VIA BLACK AMERICA WEB:

Maybe this list of celebrities that’ve successfully lost weight will be the push you need to finally succeed in your weight loss goals. Spring is just around the corner, and then comes summer – and you’ll want not just to look beach ready, but to be healthy and happy to enjoy all the best that life has to offer. Take a look at these celebs who’ve improved their lives by reducing the number on the scale.

STAR JONES. Probably the most famous biggest loser is this former television personality/lawyer, who was once a co-host of “The View.” She lost over 160 pounds in three years after gastric bypass surgery in 2003. Jones was criticized for not being honest about the surgical intervention, once claiming that Pilates had helped her lose weight. Actress Rosie O’Donnell, another former “View” co-host, was particularly critical of Jones’ reluctance to share the method behind her weight loss After her controversial departure from “The View.” Jones eventually said that she was “embarrassed” about being so heavy and felt uncomfortable publicly sharing the surgical intervention, as it might not be the best choice for others struggling with weight. At age 47, Jones has maintained the weight loss.

VICKIE WINANS. The acclaimed gospel music star struggled after her 16-year marriage to Marvin Winans. “I gained the bulk of the weight right after I divorced Marvin,” she told Ebony magazine in 2003. “I really went through a lot. I got ulcers and I was on medication. I was sick from the stress of the divorce.” The statuesque singer lost over 75 pounds early almost 10 years ago on the Atkins diet, which meant no starch, no sugar and no dairy. Winans says she mostly followed the diet, with some occasional cheating, but has mostly kept the weight off since. Since remarried, Winans says she sings a lot better now that she’s lost weight and is eating healthy. “I sing better,” she told Ebony. “When you don’t have a lot of garbage in your system, you sing better.” You can find out more about Winans at VickieWinans.com.

PATTI AUSTIN. This 59-year-old diva looks better than ever these days. The once-overweight singer who dueted with James Ingram on the classic, “Baby, Come to Me,” lost 140 pounds via gastric bypass surgery in 2005. The Grammy winner told Portfolio Weekly that the surgery saved her life. “I went to a doctor for a complete physical because I had a torn meniscus in my knee. He said, ‘You’ve got to lose this weight. You’ve got Type II diabetes, you have asthma, and you’re menopausal. You’ve got to get rid of this weight, and you’ve got to get rid of it fast. This is the best way for you to do it.’” Austin just appeared on the 25th anniversary version of “We Are the World” to benefit Haiti, and she looks fantastic. Check out her official site at PattiAustin.com.

SHERRI SHEPHERD. The current co-host of “The View” lost weight in a much less controversial way than her former TV compatriot Star Jones did. Shepherd, 42, just got on her diet and exercise grind, then posed for the cover of OK! magazine in a bathing suit after losing 41 pounds. “I lost weight last year and started gaining it back because I wasn’t exercising,” Shepherd told OK! Magazine last year. “I said to my producer, ‘Why don’t we do something where I tell people ‘Let’s do it together!’ and maybe [up the ante with] a bathing suit.’ The minute I said that, I was like, ‘Gosh, I should take it back because I really want M&M’s!’ But I had to do it. Then all of sudden, I had all these people doing it with me. I’d Tweet about going to the gym and how hard it was, and followers would write and say, ‘Sherri, I’ve lost two pounds!’ I thought, ‘Okay, people are getting into this.’” Shepherd worked with a trainer and followed a healthier diet by using a service to have nutritious meals delivered to her home. So far, she seems to be keeping the weight off.

KELLY PRICE – This 36-year-old singer was once morbidly obese, but in recent years, the singer has slimmed down dramatically. She’s now collaborating with fellow singers Tamia and Deborah Cox on The Queen Project, a music project with a socially conscious component. While she’s never specifically identified a method for her dramatic weight loss nor divulged how many pounds she’s lost, her recent appearance at the Soul Train Music Awards shows that she’s certainly kept the weight off. We hope to see Price, Cox and Tamia on a stage soon, but until then you can check out the latest on Price at KellyPrice.com.

MO’NIQUE. This Oscar nominee, who hosts her own late night BET show, “The Mo’Nique Show,” has been on a weight loss program since her husband, Sidney, gently suggested that she needed to get a handle on her weight. She accepted the critique and hired a trainer to get her weight under control. The mother of three, including three-year-old twin boys, lost 40 pounds with diet and exercise. She told People magazine that she went from a size 20 to a 16, swearing off junk food and red meat to do so. The woman who once said “Skinny bitches are evil” is now advocating health at any size. “Big is still beautiful,” she told “People.”Big healthy people are beautiful.” Check out more at her official site: 1Monique.com.

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VIA CNN:

When Jack Rogers first heard media reports of Tiger Woods’ multiple extramarital affairs, the first thing he did was say a little prayer for Woods and his wife. The second thing he did was tally up the number of women who claimed to have had sex with the famous golfer.

“I said to myself, ‘My God, that’s some body count,’ ” Rogers remembers.

Jack Rogers — that’s not his real name — knows a little something about body count because he has one of his own: In the first 20 years of his marriage, he says, he slept with some 50 women. While some view Woods as just an unfaithful louse who was looking for a good time, Rogers sees him as a sex addict.

What’s the difference? Rogers, who works in the high-tech industry in Washington and has two children, says his whole life was geared around how he would have his next orgasm, in the same way a methamphetamine addict is constantly trying to find his next drug hit.

Between women and pornography, “I was having three, four, five orgasms a day,” he says. “As soon as I was done with one I was thinking about how I was going to get the next one. Sex was controlling my life, and I was miserable.”

Confessions of a sex addict

Now 49, Rogers says his addiction began at age 16.

“I would have sex for hours and hours at a time, and then go look at pornography,” he remembers. “Sex was my all-consuming endpoint.”

While some young men might brag about their sexual conquests, Rogers was the opposite. He kept his sex life a secret, seeking out girls who didn’t attend his high school.

He says no one suspected.

“I was elected all-school president,” he says. “I was well thought of. I earned a full scholarship to the University of Washington. If you’d met me, you’d think, ‘Wow, I want to give that kid a scholarship.’ ”

He continued to be obsessed with sex in college. “The day Mount Saint Helens blew up, everyone was talking about it. But I didn’t even know it happened because I was having sex all that day,” he remembers.

He was never faithful to a girlfriend, and although he married at age 25, he was never at any point faithful to his wife.

“I was having affairs while we were engaged,” he says.

His quest for sex started at 4 in the morning, when he would wake up to get in touch with the women he was seeing on the East Coast. The rest of the day was spent mapping out his sexual activities. Some of the women he had sex with were colleagues. Others were prostitutes. Some were women he met by chance.

“I could meet a woman on the elevator and be having sex in her apartment two days later,” he says. “I would just get a feeling, from the amount of eye contact or the type of eye contact, that a person would be open to the idea.”

He says he usually had two or three affairs going on at one time, but didn’t actually derive pleasure from them. “I wanted to stop and I couldn’t,” he says. “I was miserable. It was a horrible way to live.”

How do you know if you’re a sex addict?

Jay Parker, a dependency counselor who runs a program for sex addicts in Redmond, Washington, called “No More Secrets,” says an intense interest in sex doesn’t mean someone is a sex addict.

“It’s like with alcohol — everyone who gets a DUI isn’t an alcoholic,” he says. “There are people who have errors in judgment — they’re not addicts.”

So how do you know when someone’s behavior has crossed the line into addiction?

According to the Society for the Advancement of Sexual Health, an estimated 3 to 5 percent of Americans could fall in the category of having an addiction to sex.

However, it’s important to note that the official handbook of psychiatric diagnoses, The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, doesn’t include a diagnosis for sexual addiction. Some therapists, like Craig Fabrikant, a clinical psychologist at the Hackensack University Medical Center, doubts such a thing even exists.

“I think it’s more of a habit than an addiction,” he says. “I would classify it as OCD — more of an obsession or compulsion than an addiction.”

But professional arguments aside, Fabrikant agrees that people like Rogers who are miserable or dysfunctional because their sex lives are out of control need professional help — and that the first step is to recognize when they have a problem.

Click here to see checklists devised by the Sexual Recovery Institute and the Society for the Advancement of Sexual Health to help you determine whether you have a sexual addiction. If you answer yes to a high number of questions on any checklist, you may have a problem.

Here are some general ways to know you might have crossed the line from healthy sexual interest to sexual addiction or compulsion:

1. You lie

For Parker, the sex addiction counselor, this is the No. 1 way you know you’ve crossed the line: when you make up stories to get sex.

“If you lie with women to get them to have sex with you, you’re a predator and an addict,” he says.

2. Sex consumes you

If your interest in sex runs your life, you have a problem, says Robert Weiss, a social worker and founder of the Sexual Recovery Institute. He says addicts “are always preoccupied with hitting on someone, or picking someone up, or getting home to look at porn before their spouse comes home.”

3. You’re “divorced, dead, fired or arrested”

If you continue your sexual activities even under threat of being “divorced, dead, fired or arrested,” you’re an addict, Parker says.

“They ignore the consequences,” Weiss adds. “They say, ‘I could really screw up myself here, but I’m going to continue to do it.’ ”

4. You have an intense interest in pornography

“The pornography piece of this cannot be overstated,” Parker says. “Show me a guy who’s having sex with three women in one week, and I promise you he has a relationship with pornography.”

5. You want to stop and you can’t

Sexual addiction is defined by a loss of control, Weiss says.

“I was totally out of control. I tried to stop and I couldn’t,” Rogers says.

Five years ago, when the misery got to be too much, Rogers confessed his addiction to his wife and checked himself into an inpatient treatment program for a month, which included not having orgasms alone or with anyone else.

After leaving the treatment center, he continued on outpatient treatment, and has not cheated on his wife again.

In treatment, Rogers was not allowed to engage in any type of sexual activity or look at pornography. He also did what he called “psychodrama,” looking at situations from his past that might have led to his addiction, including being sexually abused repeatedly at age 7 by an older boy in his neighborhood. In other sessions, counselors helped him understand the effect he’d had on his wife and children, the women he’d slept with, and their families.

His wife joined him for two days at the program. He read her his “disclosure letter” describing his sexual activities over the past 20 years.

“She knew about the pornography and masturbation, but she didn’t know about the affairs or the prostitutes,” he says. “So it was very difficult to her to receive this information, just in terms of the sheer numbers of women.”

In the last week of treatment, he and his doctors mapped out what his life would look like back home after recovery. He sees a counselor and goes to a 12-step recovery program. “In my first 365 days after treatment, I went to 523 meetings,” he says.

Early on in his recovery he did sometimes look at Internet pornography, but a software program he installed on his computer alerted his wife and sponsor in his support group, and he stopped looking at porn.

Gradually, Rogers says, he learned how to have a healthy sex life with his wife.

“That’s what we aim for,” Parker says. “We’re not trying to turn someone into a monk. He needs to learn how to have sex like a gentleman.”

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VIA WOMEN’S HEALTH:

You know that logging miles on the treadmill can give you a trim body, but adding more cardio to your life will also ratchet up your smarts, boost your productivity, rev your energy, and turn you into an unstoppable success machine. Even one 30-minute cardio session pumps extra blood to your brain, delivering the oxygen and nutrients it needs to perform at max efficiency. Cardio also floods the brain with chemicals that enhance functions such as memory, problem solving, and decision making. And new research has found that this kind of exercise may even cause permanent structural changes to the brain itself.

“Cardiovascular health is more important than any other single factor in preserving and improving learning and memory,” says Thomas Crook, Ph.D., a clinical psychologist and memory researcher. “You’re working out your brain at the same time as your heart.”

And the mental mojo you get from cardio isn’t limited to making you smarter. It also has the power to lower your stress levels and shake you out of a funk. It’s no coincidence that so many high-achieving women—from Madonna to Condoleezza Rice—share the cardio habit. Here’s how it works.

Your Brain on Cardio

Anyone who has ever tackled a StairMaster has a pretty good idea of what happens to your body when you break a sweat. But here’s what’s going on in your head at the same time: All that extra blood bathes your brain cells in oxygen and glucose, which they need to function. The more they get, the better they perform.

Every muscle you move also sends hormones rushing to your brain. There, they mix with a chemical called brain-derived neurotrophic factor, or BDNF, which plays a role in brain cell growth, mood regulation, and learning. “BDNF is like fertilizer for the brain,” says John J. Ratey, Ph.D., a clinical associate professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. “Without it, our brains can’t take in new information or make new cells.”

Exercise has another vital role: It signals the release of several key hormones, including serotonin, the famed mood booster; dopamine, which affects learning and attention; and norepinephrine, which influences attention, perception, motivation, and arousal. This exercise-induced chemical cocktail has a powerful impact. “By elevating neurotransmitters in the brain, it helps us focus, feel better, and release tension,” Ratey says.

Experienced regularly, all that rushing of blood and hormones primes your brain to grow. In one study, researchers scanned the brains of people who exercised for one hour per day, three days a week, for a duration of six months. They discovered an increase in the size of the hippocampus, the part of the brain that controls memory and learning. Working out literally bulked up the study participants’ brains, allowing them to perform better at tasks that require concentration and recall—two talents that come in handy if, say, you do your own taxes or tend to forget passwords. “Exercise improves attention, memory, accuracy, and how quickly you process information, all of which helps you make smarter decisions,” says Charles H. Hillman, Ph.D., an associate professor of kinesiology and community health at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
The Mental Advantage

People who exercised during their workday were 23 percent more productive on those days than they were when they didn’t exercise, says a recent study from the International Journal of Workplace Health Management. And the majority of the study participants (72 percent) did aerobic workouts.

A pulse-pounding workout acts like a cup of coffee (minus the jitters): Your heartbeat picks up, your circulation increases, you’re filled with energy, and your thinking becomes clearer and sharper. What’s more, a study published in Brain and Cognition found that after just 30 minutes of doing an easy half-hour bike ride, subjects completed a cognitive test faster than they did before exercising…and just as accurately. And the brain-boosting effect lasted for at least 52 minutes after the ride.

Use this cardio-induced clarity to your advantage by timing your daily sweat sometime before you punch the clock, on your lunch break, or prior to a demanding task like a big meeting (just don’t skip the post-workout shower!).

Boost Your Memory
If you suck at remembering names, lay off the sudoku and feed your brain some exercise. In a study published in Perceptual and Motor Skills, women performed 20 percent better on memory tests after running on a treadmill than they did before exercising. They also increased problem-solving abilities by 20 percent.

The intensity of your workout makes a difference too. A study in Neurobiology of Learning and Memory found that people learned vocabulary words 20 percent faster after intense exercise than after low-intensity activity. Those who did more-demanding exercise had a bigger spike in their brains’ levels of BDNF, dopamine, and epinephrine afterward. So the more you challenge your body, the more your gray matter benefits.

Sweat More, Stress Less
The reason you feel better after taking a kickboxing class may have more to do with your mental state than how many punches you landed. According to a study presented last year at the American College of Sports Medicine’s annual meeting, exercise can improve your outlook. After riding a stationary bike for 20 minutes at moderate intensity, a group of 18- to 25-year-olds reported an immediate positive change in mood. While the study didn’t measure endorphins, it’s known that your body can release the euphoria-inducing chemicals during exercise.

What’s a bit harder to explain is that their mood lift lasted up to 12 hours. Scientists may have a clue though. Preliminary research presented at the annual meeting of the Society of Neuroscience found that when the brains of rats were studied after the rodents had been subjected to stress (made to swim in cold water), those that had been allowed to run beforehand reacted less to the stress than those that hadn’t. In the critters at least, the new brain cells created by exercise appeared to help them resist stress. In other words, exercise—a “positive” stress—effectively rewired their brains to help them better deal with less pleasant stress. Researchers say the same may be true of humans.

Capitalize on Cardio
Will any old way of raising your heartbeat also raise your success meter? Moderate-intensity cardiovascular exercise—such as pedaling a bike, walking briskly, or anything where you’re breaking a sweat but can still carry on a conversation—shows promise in lab studies.

It takes at least 30 minutes of cardio three times a week to yield results, says Arthur F. Kramer, Ph.D., a professor of psychology and neuroscience at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, based on his studies on cognition and exercise. And if you can build up to daily cardio sessions, recent studies show that you may boost BDNF in your brain more rapidly than if you work out every other day. But it still might take a while to build the kind of brainpower that buffers you against stress.

After a few months of a regular cardio habit, gradually increase the intensity of your workouts to boost your mental returns. “Add a few vigorous efforts like running or interval training to your weekly program,” Ratey says. Or try alternating between your usual routine and some workouts that are mentally challenging, such as dancing or tennis, a few times a week. Activities like these require coordination, which engages several areas of the brain at once—it’s the mental equivalent of doing a pushup to work your entire upper body versus a biceps curl that targets only one muscle.

And if you happen to take a break from regular exercise, even for up to two weeks, no worries. Your brain has a molecular memory, which helps it churn out high levels of BDNF after just two days of hitting the elliptical again.

If a few hours a week on the treadmill ultimately helps you think quicker, make better decisions, and climb the ladder at work, your sweat will have literally paid off.

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VIA THE WASHINGTON POST:

President Obama hailed the success of his controversial $787 billion stimulus legislation on Wednesday, saying the one-year-old law has created or saved 2 million jobs and helped prevent a second Great Depression.

Obama’s remarks capped an extensive push from the administration and its Democratic allies to rehabilitate the public perception of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, which critics say has been costly and ineffective.

“No large expenditure is ever that popular, particularly at a time when we are also facing a massive deficit,” the president said. “Our work is far from over, but we have rescued this economy from the worst of this crisis. The American people are rebuilding a better future. We will continue to support their efforts.”

The president ridiculed Republican members of Congress who voted against the legislation last year but have been eager to accept stimulus spending on behalf of their own constituents. He accused them of playing politics by calling the bill a failure “even as many of them show up at ribbon cuttings at projects in their district.”

And he made fun of GOP lawmakers who he said were unsure whether to clap last month when, during his State of the Union speech, Obama recounted the tax cuts in the act. “They were all kind of squirming in their seats,” he said.

The president’s remarks followed an op-ed in USA Today by Vice President Biden and an aggressive effort by the Democratic National Committee to paint GOP members of Congress as hypocrites.

Republicans refused to give ground. House Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-Va.) said in a statement that, “In the year since the Democrats’ ’stimulus’ program was enacted, over 3 million jobs have been lost, billions of dollars have been wasted, and an unprecedented debt has been passed on to our children — these are not the results that America hoped for.”

But Obama insisted that the program had been run “cleanly, smoothly, transparently,” and he said the administration will do “everything in our power to turn this economy around.”

Although most economists agreed on the need for the stimulus, the package was politically fraught from the outset. Republicans charged the White House with letting congressional Democrats lard up the bill with pet priorities, although the bill’s emphasis on education, energy and health care mostly reflected Obama’s long-term agenda.

Liberals argued that the package was not big enough, especially given that $70 billion went toward a temporary patch for the alternative minimum tax, which was not seen as a stimulus to the economy.

The White House has acknowledged that its economists argued for a bigger package, but it maintains that the bill passed was the most politically feasible one. The measure got no Republican votes in the House and squeezed through the Senate with three GOP votes.

The stimulus has since become more controversial among the American public. Independent arbiters such as the Congressional Budget Office agree that it helped end the recession and added several percentage points to gross domestic product growth, and that it created or saved at least 2 million jobs.

But with job losses far deeper in 2009 than the administration expected, the stimulus has not kept unemployment from climbing to 10 percent. Republicans have seized on job-creation tallies reported by stimulus recipients, questioning their reliability.

At the same time, Republicans who voted against the bill, as well as Democrats, have touted stimulus spending in their districts.

The package was divided into three main categories:

– Tax cuts (including $800 for both 2009 and 2010 for most families).

– Payments, including fiscal aid to states and expanded safety net assistance (such as unemployment benefits, COBRA subsidies and food stamps).

– Investments in, for example, public infrastructure, energy efficiency upgrades and broadband access.

While much of the investment spending has been slow to ramp up, administration officials say the initiative is on track, with 70 percent scheduled to be spent by October. With most of the state aid and safety net benefits already out the door, the spending will now shift more toward investment projects.

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VIA CNN:

(CNN) — If we are to address seriously the economic devastation in black communities across the nation, we have to put aside, once and for all, the idea that President Obama has a special obligation to African-Americans.

Obama has said repeatedly that he can’t be the president of black America; he is the president of all Americans. We should take him at his word.

But to be president of all Americans involves recognizing the extraordinary differences that make up our nation. These differences are not only cultural, racial and ethnic; they also involve differences in quality of life and in access to opportunity — disparities that have long histories in the United States.

Douglas Massey and Nancy Denton’s classic work, “American Apartheid,” charts this history in the housing sector. And William Julius Wilson’s important books, especially “When Work Disappears,” give us a sense of the complexities surrounding black communities and unemployment.

Politicians talk about the needs of Main Street in contrast to the recent bailout of Wall Street. But Main Street is often divided by railroad tracks or highways that separate different sides of town. If Obama is going to address the problems of Main Street, he must understand that it isn’t some idyllic space where all live and suffer equally and together.

I am sure the president recognizes this. And I understand that he can’t be cornered into some troublesome game of identity politics. Partisan camps would have a field day.

But it is one thing to say that Obama must be the president of all Americans; it is another to say, because of that, African-Americans cannot demand specific policies that will relieve their suffering.

Americans are being ravaged by this economic recession. Joblessness plagues black communities. The Economic Policy Institute projects that African-American unemployment will reach 17.2 percent, a 25-year high.

In several states, such as Michigan, Alabama, and Illinois, the EPI projects unemployment rates for African-Americans will climb above 20 percent.

Health care disparities ensure a shorter life expectancy for African-Americans. The housing crisis has foreclosed the dreams of many.

More black children are growing up poor. According to the National Center for Children in Poverty, 35 percent of black children live in poverty. In the 10 most populated states, “rates of child poverty among black children range from 26 percent in California to 51 percent in Ohio.”

It is not enough to offer policies to lift all boats; the buoyancy of some ensures their survival. Others are sinking at alarming rates. African-Americans must cry out. Those cries cannot take the form of the rhetoric of old. “Freedom Now” doesn’t work. Nor do angry demands for “Black Power” seem appropriate.

Talk of justice is always relevant. What black communities need are just and targeted policies to address the Great Depression they face.

The president’s recent black leadership summit doesn’t help matters much. Inviting a few black leaders to the White House does not alone constitute a substantive engagement with the problems of black communities. In fact, it only reproduces a bad form of custodial politics — where a small cadre of individuals broker on behalf of the supposed interests of all black communities.

Something much more substantial is desperately needed. The irony in all of this is that Obama and many other black leaders are asking African-Americans to trust that he is working diligently on their behalf without any tangible evidence. That trust rests on the assumption that as the first black president he would in fact have the interests of black communities at heart.

But this is precisely the view that we are urged to reject. In fact, we must give up this idea and work publicly to demand policy ideas from the administration and to secure legislation from Congress that will improve the circumstances of African-American citizens.

The president is right. He is the president of all Americans. I trust that he understands what these words really mean.

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Eddie S. Glaude Jr.

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VIA POLITICS DAILY:

The latest New York Times/CBS News poll paints a picture of a disaffected American public but President Obama, despite his lower approval ratings, fares better on its report card than the Republicans.

Sixty-two percent believe the country is on the wrong track while 33 percent saying it is on the right track, with 5 percent undecided. That is the highest “wrong track” figure in recent months.

Eighty-three percent rate the economy as fairly or very bad. Thirty-one percent still blame the Bush administration, 7 percent say it’s Obama’s fault, 23 percent blame Wall Street and financial institutions and 13 percent finger Congress.

Eighty-one percent say they only trust government some of the time or not at all to do what’s right for the country. That’s a result similar to a Quinnipiac University poll released earlier today.

Sixty percent of those polled say Obama understands the problems of people like themselves while 37 percent do not. By comparison, Americans say by 54 percent to 42 percent that Democrats do not understand their problems and by 62 percent to 35 percent that Republicans do not.

Sixty-two percent believe Obama is trying to work with Republicans while the same percentage believe Republicans are not trying to work with Obama. Seven out of 10 of those surveyed believe Obama and Republicans should compromise more with each other. Fifty-six percent blame Obama and Congress equally for the gridlock on health care reform, with 37 percent putting the onus on Congress and only 5 percent on Obama.

Eighty-one percent say it is time to give new people a chance when it comes to electing the new Congress in this year’s midterm elections.

Fifty-seven percent view Republicans unfavorably while 51 percent see Democrats in a negative light.

By 44 percent to 27 percent, Americans believe Democrats are more likely to improve health care than the Republicans, but 42 percent say Republicans are more likely to ensure a strong economy compared to 37 percent who say that about the Democrats.

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VIA CNN:

A marijuana bust along the U.S.-Mexico border revealed 30 pounds of the drug stuffed into framed pictures of Jesus Christ, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency said Wednesday.

“This is not the first time we have seen smugglers attempt to use religious figures and articles of faith to further their criminal enterprise,” said William Molaski, port director of the agency’s office in El Paso, Texas, in a statement.

“What some might find offensive or sacrilegious has unfortunately become a standard operating procedure for drug smugglers. This would include using religious symbols, children and senior citizens in their attempts to defeat the CBP inspection process.”

Authorities said a 22-year-old woman in a Jeep from Juarez, Mexico, told federal border patrol officers that she had nothing to declare besides the framed art. The officers checked out the vehicle with Cesar, a federal drug-sniffing dog, who alerted them to three framed pictures of Jesus in the vehicle.

The officers pulled the backing of the pictures and found numerous bundles, authorities said. The woman was arrested.

The bust was one of three marijuana seizures made Tuesday at the El Paso point of entry. Officers said they seized 214 pounds of marijuana in the two other busts.

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VIA REUTERS:

NEW YORK (Reuters) – The only known aerial photographs of the World Trade Center as it collapsed on September 11, 2001, were released by ABC News on Wednesday.

The photos, taken from a helicopter by New York Police Det. Greg Semendinger, show the twin towers in flames, falling amid huge, billowing clouds of dust, debris and smoke that envelop downtown Manhattan.

The 13 photographs were among thousands of pictures that ABC News sought under the Freedom of Information Act from the National Institute of Standards and Technology, which investigated the collapse of the towers, agency spokeswoman Gale Porter said.

While other photographs of the falling towers were taken on September 11, 2001 from satellites, rooftops and other aircraft, these photos are the only ones known to have been taken up close from an aircraft flying overhead in city airspace.

Nearly 3,000 people died when the twin towers were attacked by hijacked airliners.

The aerial photographs had been partially published in the past but now are publicly available to researchers.

“With these pictures, you move from a specific slice of information to much greater context,” said Jan Ramirez, chief curator at the National September 11 Memorial & Museum.

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VIA ARA LIFESTYLE:

The financial crisis has brought about new kinds of challenges for many Americans. High gas prices, foreclosures and low wages are some well-known symptoms. One of the biggest obstacles, however, has been the feeling of uncertainty we encounter on a daily basis, whether it be our job stability, our family budgets, or even our ability to save for retirement. With layoffs across a multitude of industries, many adults are taking action against this cloud of uncertainty by going back to school.

Take, for example, Denise Browning of Cincinnati, Ohio. Since 1986, Browning has been promoted 6 times at her current job, but she has hit the glass ceiling without a college degree. Despite working for her employer for 22 years, she was recently overlooked and deemed “not qualified” for a promotion.

“Wow, that was devastating,” she says. “Twenty-two years with a company, my accumulated years of knowledge, my excellent rapport with the reporting staff, my willingness to do the job, to be told ‘you’re not qualified’ — ouch!”

Browning applied for a full-ride college scholarship to go back to school through an online education advocacy campaign to help working moms afford the college degree they need to succeed for themselves and their children. With an online degree, she will be able to further fortify her position within a company and open herself up for career advancement. In today’s economy, the added degree even adds a piece of armor to an employee who may have been spotted for downsizing had they not taken charge of the situation by going back to school.

Many people mistakenly believe that in this tough economy, it may be difficult to find financial aid programs; this is simply not the case. Online Student Financial Aid is an example of an extremely helpful site that guides potential students to schools that offer financial assistance. With resources like this, people are still highly equipped to acquire a new degree, and data shows that it pays off.

In 2005, women ages 25 to 34 with bachelor’s degrees earned 70 percent more than those with high school diplomas, and for men the difference was 63 percent. For all full-time workers in this age group, the average earnings premium for a 4-year college degree is almost $14,000, according to “Education Pays 2006,” published by the College Board.

Online courses can be a terrific way to both pick up the education you need and still be able to work, parent, or juggle the many commitments that define most adult lives. There are currently more than 1,500 online degrees offered by over 130 online colleges. Popular online degrees include master of business administration, nursing and criminal justice, as well as education. Which degree is the best fit for you?

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VIA THE WASHINGTON POST:

The D.C. Board of Elections and Ethics ruled Thursday, for the third time this year, that a proposed referendum on whether the city should legalize same-sex marriage cannot move forward.

The board said that city law does not allow a referendum or initiative on a matter covered by the Human Rights Act, which was designed to protect gay men and lesbians and other minorities from discrimination.

The decision is another setback for opponents of same-sex marriage. Last month, the Superior Court judge upheld a previous elections board ruling denying a public vote. But opponents are appealing the decision.

The same-sex marriage bill, which Mayor Adrian M. Fenty (D) signed in December, is slated to take effect next month if it survives a congressional review.

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