House GOP Advances Fake Pro-Working Mother Bill | Mother Jones

In February, in the wake of their bruising loss at the polls in the 2012 presidential election, Republicans in Congress decided to launch a concerted effort to change their image and lure back a critical group of voters who abandoned the party in droves last year: women. To that end, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) gave a high-profile speech about how the party intended to "make life work" for working families. He emphasized women-friendly ideas like improving education, reducing the cost of college, and other key work/life balance issues. Among those he touched on was the idea of flex time. Cantor?said:

If you're a working parent, you know there?s hardly ever enough time at home to be with the kids. Too many parents have to weigh whether they can afford to miss work even for half a day to see their child off on the first day of school or attend a parent-teacher conference.

Federal laws dating back to the 1930s make it harder for parents who hold hourly jobs to balance the demands of work and home. An hourly employee cannot convert previous overtime into future comp-time or flex-time. In 1985, Congress passed a law that gave state and municipal employees this flexibility, but today still denies that same privilege to the entire private sector. That?s not right...

Imagine if we simply chose to give all employees and employers this option. A working mom could work overtime this month and use it as time off next month without having to worry about whether she?ll be able to take home enough money to pay the rent. This is the kind of common sense legislation that should be non-controversial and moves us in the right direction to help make life work for families.

Flex-time as Cantor described it sounds great on paper?every working parent's dream even! But of course, the devil is in the details. Those details come in the form of the Working Families Flexibility Act, a bill Cantor introduced in April. Far from helping working families, the proposed legislation would instead deprive them of the longstanding right to be paid time-and-a-half for overtime. The bill would allow companies to give hourly workers comp time in lieu of overtime if the workers agree to it. That might not be such a terrible thing, except that the bill doesn't give workers any power to decide when?to use the comp time. The employer gets to decide that. If the employer fails to let the worker use a bunch of accrued comp time, the bill would allow the worker to demand the overtime compensation in cash, but it gives the company 30 days to make good on the payment. And if the company stiffs the worker on the overtime compensation, the bill prevents workers from complaining to the US Department of Labor, as they can now, and instead forces them to try to find a lawyer who will take up their cause to collect a few hundred dollars worth of back pay, a fairly toothless enforcement measure. The bill, supported by the US Chamber of Commerce, is a backdoor attempt to shield big companies like Wal-Mart from costly lawsuits they've seen stemming from their systematic refusal to pay low-wage workers the overtime?to which they're legally entitled.

All of this is why women's groups aren't signing on to the bill. The legislation "only pretends to give people the time they need to manage the dual demands of work and family,"?Debra Ness, president of the National Partnership on Women and Families, said this week as the bill moved forward in the House. "It is insulting that the House is wasting time with a bill that would make things so much worse."

Republicans' track record of helping working families is truly dismal, and one speech from Cantor isn't going to change that.?Republicans fought the Family and Medical Leave Act tooth and nail (the first President Bush vetoed the bill twice before Bill Clinton finally signed it in to law) and have refused to expand it to include more people or paid leave so families could actually use it. This is the same party that rabidly opposes the Healthy Families Act, which would provide paid sick leave for more workers, a measure public health officials say is critical not just to family sanity but to the nation's health. Perhaps what's most depressing about the GOP's new working families bill is that Republican leaders thought women were dumb enough not to notice that it was just a cynical attempt to win women's votes while still catering to the GOP's big corporate backers.

Source: http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2013/05/house-gop-advances-fake-pro-working-mother-bill

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East about to be overrun by billions of cicadas

This photo provided by the University of Connecticut shows a cicada in Pipestem State Park in West Virginia on May 27, 2003. Any day now, cicadas with bulging red eyes will creep out of the ground after 17 years and overrun the East Coast with the awesome power of numbers. Big numbers. Billions. Maybe even a trillion. For a few buggy weeks, residents from North Carolina to Connecticut will be outnumbered by 600 to 1. Maybe more. And the invaders will be loud. A chorus of buzzing male cicadas can rival a jet engine. (AP Photo/University of Connecticut, Chirs Simon)

This photo provided by the University of Connecticut shows a cicada in Pipestem State Park in West Virginia on May 27, 2003. Any day now, cicadas with bulging red eyes will creep out of the ground after 17 years and overrun the East Coast with the awesome power of numbers. Big numbers. Billions. Maybe even a trillion. For a few buggy weeks, residents from North Carolina to Connecticut will be outnumbered by 600 to 1. Maybe more. And the invaders will be loud. A chorus of buzzing male cicadas can rival a jet engine. (AP Photo/University of Connecticut, Chirs Simon)

A box of preserved cicadas, including emerging insects and molted exoskeletons, in storage at the Smithsonian Institution's Museum Support Center in Camp Springs, Md. on Tuesday, April 23, 2013. A brood of cicadas are expected to emerge this spring in the Washington area. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

This photo provided by the University of Connecticut, shows a cicada in Pipestem State Park in West Virginia on May 27, 2003. Any day now, cicadas with bulging red eyes will creep out of the ground after 17 years and overrun the East Coast with the awesome power of numbers. Big numbers. Billions. Maybe even a trillion. For a few buggy weeks, residents from North Carolina to Connecticut will be outnumbered by 600 to 1. Maybe more. And the invaders will be loud. A chorus of buzzing male cicadas can rival a jet engine.(AP Photo/University of Connecticut, Chirs Simon)

Gary Hevel, a research collaborator with the Dept. of Entomology at the National Museum of Natural History, holds up a preserved cicadas, a brood of which are expected to emerge this spring in the Washington area, at the Smithsonian Institution's Museum Support Center in Camp Springs, Md. on Tuesday, April 23, 2013. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

Gary Hevel, a research collaborator with the Dept. of Entomology at the National Museum of Natural History, opens a case of preserved cicadas, a brood of which are expected to emerge this spring in the Washington area, from storage at the Smithsonian Institution's Museum Support Center in Camp Springs, Md. on Tuesday, April 23, 2013. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

WASHINGTON (AP) ? Any day now, billions of cicadas with bulging red eyes will crawl out of the earth after 17 years underground and overrun the East Coast. The insects will arrive in such numbers that people from North Carolina to Connecticut will be outnumbered roughly 600-to-1. Maybe more.

Scientists even have a horror-movie name for the infestation: Brood II. But as ominous as that sounds, the insects are harmless. They won't hurt you or other animals. At worst, they might damage a few saplings or young shrubs. Mostly they will blanket certain pockets of the region, though lots of people won't ever see them.

"It's not like these hordes of cicadas suck blood or zombify people," says May Berenbaum, a University of Illinois entomologist.

They're looking for just one thing: sex. And they've been waiting quite a long time.

Since 1996, this group of 1-inch bugs, in wingless nymph form, has been a few feet underground, sucking on tree roots and biding their time. They will emerge only when the ground temperature reaches precisely 64 degrees. After a few weeks up in the trees, they will die and their offspring will go underground, not to return until 2030.

"It's just an amazing accomplishment," Berenbaum says. "How can anyone not be impressed?"

And they will make a big racket, too. The noise all the male cicadas make when they sing for sex can drown out your own thoughts, and maybe even rival a rock concert. In 2004, Gene Kritsky, an entomologist at the College of Mount St. Joseph in Cincinnati, measured cicadas at 94 decibels, saying it was so loud "you don't hear planes flying overhead."

There are ordinary cicadas that come out every year around the world, but these are different. They're called magicicadas ? as in magic ? and are red-eyed. And these magicicadas are seen only in the eastern half of the United States, nowhere else in the world.

There are 15 U.S. broods that emerge every 13 or 17 years, so that nearly every year, some place is overrun. Last year it was a small area, mostly around the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, West Virginia and Tennessee. Next year, two places get hit: Iowa into Illinois and Missouri; and Louisiana and Mississippi. And it's possible to live in these locations and actually never see them.

This year's invasion, Brood II, is one of the bigger ones. Several experts say that they really don't have a handle on how many cicadas are lurking underground but that 30 billion seems like a good estimate. At the Smithsonian Institution, researcher Gary Hevel thinks it may be more like 1 trillion.

Even if it's merely 30 billion, if they were lined up head to tail, they'd reach the moon and back.

"There will be some places where it's wall-to-wall cicadas," says University of Maryland entomologist Mike Raupp.

Strength in numbers is the key to cicada survival: There are so many of them that the birds can't possibly eat them all, and those that are left over are free to multiply, Raupp says.

But why only every 13 or 17 years? Some scientists think they come out in these odd cycles so that predators can't match the timing and be waiting for them in huge numbers. Another theory is that the unusual cycles ensure that different broods don't compete with each other much.

And there's the mystery of just how these bugs know it's been 17 years and time to come out, not 15 or 16 years.

"These guys have evolved several mathematically clever tricks," Raupp says. "These guys are geniuses with little tiny brains."

Past cicada invasions have seen as many as 1.5 million bugs per acre. Of course, most places along the East Coast won't be so swamped, and some places, especially in cities, may see zero, says Chris Simon of the University of Connecticut. For example, Staten Island gets this brood of cicadas, but the rest of New York City and Long Island don't, she says. The cicadas also live beneath the metro areas of Philadelphia, Baltimore and Washington.

Scientists and ordinary people with a bug fetish travel to see them. Thomas Jefferson once wrote about an invasion of this very brood at Monticello, his home in Virginia.

While they stay underground, the bugs aren't asleep. As some of the world's longest-lived insects, they go through different growth stages and molt four times before ever getting to the surface. They feed on a tree fluid called xylem. Then they go aboveground, where they molt, leaving behind a crusty brown shell, and grow a half-inch bigger.

The timing of when they first come out depends purely on ground temperature. That means early May for southern areas and late May or even June for northern areas.

The males come out first ? think of it as getting to the singles bar early, Raupp says. They come out first as nymphs, which are essentially wingless and silent juveniles, climb on to tree branches and molt one last time, becoming adult winged cicadas. They perch on tree branches and sing, individually or in a chorus. Then when a female comes close, the males change their song, they do a dance and mate, he explained.

The males keep mating ("That's what puts the 'cad' in 'cicada,'" Raupp jokes) and eventually the female lays 600 or so eggs on the tip of a branch. The offspring then dive-bomb out of the trees, bounce off the ground and eventually burrow into the earth, he says.

"It's a treacherous, precarious life," Raupp says. "But somehow they make it work."

___

Online:

http://www.cicadamania.com

http://www.magicicada.org/magicicada_ii.php

___

Seth Borenstein can be followed at http://twitter.com/borenbears

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2013-05-06-US-SCI-Cicada-Invasion/id-23550812d0fa421cad7220091449a323

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Bombing suspect could face death penalty

Tsarnaev (AP/File)

[Updated at 7:05 p.m. ET]

Terror suspect Dzhokhar "Jahar" Tsarnaev was charged on Monday with two federal counts of using a weapon of mass destruction to kill, injure and cause widespread damage at the Boston Marathon a week ago. If convicted, the 19-year-old could face the death penalty.

Three people were killed and more than 200 others wounded when two powerful homemade bombs exploded near the race?s finish line.

The bed-ridden Tsarnaev was informed of the charges and read his rights in his hospital room Monday morning. The college student is in serious condition at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, where he is under heavy police guard.

Tsarnaev, who is sedated and unable to speak, suffered apparent gunshot wounds to the head, neck, hand and legs during firefights with police before his capture Friday night, authorities said. His older brother Tamerlan Tsanraev, who investigators say was part of the terror attack, died in a firefight with police during their escape attempt.

In a 10-page criminal complaint against Dzhokhar, an FBI agent says investigators have overwhelming photographic evidence showing the brothers placing two backpack bombs in the crowd at the race finish.

A large pyrotechnic and clothing Dzhokhar wore during the terror attack were later found in his dorm room at the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth, according to the charges.

The federal complaint sheds no light on a motive for the attack. Miriam Conrad, Dzhokhar's public defender, also asked the court to appoint two more attorneys who are, ?learned in the law applicable to capital cases.?

[Related: Attempts to link Boston bombing influence immigration reform]

Investigators say the Tsarnaev brothers began preparing for an apparent escape attempt just hours after the FBI sought the public?s help by releasing photos of them at the bombing scene.

Shortly before midnight Thursday, one of the brothers carjacked a man at gunpoint, according to the criminal complaint.

?Did you hear about the Boston explosion?? the complaint alleges the carjacker said. ?I did that.?

The complaint goes on to allege that the brothers threw improvised explosive devices (IEDs) at patrol officers who spotted them in the stolen car and gave chase. Bomb-making materials similar to what was recovered in the marathon aftermath were later found inside the abandoned getaway car, according to the charges.

?The presumption of innocence is pretty tough in this case,? said Jimmy Ardoin, a veteran criminal defense attorney who read the criminal complaint at the request of Yahoo News.

?On its face, it seems pretty strong,? Ardoin said. ?Although once you get into court, you never know what will be admitted into evidence and what won?t.

[Related: Officials: Boston suspects motivated by religion]

A probable cause hearing is scheduled for May 30. Despite calls from some Republicans to try Dzhokhar in a military court like a war criminal, White House press secretary Jay Carney said he would not be held as an enemy combatant. It is not known if Boston authorities will file cases against him in state court as well.

The federal government has not revealed if it will seek the death penalty. But in a statement, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said, ?We will hold those who are responsible for these heinous acts accountable to the fullest extent of the law.?

?Thanks to the valor of state and local police, the dedication of federal law enforcement and intelligence officials, and the vigilance of members of the public, we?ve once again shown that those who target innocent Americans and attempt to terrorize our cities will not escape from justice,? Holder said.

The Tsarnaev brothers, who were born in the former Russian territory known as Kyrgyzstan and are of Chechen descent, lived in Cambridge, Mass., for several years. Dzhokhar became a naturalized American citizen last year.

According to investigators, the carjack victim told police that the brothers spoke to one another in a foreign language while he was held hostage. The victim managed to escape on foot when the brothers got out of the car at a gas station.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/dzhokhar-tsarnaev-terror-charges-filed-173308381.html

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Justin Bieber Ignites Selena Gomez Reunion Rumors With Deleted Pic

Bieber posts then deletes photo of himself snuggling with Gomez, leaving fans to wonder if they are together again.
By Jocelyn Vena

Justin Bieber's deleted Instagram photo with Selena Gomez
Photo: Justin Bieber via Instagram

Source: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1706114/justin-bieber-selena-gomez-deleted-instagram.jhtml

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Essential Home Remodeling Recommendations You Need To Know ...

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Anybody requires a small guidance in home enhancement, even if you are a specialist. There are just those tasks that you might not 100% absolutely clear on, or methods that you just don?t understand about. If this sounds like the situation, fantastic guidance might be simply a mouse click away. Begin with this short article and learn some great recommendations on property-improvement these days.

When renovating an ancient home, check out residence salvage back yards or resale stores to locate period of time fixtures and computer hardware. When you are friendly together with the employees or proprietors, they could make your brand and number convenient so they can get in contact in case an excellent chandelier or other great time period piece makes their go shopping.

Area dividers are helpful for identifying residing locations in houses with open ground programs. Obtained shelving devices or collapsable monitors always work nicely. However, less difficult display screens can be manufactured quickly dangle cloth panels on dowels linked to the roof. Dividers permit privacy and creatively break up big spots into locations with certain objective, like laptop or computer nooks or exercising places.

If you?re trying to find a low priced strategy to enhance the style of your home?s interior, give a refreshing jacket of fresh paint. Be sure to choose a natural colour. Darkish or dull colors can create a place feel oppressive and confining. Artwork with natural colors will offer spaces a fresh, airy a sense of openness.

If the caulking encompassing your bathtub is tarnished or mildewed, think about exchanging it. With lower than 1 hour of employment, your bathroom will be a lot better. Utilize a screwdriver or another resource to get rid of that old caulking, and be sure that the surface is dried out before you apply the new caulking. Locate a range specifically intended for restrooms many of these also withstand mildew and mold progress.

A standard-size property that is inadequately insulated can shed as much as 25 % of its temperature throughout the the fall and winter time. When updating your attic space with glass dietary fiber efficiency resources may seem like a substantial cost in advance, you may swiftly split even with the amount of money stored on your own month-to-month warming charges.

Before going painting to walls or ceilings, reduce within the edges using a remember to brush. Adhesive tape away from trim, moldings, windows, roof edges and fixtures. By artwork the couple of inches nearest to the sides by using a clean, there is no need to roll appropriate as much as these challenges which might confirm too time consuming with a complete-sized fresh paint roller.

Once you reorganize your garage area, produce a thoroughly clean sweep. Get almost everything out rather than just shuffling trash close to in the car port. By performing it this way, it is possible to take a look at all your saved treasures and judge which ones you can find eliminate to create much better usage of your space for storage.

Home improvement ideas, such as the kinds in this article, are always planning to prove useful whenever you approach the many circumstances you will find in a range of house-enhancement tasks. From easy fixes for the the location of excellent and sophisticated remodeling projects, find out all you are able so you can do the best.

Pick up various shard Air Jordan Pas Cher immediately with quick distribution, secure payment & outstanding customer care from recognized retail store.

Source: http://www.bahasabudaya.org/essential-home-remodeling-recommendations-you-need-to-know/

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Putin and his pooches frolic in the snow

Alexsey Druginyn / Kremlin Pool - RIA Novosti via EPA

By David R Arnott, NBC News

The Kremlin today released a series of photos of Russian President Vladimir Putin as he gambols in the snow with his dogs in March. Yume, left, and Buffy go for a walk with him at his countryside residence outside Moscow. Today, Putin returned to Russia after a foreign tour marred by protests over his human rights record.

Buffy, a Karakachan?Bulgarian shepherd,?was presented to Putin by his Bulgarian counterpart Boyko Borisov in 2010. A 5-year-old boy was reported to have won a competition to find a name for the dog.

Yume, an Akita Inu, was gifted to Putin by Japan's Akita Prefecture as thanks for Russia's help during the 2011 earthquake and tsunami. Yume, whose name means "Dream" in Japanese, will be one year old on April 24, according to Russia's state-owned RIA Novosti news agency.

Putin's love of dogs is well-documented, and it is even said that he has?used his Labrador, Koni, to intimidate German Chancellor Angela Merkel during negotiations.

Editor's note:? This post has been corrected to reflect that these photos were taken on March 24, and not as previously stated on April 10. They were released by the Kremlin today.

Alexsey Druginyn / Kremlin Pool - RIA Novosti via EPA

Vladimir Putin walks with Buffy at his countryside residence, Novo-Ogariovo, on March 24, 2013.

Alexsey Druginyn / Kremlin Pool - RIA Novosti via Reuters

Related:

'Isolated' Medvedev mans the office as protests dog Putin's European trip

Putin takes to sky to lead flight of cranes

Vladimir Putin, your friendly local dentist

This story was originally published on Wed Apr 10, 2013 12:02 PM EDT

Source: http://feeds.nbcnews.com/c/35002/f/653387/s/2a901c17/l/0Lphotoblog0Bnbcnews0N0C0Inews0C20A130C0A40C10A0C176887660Eputin0Eand0Ehis0Epooches0Efrolic0Ein0Ethe0Esnow0Dlite/story01.htm

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5-Minute Fitness Test - Shape

Spending time in the gym is only worth it if you know it's working. To see if your routine needs a refresh, take this 5-minute fitness test. It challenges your stability, agility, core strength, and cardiovascular conditioning to see where you stand in each of these important areas. If you receive a ?fair? score, you know it?s time to amp things up!?

How It Works
Following a dynamic warm-up to prepare your body, perform as many repetitions of each move as possible in 60 seconds. Do not rest between each test. Be sure to cool down after you have completed the last test.?

1. Burpee: Stand tall, feet shoulder-width apart and hands fully extended overhead. In one movement, quickly lower into a squat, placing hands firmly on the floor in front of you. Immediately jump both feet back until they are fully extended behind you so that you are in a traditional pushup position. Jump both feet back into a low squat. Jump upward, raising hands simultaneously toward the ceiling. Repeat.?
Score: 0-12 fair; 13-25 good; 26+ superior

2. Leaning Tower of Pisa: Stand tall on left leg with right knee bent in front of you so that it is even with your navel. Extend both arms out to the side. Slowly rotate your hips to the left as you bend down, reaching right hand toward left toes. After 60 seconds, repeat on your right leg. Score left and right sides separately.
Score: 0-15 fair; 16-30 good; 31+ superior?

3. Bow and Arrow: Begin in a traditional pushup position, hands directly under shoulders, legs fully extended, glutes tight, chin and eyes focused toward the ground. In one movement, reach right hand toward your navel while driving left foot up to meet right hand just under your belly button. (Be certain to make contact with your foot, not your knee or ankle.) Return to the starting position and repeat with the opposite hand and foot.?
Score: 0-15 fair; 16-30 good; 31+ superior

RELATED: Turn a classic upper-body move into a total-body one with these 13 pushup variations.

4. Alternating Lunge Jump: Start in a lunge with left foot forward, both knees slightly bent, hands on your hips. Lower down until your right knee is approximately one inch off of the floor. In one explosive motion, jump up and switch the position of your feet, landing in a lunge. Keep your eyes focused forward and chin parallel to the ground throughout.
Score: 0-12 fair; 13-25 good; 26+ superior

5. Cork Screws: Sit with knees bent, feet flat on the floor in front of you. Rest the palms of your hands on the floor directly under your shoulders with fingers pointing away from hips. In one motion, push palms into the floor, extending arms, raising hips, and squeezing gluteus. From tabletop position, raise your right foot toward the midline of your body with the leg fully extended. Simultaneously reach your left hand toward your right foot until they make contact over the center of your body. Your eyes should be focused toward the ceiling throughout the movement. Return your right foot and left hand to the ground and repeat with the opposite hand and foot. Be certain to keep your hips raised and gluteus and abdominal region tight as you alternate side to side.?
Score: 0-12 fair; 13-25 good; 26+ superior

Source: http://www.shape.com/blogs/fit-list-jay-cardiello/5-minute-fitness-test

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