Aid group: Syrian refugees face dire health risks

BEIRUT (AP) ? An international aid organization is appealing for more funds to help Syrian refugees in Lebanon and Jordan, saying warmer weather will increase health risks due to lack of shelter, water and basic sanitation.

Oxfam says it needs $53 million dollars to improve access to water and proper sanitation for Syrian refugees. So far the aid group has received $10.6 million dollars.

The Britain-based group said in a statement Monday that diarrhea and skin infections have already been noted among refugees in Jordan and Lebanon. The two countries host the bulk of 1.5 million Syrians who have fled the civil war at home, seeking shelter in neighboring countries.

Oxfam says it needs the funds quickly as temperatures are expected to soar in the region in the coming weeks.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/aid-group-syrian-refugees-face-dire-health-risks-062310708.html

missouri primary minnesota caucus knowshon moreno knowshon moreno sovereign citizen komen chrome for android

Online Dating: Find Your FaceMate Matches Mates By Facial Features

Divorc?es may be looking for love in all the wrong places.

Online dating site Find Your FaceMate sets out to match prospective mates based on similar facial features, which, according to site founder Christina Bloom, is a good sign of compatibility.

"I believe that people are attracted to people with similar facial features," Bloom said in an interview with IBTimes TV (see above).

According to the site, scientists' findings "prove that passion is subconsciously ignited when we spot someone whose facial features are similar to our own."

"When we fall in love (or meet our facial feature match) the neurological response in the brain triggers a release of endorphins and other mood enhancing chemicals that puts being in love in a category all on its own," the site continues.

But does the science work? Kerri Johnson, an assistant psychology professor at UCLA, told Good Morning America that "there is evidence that general liking improves when people look like you," but that the research points to pairs that have similar levels of attractiveness, and not necessarily similar facial features.

In other words, the jury is out!

Watch the video above for more on this dating site, then weigh in: would you use this service to find love after divorce?

Keep in touch! Check out HuffPost Divorce on Facebook and Twitter.

Related on HuffPost:

"; var coords = [-5, -72]; // display fb-bubble FloatingPrompt.embed(this, html, undefined, 'top', {fp_intersects:1, timeout_remove:2000,ignore_arrow: true, width:236, add_xy:coords, class_name: 'clear-overlay'}); });

Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/19/online-dating-find-your-f_n_3295087.html

buckeye west side story final four 2012 bridesmaids winning lottery numbers megamillions winner kansas jayhawks

Memorial Day countdown: Will the Jersey Shore be ready?

Sometimes, numbers are the only way to tell the true tale of a disaster incomprehensible in scale and indescribable in words. For the victims of Hurricane Sandy, those numbers paint a bleak picture. The storm is estimated to have caused between $50 billion?and $71 billion?in damage along the Eastern Seaboard over the course of a few days. ?

Along the Jersey Shore, the storm caused an estimated $37 billion?in damage. The wounds caused by Sandy's landfall are still fresh for many of the towns along the Jersey Shore hardest hit by the storm, but business owners, residents and towns are beginning to return to normalcy. One of the biggest steps in that return is opening in time for Memorial Day. Despite all the challenges of the past months, business owners and mayors insist they will be ready for the peak summer season.

The importance of being open for business in time for the summer cannot be overestimated ? not only for those towns, but for the state as well. Estimates?place the economic impact of Monmouth, Ocean, Atlantic and Cape May counties ? those lining the Atlantic Ocean? at around $19 billion, representing more than half of the state?s entire tourism industry.

[Jersey Shore: One Family's Boardwalk Empire]

For business owners, those tourism dollars have a much bigger and more immediate impact.?

"You have 100 days to make your money for the whole year," said Lou Cirigliano, director of operations at Casino Pier and Breakwater Beach?in Seaside Heights, N.J. "It is not like a business open all year. We are open from Memorial Day to Labor Day to make as much money as you need to support yourself for the rest of the year,? he said. ?If you lose any of that time, it has a ripple effect, for sure."

Casino Pier has been fighting that ripple effect since it was forever linked to Sandy on the night the storm made landfall. The amusement park ? which has been a fixture on the Seaside boardwalk since 1960 ? became the indelible image of Hurricane Sandy when its Jet Star roller coaster fell into the Atlantic Ocean intact. Casino Pier lost not only the coaster, but also more than 250 feet of pier ? 200 feet of pier on the north side and 50 feet of pier on the south side ? along with most of its rides and amusements.?

Despite the destruction, the company will be open ? albeit in a limited manner ? in time for the summer season. Casino Pier will be missing the part of the pier that bore the greatest brunt of the damage from the storm, and the company is optimistic that half of its 38 rides ? along with arcade games, games of chance and food stands ? will be ready for the summer season. ? ??

"We have seen a ton of people commenting on our Facebook posts about the new rides and how much they want to come back," said Maria Mastoris, marketing director for Casino Pier and Breakwater Beach. "I think that people are optimistic, and they are seeing progress with the town's part of the boardwalk which is open. It is going to be different, but come Memorial Day, people will see we are ready."

"We were proud of our location before, but we are going to show the world that Casino Pier is back and better than ever," said Cirigliano. "There is no reason why you shouldn?t come here or back to Seaside, and you will be more than happy when you do. This is our livelihood, and we are putting our sweat into it. We may have had a bump in the road, but we will come back better than ever."

Other business owners on the Seaside boardwalk are also optimistic about returning.?

Vinny Scuzzese, owner of Vinny's Games, has been operating his two stands on Ocean Terrace instead of on the Seaside boardwalk since January. ?

"My building survived; as soon as there is a boardwalk, I can reopen," Scuzzese said. "I have some damage to my roof and awning from the wind, but I am waiting on insurance money, which is taking forever."

Indeed, a large challenge for business owners in their fight to reopen is the abysmal response of insurance companies in the aftermath of the storm. The businesses interviewed for this story all reported that delays in payment from insurance companies have slowed their recovery efforts. Other businesses have had their recovery plans derailed completely, as their location in a prime flood area makes them uninsurable.

Eastern Lines Surf Shop ? located at 16th Street and Ocean Avenue in Belmar, N.J. ? was denied money from insurance after pieces of the town's boardwalk slammed into its storefront and left more than two feet of sand and water in its first floor. Business owners Darby and Don Tarrant paid out-of-pocket to reopen their business and now are hoping the summer season will be strong to help them recover the costs.

The million-dollar question for Eastern Lines and other businesses hit by Sandy remains whether or not people will come back to the shore. Realtors?in the areas hardest hit by Sandy confirm there is an interest among renters in returning.

"I have had clients, and unfortunately, there is just not inventory for them," said Chris Katz, a broker for Coldwell Banker?in Monmouth County. "People want to come down to the Jersey Shore; I just don?t know how much stuff will be there for them. The interest is still there, but there is not a large inventory."

Other indicators, however, paint a different picture. Matt Doherty, mayor of Belmar, N.J.? which was 60 percent flooded and had 1,250 homes damaged by Sandy ? said so far, the evidence is positive. There?s reason for optimism: Seasonal beach-badge sales are up more than 30 percent year to date from last year?s season, which was the second busiest in the town's history.

What makes that number even more impressive is that the badges went on sale Dec. 1, 2012, when the beaches and 1.2-mile boardwalk were decimated in the aftermath of Sandy.?

"The boardwalk is part of the character of the town," said Doherty. "We have 140 small businesses in our community, all family owned ? no major corporations that are dependent upon tourism dollars in the summer to survive. One summer without tourists and those businesses would fail, and those families would be decimated. Without a boardwalk, we wouldn?t have a true summer."

That feeling was a driving force behind Belmar's decision to take one of the more aggressive approaches among Jersey Shore towns to repair the town?s boardwalk. The hard work has paid off as the boardwalk will be ready in time for summer, four months after the first pile was driven 25 feet into the sand. The move was not only critical to the physical recovery of the town, but it also provided a psychological boost to the town?s 140 small businesses.

With the boardwalk set to open in the coming days, Doherty has a message for Jersey Shore businesses: Be ready for the onslaught of visitors that the town normally attracts in the summer. Belmar, which is home to about 5,800 yearlong residents, generally sees its population grow to more than 60,000 residents during the summer.

"I have been telling businesses to be ready and be prepared for a busy summer," Doherty said. "Post Sandy, I think people want to be a part of the rebirth of the Jersey Shore. It is up to our business owners to provide an outstanding experience. As important as it was for the town to have the boardwalk ready, it is just as important for business owners to be ready ? or else this year will just be a flash in the pan."

This story was provided BusinessNewsDaily, a sister site to LiveScience. Follow David Mielach on Twitter @D_M89?.?Follow us?@bndarticles,?Facebook?or?Google+. Originally published on BusinessNewsDaily.

Copyright 2013 LiveScience, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/memorial-day-countdown-jersey-shore-ready-105129501.html

zimmerman website miami marlins marlins marlins facebook buys instagram kevin systrom fibonacci sequence

Dan Pfeiffer Explains the IRS Scandal

White House senior adviser Dan Pfeiffer did a tour of the sunday shows to try and calm everyone down about this whole IRS targeting Tea Party groups scandal. He was the one tasked with assuring the masses that the White House knew nothing, that things will change in the future, and that heads will roll. On Fox News Sunday, Pfeiffer promised the administration would make sure "everyone who did anything wrong here is held accountable" before the dust settles. The IRS's next goal is to "fix the problem, make sure it never happens again and restore the public trust," Pfeiffer said. On CBS's Face the Nation, Pfeiffer defended the President's relative?naivet??about the scandal. "What would be an actual real scandal in Washington would be if the president had been involved or had interfered in an IRS investigation,"?Pfeiffer said. "You do nothing to interfere with an independent investigation and you do nothing to offer the appearance of interfering with investigations," he added. Only the administration did learn the facts, only then did they decide to respond. On ABC's This Week, Pfeiffer said the law was "irrelevant" to the fact that the activity was "outrageous and inexcusable." He explained: "What I mean is, whether it?s legal or illegal is not important to the fact that the conduct doesn?t matter. The Department of Justice has said they?re looking into the legality of this. The president is not going to wait for that. We have to make sure it doesn?t happen again, regardless of how that turns out." On NBC's Meet the Press, Pfeiffer finally went on the offensive and attacked Republicans for trying to make the IRS scandal into the biggest deal possible. He acknowledged the scandal as a "very real problem at the IRS," before launching into a scathing bit about Republican strategy. "We?ve seen this playbook from the Republicans before," Pfeiffer said. "What they want to do when they?re lacking a positive agenda is try to drag Washington into a swamp of partisan fishing expeditions, trumped-up hearings and false allegations. We?re not going to let that happen. The president?s got business to do for the American people."

RELATED: Snowe Won't Vote for the Ryan Medicare Plan, Either

Here's ABC:?

RELATED: Romney Wants to Keep Key Parts of Obamacare

Unfortunately your browser does not support IFrames.

RELATED: Lindsey Graham and Hagel Make Nice (For Now)

And NBC:

RELATED: The People Who Are Actually Saying They Oppose Chuck Hagel

RELATED: Ryan Doesn't Know About 2016; Feinstein Believes in Assault Ban

Meanwhile, Rep. Paul Ryan was promising to continue the crusade against the IRS on Fox News Sunday. "Look, people have no trust that their government is being impartial," the Wisconsinite told Chris Matthews. "This is arrogance of power, abuse of power, to the nth degree, and we're going to get to the bottom of this." Ryan argued there was "credible evidence that donors were targeted, that the IRS leaked private information to the public, which served political purposes." There's something nefarious afoot at the IRS, Ryan thinks, and it all roads lead to Obamacare. Becasue, wait, what? "So there's so much more that we have just uncovered that we do not know the root causes of. And so to suggest that this is some bureaucratic snafu, that's been disproven, Chris," Ryan said. "The other point I'd say, as bad as this is, the person in charge of this bureaucratic snafu has now been put in charge of Obamacare." The former head of the tax exempt division,?Sarah Hall Ingram, is now moving to head the IRS's implementation of Obamacare. This is "rotten to the core," according to Ryan. "This is big government cronyism," he argues. "And this is not what hard-working taxpayers deserve. People deserve a government they can trust, that's honest, that's impartial, equality before the law, and that is not what we're getting here. And so to try to suggest that this is just bureaucratic snafus, we already know that's not true.?

Senate Minority Whip John Cornyn accused the Obama White House of practicing a "culture of cover-ups," on CBS's Face the Nation. He inquired in 2010 and 2011 for his constituents about whether or not they were being unfairly targeted. If the President somehow didn't know about the IRS overreach, it was "willful ignorance," Cornyn said. He said he wants to hold more hearings about the IRS scandal in the future. "We need to have a fair and respectful process and not put the cart before the horse," he said.

Meanwhile,?Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell told Meet the Press's David Gregory there is "a culture of intimidation throughout the administration." He called the IRS "the most recent example." It's all part of an overall "nanny state" being run by the White House, he said. There's "an attitude that the government knows best: The nanny state is here to tell us all what to do. And if we start criticizing, you get targeted." McConnell signaled there could be more hearings on the way, too, when he claimed the investigation was just beginning. "I don't think we know what the facts are," he said. "... I'm not going to reach a conclusion about what we may find. But what we do know happened is they were targeting tea party groups. We know that."

On the other scandal front, Utah Republican Rep. Jason Chaffetz wants even more documents about Benghazi from the White House. This guy makes Lindsey Graham look modest. "People deserve the truth and the families deserve the truth," Chaffetz said on Face the Nation. "I can't imagine that this administration would say those same things about what happened in Boston where we had four people killed by a terrorist." (Yes, that comment is as head scratching as it looks. Chaffetz blamed a cover up for keeping the answers from the American people. "We weren't able to investigate," he said. "We still have terrorists that committed these attacks that are out there. They are on the loose. We don't know where they are."

Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul said Hillary Clinton should have resigned as Secretary of State over what happened in Benghazi on CNN's State of the Union.?"[Clinton] should have resigned and accepted blame for it," Paul said. He explained that he's not so worried about the Benghazi talking points anymore, but that the outpost wasn't given more security. That was a "tragic mistake," he said. "We need to treat it more like Baghdad, that's an error of judgment the president and secretary of state made," Paul said.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/dan-pfeiffer-explains-irs-scandal-190937567.html

May the Fourth be with you James Righton finish line kentucky derby Iron Man 3 Emmett Till margaret thatcher

Marissa Mayer's Favorite Designer Labels - Business Insider

?

Marissa Mayer is known for her poise as a leader, formerly at Google and now as CEO of Yahoo!

But she's also known for her fashion sense.

She's has made appearances at New York Fashion Week, for instance, and at Glamor magazine's Woman of the Year event.

We gleaned a fair amount of Mayer's fashion preferences from Vogue's 2009 profile on Mayer. We pieced together the rest from posts on Twitter and Instagram.

Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/marissa-mayers-favorite-designer-labels-2013-5?op=1

shabazz legion baby found alive in morgue rockies second degree murders bobby petrino brian dunn

Arduino Robot launches at Maker Faire, we go hands-on (video)

There's a new kid on the Arduino block, and it's called the Arduino Robot. Launched yesterday at Maker Faire Bay Area, it's the company's first product that extends beyond single microcontroller boards. The Roomba-like design, which we first saw in November 2011, is the result of a collaboration with Complubot. It consists of two circular boards, each equipped with Atmel's ubiquitous ATmega32u4 and connected via ribbon cable.

The bottom board is home to four AA batteries (NiMH), a pair of motors and wheels, a power connector and switch plus some infrared sensors. By default it's programmed to drive the motors and manage power. The top board features a color LCD, a microSD card slot, an EEPROM, a speaker, a compass, a knob plus some buttons and LEDs. It's programmed to control the display and handle I/O. Everything fits inside a space that's about 10cm high and 19cm in diameter.

Pre-soldered connectors and prototyping areas on each board make it easier to customize the robot platform with additional sensors and electronics. It even comes with eleven step-by-step projects and a helpful GUI right out of the box. The Arduino Robot is now on sale at the Maker Faire for $275 and will be available online in July. Take a look at our gallery below and watch our video interview with Arduino founder Massimo Banzi after the break.

Gallery: Arduino Robot at Maker Faire 2013

Filed under: Misc, Robots

Comments

Via: Make

Source: Arduino

Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/PLw_Ah8Kago/

doomsday Is The World Going To End Mayans camilla belle instagram Robert Bork mark sanchez

Small Talk: Retiring boomers driving sales of small businesses | The ...

In this photo taken Tuesday, May 14, 2013, Roberta Bonoff, owner of Creative Kidstuff, a toy store chain, poses at the store in St. Paul, Minn. The toy retailer based in Minneapolis, just expanded by buying a 26-year-old online and catalog toy retailer, Sensational Beginningsa . Bonoff said the owner was tired and ready to sell. (AP Photo/Jim Mone)

Baby boomers preparing for retirement are driving a surge in small business sales, as they find more and more buyers confident enough in the improving economy to expand their own businesses through acquisitions.

In the first three months of this year, the number of sales that closed jumped 56 percent from the same time in 2012, according to BizBuySell.com, an online marketplace for small businesses. Retirement was the No. 1 contributor to business sales in the fourth quarter of last year and the first quarter of 2013, according to a survey by Pepperdine University and two trade groups, the International Business Brokers Association and M&A Source.

"It was almost like a light switch went on in January," says Michael Schuster, a broker with World Business Brokers in Miami. "We started getting a lot of activity with sellers who said, ?I don?t want to go through another downturn or tough time. I want to see if I could sell my business.?"

Sales are so strong in Florida that Schuster?s brokerage is opening two more offices in the state. Three-quarters of the sellers or potential sellers that his company sees are baby boomers, most of whom don?t have family members willing to take over their businesses. Some of these owners want to sell just part of their firms, essentially taking on a partner, because they don?t want to keep carrying all the risk themselves.

Honey Rand fits the category. After 17 years of running her Tampa, Fla., public relations firm Environmental PR Group, she?s starting to think about selling. The 55-year-old wants to get away from the administrative work that goes into running a business, and focus on working with clients.

"Like most people who end up starting a business, I?m really good at the work I do and I?d love the opportunity to wallow around in it," says Rand. She?s optimistic that she?d be able to sell, because she was approached twice by prospective buyers in the last 10 years. And Rand expects that she would remain with the company for a period following a sale to help with the transition to new management ? something that many business owners do.

While she hasn?t definitely decided to sell just yet, she plans to talk to a broker soon.

"I like to think ahead, to understand the process and the things that could affect a sale or sale price. When the time comes, or if it comes, I want to be ready. I don?t want to feel like it?s a fire sale," she says.

In California, the pace of sales is more of a "slow pickup, not a huge spike," says Dave Richards, owner of Keystone Business Advisors, a brokerage in Westlake Village, Calif.

"Baby boomers are where we?re really seeing the growth. It?s pent-up demand," Richards says.

story continues below

One of those boomers is Walt Pocock. In late 2011, Pocock met with a broker to discuss possibly selling his Chino, Calif., business, Palo Verde Landscape Management Co. But he and his wife Dee, who also worked with the company, weren?t quite ready to let it go. However, selling became "something we were thinking about from then on," Pocock said.

Within a year, the 70-year-old decided he was ready to retire and Dee, 78, agreed. The difficult business climate was a factor in their decision.

"The economy had not been good and it had been a struggle and we got tired of the struggle," he said.

The put the company on the market in January, and quickly had several bidders. Pocock got his full asking price, and the deal closed April 1. Now he and his wife are looking forward to traveling around the country in their motor home.

Sellers like Pocock are going to keep the market for small businesses thriving for years to come.

"Trillions of dollars of business value are going to change hands in the next 10 to 20 years," says Bob Balaban, managing director at Headwaters MB, an investment bank based in Denver. He believes so-called ?strategic acquisitions? ? purchases by companies looking to expand ? will be a key factor in that trend. In a tight economy, companies looking to grow feel that it would take years to build up their businesses.

"They have to do acquisitions to continue to grow and grow quickly," Balaban says.

Buyers appear to be ready to step up and are looking for companies that will be good fit with their existing operations. Health-care related businesses like medical billing firms, pharmacies and even medical and dental practices are particularly in demand, says Keystone?s Richards. He?s seeing less interest in restaurants and retailers, industries where profit margins are thinner and where many companies are still struggling. Schuster, the Miami broker, says he sees people who were waiting for the economy to pick up, and they?ve decided that business is good enough for them to take the plunge.

"There?s a lot of people who were sitting the sidelines and could not do that anymore ? the election?s over and things are getting better," he says.

Sellers are benefiting from this trend because buyers are willing to pay more money if a deal will quickly get them into the markets they want to serve, says Mike Carter, CEO of BizEquity, a company that helps businesses calculate their sales price.

"For a growth company, we?re seeing them getting almost 15 percent more than what they were getting four years ago (during the recession)," he says.

Next Page >

Copyright 2013 The Salt Lake Tribune. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Source: http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/money/56321348-79/business-says-businesses-sales.html.csp

rondo suspended bay bridge band of brothers presidents george washington horsetail falls ice t