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Lee Albertorio felt like a man trapped in a woman’s body. After serving in the Air Force, he began taking hormones, which deepened his voice and made his physique more masculine. He changed his passport to reflect that he was male, and last year he decided to have a mastectomy, known as top surgery. But his insurance company told him the operation was cosmetic and refused to cover it, he said Wednesday. Now Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo is warning insurance companies that they will no longer be allowed to deny gender reassignment surgery or other treatment to change a person’s...

So how are we all faring here in the face of this deadly NorCal storm? Since my house didn't blow away and I still have power I'm doing a cookathon laundry extravaganza!

Health workers sent to Sierra Leone to investigate an alarming spike in deaths from Ebola have uncovered a grim scene: piles of bodies, overwhelmed medical personnel and exhausted burial teams. The World Health Organization says the health workers from several local and international agencies are racing to the latest Ebola hotspot, a diamond-mining area that Sierra Leone put on "lockdown" Wednesday. "In 11 days, two teams buried 87 bodies, including a nurse, an ambulance driver, and a janitor who had been drafted into removing bodies piled up at the only area hospital," the WHO said in a statement Wednesday night....

An Osteen woman who Volusia deputies said used to abuse her mother violated an injunction against her by making more than 500 telephone calls to her deputies said. That is not counting at least 12 times that Kimberly Skinner, 23, tried to visit her mother, investigators said. On Sunday alone, Skinner called her mother 22 times, deputies said. Skinner, charged with aggravated stalking and violating an injunction for protection against domestic violence, was being held without bail Monday at the Volusia County Branch Jail. According to the mother, Shirley Sharon, 60, since the injunction was served Jan. 22, “her daughter...

If you use a WordPress website and would like a short, classical music Christmas greeting, this is easy.First see if you like the music.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GpRZecQpxuc(Click above.)This widget looks like this:Here's the way to use it:WordPress > Dashboard > Appearance > Widgets > Text<iframe width="285" height="214" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/GpRZecQpxuc" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>Just start a new text widget where you want it to appear, then copy in the iFrame above. Or use any little, short music video you'd like.(A "Widget" is a little internet do-dad that's easy to use & powerful.)

Police say Jalen Bradley, 18, tried to run away while in handcuffs, take gun from officer.... ....Bradley was arrested after he brought a gun to the Jan Mann Opportunity School in Miami Gardens, police said..... After Bradley was taken into custody, he tried to run away while in handcuffs and fought with an officer, attempting to take his gun, police said. Bradley later told police he would have shot the officer if he was able to take the gun away, police said. Bradley said he hates both security monitors and planned to shoot them as well, police said.

On Wednesday evening, in the very hall where the University of California at Berkeley had just celebrated the 50th anniversary of the Free Speech Movement, demonstrators shut down a speech by billionaire tech guru--and noted libertarian--Peter Thiel. The activists who broke into Wheeler Hall were protesting the non-indictment of police officers in the deaths of black suspects Michael Brown and Eric Garner in Ferguson, MO and Staten Island, NY for the fifth straight evening.

WASHINGTON — Opening the door for what could be a lucrative and controversial new industry on some Native American reservations, the Justice Department on Thursday will tell U.S. attorneys to not prevent tribes from growing or selling marijuana on the sovereign lands, even in states that ban the practice. The new guidance, released in a memorandum, will be implemented on a case-by-case basis and tribes must still follow federal guidelines, said Timothy Purdon, the U.S. attorney for North Dakota and the chairman of the Attorney General's Subcommittee on Native American Issues. It remains to be seen how many reservations will...

Updated 2:30 p.m. | Unsure whether they have the votes to pass a trillion-dollar federal spending package, House GOP leaders on Thursday afternoon delayed a final vote on the “cromnibus.” They did so with mere hours to go until the government is set to run out of funding, and just before the House was scheduled to vote. GOP leaders called a recess to floor proceedings, with a GOP leadership aide confirming “no conference meeting [is] planned at this time.” The aide said “leadership teams are still talking to their respective members,” and noted, “We still plan to vote this afternoon.”...

Senior FDIC officials must be held accountable for banking regulators’ “unethical” and “illegal” actions against legitimate businesses that are out of favor with the Obama administration, a congressman with a background in banking said today. In a letter to Martin Gruenberg, chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer, R-Mo., says he wants a full review of all FDIC employees involved in Operation Choke Point. Luetkemeyer, a rising member of the House Financial Services Committee, names five officials as “implicated in this unsavory affair,” and adds that “to allow these individuals to go without penalty would be unjust.”...

... To say that jokes about Canada are made out of envy is far too simplistic. Canada has blazed its own trail through history, and most US Americans respect it for that. After all, if the worst jokes you get are about all the snow, your friendliness, and the uniforms your police wear, you must be doing something right! ...

Sixty-Four Percent (64%) of Aborting Moms “Felt Pressured By Others” (217 sample population)  medscimonit.com/download/index/idArt/11784 Free download with Creative Common Attribution-NonCommercial

The smart skin, which in photos appears to drape a prosthetic hand like a see-through glove, is made of a soft polymer known as elastomer, and contains pressure, temperature and humidity sensors and stretchable electrodes that stimulate the existing nerves. The researchers were able to demonstrate how the skin could sense pressure from catching a ball as well as the temperature of a cup of hot or cold water. It could tell wet from dry, and the skin's heat sensors responded when it touched a baby doll warmed to body temperature.

Everyone has heard of the formidable German assault rifle, the G36—the successor to the reliable G3. Both are Heckler & Koch products. You can find the G3 all around the world, as the rifle is in the top five for small arms sales. The G36 is different. It’s actually quite rare outside of Europe. And for good reason. It’s got a bad reputation.

Sen. Dick Durbin on Thursday slammed Republicans and Wall Street for an “odious provision” in the spending bill that would roll back a piece of the Dodd-Frank financial reform law. “It is amazing to me that we worked so long on a spending bill to keep government open and now the Wall Street banks have parked themselves under the mistletoe and said, ‘Before anyone can make a move, we’ve got to get special treatment,’” Durbin (D-Ill.) said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.” Durbin, the No. 2 Democrat in the Senate, said he shares the fears of his colleague Sen. Elizabeth Warren,...

The cost to Gawker Media of its ridicule and viciousness toward video gamers was "seven figures" in lost advertising revenue, according to the company's head of advertising, Andrew Gorenstein. In addition, founder Nick Denton has stepped down as president and editorial director Joel Johnson has been removed from his post and will probably leave the company, reports Capital New York. "Ultimately #GamerGate is reaffirming what we’ve known to be true for decades: nerds should be constantly shamed and degraded into submission," Gawker writer Sam Biddle tweeted in October, sparking a firestorm of outrage which solidified into a sustained letter-writing campaign...

"... if you had a big derivatives bust that brought down JP Morgan or Bank of America, there is no way there is going to be collateral left for the FDIC or for the secured depositors. This would include state and local governments. They all put their money in these big banks. So, even though we are protected by the FDIC, the FDIC is not going to have the money. . . . This makes it legal for these big 30 banks to take our money when they become insolvent. They are too-big-to-fail. This was supposed to avoid too-big-to-fail, but...

For fifty years the Republican nominating process has been the avenue through which the party chooses the nominee for the next election season. This year’s nominee is never in doubt. Whoever finished second last time simply steps up for his turn. If the second-place finisher from the last campaign decides not to run, as in ’68 and ‘00, the nominee is appointed by the party leadership and presented for ratification in the primary process. This is no historical accident, but rather a product of the institutional structure of the party. That institutional structure has broken down. Priorities and practices that...

Live CIA Director Brennan delivers remarks on Senate report

http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2014-12-10/republican-bigwigs-will-own-the-tea-party