When first buying a home, you dream about designing the new house the way you want to. You try to make the home look how you want it. While some may obtain this goal sooner than others, one thing remains true, your home is perhaps the greatest investment you will ever make. That being said, it makes sense to provide protection for this investment. The way in which consumers protect their homes is to obtain a home insurance policy. Home insurance can encompass a variety of coverage to provide a sufficient level of protection.
Theft is unfortunately a common occurrence for homes in the United Kingdom. On average, a home is burgled about every 37 seconds. With such a high incidence rate it is important to have home insurance which provides reimbursement for items that have been stolen. Also, if any damage is done to the home by the thief will committing the crime, this can be covered as well.
Fire can also be another hazard that homeowners must protect themselves against. Home insurance can also cover any damage to both the dwelling itself as well as the contents. Typically, these will come in two kinds of coverage bundled into the home insurance policy. If the fire leads to severe damage, home insurance can help the family pay for alternative lodging until repairs can be made. If the home is totally destroyed, home insurance will cover the expenses to rebuild the home.
Flooding can also be covered with some types of home insurance. Depending upon the insurer, it might need to be taken out as a separate policy. Flooding can cause water damage to the exterior as well as the interior of the home. Contents can also be damaged and in some cases, destroyed. Having home insurance can lessen anxiety homeowners face when the unthinkable does happen. Without insurance, homeowners may not be able to recoup from such significant losses.
You can find further information about different types of insurance at http://www.endsleigh.co.uk. They have lots of information to help you discover which type of insurance will best secure your home and contents.
King Juan Carlos I of Spain, who is still recovering from his fall in Botswana and who has been using a crutch, took another tumble yesterday when he was inspecting the troops during a visit to the Estado Mayor de la Defence.
King Juan Carlos tripped on a step and fell to the floor hitting his nose and chin hard. His injuries did not stop him continuing with his visit and he presided over the meeting of the military chiefs.
King Juan Carlos took another tumble yesterday when he was inspecting the troops during a visit to the Estado Mayor de la Defence
Yesterday evening at 17:00, King Juan Carlos was due to meet the Italian Prime Minister, Mario Monti.
The King has had several falls, and has passed through surgery nine times since the 80’s.
Kim Kardashian was spotted sitting in a hair salon for a reported five hours yesterday.
The raven-locked reality star emerged after getting a snip (and presumably a few other indulgences), with glossy waves tumbling around her shoulders.
The marathon trip was par for the course for Kim Kardashian, however, being is known to keep herself perfectly primped and polished for the camera.
The 31-year-old multihyphenate was photographed sitting in a salon chair while a female stylist combed her finger’s through her freshly dried hair.
And while most would take the moment to tune the world out, it seemed Kim Kardashian was reluctant to relax, clinging to her iPhone and making sure it didn’t die out with a charger attached in a nearby socket.
Kim Kardashian was spotted sitting in a hair salon for a reported five hours
Kim Kardashian appeared to have had a pedicure as well, holding her feet up with tissue paper tucked between her toes to prevent the polish from sticking.
And her make-up was done in perfect detail – a lash of pink lipstick highlighting her pout, and enough black eyeliner to give her a smouldering gaze.
Walking out of the salon, Kim Kardashian was undeniably glowing, her skin and hair the main attraction in her safely all-black ensemble.
Not one to skimp on beauty treatments when out or at home, she carried a bag of Kevin Murphy products as she left the West Hollywood salon according to Splash News, whose photographers captured the reported five-hour beauty session.
Somewhat out of character, Kim Kardashian juggled her heels alongside her phone and handbag, hobbling to the car barefoot, lest she smudge her pedicure.
Kim Kardashian, who some might say is a modern-day bombshell, surely enjoyed the pampering session after an exhausting day on set for a recent fashion photoshoot.
One day before, Kim Kardashian likened herself to Sophia Loren as she tweeted an array of pictures of herself slipping into costume.
“I love playing dress up,” Kim Kardashian wrote on her Twitter page, with the accompanying snap of herself in a shimmering silver backless dress.
Earlier she posted a picture of herself puckering up her lips in front of the mirror, her hair, sans her usual extensions, coiffed into a bouffant style.
“Finding my inner Sophia Loren,” Kim Kardashian mused.
Sinead O’Connor is in the beginning stages of her menopause – the period in her life when her menstrual period ceases for good.
And while most women approaching their middle age associate it with hot flushes and a feeling of dread as it signals them getting older.
This is clearly not the case for Sinead O’Connor, who quite simply can’t wait to enter this latest stage in her life.
Sinead O’Connor, 45, who has four children from previous relationships, took to Twitter this week to reveal the personal information to her devotees.
The Irish singer wrote: “I think I’ve started menopause!!! Am SO excited!! Can’t WAIT for the first hot flush!!”
Sinead O’Connor took to Twitter this week to reveal she is starting her menopause to her devotees
The controversial singer recently claimed she has grown more open-minded as she has gotten older and wants to bare all for Playboy before she dies.
Sinead O’Connor said: “There’s so much I wouldn’t liked to do when I was younger and I was too miserable and Irish.
“A Playboy shoot is on my bucket list. And I like the idea of doing some interview in weird sex gear, talking about something really serious. The economy!
“You can talk about serious issues while you’re b****ck naked. On all fours in your dog collar!”
Earlier this year she was forced to pull out of her tour as a result of her “bipolar disorder”.
Sinead O’Connor wrote on her website at the time: “With enormous regret I must announce that I have to cancel all touring for the year as am very unwell due to bipolar disorder.
“As you all know I had a very serious breakdown between December and March and I had been advised by my doctor not to go on tour but didn’t want to <<fail>> or let anyone down as the tour was already booked to coincide with album release.”
Sinead O’Connor released her latest album How About I Be Me (And You Be You) in February, which was met with praise from critics.
London’s Olympic Stadium will welcome the athletics events later in the day, ensuring the Olympic Park’s busiest day since the Games opened a week ago.
More than 200,000 people will be at the park, prompting warnings for those not attending the Games to avoid the area.
The Central Line, which serves the Olympic Park in Stratford, is suspended from Liverpool Street to Leytonstone.
It follows a signal failure at Bethnal Green station, London Underground said. Tickets are being accepted on National Rail services in the area.
Friday’s events at the 80,000-capacity Olympic stadium will bring thousands more people pouring into the east London park and mean access to the neighboring Westfield shopping centre will be restricted for the next two days.
London's Olympic Stadium will welcome the athletics events later in the day
Only staff and Olympic ticket holders will be able to go into the centre between 10:30 BST and 17:00 as organizers seek to minimize congestion.
Transport for London (TFL) said public transport services and roads to the Olympic Park would be exceptionally busy on Friday and urged anyone not going to the site to avoid the area.
The Docklands Light Railway, Jubilee and Central lines are expected to be busier than usual, especially in the morning, evening and late-evening peaks and driving in central London should be avoided where possible, TFL said.
London’s transport commissioner Peter Hendy said: “This Friday and Saturday will be the busiest days of the Games so far as the Olympic Stadium opens its doors and sporting events continue to take place across the capital.
“Westfield Stratford City may not be open to shoppers without a ticket during these times but London has a rich and vast array of other attractions to offer during the Games.”
North Korea has requested immediate food aid after devastating floods last month, the United Nations says.
UN officials in Pyongyang said the need for aid was urgent after visiting flood-hit parts of the country to assess damage.
North Korea state media said that at least 119 people died and tens of thousands were left homeless.
Damage to infrastructure and farmland has affected the country’s already dire food shortage problem.
North Korea has requested immediate food aid after devastating floods last month
The most badly affected areas are Anju city and Songchon County in South Phyongan Province, and Chonnae County in Kangwon Province, said the UN.
Residents in these areas are in urgent need of food supplies, as well as clean water, as wells have been contaminated by sewerage during the floods.
A UN spokesman in New York confirmed that the North Korean government has asked the UN to release emergency supplies such as food and fuel.
Some international aid groups have already begun gathering supplies and donations. On Thursday, the Red Cross said it would allocate more than $300,000 for flood victims.
Recent images from Anju taken by state news agency KCNA showed houses underwater, flooded agricultural land and people sheltering in the upper stories of buildings.
Kim Kwang-Dok, vice-chairman of the Anju City People’s Committee, told the Associated Press news agency that the flooding was the worst in the city’s history.
The floods – which followed a severe drought earlier this year – have sparked fresh concern over North Korea’s struggle to feed its people.
North Korea relies on food aid because it cannot grow enough food to feed its people. Famine in the mid-1990s is believed to have killed hundreds of thousands of people.
A UN report released last month estimated that two-thirds of North Korea’s 24 million population suffer from a chronic shortage of food.
Tameka Raymond, Usher’s ex-wife, has accused the singer of feigning grief over the sudden death of her son Kile Glover in a bid to win sympathy in their bitter custody battle.
Tameka Raymond slams Usher in newly-filed court documents, claiming he visited his former stepson, Kile Glover, in hospital only once before the 11-year-old was taken off life support.
According to TMZ, Tameka Raymond is asking the judge to deny her ex’s request to delay their next custody hearing, claiming he is only pretending to need the extra time to mourn Kile Glover’s death.
Usher, real name Usher Terry Raymond IV, and fashion stylist Tameka Raymond, who divorced in 2009 after two years of marriage, are currently fighting for custody of their two sons, Usher Raymond V, 4, and Naviyd, 3.
According to TMZ, Usher, 33, requested their August 13 hearing be delayed, claiming heading to court “in the immediate wake of this tragedy” would cause “unnecessary stress and strain” for all parties involved.
He also fears the court might rule against him in the case in favor of a grieving mother, according to the website.
Tameka Raymond has accused Usher of feigning grief over the sudden death of her son Kile Glover in a bid to win sympathy in their bitter custody battle
But Tameka has scoffed at the request in subsequent filings, claiming Usher’s attempt to delay the hearing is “simply a transparent sham”, calling his feelings for Kile “bogus”, reports suggest.
The grieving mother claims Usher “visited Kile in the hospital only once” in the 15 days he was on life support following a freak boating accident last month.
Tameka Raymond also claims Usher refused to tweet a message asking followers to “please pray for Kile”, instead opting to tweet a photo of his breakfast.
She asks the judge to move forward with the hearing as scheduled, and claims it will help her to move on from the tragedy, TMZ reports.
Kile Glover, Tameka Raymond’s son with Atlanta-based clothier Ryan Glover, was struck in the head during a jet ski collision while riding an inner tube on Lake Lanier in Atlanta, Georgia on July 6.
According to authorities, a family friend who was riding a jet ski behind the pontoon lost control and collided with Kile Glover’s tube.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports Kile Glover was with an unidentified 15-year-old girl at the time and both children were airlifted to Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta at Egleston.
He was later declared brain dead.
Kile Glover was taken off life support by doctors, who determined that he would not recover from his injuries, two weeks after the accident.
Tameka Raymond subsequently led mourners at his funeral, held in Atlanta, Georgia, on July 27.
Tameka Raymond and Usher’s sons are both believed to have been present at the service.
Oprah Winfrey showed off her vast selection of wigs on the set of her new film today.
Oprah Winfrey, 58, tweeted a photo of her make-up free self in front of a whole wall of hairpieces, writing “me and my <<girls>> in the make-up trailer”.
The usually glamorous star has been seen wearing some of the less than flattering hairpieces as she films her new movie The Butler.
Oprah Winfrey plays Gloria Gaines in the historical drama – the first time she will appear as a character other than herself since 1998’s Beloved.
She has been filming scenes with co-star Lenny Kravitz and Cuba Gooding Jr. in New Orleans.
Oprah Winfrey showed off her vast selection of wigs on the set of her new film The Butler
The star-studded film tells the tale of a White House butler who serves eight Presidents over the course of three decades.
Her hair seems to be on Oprah’s mind recently.
This week saw her grace the cover of her self-titled O magazine, showing off her natural hair in all of its glory.
In the snap, Oprah Winfrey proudly models her curly tresses with a big smile.
She also shows off her curves in a dress by Badgley Mischka paired with earrings by Alexis Bittar and a ring by Jordan Alexander.
For decades Oprah Winfrey has rocked several hairstyles and weaves during her long-spanning career as the world’s most famous talk show host.
Writing in the column “What I Know For Sure” inside September’s Makeover Issue, Oprah Winfrey discusses her tresses and the role they play in the expression of “self”.
The talk show icon, who often wears her hair naturally in her down time and on the weekends, reveals that she once nearly chopped it all off.
“I wanted to wear it close-cropped a la Camille Cosby but her husband Bill (Crosby) convinced me otherwise,” she explains.
“<<Don’t do it>>, he said. <<You’ve got the wrong head shape and you’ll disappoint yourself>>. I took his advice.”
Oprah Winfrey, who has sported countless dos during her career, believes that altering your hairstyle can be liberating.
“I even notice a change in my dogs when they get their summer cuts: they’re friskier and livelier, feeling more themselves once the weight of the hair is released,” she says.
And while she is a firm believer in change, Oprah Winfrey says that the makeovers which are the most successful and maintained are those in which something inside the receiver clicks, aligning with that which is being received.
“The only way to real transformation is through the mind.”
European markets have fallen after the European Central Bank (ECB) president Mario Draghi said the bank would come up with ways to help struggling eurozone countries “over the coming weeks”.
Analysts had been hoping for more details and immediate action.
Help from the ECB would also only be given if the governments themselves made certain commitments, he said.
The Spanish and Italian stock markets fell sharply while both countries’ borrowing costs rose sharply.
Earlier, the ECB kept the main eurozone interest rate at a record low of 0.75%.
There had been hopes that Mario Draghi could announce immediate measures to bring down the cost of borrowing for some of the eurozone’s struggling members.
“What we have expressed is guidance, and strong guidance, about strong measures which will be completed in the coming weeks,” Mario Draghi said.
High borrowing costs have been at the centre of the eurozone crisis, with countries needing bailouts when the yields on their 10-year bonds have been consistently above 7%.
Bond yields are taken as indicators of what interest rate governments would have to pay to borrow money.
European markets have fallen after the ECB president Mario Draghi said the bank would come up with ways to help struggling eurozone countries "over the coming weeks"
Mario Draghi said that the high yields on some eurozone government bonds were unacceptable, adding that, “the euro is irreversible”.
He said the ECB may intervene in the bond markets to support struggling nations.
But having fallen in recent days due to the anticipation of ECB support, Spain’s 10-year bonds rose above 7% after Mario Draghi spoke, having been at 6.6% before he started.
“Once again, we have no commitment to action from the ECB, and no execution of promises previously made,” said Carl Weinberg, chief economist at High Frequency Economics.
“Traders and investors who expected immediate action are, and should be, disappointed. More scolding of governments, but no ECB action, is the bottom line.”
The yield on Italian 10-year bonds rose from 5.7% before Mario Draghi spoke to 6.2% afterwards.
But yields on short-term bonds fell, reflecting Mario Draghi’s plans to buy them instead of longer term debt.
Some analysts were more positive about Mario Draghi’s comments.
“This is a revolutionary policy, as far as the ECB is concerned. It means the ECB plans to go into the markets and buy bonds, of two to three-year durations, in very substantial quantities,” said Nick Parsons at National Australia Bank.
“These are potentially unlimited and should be big enough to have the desired effect. Mr. Draghi is certainly on the right track.”
At his press conference, Mario Draghi said that the ECB’s bond-buying process would resume, but that it would be different to the Securities Markets Programme (SMP), which involved buying large quantities of government bonds from banks and other financial institutions on the open market.
Mario Draghi said that the new scheme would involve buying shorter-term bonds, which should allay some of the fears of the German government, worried about having to guarantee debts of weaker countries for years.
Governments, however, would also first have to apply for help from one of the eurozone’s rescue funds, the European Financial Stability Facility or the European Stability Mechanism, he said.
They would also have to demonstrate they were making necessary changes.
“Policymakers in the euro area need to push ahead with fiscal consolidation, structural reform and European institution-building with great determination,” he said.
Currently, the European bailout fund – the EFSF – and its delayed sister fund – the ESM – would require any country seeking help to sign a memorandum of understanding, or promise to carry out certain measures such as cutting spending or raising taxes.
When asked whether Spain, and Italy would, therefore, have to submit to similar strictures imposed on Portugal, Ireland and Greece before the ECB could act to buy their bonds, Mario Draghi replied: “Yes, that is exactly how you should see it.”
There were also signs of continued division on the ECB governing council.
Asked whether the ECB’s decisions had been unanimous, he replied: “The endorsement to do whatever it takes to preserve the euro as a stable currency has been unanimous.”
“But it is clear, and it is known, that Mr. Weidmann [ECB member and head of the German bank] and the Bundesbank have their reservations… about buying bonds.”
The ECB, which sets the cost of borrowing for the 17 countries which use the euro, cut its key rate from 1% to 0.75% last month, to try to bring down borrowing costs and stimulate economic activity.
Nokia has decided to add Groupon offers to maps on its Lumia smartphones.
By clicking on a green “G” icon, US users can now buy Groupon’s discounted deal-of-the-day vouchers from their handsets and then locate the retailers participating in the offers by using Nokia’s navigation system.
An analyst said the deal could be an advantage for Groupon, which had so far not been “local enough”.
Nokia said it was interested in different ways of monetizing its maps.
The new location platform will be integrated into the phone’s Windows Phone 8 operating system.
Nokia has decided to add Groupon offers to maps on its Lumia smartphones
“It is to our benefit to ensure that many different companies use this, and there will be companies taking advantage of the platform who may compete with other elements of Nokia,” said the Finnish company’s head, Stephen Elop.
“But that has to be okay. It has to be, you have to think that way. The competition… is not with other device manufacturers, it’s with Google.”
Nokia had been trying to make its maps available to a wide range of people, said Martin Garner, an analyst from CCS Insight.
He added there were already some major web players using them, including social network Foursquare and Yandex, Russia’s main search engine.
“It’s not a surprise that Groupon is doing this, it’s a logical extension,” he said.
“There’s a whole area of web use that could be made better if it used local information and maps, and one of the big weaknesses of Groupon’s strategy has been that it hasn’t been local enough.
“And by working with Nokia they can do this better. Lots of people are very interested in the local commerce, and this could be a way of making this work.”
Facebook has revealed that it believes there are now more than 83 million fake users on the social network.
In Facebook filings published this week, it said 8.7% of its 955 million active users might not be real.
Duplicate profiles made up 4.8% of the users, user-misclassified accounts amounted to 2.4%, and 1.5% of users were described as “undesirable”.
The estimate came at a time of growing concern about the value of marketing on the platform.
In total, the company said it estimated there were 83.09 million fake users, which it classified in three groups.
The largest group of “fakes” were duplicates, which the company defined as “an account that a user maintains in addition to his or her principal account.”
Facebook has revealed that it believes there are now more than 83 million fake users on the social network
Others were described as “user-misclassified” where, Facebook explained “users have created personal profiles for a business, organization, or non-human entity such as a pet”.
Finally, “undesirable” accounts were profiles deemed to be in breach of Facebook’s terms of service. Typically, this means profiles which have been used for sending out spam messages or other content.
Facebook, whose business model relies on targeted advertising, is coming under increased scrutiny over the worth of its advertising model which promotes the gathering of “likes” from users.
“We generate a substantial majority of our revenue from advertising,” the company said in its filing.
“The loss of advertisers, or reduction in spending by advertisers with Facebook, could seriously harm our business.”
Last week, digital distribution firm Limited Press alleged that, based on its own analytics software, 80% of clicks on its advertisements within Facebook had come from fake users.
In a post on its Facebook page, the company said: “Bots were loading pages and driving up our advertising costs. So we tried contacting Facebook about this. Unfortunately, they wouldn’t reply.
“Do we know who the bots belong too [sic]? No. Are we accusing Facebook of using bots to drive up advertising revenue. No. Is it strange? Yes.”
After a surge of attention to the company, it has since removed the Facebook posting, and said Facebook was now looking into its concerns.
Kofi Annan is quitting as UN-Arab League envoy, the UN has announced.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said Kofi Annan had decided not to renew his mandate when it expires at the end of August.
Kofi Annan authored a six-point peace plan for Syria which was intended to bring an end to the fighting.
But the plan was never fully adhered to by either side and the violence has continued.
Kofi Annan is quitting as UN-Arab League envoy
Ban Ki-moon said Kofi Annan deserved “our profound admiration for the selfless way in which he has put his formidable skills and prestige to this most difficult and potentially thankless of assignments”.
He said he was in discussion with the Arab League to find a successor to “carry on this crucial peacemaking effort”.
“I remain convinced that yet more bloodshed is not the answer; each day of it will only make the solution more difficult while bringing deeper suffering to the country and greater peril to the region,” he added.
Three men suspected to be al-Qaeda members have been arrested in San Roque and Almuradiel, southern Spain.
Explosive material was seized at an address in San Roque where a Turkish man was arrested. Two other men were held near Almuradiel.
They are thought to have been planning an attack in Spain or elsewhere in Europe, according to the Spanish Interior Minister Jorge Fernandez Diaz.
The arrests are part of one the biggest international operations to date against al-Qaeda, Jorge Fernandez Diaz said.
The material is currently being tested but is thought to be enough to “destroy a bus”, he told reporters.
Jorge Fernandez Diaz also said that one of the suspects was a senior al-Qaeda operative with extensive experience “in the manufacture of poison and car bombs”.
One of the men put up “massive resistance” during the arrests, he added.
The three al-Qaeda suspects are thought to have been planning an attack in Spain or elsewhere in Europe, according to the Spanish Interior Minister Jorge Fernandez Diaz
Police found the explosives in a flat in the southern town of La Linea de Concepcion in Andalusia and arrested a Turkish national at the address.
The two other suspects were travelling on a bus from Cadiz on Spain’s Atlantic coast to Irun near the French border when they were seized in a lay-by near Almuradiel by a police special operations group, Jorge Fernandez Diaz said.
Both men are from former Soviet republics, but the minister did not say which ones.
Police suspect that at least one suspect has attended training camps in Pakistan, reports say.
Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula had issued a message at the beginning of July looking for Spanish-speaking “lone wolves” as operatives, according to Spain’s El Pais newspaper.
In March, Spanish police arrested a suspected al-Qaeda member in the eastern city of Valencia on terrorism charges.
They said he ran one of the world’s most important jihadist forums dedicated to online recruitment and propaganda operations.
The man, a Jordanian-born Saudi Arabian citizen, was known within al-Qaeda as “the librarian”, Jorge Fernandez Diaz told reporters at the time.
In March 2004, an al-Qaeda linked bomb attack on three packed commuter trains in Madrid killed 191 people and injured 1,841 others.
According to new figures released by the Center for Responsive Politics, the estimated price tag for the US elections in November is almost $6 billion.
Why so much?
“The sky is the limit here,” says Michael Toner, former chair of the US Federal Election Commission.
“I don’t think you can spend too much.”
In a time of general belt-tightening, it may sound like a surprising argument, but Michael Toner believes there should be more – not less – spending on US elections.
Anything that engages voters, and makes them more likely to turn out is, Michael Toner says, a good thing.
“It’s very healthy in terms of American politics… it’s a symptom of a very vigorous election season, there’s a lot at stake here.”
On 6 November, Mitt Romney, the presumptive Republican nominee, is set to challenge Barack Obama for the presidency, and polls suggest the margin between them could be wafer thin.
New figures just released by the Center for Responsive Politics, an independent research group which tracks money in politics, estimate the total cost of November’s elections (for the presidency, House of Representatives and Senate) will come in at $5.8 billion – more than the entire annual GDP of Malawi, and up 7% on 2008.
“You could say we’ve gotten into a crazy world, where the cost of elections has sky-rocketed, and that we are in a wacko world of crazy spending,” says Michael Franz, co-director of the Wesleyan Media Project, which tracks political ads.
But, he says, “it all depends what apples and oranges you want to compare”.
Michael Franz argues that US elections are “relatively cheap” when compared with spending on, for example, the US military operation in Afghanistan.
Michael Toner has his own favorite analogy: “Americans last year spent over $7 billion on potato chips – isn’t the leader of the free world worth at least that?”
Center for Responsive Politics says the estimated price tag for the US elections in 2012 is almost $6 billion
Online campaigning is the biggest area of growth, but it still accounts for a relatively modest amount of money spent.
TV campaign ads reign supreme in the battle for votes (at least in terms of costs), eating up, it is estimated, over half of all campaign spending.
For some in the battleground states, where ads are most densely targeted, it can get a bit much.
“It’s extremely annoying,” says Katie Loiselle, a 26-year-old teacher living in Virginia, which used to be a safe win for the Republicans, but is now a crucial swing state.
Katie Loiselle is one of the much-coveted undecided voters. She voted for Barack Obama in 2008, but this time she is not sure.
In theory, she should be a plum candidate for persuasion. In practice, she does all she can to avoid what, over three months before election day, is already starting to feel like an onslaught.
“I’ll change my channel when they come on… I might start flipping through a magazine or talking to someone.
“It’s not like what they are going to say is going to rouse my intelligence. It just seems they are spending a whole lot of money bashing each other.
“I’m kind of dreading these upcoming months.”
It is the presidential debates in October, not the campaign ads, that will help inform her choice, she says.
But for voters like Katie Loiselle, it could be a case of nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. Some experts believe that this year the amount of airspace in key target areas, could – quite literally – run out.
And it is not just the number of ads that is up, the tone has been raised too.
It is nothing new for a US election to be “the most expensive ever” – there has been a clear and sharp upwards trend for decades.
This time the increase is driven by the Congressional elections. The presidential race itself will cost an estimated $2.5 billion, which is actually slightly down on the 2008 figure of $2.9 billion – but this time only one party has held primaries to choose their candidate.
And one key factor likely to push spending up is the rise of the relatively new – but already infamous – Super Pacs, which are making their presidential election debut, and can spend as much as they like on political advertising, as long as they do not co-ordinate directly with the campaigns.
SuperPac is a category of independent political action group established by the Citizens United Supreme Court decision that is allowed to accept and spend unlimited amounts of corporate, individual or union cash on behalf of a candidate, often without disclosing its sources. SuperPacs are barred from co-ordinating their spending – usually on advertising – with the candidates they support, but some say they in essence operate as shadow campaign committees.
They are the “wild cards” in this election (in the words of the Center for Responsive Politics) and predicting how much they will end up spending is next to impossible.
Super Pacs are unpopular with voters, but there seems little chance of getting the rules changed – political spending by corporations and unions was classed as a form of free speech by the Supreme Court in 2010, and is therefore protected under the US Constitution.
Any effort to restrict such spending would, says Michael Toner, probably need a constitutional amendment, and – he says – this would be both “very difficult” and “highly ill-advised”.
The US does have a government-run public finance system designed to keep a lid on campaign spending. But both candidates have opted out of it this year, giving them free rein to spend as much as they like.
Barack Obama was the first-ever presidential contender to opt out in 2008, and many experts say the extra money he spent in the final weeks was a significant factor in his victory over John McCain.
But they have to raise it to spend it, and in practice, this means an unrelenting schedule of fundraiser after fundraiser for both Barack Obama and Mitt Romney.
Critics say this takes away from the time that candidates spend with the average (not so wealthy) voter, and in the case of a president, risks detracting attention from his day job of running the country.
The media tends to focus on fundraising figures, seeing this as one sign of the overall health of a campaign.
But there is a school of thought which says that both money and campaigning matter less than we imagine.
It is the big picture that counts, not the nitty-gritty day-to-day stuff, argues James Campbell, chair of the political science department at the University at Buffalo.
“Every wheeze, misstep or gaffe, every little twist and turn, is heightened for the next day’s headlines,” he says.
He jokes: “It’s like reading a cardiogram and the lines spike up and down, and it’s like ‘Oh my God, is the patient still alive?’… We are trying to get a bit more perspective.”
James Campbell, like a number of other political scientists, specializes in predicting election results, and says voters make their choice not so much on campaign ads or electioneering, but based on a few key “fundamentals” – the economy being the most important one.
It is very rare, he says, for a person to change their party affiliation, so the pool of persuadable voters is small, perhaps as little as around 2% or 3% he argues, once you exclude people who will not vote.
But in a close race, tiny margins can be the difference between winning and losing.
“The ads aren’t just trying to change the undecided,” says Kathleen Hall Jamieson, director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center and author Packaging the Presidency.
“Most of the time, they’re trying to mobilize their base.”
“Money matters,” she says starkly.
“You would be giving up the election if you decided to stop advertising.”
Projected spending estimates for 2012 US elections:
• Total cost – $5.8 billion
• Presidential election – $2.5 billion
• Super Pacs and other outside groups – at least $750 million
Source: Center for Responsive Politics
Per person spending
• US – $18 per person on federal elections in 2012 (projected)
• UK – 80 cents per person in 2010 general election
Harvard computer scientists have developed the software that helps turn video game characters into real-life figures, using a 3D printer.
Computer figures created without the constraints of the physical world are difficult to print.
So the team developed a tool that identifies ideal locations for a real-world figure’s joints.
But a lawyer said if the technology were to come on the mass market, copyright issues could arise.
Three-dimensional printers, which create objects layer-by-layer using materials such as plastic, wood or chocolate, have been used to make toys, jewellery, car parts and even artificial limbs.
But making cartoon or computer games characters was more of a challenge, said Moritz Bacher, one of the researchers on the team.
Harvard computer scientists have developed the software that helps turn video game characters into real-life figures, using a 3D printer
“In animation you’re not necessarily trying to model the physical world perfectly – the model only has to be good enough to convince your eye,” he said.
“You can make a character so anatomically skewed that it would never be able to stand up in real life, and you can make deformations that aren’t physically possible.”
Moritz Bacher said although most video game characters were created with skeletons that help animators turn the figures around on the screen, they were different from those in real-life objects.
“As an animator, you can move the skeletons and create weight relationships with the surface points, but the skeletons inside are non-physical with zero-dimensional joints – they’re not useful to our fabrication process at all.
“In fact, the skeleton frequently protrudes outside the body entirely.”
The team developed software that identifies the ideal locations for a computer-game figure’s joints.
It is difficult to understand where the joints are just by looking at a character in 2D.
The software then optimizes the location and the size of the joints for the physical world and generates the best possible model.
It also analyses a computer character’s skin and enhances the texture, making it possible for details such as scales on a snake to appear on a printed object.
The researchers say the tool could be useful for artists and animators to experiment with a moving character.
“If you print one of these articulated figures, you can experiment with different stances and movements in a natural way, as with an artist’s mannequin,” said Moritz Bacher.
But if the technology were to come on the market for the mass consumer to use, a major issue could arise – copyright.
Researchers have discovered the cells in tumors that seem to be responsible for their re-growth.
Three separate studies on mice appear to have confirmed the view that the growth of tumors is driven by so-called cancer stem cells.
The researchers claim to have resolved one of the biggest controversies in cancer research and say their work marks a “paradigm shift” in the field.
The studies have been published in the journals, Nature and Science.
Doctors often successfully reduce the size of tumors through various therapies, but often patients suffer a relapse and the tumor re-grows.
Three separate studies on mice appear to have confirmed the view that the growth of tumors is driven by so-called cancer stem cells
Some researchers believe that this happens because therapies fail to eradicate a small proportion of cells that drive tumor growth known as cancer stem cells. They believe that these are the cells that should be targeted to eliminate the tumor forever.
Evidence for the existence of cancer stem cells has been weak. But now three separate groups of researchers working independently have found direct evidence of cancer stem cells driving tumor growth in brain, gut and skin cancers.
The suggestion is that the same may be true of all cancers which produce solid tumors.
According to Prof. Cedric Blanpain of the Free University of Brussels, who led one of the studies, the results could pave the way for a new approach to treating many cancers.
“If these cells are indeed the cells that fuel tumour growth then maybe you can target these cells,” he said.
But that may be easier said than done. The newly-identified cancer stem cells are very similar to healthy stem cells responsible for growing and renewing tissue in the body. Any therapy to target cancer stem cells may also destroy healthy tissues. A priority for researchers will be to see if there are important differences between normal and cancer stem cells so that therapies can distinguish between them.
But according to Prof. Hugo Snippert of the University Medical Centre in Utrecht, who led the study into intestinal tumors, the confirmation that these cells exist is an important step in future cancer research.
“Many argued that these cells did not exist. But we have shown for the first time there is such a thing as a cancer stem cell and that tumors are maintained by them,” he said.
Prof. Luis Parada of the University of Texas, who led research that identified stem cells in brain tumors in mice, said he believed there would now be a new approach to developing new treatments for solid tumor cancers.
“Cancer stem cells change the paradigm. The goal of shrinking tumors may well turn out to be less important than targeting the cancer cells in that tumor.”
Li Yongbo, China’s Olympic badminton head coach, has apologized for his role after his two top players were disqualified for not playing to win.
Li Yongbo said: “It’s me to blame”, while disqualified player Yu Yang declared she was quitting the sport.
Yu Yang and partner Wang Xiaoli were among eight players disqualified for trying to lose games in an attempt to secure a better draw for the knockout stage.
Li Yongbo said: “As head coach, I owe the supporters of Chinese badminton and the Chinese TV audiences an apology,” according to official Chinese news agency Xinhua.
Yu Yang and partner Wang Xiaoli were among eight badminton players disqualified for trying to lose games in an attempt to secure a better draw for the knockout stage
After the outcome of the disciplinary hearing on Wednesday, Yu Yang wrote on the Weibo micro-blogging site: “This is my last time competing. Goodbye Badminton World Federation; goodbye beloved badminton.”
Apart from Yu Yang and Wang Xiaoli, South Korean badminton pairs Jung Kyung-Eun and Kim Ha-Na, and Ha Jung-Eun and Kim Min-Jung, along with Greysia Polii and Meiliana Jauhari of Indonesia were disqualified from the women’s doubles competition.
Representatives for Macaulay Culkin have issued a fiercely-worded denial over claims the Home Alone star has a $6,000-a-month drug habit.
A spokeswoman for Macaulay Culkin branded the claims published in the National Enquirer as “ridiculously fictitious” and “insulting”.
The National Enquirer reported today that Macaulay Culkin regularly shoots up heroin and the highly addictive painkiller oxycodone – dubbed hillbilly heroin.
The article went on to say the former child star turned his Manhattan apartment into a drug den where he gets high either by himself or with friends.
Responding to the allegations, Macaulay Culkin’s publicist Michelle Bega says: “The report in the National Enquirer that Macaulay Culkin is addicted to heroin and assorted hallucinogenics is not only categorically without merit, but it is also impossibly and ridiculously fictitious.”
Michelle Bega added that the story was “destructive and insulting”, to her client.
Representatives for Macaulay Culkin have issued a fiercely-worded denial over claims the Home Alone star has a $6,000-a-month drug habit
The National Enquirer claims Macaulay Culkin’s drug use intensified 18 months ago – around the time he split from long-term girlfriend Mila Kunis, who is now dating Ashton Kutcher.
A source told the publication: “Macaulay Culkin is hooked on drugs and it’s killing him.
“He’s been hooked for a year and a half, and his drug of choice is either heroin or oxycodone.
“Mac is surrounding himself with junkies and lowlifes. It’s a real tragedy.”
The source – described by the Enquirer as a “close friend” – also claimed Macaulay Culkin has had a close brush with death in the past year and almost overdosed.
“Mac suffered a near overdose, and needed help,” the insider said.
“Fortunately he didn’t need to call 911 and the near-OD was kept quiet among his pals. But Mac got very sick.”
In February, pictures of Macaulay Culkin looking emaciated and shockingly made headlines.
At the time his representatives strenuously denied the actor was addicted to prescription drugs or heroin amid reports the 5-foot-7 star’s weight had dropped to 104 lbs.
Macaulay Culkin is best know for his roles as cheeky Kevin McCallister in the 1990 film Home Alone and the 1992 sequel, Home Alone: Lost In New York.
He also starred in the likes of Uncle Buck, My Girl and Richie Rich.
But his adult career has failed to match the blockbuster success of his childhood days.
In 2003 Macaulay Culkin played a drug-addled club hopper alongside Seth Green in Party Monster, while his last film role was in 2007 in the Indie flick Sex And Breakfast.
These days he earns a living DJ-ing at clubs around New York.
Macaulay Culkin’s half sister Jennifer Adamson died of a drug overdose in 2000.
In another tragic twist, the National Enquirer reports that a female friend of Macaulay Culkin’s died earlier this year of a heroin overdose.
Elijah Rosello died in March aged 24, with a family source telling the publication that she would do drugs with Macaulay Culkin on occasion.
Blake Lively is a picture of Hollywood glamour in the new advert for Gucci’s Premiere perfume.
The Gossip Girl star poses in front of a window overlooking the sparking city of Los Angeles, her slender figure on display in her backless gown.
The commercial was filmed by Drive director Nicolas Winding Refn at one of Beverly Hills’ most famed locations, the Sheats Goldstein Residence.
The shoot was a change for Blake Lively, who has most recently been seen in New York on the set of her hit show.
Blake Lively is a picture of Hollywood glamour in the new advert for Gucci's Premiere perfume
Blake Lively and her co-stars will be returning to screens in October for the sixth and final season of the show.
Her character Serena is expected to return to her old wild ways for the last season.
Since landing her role in the soap, Blake Lively has taken on lead parts in films such as The Town and Green Lantern, where she met her now-boyfriend Ryan Reynolds.
Blake Lively most recently starred in Oliver Stone’s drug thriller Savages and recently she admitted she loved the “challenge” it gave her.
She played O, the girlfriend of a marijuana grower who gets kidnapped, as realistic as possible.
Blake Lively said: “I love that it’s so different from everything that I’ve ever known or seen. I love that challenge.
“I love exploring worlds that are so unknown to me. And having somebody like Oliver made it such a great experience because he gave us so many opportunities.”
Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds, who have been dating for just over a year, are reportedly already thinking of starting a family together.
A close friend told Star magazine that Blake Lively actress has put on an extra 10 lbs in order to be a healthy weight to have a baby.
They told the magazine: “She and Ryan are ready to go for it, even without a wedding. Ryan has been aching to start a family, so this is his dream come true.”
Egypt’s new government is due to be officially announced and sworn in by President Mohammed Mursi, who took office last month.
Media reports suggest Prime Minister-designate Hisham Qandil’s government will be mostly technocrats, with at least two ministers from the previous government and a few Islamists.
Former military ruler Mohammed Hussein Tantawi is set to be defence minister.
Hisham Qandil has said “competence” would be the sole criterion for appointments.
Speaking last week, he said he wanted “all political forces and the people of Egypt to support us in this difficult mission”, highlighting economic and social challenges.
President Mohammed Mursi has been criticized for the time he has taken to name a prime minister and form a government since taking office in June.
His nomination of Hisham Qandil, the outgoing water resources minister, surprised many observers, who had been expecting a well-known figure.
Mohammed Mursi’s nomination of Hisham Qandil as Egypt’s prime minister, the outgoing water resources minister, surprised many observers, who had been expecting a well-known figure
On Wednesday, state media reported that the prime minister-designate had told Foreign Minister Mohammed Kamal Amr and Finance Minister Mumtaz al-Said that they would keep their posts.
Maj-Gen Ahmed Jamal al-Din, the current assistant interior minister for security, was meanwhile asked to be interior minister, it added.
“Given the circumstances that have been taking place in the country the coming period will need us all – the government and the people – to work together to maintain stability,” the general told reporters in Cairo.
Officials also said Field Marshal Mohammed Hussein Tantawi, the head of the ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF), would be defence minister, in line with an interim constitutional declaration issued after June’s presidential election run-off.
The SCAF assumed presidential powers after Hosni Mubarak was forced to step down as president in February 2011. Its declaration and decision to dissolve parliament only days before caused outrage and overshadowed the nominal transfer of power to President Mohammed Mursi on 30 June.
Of the 18 ministers named so far by state media, two are members of the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party (FJP), which Mohammed Mursi used to lead.
Mustafa Musaad, who was responsible for educational policies during the president’s election campaign, will become education minister, while Tariq Wafiq, head of the FJP’s housing committee, will be housing minister.
Another key post, the minister of religious endowments (Awqaf), went Osama al-Abd, the president of al-Azhar University. There had been speculation that an ultraconservative Salafist cleric, Mohammed Yusri Ibrahim, would be appointed.
Fighting in Syria’s embattled city of Aleppo has increased significantly in the past few days, the UN says.
Sausan Ghosheh of the UN mission in Syria says opposition forces were now in possession of heavy weapons, including captured tanks.
She urged both sides to show restraint and to distinguish between civilians and fighters in the conflict.
Meanwhile, reports suggest army troops have killed 35 people near Damascus, most of them unarmed civilians.
They died after government forces shelled and overran the neighborhood of Jdeidet Artouz, southwest of the capital, on Wednesday, activists and residents told Reuters.
On Wednesday, video footage emerged apparently showing the public shooting of four Bashar al-Assad loyalists by rebels in Aleppo, sparking criticism from human rights groups.
Fighting in Syria's embattled city of Aleppo has increased significantly in the past few days
More than 200,000 people have fled Aleppo in recent weeks, the UN says, as government forces battle to oust Free Syria Army (FSA) rebels from the country’s biggest city.
The rebels appear to control large parts of the city despite government assertions that they have suffered heavy losses.
The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported 135 deaths on Wednesday while the Local Coordination Committees gave a figure of 170.
“In the last 72 hours we saw a significant increase in the level of violence. Our observers are reporting heavy exchanges of fire,” Susan Ghosheh said on Wednesday.
“They also reported the use of helicopters, tanks, heavy machine guns and artillery. Yesterday, for the first time we saw firing from fighter aircraft.”
Susan Ghosheh confirmed reports that the FSA was “in possession of heavy weapons including tanks” in the city.
There are reports that the FSA may have been given shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles, which could reduce the threat posed by government helicopter gunships.
The opposition Syrian National Council has criticized rebel gunmen for killing several prisoners who were said to belong to a pro-government militia in the city of Aleppo, after footage emerged of the incident.
Human Rights Watch has said the incident could potentially be a war crime.
Video posted online shows the men, some of them bruised and bloodied, being put up against a wall half-naked and shot with Kalashnikov rifles.
One of the men killed has been identified as Ali Zeineddin al-Berri, known as Zeno, accused of leading a pro-regime shabiha militia group which killed 15 FSA fighters during a truce in Aleppo on Tuesday.
Abdullah Omar, a cousin of a rebel fighter who had been killed by the militia, said it was naive to imagine that the rebels would have the same standards as a regular army.
“We have to remember of course that the FSA is predominantly made up of defectors from Syria’s army and it is absurd to imagine that merely by defecting they will magically transform themselves into an organization that adheres by international standards of warfare.”
Meanwhile, Reuters news agency reports that President Barack Obama approved an order earlier this year authorizing US support for Syria’s opposition.
The intelligence “finding”, as the order is called, allows the CIA and other agencies to aid the rebels, US sources told the news agency.
The White House – which declined to comment on the report – has openly expressed support for the opposition, but has stopped short of providing arms.
Activists estimate some 20,000 people have died since March last year.
Russian President, Vladimir Putin, is arriving in the UK on Thursday and is expected to discuss the Syrian crisis with Prime Minister David Cameron.
Scientists drilling deep into the edge of modern Antarctica have pulled up proof that palm trees once grew there.
Analyses of pollen and spores and the remains of tiny creatures have given a climatic picture of the early Eocene period, about 53 million years ago.
The study, published in Nature, suggests Antarctic winter temperatures exceeded 10C, while summers may have reached 25C.
Better knowledge of past “greenhouse” conditions will enhance guesses about the effects of increasing CO2 today.
The early Eocene – often referred to as the Eocene greenhouse – has been a subject of increasing interest in recent years as a “warm analogue” of the current Earth.
“There are two ways of looking at where we’re going in the future,” said a co-author of the study, James Bendle of the University of Glasgow.
“One is using physics-based climate models; but increasingly we’re using this <<back to the future>> approach where we look through periods in the geological past that are similar to where we may be going in 10 years, or 20, or several hundred,” James Bendle said.
The early Eocene was a period of atmospheric CO2 concentrations higher than the current 390 parts per million (ppm ) – reaching at least 600 ppm and possibly far higher.
Global temperatures were on the order of 5C higher, and there was no sharp divide in temperature between the poles and the equator.
Scientists drilling deep into the edge of modern Antarctica have pulled up proof that palm trees once grew there
Drilling research carried out in recent years showed that the Arctic must have had a subtropical climate.
But the Antarctic presents a difficult challenge. Glaciation 34 million years ago wiped out much of the sediment that would give clues to past climate, and left kilometres of ice on top of what remains.
Now, the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program (IODP) has literally got to the bottom of what the Eocene Antarctic was like, dropping a drilling rig through 4 km of water off Wilkes Land on Antarctica’s eastern coast.
The rig then drilled through 1 km of sediment to return samples from the Eocene. With the sediment came pollen grains from palm trees and relatives of the modern baobab and macadamia.
Crucially, they contained also the remnants of tiny single-celled organisms called Archaea.
The creatures’ cell walls show subtle molecular changes that depend on the temperature of the soil surrounding them when they were alive. The structures are faithfully preserved after they die.
They are, in essence, tiny buried thermometers from 53 million years ago
Together, the data suggest that even in the darkest period of Antarctic winter, the temperature did not drop below 10C; and summer daytime temperatures were in the 20Cs.
The lowland coastal region sported palm trees, while slightly inland, hills were populated with beech trees and conifers.
Dr. James Bendle said that as an analogue of modern Earth, the Eocene represents heightened levels of CO2 that will not be reached any time soon, and may not be reached at all if CO2 emissions abate.
However, he said the results from the Eocene could help to shore up the computer models that are being used to estimate how sensitive climate is to the emissions that will certainly rise in the nearer term.
“It’s a clearer picture we get of warm analogues through geological time,” he said.
“The more we get that information, the more it seems that the models we’re using now are not overestimating the [climatic] change over the next few centuries, and they may be underestimating it. That’s the essential message.”
Ashton Kutcher and his new girlfriend Mila Kunis have jetted off on a romantic trip to Bali.
Ashton Kutcher and Mila Kunis were pictured cuddling at Los Angeles airport on Sunday morning as they prepared to fly out to the tropical destination together.
Ashton Kutcher, 34, who is currently going through a divorce with Demi Moore, whisked Mila Kunis, 28, off to a five-star resort on the island’s southern peninsula.
The lavish suites boast wooden four-poster beds, a sunken indoor bathtub and private pools.
Ashton Kutcher and his new girlfriend Mila Kunis have jetted off on a romantic trip to Bali
Although they have not confirmed their romance, friends of the couple – who first met 14 years ago when they co-starred in That 70s Show – say they are ready to go public with their relationship now it is getting more serious.
A source told the New York Post: “Ashton was Mila’s first kiss while on That ’70s Show, so they’ve always had a special bond. They started dating in the spring, and things have recently become more serious.”
Last week, Mila Kunis accompanied Ashton Kutcher to the wrap party for his new movie Jobs.
A source said at the time: “They stayed within five feet of each other the whole entire evening. It was very obvious to everyone that they were together.
“They both seemed in good spirits, happy and having fun. They just sat next to each other and mainly talked to each other the whole time they were there.”
Ashton Kutcher and Mila Kunis stayed at the party, which took place at The Duplex on Third Restaurant in Los Angeles, for two hours.
London’s Mayor Boris Johnson was left dangling on a zip wire for several minutes when it stopped working at an Olympic live screen event.
Boris Johnson was trying out a 45 m (150 ft) high zip wire at Victoria Park, where the Games are being shown on big screens.
The wire then lost momentum, leaving him suspended “like an odd Christmas decoration” above a crowd of people.
As onlookers snapped photos, he joked: “This is great fun but it needs to go faster.”
London’s Mayor Boris Johnson was left dangling on a zip wire for several minutes when it stopped working at an Olympic live screen event
Lee Medcalf, who was at the event, said: “When Boris came down the zip wire, it was very James Bond-esque with him shouting <<Team GB>>.
“However, he seemed to lose momentum and was left hanging there like an odd Christmas decoration for about five to 10 minutes.
“He spoke to the crowd, which had gathered beneath him, saying <<this is what it’s all about; this is great, this is fantastic, this is Team GB>>.
“I was thinking <<Yeah it’s good, but you’re still just hanging there>>.”
A spokesman for the mayor said: “The mayor has survived his first zip wire experience relatively unscathed.
“Clearly the judges are likely to have marked the mayor down for artistic impression, and unlike team GB, the mayor may not be winning too many Gold medals today.
“He does however remain unbowed.”
British Prime Minister David Cameron said London was “lucky to have” Boris Johnson as mayor.
David Cameron said: “If any other politician got stuck on a zip wire it would be disastrous.
“With Boris it’s a triumph… London is lucky to have him.”
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contents. Typically, these will come in two kinds of coverage bundled into the home insurance policy. If the fire leads to severe damage, home insurance can help the family pay for alternative lodging until repairs can be made. If the home is totally destroyed, home insurance will cover the expenses to rebuild the home.
