gusky, a photographer and physician from Texas who has explored dozens of underground spaces like this one. Together we slither through the muddy hole into the darkness below. Soon the passage opens up, and we crawl forward on hands and knees. The glow from our headlamps wavers along the dusty chalk walls of the century-old tunnel, which slopes away from us down into the shadows. After a few hundred feet the...

(language warning) A .50 gunner takes a ricochet or shrapnel to the neck and starts putting rounds back down range quickly.