| Mohamed teddy bear teacher, Gillian Gibbons, is spared lash but gets ...
A British schoolteacher was behind bars in an overcrowded Sudanese prison last night after being convicted of inciting religious hatred for letting her pupils name a teddy bear Mohamed. Gillian Gibbons, 54, escaped a sentence of 40 lashes after apologising to the court for any offence she had caused. But she began serving a 15-day sentence in a women’s prison where the regime is extremely harsh by Western standards. Many Sudanese consider Omdurman’s women’s prison to be one of the country’s more comfortable jails. It is, however, overcrowded. Many inmates are southern Sudanese women convicted of selling alcohol, and many have babies. Ms Gibbons will have to rely on wellwishers bringing her food and water. David Miliband, the Foreign Secretary, said he was "extremely disappointed" with the sentence and summoned Omer Siddig, the Sudanese Ambassador, to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to explain the decision.
Blache replaces fired Williams
The Redskins survived all of that to make the playoffs for the second time in three years but bowed out in the wild card round to the Seattle Seahawks.
Williams, who led the defense to three top-10 seasons in his four seasons with Washington, was the clear choice of the players and the rest of the staff to be Gibbs' heir apparent.
However, there was friction between Williams and Snyder during their three meetings. A source said Williams hurt his case by implying he could have done some things better than Gibbs during their four seasons together. That could have prompted Gibbs to not fight as hard as he could have for Williams.
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In Southwest Florida, an eerie sense of emptiness
However universal the decline, this isn't bad news for everyone. It means a half-empty glass for sellers. But it may also mean a half-full glass for buyers. For about $800,000, for instance, it is possible to buy a large and essentially new house with a pool in a gated community with deeded boat dockage and direct access to the Caloosahatchee River and the Gulf of Mexico. That's about $275 a square foot. In another gated development, a three-bedroom home with a courtyard pool, boat dockage, and lovely canal views is available for less than $400,000 - about $185 a square foot. According to realtor.com there are more than 12,000 listings in Fort Myers alone, with nearly 2,000 available at $125,000 to $175,000. Many cost less than $100 a square foot. Will prices go yet lower? No one knows.
Column: Lynch has little time to complete bold agenda
If people see the doctor regularly, if more residents exercise and eat a moderate diet, the population will be healthier. Medical economists reckon that the cost of health care will decline. "We must focus on helping people stay healthy, and on their taking responsibility for keeping themselves healthy," the governor said.
Lynch seeks to order health insurance companies in the state to offer wellness programs. Insurers would be mandated to pay for exercise programs and diet classes as well as frequent checkups that could diagnose a disease before it becomes serious.
Who wouldn't like this? Insurance companies. Insurers oppose government mandates, saying that they drive up medical costs. Already overworked doctors, who lose money if they see patients for longer than 15 minutes, will like the idea, but might be reluctant to use valuable clinical time for wellness.
Isle Obama backer views win as key
This is now going to be a long-term contest for delegates, and Hawaii will be in the middle of the battle. "People who support Barack Obama need to know that they've got to show up (at the Hawaii Democratic caucuses) on Feb. 19." A spokeswoman for the Clinton campaign in Hawaii could not be reached for comment. .
The abortion puzzle
THE roughly 4,000 women who sought out abortions in Manitoba over the past year didn't have to face off with large crowds of angry protesters, or pay hundreds of dollars out-of-pocket for the procedure. Caring, or scaring? It's still a battleground But for some, there was a host of other challenges: difficulty getting referrals, problems finding accurate information, and in some cases, lengthy drives from rural towns and flights into Winnipeg from remote northern communities. Twenty years after the Supreme Court struck down the law governing abortion in Canada on Jan. 28, 1988, the environment surrounding abortion rights is significantly tamer. But access to abortion is still limited for many Manitoba women, and getting information about the procedure can be just as challenging.
Cancer woman runs out of time in NHS battle
A WOMAN suffering from breast cancer has run out of time to benefit from a potentially life-extending drug which the National Health Service (NHS) denied her, even though she was prepared to pay for it. Colette Mills has been told by doctors that in the four months since she asked for the drug the disease has taken such a hold in her body that the cancer will no longer respond to the treatment. She is the victim of a ruling which states that any patient who wants to pay for additional drugs not prescribed by the NHS should lose their entitlement to their basic NHS cancer care and pay for all their treatment. She was prepared to pay for the drug but not her whole treatment. Mills, a 58-year-old former nurse, said: "I am just absolutely gutted. I just cannot believe people make these decisions about other people’s lives.
Sharpshooters aim to thin deer herd in North Jersey preserve
Other methods of dealing with too many deer, such as deer birth control or trapping the animals, haven't worked, DiVincenzo said. Other municipalities around the state and country have turned to controlled hunts similar to the one in South Mountain Reservation to deal with deer overpopulation: , Union County started a hunt in the Watchung Reservation 13 years ago; Essex County has hired the man who runs the Union County hunt to oversee its first hunt. , Two years ago Ridgefield, Conn. began a controlled hunt after deer numbers began to explode. Tom Belote, chairman of the city's Deer Management Committee, said the deer caused a jump in accidents and Lyme disease, which is carried by ticks carried by the animals. , In eastern Pennsylvania, Solebury Township last year approved a hunt to deal with "extreme deer overpopulation," according to the township's Web site.
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