New York City Police Officer Buys Shoes for Homeless Man
Label: Lifestyle
Heroes Among Us
NYPD Officer Larry DePrimo and unidentified homeless man
Courtesy NYPD
Santa arrived early this year and was wearing an NYPD uniform.
When Officer Larry DePrimo encountered a barefoot, homeless man on his Times Square beat on the cold night of Nov. 14, the policeman promptly went inside the nearby Skechers store and bought a pair of $100 boots (a store employee sliced the price to $75 with his own staff discount) and presented them to the man.
As it so happened, Jennifer Foster, a tourist from Florence, Ariz., not only witnessed the generous act, but captured the moment with a cellphone photo. She emailed it to the NYPD, which then posted the shot on its Facebook page, reports The New York Times.
The result? Not surprisingly, the handsome 25-year-old DePrimo, who joined the force two years ago and lives with his parents on Long Island, is not only a hero, but an Internet sensation.
As of Wednesday night, the post had been viewed 1.6 million times, and by the following morning had drawn nearly 350,000 "likes" and 85,000 "shares" – and was a topic of discussion on morning television.
DePrimo, who said his own feet were freezing that night (despite his wearing two pairs of socks), still keeps the Skechers receipt is still in his vest, to remind him "that sometimes people have it worse."
As for the man in need, "He was the most polite gentleman I had met," DePrimo told the Times, adding that the man's face lit up at the sight of the boots.
And while the officer also offered him a cup of coffee, "as soon as the boots were on him," DePrimo said, "he went on his way, and I just went back to my post."
The two never so much as exchanged names.
Know a hero? Send suggestions to heroesamongus@peoplemag.com. For more inspiring stories, read the latest issue of PEOPLE magazine
Simple measures cut infections caught in hospitals
Label: HealthCHICAGO (AP) — Preventing surgery-linked infections is a major concern for hospitals and it turns out some simple measures can make a big difference.
A project at seven big hospitals reduced infections after colorectal surgeries by nearly one-third. It prevented an estimated 135 infections, saving almost $4 million, the Joint Commission hospital regulating group and the American College of Surgeons announced Wednesday. The two groups directed the 2 1/2-year project.
Solutions included having patients shower with special germ-fighting soap before surgery, and having surgery teams change gowns, gloves and instruments during operations to prevent spreading germs picked up during the procedures.
Some hospitals used special wound-protecting devices on surgery openings to keep intestine germs from reaching the skin.
The average rate of infections linked with colorectal operations at the seven hospitals dropped from about 16 percent of patients during a 10-month phase when hospitals started adopting changes to almost 11 percent once all the changes had been made.
Hospital stays for patients who got infections dropped from an average of 15 days to 13 days, which helped cut costs.
"The improvements translate into safer patient care," said Dr. Mark Chassin, president of the Joint Commission. "Now it's our job to spread these effective interventions to all hospitals."
Almost 2 million health care-related infections occur each year nationwide; more than 90,000 of these are fatal.
Besides wanting to keep patients healthy, hospitals have a monetary incentive to prevent these infections. Medicare cuts payments to hospitals that have lots of certain health care-related infections, and those cuts are expected to increase under the new health care law.
The project involved surgeries for cancer and other colorectal problems. Infections linked with colorectal surgery are particularly common because intestinal tract bacteria are so abundant.
To succeed at reducing infection rates requires hospitals to commit to changing habits, "to really look in the mirror and identify these things," said Dr. Clifford Ko of the American College of Surgeons.
The hospitals involved were Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles; Cleveland Clinic in Ohio; Mayo Clinic-Rochester Methodist Hospital in Rochester, Minn.; North Shore-Long Island Jewish Health System in Great Neck, NY; Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago; OSF Saint Francis Medical Center in Peoria, Ill.; and Stanford Hospital & Clinics in Palo Alto, Calif.
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Online:
Joint Commission: http://www.jointcommission.org
American College of Surgeons: http://www.facs.org
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AP Medical Writer Lindsey Tanner can be reached at http://www.twitter.com/LindseyTanner
Wall Street cuts losses on Boehner "fiscal cliff" comment
Label: BusinessNEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks sharply pared losses on Wednesday after U.S. House Speaker John Boehner said he was optimistic that a deal on the "fiscal cliff" to avert large tax hikes and spending cuts could be reached.
After falling nearly 1 percent, the S&P 500 pared losses to trade near flat after Boehner said that Republicans were willing to put revenues on the table if Democrats agreed to spending cuts.
For weeks now, the market has been swinging back and forth on headlines out of Washington regarding the ongoing U.S. budget talks.
Later in the day, President Barack Obama will meet at the White House with chief executives from top corporations including Goldman Sachs
"While there's little that the president and vice president could do at today's meeting to improve moods in America's corner office, we still believe a legislative compromise will be reached before 'fiscal cliff' detonates," said Jack Ablin, chief investment officer at BMO Private Bank.
"In the meantime, we expect daunting headlines and emotional market volatility."
One possible result of the deficit reduction talks is a rise in the tax rate on dividends, prompting some firms to issue special dividends or move up plans for dividends.
The latest example is retailer Costco Wholesale Corp
The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> was up 3.38 points, or 0.03 percent, at 12,881.51. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> was down 1.73 points, or 0.12 percent, at 1,397.21. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> was down 5.10 points, or 0.17 percent, at 2,962.69.
Earlier, the S&P 500 fell nearly 1 percent on data that showed U.S. single-family home sales fell in October, casting a shadow over what has been one of the brighter spots in the U.S. economy.
Knight Capital Group Inc
On the downside, Apple Inc shares fell 1.3 percent to $576.80, weighing heavily on the overall market.
(Reporting By Angela Moon; Editing by Kenneth Barry)
Bombings Are Said to Kill Dozens Near Syria’s Capital
Label: World
Francisco Leong/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Rebels celebrated on top of a downed Syrian jet in Daret Azzeh, 20 miles west of Aleppo, on Wednesday.
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Syrian state media said on Wednesday that 34 people and possibly many more had died in twin car bombings in a suburb populated by minorities only a few miles from the center of Damascus, the capital, as the civil war swirls from north to south claiming ever higher casualties. One estimate by the government’s opponents put the death toll at 47.
There were also reports from witnesses in Turkey and antigovernment activists in Syria that for the second successive day insurgents had shot down a government aircraft in the north of the country, offering further evidence that the rebels are seeking a major shift by challenging the government’s dominance of the skies. It was not immediately clear how the aircraft, apparently a plane, had been brought down.
Video posted on the Internet by rebels showed wreckage with fires still burning around it. The aircraft appeared to show a tail assembly clearly visible jutting out of the debris. Such videos are difficult to verify, particularly in light of the restrictions facing reporters in Syria. However, the episode on Wednesday seemed to be confirmed by other witnesses.
“We watched a Syrian plane being shot down as it was flying low to drop bombs,” said Ugur Cuneydioglu, who said he observed the incident from a Turkish border village in southern Hatay Province. “It slowly went down in flames before it hit the ground. It was quite a scene,” Mr. Cuneydioglu said.
Video posted by insurgents on the Internet showed a man in aviator coveralls being carried away. It was not clear if the man was alive but the video said he had been treated in a makeshift hospital. A voice off-camera says, “This is the pilot who was shelling residents’ houses.”
The aircraft was said to have been brought down while it was attacking the town of Daret Azzeh, 20 miles west of Aleppo and close to the Turkish border. The town was the scene of a mass killing last June, when the government and the rebels blamed each other for the deaths and mutilation of 25 people. The video posted online said the plane had been brought down by “the free men of Daret Azzeh soldiers of God brigade.”
On Tuesday, Syrian rebels said they shot down a military helicopter with a surface-to-air missile outside Aleppo and they uploaded video that appeared to confirm that rebels have put their growing stock of heat-seeking missiles to effective use.
In recent months, rebels have used mainly machine guns to shoot down several Syrian Air Force helicopters and fixed-wing attack jets. In Tuesday’s case, the thick smoke trailing the projectile, combined with the elevation of the aircraft, strongly suggested that the helicopter was hit by a missile.
Rebels hailed the event as the culmination of their long pursuit of effective antiaircraft weapons, though it was not clear if the downing on Tuesday was an isolated tactical success or heralded a new phase in the war that would present a meaningful challenge to the Syrian government’s air supremacy. In Damascus, the official SANA news agency said the explosions in Jaramana outside the city at around 7 a.m. were the work of “terrorists,” the word used by the authorities to denote rebel forces seeking the overthrow of President Bashar al-Assad. Photographs on the SANA Web site showed wreckage and flames in what looked like a narrow alleyway with cars covered in chunks of debris from damaged buildings. The agency said the bombings were in the main square of Jaramana, which news reports said is largely populated by members of the Christian and Druse minorities. Residents said the neighborhood was home to many families who have fled other parts of Syria because of the conflict and to some Palestinian families. The blasts caused “huge material damage to the residential buildings and shops,” SANA said.
The photographs on the Web site showed shattered windows at the Abou Samra coffee house and gurneys laden with injured people clogging what seemed to be a hospital corridor.
SANA said two bombings in other neighborhoods caused minor damage. Activists reported that there were four explosions and said they were all “huge.”
Footage broadcast on Syria’s private Addounia channel and state television showed damage scarring gray six-story apartment houses above tangles of wrecked cars as ambulances arrived to transport the wounded and rescuers spraying rubble with fire hoses. The camera panned over bloodstained sidewalks.
The blasts seemed initially at least to shift the focus of the fighting from the north, where insurgents have claimed string of tactical breakthroughs in recent days, to areas ringing Damascus.
In the north in recent days, the insurgents also claimed to have seized air bases and a hydroelectric dam, apparently seeking both to expand their communications lines and to counter the government’s supremacy in the air.
The death toll from Wednesday’s bombings was not immediately confirmed. An activist group, the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, initially said that 29 people had died but revised the figure later to 47, of whom 38 had been identified. Of the 120 injured, the rebel group said, 23 people were in serious condition, meaning that the tally could climb higher.
The explosions reflected the dramatic shift since Syria’s uprising began in March 2011 as a peaceful protest centered on the southern town of Dara’a. It has since spread across the land in a full-blown civil war pitting government forces against a rebel army of Army defectors, disaffected civilians and what the authorities say are foreign jihadists.
Seattle police plan for helicopter drones hits severe turbulence
Label: TechnologySEATTLE (Reuters) – One of the latest crime-fighting gadgets to emerge on the wish lists of U.S. law enforcement agencies – drone aircraft – has run into heavy turbulence in Seattle over a plan by police to send miniature robot helicopters buzzing over the city.
A recent push for unmanned police aircraft in several cities is being driven largely by grants from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, including more than $ 80,000 the city of Seattle used to buy a pair of drone choppers in 2010.
But getting aerial drones off the ground has run into stiff opposition from civil libertarians and others who say the use of stealth airborne cameras by domestic law enforcement raises questions about privacy rights and the limits of police search powers.
The aircraft would never carry weapons, but the use of drones for even mundane tasks raises ire among some because of the association of pilotless crafts with covert U.S. missile strikes in places such as Pakistan and Yemen.
In Seattle last month, a community meeting where police officials presented plans to deploy their two remote-controlled helicopters erupted into yelling and angry chants of “No drones!”
“My question is simple: What’s the return policy for the drones?” said Steve Widmayer, 57, one of numerous citizens who spoke out against the unmanned aircraft. He predicted the City Council would commit “political suicide” if it backed the plan.
Seattle City Councilman Bruce Harrell said he hoped the council would set strict drone policies by January.
Police in Seattle, along with Florida’s Miami-Dade County and Houston, are among a handful of big-city law enforcement departments known to have acquired aerial drones. But those cities have not started operating the robot aircraft.
FEAR OF FLYING ROBOTS
In Oakland, California, this month, an Alameda County sheriff’s application for a federal grant to buy an aerial drone to help monitor unruly crowds and locate illegal marijuana farms drew opposition at a Board of Supervisors meeting.
“I do not want flying spy robots looking into my private property with infrared cameras,” Oakland resident Mary Madden said. “It’s an invasion of my privacy.”
County Board President Nate Miley said the issue would be taken up by the supervisors’ Public Protection Committee.
The two Draganflyer X6 remote-controlled miniature helicopters purchased by Seattle have so far been mostly grounded, restricted to training and demonstration flights.
Equipped to carry video, still and night-vision cameras, they can remain aloft for only 15 minutes at a time before their batteries run out, police said.
Assistant Police Chief Paul McDonagh said the aircraft would not be used in Seattle for surveillance or for monitoring street protests. Instead, his department’s plans to deploy drones to search for missing persons, pursue fleeing suspects, assist in criminal investigations and for unspecified “specific situations” subject to McDonagh’s approval.
Seattle City Councilman Bruce Harrell said he hoped the council would set strict drone policies by January.
Months ago in Texas, Chief Deputy Randy McDaniel of the Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office raised eyebrows by saying he hoped to equip his department’s drones with rubber bullets and tear gas, though he told Reuters his thinking on armed aircraft has since evolved.
“From a law enforcement standpoint, that’s never going to happen,” he said. McDaniel said his office received Federal Aviation Administration clearance earlier this month to begin operational drone flights but has not yet had occasion to do so.
Actual U.S. domestic use of law-enforcement drone aircraft remains extremely limited.
The Mesa County Sheriff’s Department in Colorado has been operating two small drones, also bought with Homeland Security funds, since 2010.
It uses them largely to create three-dimensional images of crime scenes, said Benjamin Miller, director of the department’s drone program. They are not used for surveillance, he said.
In North Dakota, the Grand Forks police department last year called in a high-flying Predator drone operated by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to monitor a tense standoff with a rancher over alleged stolen cattle.
The rancher, Rodney Brossart, and five family members are believed to be the first Americans nabbed by police with drone assistance – with the possible exception of operations along the southwest border with Mexico.
The use of drones there by the Customs and Border Protection agency – a part of Homeland Security – led to 7,500 arrests and the seizure of thousands of pounds of drugs up to the end of last year.
The nationality of those arrested in drone assisted operations in the borderlands is not clear, nor is if Customs and Border Protection partnered with local forces in any of those arrests.
(Editing by Steve Gorman and Jackie Frank)
Gadgets News Headlines – Yahoo! News
Wow! Adriana Lima Bares Her Growing Baby Bump for Charity
Label: Lifestyle
Mom & Babies
Celebrity Baby Blog
11/28/2012 at 11:00 AM ET
Steve McCurry/Pirelli
Adriana Lima is the latest celebrity mom to dare to bare her bump in print.
Posing in a cropped top and flowing skirt, the Victoria’s Secret Angel (who has since welcomed daughter Sienna) shows off her baby belly in Pirelli‘s 2013 calendar.
Known for their famous calendar’s sexy spreads featuring nude models, the tire company decided to take a much more modest approach for this year’s Brazilian-themed photo shoot, which captures a more covered-up Lima and 10 other bombshells including Petra Nemcova and Isabeli Fontana amidst the country’s natural beauty.
“When I told the models there would be no nudity, some of them were disappointed,” casting director Jennifer Starr told New York.
But since each model was chosen to recognize their charitable efforts (including fighting for women’s rights), Pirelli feared full-fledged nudity would ”dilute the message.”
Since the shoot, Lima is already back to showing off her fabulous body. The new mom-of-two recently shed the baby weight — and her clothes! — to walk in Victoria’s Secret annual fashion show, which airs Tuesday, Dec. 4.
– Anya Leon
CDC: HIV spread high in young gay males
Label: HealthNEW YORK (AP) — Health officials say 1 in 5 new HIV infections occur in a tiny segment of the population — young men who are gay or bisexual.
The government on Tuesday released new numbers that spotlight how the spread of the AIDS virus is heavily concentrated in young males who have sex with other males. Only about a quarter of new infections in the 13-to-24 age group are from injecting drugs or heterosexual sex.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said blacks represented more than half of new infections in youths. The estimates are based on 2010 figures.
Overall, new U.S. HIV infections have held steady at around 50,000 annually. About 12,000 are in teens and young adults, and most youth with HIV haven't been tested.
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Online:
CDC report: http://www.cdc.gov/vitalsigns
Wall Street down as "fiscal cliff" scares investors away
Label: BusinessNEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. stocks fell on Tuesday as worries over the impact of "fiscal cliff" on the economy overshadowed progress in easing Greece's debt burden and a slew of positive U.S. economic data.
A deal in Europe to release emergency aid to debt-laden Greece gave a brief, early lift to stocks, but the news was not enough to sustain the gains as investors confronted the looming "fiscal cliff" at home.
As Democrats and Republicans prepared to resume efforts to bridge their sharp differences over taming the federal debt this week in Washington, the market resumed its cautious mode.
"It's like there is nothing else but the fiscal cliff now. It is too big of an issue both economically and politically for investors to just brush off," said Jack DeGan, chief investment officer at Harbor Advisory Corp in Portsmouth, New Hampshire.
The market's worry is whether Congress and the White House can agree on ways to avoid some $600 billion in automatic spending cuts and tax increases that are due to kick early next year. Some fear dramatic fiscal restraint could send the economy into recession.
"It's hard for markets to move on fundamentals now. Even if they do, they quickly come back to being cautious. Investors may buy on small dips but they don't stay in that position for long," DeGan said.
Market reaction was muted to data that showed Americans' confidence in November hit the highest level in more than four years and home prices in September rose for an eighth straight month.
In addition, a gauge of planned U.S. business spending increased by the most in five months in October, data on durable goods orders showed.
The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> was down 37.35 points, or 0.29 percent, at 12,930.02. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> was down 2.75 points, or 0.20 percent, at 1,403.54. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> was down 4.21 points, or 0.14 percent, at 2,972.58.
As of Monday's close, the S&P 500 was holding above the 1,400, the level it reclaimed last week. But volume continued to be weak as traders awaited any progress to avert the fiscal restraint. Last week, the S&P 500 advanced nearly 4 percent.
Among individual stocks, Corning Inc
McMoRan Exploration Co
(Reporting By Angela Moon; Editing by Theodore d'Afflisio and Kenneth Barry)
Protesters Gather Again in Cairo Streets to Denounce Morsi
Label: World
CAIRO — Thousands of people flowed into the streets of Cairo, the Egyptian capital, Tuesday afternoon for a day of protest against President Mohamed Morsi’s attempt to assert broad new powers for the duration of the country’s political transition, dismissing his efforts just the night before to reaffirm his deference to Egyptian law and courts.
By early Tuesday afternoon in Cairo, a dense crowd of hundreds had gathered outside the headquarters of a trade group for lawyers, and thousands more had filed in around a small tent city in Tahrir Square. In an echo of the chants against Hosni Mubarak, Egyptian’s ousted president, almost two years ago, they shouted, “Leave, leave!” and “Bring down the regime!” They also denounced the spiritual leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, the Islamist group allied with Mr. Morsi.
A few blocks away, in a square near the American Embassy and the Interior Ministry headquarters, groups of young men resumed a running battle that began nine days ago, throwing rocks and tear gas canisters at riot police officers. Although those clashes grew out of anger over the deaths of dozens of protesters in similar clashes one year ago, many of the combatants have happily adopted the banner of protest against Mr. Morsi as well.
Egyptian television had captured the growing polarization of the country on Monday in split-screen coverage of two simultaneous funerals, each for a teenage boy killed in clashes set off by disputes over the new president’s powers. Thousands of supporters of Mr. Morsi and his allies in the Muslim Brotherhood marched through the streets of the Nile Delta city of Damanhour to bury a 15-year-old killed outside a Brotherhood office during an attack by protesters. And in Tahrir Square here in Cairo, thousands gathered to bury a 16-year-old killed in clashes with riot police officers and to chant slogans blaming Mr. Morsi for his death. “Morsi killed him,” the boy’s father said in a video statement circulated over the Internet.
“Now blood has been spilled by political factions, so this is not going to go away,” said Rabab el-Mahdi, a professor at the American University in Cairo and a left-leaning activist, adding that these were the first deaths rival factions had blamed on each other and not on the security forces of the Mubarak government since the uprising began last year. Still larger crowds were expected in the evening, as marchers from around the city headed for the square. Many schools and other businesses had closed in anticipation of bedlam, and on Monday, the Brotherhood called off a rival demonstration in support of the president, saying it wanted to avoid violence.
Egypt’s Supreme Judicial Council met again on Tuesday to consider its response to the president, and the leader of Al Azhar, a center of Sunni Muslim learning that is regarded as the pre-eminent moral authority here, met with groups of political leaders in an effort to resolve the battle over the president’s decree and the deadlock in the constitutional assembly, which is trying to draw up a new constitution.
But even as Mr. Morsi met with top judges Monday night in an effort to resolve the crisis, a coalition of opposition leaders held a news conference to declare that preserving the role of the courts was only the first step in a broader campaign against what Abdel Haleem Qandeil, a liberal intellectual, called “the miserable failure of the rule of the Muslim Brothers.” Mr. Morsi “unilaterally broke the contract with the people,” he declared. “We have to be ready to stand up to this group, protest to protest, square to square, and to confront the bullying.”
Mr. Morsi’s effort to remove the last check on his power over the political transition had brought the country’s fractious opposition groups together for the first time in a united front against the Brotherhood. But the show of unity papered over deep divisions between groups and even within them, said Ms. Mahdi of the American University.
“This is not a united front, and I am inside it,” she said. “Every single political group in the country is now divided over this — is this decree revolutionary justice or building a new dictatorship? Should we align ourselves with folool” — the colloquial term for the remnants of the old political elite — “or should we be revolutionary purists? Is it a conflict between the Muslim Brotherhood and the pro-Mubarak judiciary, or is this the beginning of a fascist regime in the making?”
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