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[Kobi]

The World's Most Ethical (WME) Companies designation recognizes companies that truly go beyond making statements about doing business "ethically" and translate those words into action. WME honorees not only promote ethical business standards and practices internally, they exceed legal compliance minimums and shape future industry standards by introducing best practices today.

This year, a record 145 companies made the list, which includes more than three dozen industries, from aerospace to wind power, with 43 of the WME winners headquartered outside the U.S.

Since the list's inception, 23 companies have made the list all six years including: Aflac, American Express, Fluor, General Electric, Milliken & Company, Patagonia, Rabobank and Starbucks, among others.

http://www.ethisphere.com/wme/

[Kobi]

NEW BRUNSWICK, New Jersey (Reuters) - A former Rutgers University student who used a computer webcam to spy on a sexual tryst of his roommate, who later committed suicide, was found guilty of hate crimes on Friday in a case that put a national spotlight on gay bullying.

Dharun Ravi, 20, faces 10 years in prison on the most serious charge of bias intimidation against Tyler Clementi, 18, who committed suicide by jumping off the George Washington Bridge three days after learning his gay encounter was seen by webcam.

Ravi, who invited others to watch the feed from the camera mounted on top of his computer, was not charged with causing Clementi's death.

Ravi, an Indian citizen who has lived most of his life in the United States, will be sentenced on May 21 and remains free on $25,000 bail after surrendering his passport. He faces possible deportation.


http://news.yahoo.com/jury-reconvene...153019438.html

[Kobi]

The Violence Against Women Act is a U.S. federal law signed into effect by President Bill Clinton in September of 1994, providing $1.6 billion to help investigate and prosecute violent crimes against women. In 2000 the act was reauthorized by Congress, as it was again in 2005. Now, once again, it's the focus of a fight.

http://www.theatlanticwire.com/natio...al-game/49937/

[LeftWriteFemme]

Barry Humphries retires as Dame Edna and Sir Les



http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/ent...-1226303017672

[Tommi]

Skin Creams, Soaps and Lotions Marketed as Skin Lighteners and Anti-aging Treatments: May Contain the Toxic Metal, Mercury

Issue: FDA notified healthcare professionals and warned consumers not to use skin creams, beauty and antiseptic soaps, or lotions that might contain mercury. The products are marketed as skin lighteners and anti-aging treatments that remove age spots, freckles, blemishes and wrinkles. Adolescents also may use these products as acne treatments. Products with this toxic metal have been found in at least seven states.

Background: The products are manufactured abroad and sold illegally in the United States—often in shops in Latino, Asian, African or Middle Eastern neighborhoods and online. Consumers may also have bought them in another country and brought them back to the U.S. for personal use. Investigations in the past few years by FDA and state health officials have turned up more than 35 products that contain unacceptable levels of mercury.

Recommendations: Consumers are advised to check the label of any skin lightening, anti-aging or other skin product used. If there is no label or no ingredients are listed, do not use the product. If “mercurous chloride,” “calomel,” “mercuric,” “mercurio,” or “mercury,” are listed on the label, stop using the product immediately. If you suspect you have been using a product with mercury, stop using it immediately. Thoroughly wash hands and any other parts of the body that have come in contact with the product. Contact a health care professional or a medical care clinic for advice.


Consumer Update and News Release at:
http://www.fda.gov/Safety/MedWatch/S...ce=govdelivery

[MsTinkerbelly]

Supreme Court declines to review case challenging San Diego State’s nondiscrimination policy
By Scottie Thomaston

The Supreme Court today decided it will leave in place a Ninth Circuit decision that upheld San Diego State’s nondiscrimination policy as constitutional. The policy was challenged as a violation of the first amendment’s free exercise clause along with its freedom of speech and association guarantees. From the Associated Press:


The policy says officially recognized campus groups can’t discriminate based on religion or sexual orientation.

A Christian fraternity and a sorority at San Diego State University sued in 2005, arguing that the policy violates their religious freedom. The groups are restricted to Christian members.

The Supreme Court’s denial of certiorari (review) effectively leaves in place a gay-affirmative decision by the Ninth Circuit. Their ruling concluded:


San Diego State’s nondiscrimination policy, as written, is viewpoint neutral and reasonable in light of the purpose of the student organization program. Thus, the university’s policy does not violate Plaintiffs’ rights of free speech and expressive association. Moreover, the policy does not violate Plaintiffs’ rights to free exercise of religion and equal protection under the law. But the evidence raises a triable issue of fact as to whether San Diego State has exempted certain groups from the policy while not granting such an exemption to Plaintiffs. We therefore remand to the district court for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

Along with ruling that the policy doesn’t violate free speech and expression the Ninth Circuit sent the case back to the lower court to gather evidence in an attempt to show that the college is allowing for exemptions from the nondiscrimination in some cases while denying it to this group. This selective enforcement complaint was mentioned but insufficient evidence had been brought to court to rule definitively.

Chris Geidner at Metro Weekly has more about what this means and where this decision will become precedent for future cases. :


No justices announced their disagreement with the decision not to hear the case. The decision is not a resolution by the Supreme Court of the legal questions raised that would serve as a precedent across the country; it does, however, mean that the Ninth Circuit decision stands as a precedent for all lower courts within the Ninth Circuit, which covers Alaska, Arizona, California, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon and Washington.

The Court had previously decided, in Christian Legal Society v. Martinez, that public colleges’ nondiscrimination policies which mandate allowing anyone into a group regardless of if they adhere to the beliefs of the group or not is constitutional. This case is different, because instead of asking the Court to decide whether a policy mandating admission of all people regardless of their viewpoint is constitutional, they asked them to decide:


[W]hether a state university can deny recognition to a religious student organization because the group requires its officers and voting members to adhere to its core beliefs, even though the same university recognizes secular organizations with identical membership policies.

The Ninth Circuit holds that these types of nondiscrimination policies are constitutional. The decision to deny cert is a win for anti-discrimination as well as another loss for the Alliance Defense Fund

[SoNotHer]

Amelia Earhart search: A new clue pulls in Hillary Rodham Clinton



By Amy Hubbard

March 20, 2012, 9:58 a.m.

A finger bone fragment, DNA samples, a photo showing a wheel protruding from water. Amelia Earhart disappeared 75 years ago, but the clues continue to surface. On Tuesday, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is set to meet with historians and scientists as a new hunt is launched for the wreckage of Earhart's Lockheed Electra plane.

The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery will begin the search in June, according to the Associated Press, off the remote island of South Pacific island of Nikumaroro, in the nation of Kiribati.

Earhart and navigator Fred Noonan disappeared July 2, 1937, as they attempted to circumnavigate the globe at the equator. The trip began a month earlier, on June 1, from Miami. Earhart and Noonan flew to San Juan, Puerto Rico. Before takeoff there, Earhart made a statement that has become well-known: "I have a feeling there is just about one more good flight left in my system and I hope this trip is it. Anyway, when I have finished this job, I mean to give up long-distance 'stunt' flying."

Along her journey, the 39-year-old pilot sent reports of the land, cultures and people she encountered, according to CentennialOfFlight.gov. She and Noonan landed on June 30, 1937, in Lae, New Guinea, having flown 22,000 miles, with 7,000 yet to go.

Earhart and Noonan next headed to tiny Howland Island, but they never reached their destination. After the pair vanished, President Franklin Roosevelt sent nine Navy ships and 66 aircraft to search; the cost was more than $4 million. No trace was found.

Over the decades, theories as to Earhart's fate have multiplied -- some people have speculated that Earhart and Noonan were U.S. agents captured by the Japanese before World War II. Some even said she lived on an island in the South Pacific with a native fisherman. Numerous attempts were made to find the wreckage. As recently as last year, divers in Papua New Guinea said they had found the plane. An ABC report at the time quoted one expert as saying the claim was "silly beyond description."

In 2010, there was a flurry of excitement over a possible finger bone fragment. But tests proved inconclusive. Now the Associated Press reports that a senior U.S. official has said a new analysis of a contemporary photo of a portion of the island of Nikumaroro shows what some people believe could be a strut and wheel of Earhart's plane protruding from the water.

The upcoming search for the wreckage of Earhart's plane is reportedly a public and private effort with a price tag of $500,000. Clinton will use the opportunity, according to the AP, to praise Earhart and her legacy.

Earhart, who has been called the most famous female aviator in history, was a nurse's aide in Toronto in 1918 when she attended a flying exhibition and became enamored with the idea of becoming a pilot. Earhart took her first flight, as a passenger, in California in 1920. According to the National Air and Space Museum, that clinched it. Earhart said of the flight: "As soon as I left the ground, I knew I myself had to fly."

Among her aviation records, she was the first woman to fly nonstop and solo across the Atlantic Ocean. She made the trip in May 1932. In August of that same year, she made the first solo, nonstop trip by a female pilot across the U.S., from Los Angeles to Newark, N.J. The flight took 19 hours and five minutes.

[LeftWriteFemme]

Madonna urged to cancel St Petersburg gig in August

American-Russian journalist Masha Gessen calls for St Petersburg boycott over ‘gay propaganda’ law



http://www.gaystarnews.com/article/m...g-august200312

[Kobi]

SEATTLE (AP) — When Justin Bassett interviewed for a new job, he expected the usual questions about experience and references. So he was astonished when the interviewer asked for something else: his Facebook username and password.

Bassett, a New York City statistician, had just finished answering a few character questions when the interviewer turned to her computer to search for his Facebook page. But she couldn't see his private profile. She turned back and asked him to hand over his login information.

Bassett refused and withdrew his application, saying he didn't want to work for a company that would seek such personal information. But as the job market steadily improves, other job candidates are confronting the same question from prospective employers, and some of them cannot afford to say no.

In their efforts to vet applicants, some companies and government agencies are going beyond merely glancing at a person's social networking profiles and instead asking to log in as the user to have a look around.



Job Seekers Getting Asked For Facebook Passwords.

[AtLast]

Originally Posted by Kobi

SEATTLE (AP) — When Justin Bassett interviewed for a new job, he expected the usual questions about experience and references. So he was astonished when the interviewer asked for something else: his Facebook username and password.

Bassett, a New York City statistician, had just finished answering a few character questions when the interviewer turned to her computer to search for his Facebook page. But she couldn't see his private profile. She turned back and asked him to hand over his login information.

Bassett refused and withdrew his application, saying he didn't want to work for a company that would seek such personal information. But as the job market steadily improves, other job candidates are confronting the same question from prospective employers, and some of them cannot afford to say no.

In their efforts to vet applicants, some companies and government agencies are going beyond merely glancing at a person's social networking profiles and instead asking to log in as the user to have a look around.



Job Seekers Getting Asked For Facebook Passwords.

I have no words..... this is sooooooooooooo out of bounds!!!

[Kobi]

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Pop star Whitney Houston died of accidental drowning due to the effects of cocaine use and heart disease, a Los Angeles County coroner's spokesman said on Thursday.

The 48-year-old singer, who spent years battling addiction to drugs including cocaine, was found submerged in the bathtub of her Beverly Hills hotel room on February 12, the eve of the Grammy Awards.

An autopsy into Houston's death found that the cause of death was accidental drowning with atherosclerotic heart disease and cocaine use listed as contributing factors, Los Angeles County Coroner's spokesman Craig Harvey said.

Harvey said toxicology tests also turned up marijuana, an anti-anxiety medication, a muscle relaxant and an anti-histamine in Houston's system.

Those drugs were not found to have contributed to her death, and no trauma or foul play were suspected, the coroner's office said. A final report was expected to be made public within two weeks.

http://news.yahoo.com/whitney-housto...213436821.html

[Kobi]

DALLAS (AP) — At least five high-ranking executives with the Susan G. Komen for the Cure breast cancer charity have resigned in the aftermath of the organization's decision to eliminate its funding for Planned Parenthood.

The departures include three officials from Komen's Dallas headquarters, as well as CEOs of affiliate groups in Oregon and New York City. The chairman of the foundation also stepped down from his post, though he will remain on the board. Although some cited personal reasons, the resignations suggest that Komen is still in turmoil, even after reversing course and restoring the money to Planned Parenthood.

http://news.yahoo.com/several-execut...212830497.html

[UofMfan]

Geraldo Rivera: Hoodie To Blame For Trayvon Martin’s Death

"Guns Don't Kill People, Hoodies Kill People"

[MsDemeanor]

George Zimmerman was wearing a hoodie, too.

[Kobi]

New York Times – Wed, Mar 21, 2012

Debbie Schork, a deli worker at a supermarket in Indiana, had to have her hand amputated after an emergency room nurse injected her with an anti-nausea drug, causing gangrene. She sued the manufacturer named in the hospital’s records for failing to warn about the risks of injecting it. Her case was quietly thrown out of court last fall.

That result stands in sharp contrast to the highly publicized case of Diana Levine, a professional musician from Vermont. Her hand and forearm were amputated because of gangrene after a physician assistant at a health clinic injected her with the same drug. She sued the drug maker, Wyeth, and won $6.8 million.

The financial outcomes were radically different for one reason: Ms. Schork had received the generic version of the drug, known as promethazine, while Ms. Levine had been given the brand name, Phenergan.

“Explain the difference between the generic and the real one — it’s just a different company making the same thing,” Ms. Schork said.

Across the country, dozens of lawsuits against generic pharmaceutical companies are being dismissed because of a Supreme Court decision last year that said the companies did not have control over what their labels said and therefore could not be sued for failing to alert patients about the risks of taking their drugs.

Now, what once seemed like a trivial detail — whether to take a generic or brand-name drug — has become the deciding factor in whether a patient can seek legal recourse from a drug company. The cases range from that of Ms. Schork, who wasn’t told which type of drug she had been given when she visited the hospital, to people like Camille Baruch, who developed a gastrointestinal disease after taking a generic form of the drug Accutane, as required by her health care plan.

“Your pharmacists aren’t telling you, hey, when we fill this with your generic, you are giving up all of your legal remedies,” said Michael Johnson, a lawyer who represented Gladys Mensing, one of the patients who sued generic drug companies in last year’s Supreme Court case, Pliva v. Mensing. “You have a disparate impact between one class of people and another.”

The Supreme Court ruling affects potentially millions of people: nearly 80 percent of prescriptions in the United States are filled by a generic, and most states permit pharmacists to dispense a generic in place of a brand name. More than 40 judges have dismissed cases against generic manufacturers since the Supreme Court ruled last June, including some who dismissed dozens of cases consolidated under one judge.

Public Citizen, a consumer advocacy group, has petitioned the Food and Drug Administration to give generic companies greater control over their labels, a rule change that could allow users of generic drugs to sue, but the agency said earlier this month that it needed more time to decide. “Congress can make this problem go away, and the F.D.A. could, too,” said Allison Zieve, the director of Public Citizen Litigation Group. “But we haven’t seen signs that either of them is paying much attention.” A spokeswoman for the F.D.A. declined to comment.

The Supreme Court’s ruling, which was split 5 to 4 on ideological lines, has its roots in the Hatch-Waxman Act, the 1984 law that opened the floodgates to generic drugs. That law allowed companies to skip the lengthy process required to approve new drugs if they could prove that the generic drug was equivalent to its brand-name counterpart.

With few exceptions, it also required generic manufacturers to use the same labels — the lengthy list of a drug’s uses, dosages and risks — used by the brand names.

If a problem develops, the brand-name companies are responsible for changing the label, and the generic companies must follow their lead. As a result, the court’s majority ruled, generic companies cannot be held responsible for failing to alert patients to problems with their drug. The dissent, which was written by Justice Sonia Sotomayor, argued that generic companies nevertheless have a responsibility to report problems to the F.D.A. and should be held liable for failing to warn patients.



full story: http://finance.yahoo.com/news/generi...182006794.html

[AtLast]

Originally Posted by MsDemeanor

George Zimmerman was wearing a hoodie, too.

Indeed he was.

I keep thinking about how so much was lost via the initial crime scene "non" investigation by the Sanford police. Now there are reports that the police reports were doctored after the fact with the supposed info about Zimmerman stating he stopped pursuing Trayvon and it was Trayvon that attacked him.

This is the very same police department that there was a cover-up within when the son of an officer beat the hell out of a homeless man.

Hopefully with a new investigation, things like where Zimmerman was prior to the incident is brought out in terms of his wet shirt and bloody nose and his not being tested for drugs or alcohol.

It is possible that he had been drinking or even in a physical altercation prior to his "guarding" the neighborhood (which is not really what neighborhood watch programs are about). And although this could be upsetting to Trayvon's family, I would want an independent autopsy done or review of the autopsy results. Ther could be evidence of Trayvon trying to defend himself such as bruises or abrations on his forearms. There could be other physical evidence that was just not looked into as these cops just took Zimmerman's word for a self-defense claim. The whole identification of the screams for help can be figured out by voice recognition programs.

Lots of work for the new prosecution team to take on and they are having to work with so many holes in the Sanford police not doing a complete crime scene work-up in the first place. But, competent investigators can do a lot in getting to the real facts and also figureing out why the police reports just don't mesh.

I know it is really hard for Trayvon's parents to be sitting there waiting for action on behalf of their son, but, I think that the collection, reconstruction and fact finding of the new tem has got to be done with great care and expertise in order to get justice for their son.

[UofMfan]

LeBron James Tweets Picture Of Miami Heat Wearing Hoodies In Solidarity With Family Of Trayvon Martin

[LeftWriteFemme]

Black Transmen Advocacy Conference to make history in Dallas



http://www.dallasvoice.com/black-tra...-10105169.html

[LeftWriteFemme]

Chick-fil-A Faces Hostile College Students & Drag Queens



http://www.edgeonthenet.com/news/int...&_drag_queens_

[LeftWriteFemme]

Muslim gay hate preacher banned from speaking at university



http://www.gaystarnews.com/article/m...iversity220312