VIA THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER:

University of Virginia lacrosse player George Huguely V told police he repeatedly shook his former girlfriend’s head into a bedroom wall, according to police documents that described the gruesome scene where the young woman died.

But the Chevy Chase man’s defense lawyer said Huguely did not intend to kill ex-girlfriend Yeardley Love, 22, and he called her death “a tragic accident.”

Charlottesville Police Chief Tim Longo said detectives were investigating whether Huguely, also 22, had threatened Love before she was found in a pool of blood in her bedroom Monday. Detectives recovered Love’s computer that they said Huguely admitting stealing. That computer contained e-mails he sent her after a bitter breakup.

“Part of what we’re gathering in our discussion with friends and family is the extent to which [threats] took place and the context in which that took place,” Longo said.

Huguely is a former All-America lacrosse player at Landon School in Bethesda who quarterbacked the football team to the league championship. He has been charged with first-degree murder. Huguely has been arrested at least twice before — including once in 2008 when he was charged with threatening a female police officer.

On the day before Love’s death, members of the men’s and women’s lacrosse teams were having a “Sunday Funday,” extending a weekend of drinking and carousing, friends have told the Washington Examiner.

According to the police affidavit, around 2: 15 a.m., Love’s roommate and a friend returned home and found her face-down on her blood-soaked pillow. She suffered a large bruise on the right side of her face and her right eye was swollen shut. The door to her bedroom had been kicked open.

Police said that Huguely admitted that he kicked in Love’s bedroom door and during a struggle, “he shook Love and her head repeatedly hit the wall.”

Huguely told detectives that they had recently stopped dating, and that they had communicated by e-mail, documents said. Huguely said he stole Love’s computer from her home and then got rid of it. He told police where they could find it and it was recovered.

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VIA BLACK WEB 2.0:

In light of the recent Library of Congress archive of all of our “tweets”, Twitterers need to be more cautious and cognizant of what they discuss or tweet on Twitter. Now most of us keep it simple and don’t engage in legal pitfalls such as defamation, terrorist threats, pornography, disclosure of private information, or intellectual property infringement. However there are others that treat Twitter like the wild wild west of social media networks. Defamation, pornography, and threats of Presidential assassination are rampant. There have been lawsuits filed and legal action taken against Twitters who engage in this type of behavior.

When using any social media network, anything you say or promote, good or bad is forever in cyberspace waiting to reward or punish you. And now that the federal government via the Library of Congress has all of our tweets, we should be more cautious and strategic about what we say on Twitter. Here is a list of Twitter dos and don’ts to assist Twitterers in avoiding legal liability or jail time.

Read the list here

Attend programs across the city from April 17 to May 15 celebrating “A Lesson Before Dying” by Ernest J. Gaines.

Click here for more information and to see all locations for the Big Read DC.

The Big Read is an initiative of the National Endowment for the Arts in partnership with the Institute of Museum and Library Services and Arts Midwest, and funded in part by the D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities.

VIA THE WASHINGTON POST:

Metro plans to curtail its expensive-to-operate transit alternative for the elderly and disabled just as ridership for the service is projected to grow 50 percent over the next four years.

The agency has proposed the changes as part of an effort to cover a $190 million gap in its operating budget for the fiscal year that begins July 1.

Staff members outlined the changes at a meeting on Thursday, where the board of directors also considered a $1.9 billion contract for 748 new rail cars, with an initial 64 cars for the expansion of the subway system to Dulles International Airport. The board deferred action on the contract.

The MetroAccess transit service has seen its annual passenger trips increase from about 1.5 million in 2007 to a projected 2.4 million this year as the population of older and disabled people in the region has grown. Meanwhile, its operating budget has increased from about $60 million to $80 million this year, and is projected to reach $100 million in 2011, according to Metro data.

But the $2.50 fare that customers pay for each one-way trip represents only 5 percent of the cost, Metro said. That amount of subsidy is not sustainable, according to Metro board Chairman Peter Benjamin and an assessment made this month by veteran transit consultant David Gunn, a former Metro general manager.

The service offered by Metro is more generous than what is required by the Americans with Disabilities Act, and Metro’s proposal to restrict it would bring it closer to those standards.

For example, MetroAccess would limit service to within a three-quarter mile distance from existing bus and rail service, in line with ADA standards, saving $2.4 million a year. Currently, the service operates beyond the three-quarter mile radius where no other public transportation exists.

Another proposal would increase MetroAccess fares to the maximum allowed under the ADA definition, or twice the equivalent fare on regular bus routes. Metro anticipates the fare increase would encourage some MetroAccess riders to switch to using regular bus and rail service under a free ride program aimed at reducing their reliance on paratransit.

In July, Metro plans to implement a policy of conditional eligibility for the use of MetroAccess, which would constrain use of the service depending on a person’s situation. “For instance, a person with low vision might be able to take Metrobus during the day but would need to take MetroAccess at night,” said Selene Faer Dalton-Kumins, director of MetroAccess Service.

In other developments, Metro’s board of directors voted to delay approval of a contract worth a potential $1.9 billion for Kawasaki Rail Car for 748 new rail cars — a cost of about $2.65 million per car. Board members, briefed on the details of the contract for the first time on Thursday, said they needed more time to review the selection of Kawasaki, one of seven companies who bid, and to scrutinize how to pay for the deal.

The Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority, which is responsible for building the Silver Line extension to Dulles, will pay for 64 cars, said Metro Deputy General Manager David Kubicek. The first phase of the Silver Line extension is scheduled to open in 2013. Questions remain about how the remainder of the purchase would be financed. A board decision is not expected until mid-April.

Kubicek told the board that Kawasaki achieved the highest technical and price rankings among the bidders, with its U.S.-built stainless steel cars showing strengths in safety and quality. For example, the cars would perform better in crashes than the 1000 Series they are replacing, he said. the new 7000 Series “cars will have different crash-worthy characteristics, absolutely,” he said.

Unlike Metro’s previous generations of rail cars, the 7000 Series cars cannot be combined with old ones. They can run anywhere in the system, Kubicek said, but will not be coupled with any previous generation of cars.

It was the last board meeting for outgoing General Manager John B. Catoe Jr., who departs April 2 after a roller-coaster tenure leading the transit agency, which is suffering from historic budget deficits, a string of fatal accidents and safety lapses, and a demand from federal lawmakers for more oversight.

“I have no regrets about coming to this agency,” Catoe said in closing remarks to the board, whose members uniformly praised Catoe’s leadership. “There are things that I wish that would have turned out slightly different. All I could do was the best that I could do.”

Catoe, who took over in January 2007, said Metro “needs to take a different direction, and it is best that someone else leads that change.” He urged Metro’s 10,000 managers and employees to rededicate themselves to safe operations and customer service, saying those are “jobs that are never done.”

An interim general manager, Richard Sarles, former chief of New Jersey Transit, is scheduled to start Monday.

Source

VIA THE WASHINGTON POST:

Amid a sea of brightly colored T-shirts and wave after wave of protest signs, Regina Holliday’s homemade banner still stuck out as she marched Tuesday in support of health-care reform.

Clad in a painter’s smock, Holliday, whose uninsured husband died of cancer in the summer of 2009, waved an image of him and her two sons.

“We want a foot in the door. That’s what this bill is,” Holliday, 37, said about the current health-care reform legislation.

Holliday was one of thousands of protesters who marched through downtown Washington on Tuesday to criticize the health insurance industry and attempt to draw support for the Democratic proposal to overhaul the system.

Organizers with Health Care for America Now, a coalition of labor and other liberal groups, targeted insurance company leaders attending a policy conference held by industry advocates at the Ritz-Carlton hotel at 22nd and M streets NW. Reinforcing the Obama administration’s recent criticism of increasing health premiums, the demonstrators marched to the hotel to make a mock “citizen’s arrest” of insurance executives, who were demonized on demonstration posters and over the loudspeaker.

“We’re declaring this a crime scene!” bellowed Richard Trumka, president of the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations, to the roar of the crowd. AFL-CIO is a federation of about 60 labor unions.

Organizers of the protest said they brought about 5,000 people from across the United States to downtown Washington. They began their march in Dupont Circle, where they heard speeches from politicians and activists.

Former Vermont governor and physician Howard Dean cheered on demonstrators earlier in the morning. “We deserve a vote. . . . This is a vote about one thing — are you for the insurance companies or for the American people?”

Other marchers joined the main group as it reached the hotel. Police had set up barriers blocking access to the entrance. As protesters chanted and beat on drums, men and women in business suits took photos on their cellphones from behind the barricades.

The protest comes as President Obama makes a final push for passage of the health-care reform package, which critics say would not control health-care costs, among other failings.

“We will continue to send the message to Congress that they need to listen to us, not the health insurance companies, and that they needed to get reform done now,” said David Elliot, communications director for USAction, a nonprofit that helped co-found the Health Care for America campaign in 2008.

Insurers say they are being vilified.

“All health plans are in the same situation in trying to deal with the steadily increasing medical costs in the delivery system, which are not sustainable,” a spokesman for Anthem Blue Cross of California said last month when the firm agreed to a request by California regulators to postpone a premium increase of 39 percent for people who buy individual policies.

Like other insurers, Anthem also said rates are going up for individual insurance policies because, in the poor economy, healthy people are dropping coverage, leaving a pool of customers who are sicker and more expensive to cover.

The administration contends that the rate increases reflect excessive profits; insurance lobbyists counter that their rates mirror underlying increases in prices charged by doctors, hospitals and drug firms.

No one was arrested during Tuesday’s demonstration, Elliot said. But there was a minor skirmish between police and protesters when some tried to gain access to a parking tunnel next to the hotel. After a small group was allowed to deliver “citizen’s arrest warrants” to America’s Health Insurance Plans, the lobbying group hosting the conference, the crowd began to disperse.

The lobby plans to spend more than $1 million on a nationwide advertising campaign this week to, as one official with the group said, “set the record straight about rising health-care costs.”

Source

VIA THE WASHINGTON POST:

Water main breaks in Crystal City last night are going to add difficulties to commutes in the area: Several Metrobus routes will be taking detours due to the breaks. There will also be big issues for drivers.

Routes 23A and 23C will be detouring between Jefferson Davis Highway and 23rd Street. Routes 9A and 9E are going to detour between 23rd Street and Jefferson Davis Highway. These detours are expected to last throughout the day.

Additionally, southbound traffic on Jefferson Davis Highway will face problems in this stretch, so alternate routes are recommended. Traffic is being detoured onto parallel routes like S. Eads Street and S. Clark Street. The George Washington Parkway is also a good option to get around this.

Crews are working to repair three breaks in a 12-inch water main in Crystal City. The breaks occurred at the 2600 block of Jefferson Davis Highway (between Airport Viaduct and 27th Street South), Jefferson Davis Highway at 23rd Street South and 2900 S. Eads Street. The work is expected to continue through the morning rush hour.

Source

VIA HEALTH:

SAD or just sad?

Everyone feels a little melancholy this time of the year. The days are short and cold. The economy is shaky. For some people, the change to winter brings with it something more serious than the blues: seasonal affective disorder (SAD), a form of depression that can be debilitating.

Mild forms of SAD are believed to affect as many as 20% of people in the United States. If you think you might be one of them, learn more about the signs of this disorder.

Sadness

SAD is a form of depression, and it shares most of the same symptoms. The two most common symptoms of depression are feelings of sadness and hopelessness, and losing interest in activities—such as socializing—that you normally find pleasurable.

If you experience these symptoms every day for at least two weeks, it’s a sign of depression. If you feel this way only during the fall and winter, and if these symptoms disappear during the rest of the year, it may be a sign of SAD.

Sleepiness and fatigue

People with SAD tend to feel the need to sleep more during the wintertime—sometimes a lot more. In one study, published in the Journal of Psychosomatic Research in 1994, patients at a SAD clinic averaged about 7.5 hours of sleep in the summer, 8.5 hours in the spring and fall, and nearly 10 hours in the winter.

Just because you’re sleeping more doesn’t mean you’ll feel rested, however. Other research has shown that people with SAD experience more insomnia and sleep disturbances, and are more prone to nodding off at work.

Irritability

Anger and irritability are common—yet often overlooked—symptoms of depression and SAD. Research suggests that people with SAD are significantly more irritable than healthy individuals. They may also be more prone to anger than people with regular (nonseasonal) depression.

A 2006 study that compared groups of people with active SAD and regular depression found that more than 40% of the people in the SAD group experienced sudden fits of inappropriate anger, compared to just 29% in the other group. Those with SAD experienced 19 of these “anger attacks” a month, on average.

Increased appetite

Like depression in general, SAD can increase appetite in some people. Sixty-five percent of people with the disorder report being hungrier during the colder, darker months.

The voracious appetite that sometimes accompanies SAD may be a biological response to a seasonal drop in serotonin, a neurotransmitter that’s associated with mood and helps to control hunger.

Though it can help you feel better temporarily, eating more—and being cooped up—during the winter can really pack on the pounds: Nearly 75% of people with SAD gain weight.

Carb cravings

One of the reasons that people with SAD tend to gain weight is that the disorder can produce a strong craving for complex carbohydrates such as bread and pasta. (In fact, 7 out of 10 people with SAD experience this symptom.)

Gorging on carbohydrates causes the levels of an amino acid called tryptophan to rise in the brain. This in turn causes the release of serotonin, which boosts mood. In effect, people with SAD use carbohydrates as a kind of medication—and a bigger waistline is a common side effect.

Difficulty concentrating

Depression can make you feel sad and alone, but it also compromises how well your brain works. The condition has been shown to affect a range of mental processes, including concentration, speaking ability, and memory.

A 2007 study in the American Journal of Psychiatry showed that this so-called cognitive impairment can be every bit as bad in people with SAD as it is in people with nonseasonal depression. One woman who participated in the study—whose symptoms qualified for SAD, but not major depression—reported that she was having difficulty remembering names and appointments, and was easily distracted.

Loss of interest in sex

Depression doesn’t exactly make you feel sexy. A loss of interest in sex is a common symptom among people with SAD and depression alike.

But this only tends to be true among people who experience SAD in the fall and winter. If the disorder appears in the spring and summer—a much rarer condition sometimes called “summer depression” or “reverse SAD”—some of the symptoms tend to be the opposite of winter SAD. And one of the hallmarks of summer depression is an increased sex drive.

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TRENTON, N.J. — The Legislature on Monday approved a bill that would make the state the 14th to allow chronically ill patients access to marijuana for medical reasons.

Democratic Gov. Jon Corzine supports the legislation and could sign it before leaving office next week, making it law.

The bill allows patients with ailments such as cancer, AIDS and multiple sclerosis, while possessing special ID cards, to buy up to 2 ounces of marijuana a month at state-monitored dispensaries.

Driving while high would continue to be against the law.

The other states that permit medical use of marijuana are Alaska, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Michigan, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington.

VIA REUTERS

NEW YORK (Reuters Life!) – Money, or the lack of it, changes everything, and that includes how people will be working out in 2010.

In these belt-tightening times, cost-conscious workouts at home and at the gym topped the list of fitness trends for this year in a survey, followed by shorter, more time-efficient regimens, such as boot camp and circuit training.

“People are looking for ways to accomplish as much as possible with as little time and money as necessary,” said Cedric X. Bryant, chief science officer of the American Council on Exercise (ACE), which conducted the online poll of fitness professionals.

“Last year ‘budget-conscious’ was on the list but this year the majority of the respondents put it as one of the top,” he added.

Bryant said some 600 ACE-certified fitness professionals responded to the annual poll, which the non-profit organization has been conducting for a decade.

Other money-saving measures, such as the shift from personal training sessions to small group training classes and in-home workouts using smaller, more portable equipment, also made the list.

“Personal trainers are seeing they’ve got to respond to market needs. Working with two to four clients at a time they can charge less but still get their hourly fee,” Bryant said.

Boot-camp workouts and circuit training, both of which burn calories while building strength and endurance, will be among the most popular trends in 2010, as time-constrained consumers seek shorter, more intense regimens.

“We’re living in a time-pressured society where people are working longer because of staff reductions or trying to pick up extra income,” Bryant explained.

One bright spot is the rise of exergaming-type systems, like Nintendo’s Wii Sports, Wii Fit and the PC-based Dancetown. Bryant says the fitness-based video games are turning up in health clubs and senior centers.

“Exergaming appears to be taking hold with older adults, a segment of the population that people don’t associate with technology and gaming,” he said. “Senior centers are offering it to a population that is sometimes underserved in exercise options.”

Boomer-specific programs will remain strong in 2010, as the oldest of the 78-million-strong demographic reaches retirement age.

“We’re still seeing their desire and expectation to have full and active lives,” Bryant said. “Unlike previous generations, boomers expect to maintain a more active lifestyle.”

Functional training workouts, which are geared to improving the quality of life and the ability to perform everyday tasks, will remain strong, and the use of computerized tracking and online training and scheduling tools will increase in the coming year.

Specialty exercise classes, such as ethnic dance, hooping, pole dancing and Zumba will still be popular, due in part to the continued success of television shows like “Dancing with the Stars” and “So You Think You Can Dance”.

And in line with the runaway success of TV’s “The Biggest Loser”, Bryant said that health and government organizations will collaborate even more in the fight against inactivity and obesity.

“The obesity epidemic is causing a change in the type of client entering fitness environment,” he said. “It’s more likely to be someone who has diabetes or hypertension. They’re going to have special needs. More attention is being focused on providing programs to help these individuals.”

Source

VIA THE WASHINGTON POST:

An IHOP restaurant in the Colmar Manor section of Prince George’s County was ravaged by fire early Wednesday, but no one was injured, authorities said.

The blaze largely destroyed the eatery in the 3700 block of Bladensburg Road, near the Fort Lincoln Cemetery and just a few blocks east of the D.C.-Prince George’s County line.

The restaurant, which is open all night on the weekends, had closed at midnight, and was apparently empty when the fire was reported about 1:45 a.m. Authorities said the blaze was mostly extinguished within an hour. No injuries were reported.

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