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I-team:

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REFUNDS ALSO INSIDE I-Team: Child Support’s Maze Of Delays Can Money Buy You Happiness? If So, How Much?

Is Your Smartphone Becoming Too Smart?

Treatment Decreases Risk Of Sudden Cardiac Death NCAA Still Struggling With Athletes Grad Rates Electric Cars Coming To Showrooms This Fall

November 5, 2010

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I-Team: Inmates Scam IRS For Refunds Reporting Stephen Stock MIAMI (CBS4) Ñ The CBS4 ITeam has uncovered a nationwide scam that’s being run out of p r i s o n s everywhere and it has become rampant here in South Florida responsible for the likely theft of hundreds of millions of tax dollars from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) with little to no repercussions.

The inmates are stealing millions of your tax dollars while sitting behind bars.

CBS4 I-Team Investigator Stephen Stock discovered that the tax scam is so simple and so easy that some inmates are swearing off all other crimes and focusing on just stealing this way.

where Department of Corrections records show he remains in close custody, he apparently wasn’t through with pushing the boundaries of the law.

The CBS4 I-Team has obtained a tax return Garcia filed while sitting in prison after being convicted on those two attempted murder charges. On the tax form Garcia attempted to file with the IRS he claimed $45,400 in income and requested a refund check from the IRS of $5,135.

It was money he never earned for a job he never held at an employer that did not exist.

“He asked me if he could use my address because he is waiting for an income tax check,” said Miriam Rivera when first asked about this tax form by I-Team investigator Stephen Stock in 2005.

That’s right.

Neighbors still talk about that day back in 1997 when Arturo Garcia broke into a home at 3075 E 6th Avenue in Hialeah, shot at homeowner Nelson Fernandez before he fled over a nearby fence located at 757 E 30th Street.

Miriam Rivera of Tampa, who cares for Garcia’s daughter, said Garcia contacted her from jail and asked her to help cash his tax refund check. The same one he expected to receive for the fraudulent tax form intercepted by the I-Team.

Court records show that as he fled the then 19 year-old Garcia turned and shot at a pursuing Hialeah police officer Humberto Valdes.

“I don’t never see him,” Miriam Rivera said meaning she had never even met Garcia but knew of him through her daughter, the mother of Garcia’s daughter.

Valdes is now a Lieutenant with Doral’s Police Department and he told the I-Team that he recalls that day vividly.

When Rivera spoke to I-Team investigator Stephen Stock her English was broken but her meaning very clear. A man whom she’d never met, serving time on convictions of two counts of attempted murder, one count for trying to kill a police officer, wanted her to cash a fraudulent tax refund for $5,135.

Lt. Valdes said and court records confirm that Garcia dropped his gun after he, the police officer, shot him in the leg.

Valdes said that Garcia then wrestled with him before breaking free and running to another home at 711 E 31st Street, where he hid in the family’s laundry room.

Valdes said the family in that home was terrified.

Lt. Valdes said and court records show that Garcia eventually climbed onto the roof of the home before surrendering.

Though Arturo Garcia was convicted of attempted murder and burglary and ended up in prison for his actions that day,

“He told me to cash the check when it comes,” Rivera said back in 2005. “And I wrote to him and I said I can’t cash the check because that’s not my check.”

A few years later the inmates at the Monroe County Jail in Key West apparently caught wind of the same scam and began successfully using it to get tax refund checks sent directly to the jail, no need to use intermediaries such as Miriam Rivera.

“There was a huge scam going on in our facility,” said Monroe County Sheriff Bob Peryam.

Sheriff Peryam.

It was the same tax scam Garcia ran, only this time it was discovered by a Monroe County Corrections Officer who was going through a jail cell.

Though this tax scam goes back years, even decades, the CBS4 I-Team has discovered the scam more rampant in prisons throughout Florida and the nation than ever before.

“He (the corrections officer) came across an IRS form in a cell block,” said Sheriff Peryam.

It didn’t take investigators long to figure out what was happening.

“The inmates were filing these EZ forms and getting money sent to them from the IRS,” said Sheriff Peryam.

Sheriff’s investigators added up as many as fifty different inmates who they uncovered evidence on who had been sending in bogus tax returns to the IRS. The Key West jail inmates claimed about 5 thousand dollars in refunds each. Add it up and that’s a quarter million dollars in fraudulent claims.

CBS4 I-Team investigator Stephen Stock asked: “So bottom line was these guys were sending out 1040 EZ forms claiming income they never earned and getting the IRS to send them back a check?”

“That’s exactly what they were doing,” said Sheriff Peryam. “And they were doing it from the comfortable beds, if you will, of the correctional facility of the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office.”

And yet, despite the fact sheriff’s investigators built criminal cases, collected evidence, even got confessions, then turned all that evidence over to the IRS, for nearly 4 years Sheriff Peryam said the IRS did nothing.

Only this May were two inmates and some of their relatives indicted by a federal grand jury for their participation in the scam. Sheriff Peryam said that other inmates whom his investigators caught in this scam have still escaped arrest or indictment.

Sheriff Peryam didn’t know the half of it.

The I-Team has obtained exclusive access to federal records showing tens of thousands of inmates taking potentially hundreds of millions of fraudulent tax refund dollars. That means that thousands of these scams involve the theft of potentially hundreds of millions of your tax dollars.

The tax refund dollars are being stolen by inmates who are doing time for everything from robbery, rape to burglary, assault to murder.

And though the IRS knows about this, it apparently has actively done little to nothing to stop the problem.

In fact, while the I-Team was in the Monroe County Jail in Key West shooting video the I-Team saw a tax refund check which was identical to another one sent to the same prison inmate months before and seized by sheriff’s investigators.

It became very apparent that the IRS sent the second check to the inmate at the same address as the county jail because the first check was intercepted by the sheriff and never cashed. So not only did the IRS send a fraudulent tax refund directly to the jail address once, the tax agency sent it twice.

“They’ll either do it in direct deposit or have a check sent,” said one Florida inmate who agreed to speak with the ITeam as long as he was kept anonymous.

This Florida inmate who spoke to the ITeam is serving life in prison for murder.

He asked us to hide his identity for fear he would be hurt exposing a scam he’s both witnessed and participated in. continued

“You can buy a lot of honey buns for $5000. And it was the tax payers buying those honey buns and it was we thought pretty out of control at the time,” said

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I-Team: Inmates Scam IRS For Refunds who also asked to remain anonymous for fear he’d be harmed for exposing this scam.

This Federal inmate said ran the scam starting in 1991 and running through 2005 in that South Carolina prison. In all he estimates he alone filed and received $3 million in tax refund money. He pocketed nearly one million of those dollars and gave the rest to those who helped him run the scam.

Congress and obtained by I-Team, records that break out the number of individual tax return filed at every prison in the United States, nearly 45,000 separate tax returns in all were filed by inmates in 2009.

Using an average of $4500 per return multiplied by the number of inmates (44,944), it adds up to $202,248,000 in likely fraudulent tax refunds paid to inmates nationwide.

“It is very troubling,” said George.

continued “They’ll use anybody,” said the Florida inmate. “Anybody who is willing to give them their social security number. And (then they) just try it.”

They are 1040 EZ tax forms filled out by inmates with real names and real social security numbers but false employers, false income and ultimately fraudulent tax refund claims. According to inmates, officials and the I-Team’s examination of a dozen forms the inmates request anywhere between $3500 and $6500 per inmate per fraudulent tax return.

“They’ll file 10 or 20 of them (fraudulent tax forms) at a time,” said the Florida inmate who knows all about the scam.

“Just to see which ones come through and which ones don’t.”

I-Team investigator Stephen Stock “If they (the refunds) don’t come through?”

“Who cares? What’s it hurt?” said the inmate. “They (the IRS) don’t know.”

I-Team investigator Stock asked “You’re in prison anyway?”

“Yea, you’re in prison anyway. They can’t do nothing about it. What are they going to do to you?” said the inmate.

“How much money are we talking about?”

I-Team investigator Stock asked.

“Millions,” said the Florida inmate.

“Millions. Millions.”

The Florida inmate’s story is confirmed by another inmate who worked the scam in a South Carolina prison.

“I was the tax man,” said the inmate who is now in a Federal prison in Virginia and

“It’s easiest thing I ever learned to do is file taxes,” said the Federal inmate.

This problem was so bad that in 2005 Congress actually held hearings on Capitol Hill to try to get the IRS to stop sending money to prison inmates. But despite changes Congress made to the rules there was little to no effect on how much money the IRS kept shipping out to prison and jail inmates.

“It’s outrageous,” said J. Russell George, the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration in Washington, D.C. “It is outrageous. The IRS must do better.”

In his role as Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration George and his staff at the TIGTA office oversee the IRS and its administration and operations.

George testified at that hearing before Congress five years ago. Back then TIGTA reported that its auditors had discovered at least $17 million in fraudulent income tax refunds were caught and stopped by the IRS from being distributed to inmates prior to 2005.

“Again, it’s a question of whether the right hand knows what the left hand is doing,” said George. “If the IRS is not made aware of the fact that someone is incarcerated they don’t have the ability to flag the return in that way.”

But instead of fixing the inmate tax fraud problem, the CBS4 I-Team has learned the problem is much worse now five years later.

“It has not improved,” said Inspector General George. “Part of the problem is that the IRS doesn’t regularly computer these numbers. So they don’t have a clear sense as to the overall magnitude of the problem.”

According to IRS records demanded by

That’s potentially $202 MILLION of your tax dollars in tax refunds going to prison inmates doing time for other crimes from robbery, to rape to murder for work they never did.

Income taxes they never paid.

Refunds they were never due.

“There really truly is no excuse systemically for this to happen,” said Inspector General George.

Even so, the man charged with overseeing the IRS offers little confidence that this rip-off of taxpayers’ money will stop any time soon.

“Are you confident that this problem is going to be fixed?” asked I-Team investigator Stephen Stock.

“While generally I’m an optimist I have to admit that in this instance I think this problem will be around five years from now,” said Inspector General George.

The inmates are certainly wise to that reality.

“One of the inmates we heard over our taped lines said street crime was done for him he was not doing any more street crime he said ‘This white collar crime is the way to go. I love the IRS’,” said Monroe County Sheriff Bob Peryam.

What’s more troubling, several inmates tell I-Team investigator Stephen Stock that they use these stolen tax refund dollars to buy all kinds of things while in jail, everything from designer clothes to boom boxes and even drugs.

The Treasury Inspector General is now preparing a second report on the extent of this fraud. Sources tell the I-Team that that

report is expected to blast the IRS for its lack of response to stopping this problem.

The IRS declined to talk about this issue. (© MMX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.) news powered by

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November 5, 2010

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I-Team: Child Support’s Maze Of Delays Reporting Michele Gillen MIAMI (CBS4) Ñ “Bye, bye mi amor!”

It was a goodbye no mother or child wants to experience. Embracing her son at Miami International Airport this summer, Luisa Metellus separated from her little boy for this summer, sending him to relatives out of the country as she worried she was running out dollars to feed and care for him.

have turned to the Miami Dade program; the only one in the state run by the local State Attorney’s office and paid to use its own internal staff to handle the cases.

“We have been receiving numerous phone calls where in women are expressing their levels of frustration that they can not even get an appointment,” said Rosa Naccaroto with the Miami Dade Commission for Women, which reached out to the I-Team alarmed over the frustration and fear they were hearing in the voices of the women calling them.

“These are children that need to be fed everyday and when the non custodial parents stop paying it becomes an immediate situation,” says Naccaroto.

The working mom’s biggest fear?

“To be on the streets, not able to pay my rent,” she told Chief I-Team Investigator Michele Gillen who looked on as Metellus fought back tears.

Metallus says her nightmare began over a year ago when she contacted Miami Dade’s Child Support Enforcement Program at the State Attorneys Office to begin the process of getting child support “You don’t know where to go, you don’t know where to ask for help, sometimes you are embarrassed, sometimes you are humiliated,” she told Gillen.

Metallus is one of tens of thousands of custodial parents in South Florida who

Our I-Team investigation finds help is anything but immediate. But try to get an appointment. You are to call a special Miami-Dade number, and the I-Team did, time and time again. On average it took 30 minutes for an intake worker to answer the phone. When asked why, “Short staffed today,” the worker on the other end of the phone told Gillen.

eight minutes of a wait. Here you are talking about 20 minutes.”

attorneys.

“That says to you what?” asked Gillen.

How long is the wait to get an initial appointment? Three months, Gillen was repeatedly told. In fact, it took Metallus 3 months and dozens of calls to get an appointment; and 3 more months for the State Attorneys Office to petition the court for child support.

That’s just the start of delays. It took Metallus more than a year after beginning the process to get a court hearing and a court order for temporary child support.

“I am frustrated, every judge is frustrated,” said Sandy Karlan, Chief Judge of Family Court who met with Gillen.

On what happened to Metalllus, “It’s unacceptable,” said Karlan.

We brought our findings to Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle.

Gillen met with State Senator Nan Rich who picked up the phone herself and dialed the Miami-Dade Child Support number, only to get a constant busy signal.

“We have a serious problem of delays, delays, delays and the ultimate result is the women and children who we hoped to serve, that we want to serve, that we struggle with daily to serve, are not being adequately served,” said Fernandez Rundle.

“Totally unacceptable,” said Rich who went on to add, “Throughout the rest of the state, my understanding is, its five to

With a budget of more than $21 million, the office said as of July its handling more than 96,000 cases in a division with 17

“Overload,” replied Fernandez Rundle.

But our investigation reveals the problems are not new. A report was issued ten years ago by OPPAGA, the accountability arm of the legislature. Back then it raised red flags about Miami-Dade’s low performance levels saying they could put at risk incentive funding for the entire state. The report called for changes and monitoring. Gillen said our investigation found no one ever followed up until we did.

“Now that’s where my problem is. It’s because what you have brought here and what the women are saying out in the community is that they are facing the exact same problems like back in 1999.

We need to have a major follow up of what is going on and how we can make this better,” said Rich. (© MMX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.) news powered by

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November 5, 2010

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I-Team: Aviation Insecurity - Security Theater Reporting Stephen Stock MIAMI (CBS4) Ñ In the days following the 911 attacks leaders in Wa s h i n g t o n rushed to build a security system to give Americans confidence to fly again.

With record number of travelers now flying one could argue that the creation of the Transportation Security Administration --or TSA--was a success.

But critics, from those who work at TSA to those who helped create it, say the agency has become a bloated, out of control bureaucracy where problems are ignored or swept under the rug and where security vulnerabilities are as bad or worse than prior to 9-11.

“I don’t feel any more safe,” said frequent air traveler and Hollywood resident Mark Kruger. “In fact it’s brought a lot of drama to my life.”

Every week Kruger flies from his South Florida home to his computer consultant’s job at two different Fortune 500 companies in Houston.

“I fly on weekly basis I’ve seen all the machines,” said Kruger.

Recently, Kruger questioned TSA procedure at Fort Lauderdale\Hollywood International Airport.

He said he asked a supervisor why some travelers had to go through a body scan device while others just passed through a metal detector.

at every stage when he flew. He said it was almost as if he’d been suddenly flagged and put on a list.

CBS4 I-Team investigator Stephen Stock asked “Do you think you got put on a TSA watch list?”

“I think it’s very coincidental that that moment I submitted my concerns after four years of flying, all of a sudden I’m having issues getting boarding passes,” said Kruger.

Critics of the nation’s aviation security system and TSA, many of them former and current TSA and FAA officials said what Mark Kruger experienced is all part of a broken aviation security system.

“Absolutely it’s ‘security theater’,” said Bogdan Dzakovich, who currently works for TSA in Washington, D.C. Dzakovich also and served as a former leader on the FAA’s red team which regularly tested aviation security around the country and around the world.

Dzakovich and other critics say all the bag checking, screening, restricting liquids and gels and forcing passengers to take off their shoes at airports does not make air travelers any safer.

The critics insist that all this exercise at airport passenger-screening checkpoints is actually a facade. They say it is all smoke and mirrors, ‘Security Theater.’

“I used to say (Federal Aviation Administration) FAA security was zero security-- to put a numerical indicator on it,” said Dzakovich about security prior to 9-11. “(By that) meaning there wasn’t any security. You could do pretty much what you wanted to do. It was all illusion.”

January, 2001.

“We’ve gotten a lot of money spent on security,” said Sullivan. “(There are) a lot of bells and whistles, a lot of inconvenience to the flying public. And it’s all intended to make us feel more secure.”

“It’s kind of like a facade of security,” said Sullivan who now lives near Boston and works as a private aviation security consultant. He is currently serving as a legal expert for the families of 9-11 victims who’ve filed lawsuits over failures in aviation security.

“The proof is in the pudding if you look at the last two incidents (of aviation security breaches to make national news) the shoe bomber and the underwear bomber,” said Sullivan. “(In each instance) it was the passengers that subdued the terrorists, not the TSA.” Then there are the critics on Capitol Hill.

“Well there is a certain amount of theater here,” admits Florida Congressman John Mica. “You’re trying to impress the terrorists that we have things in place and that we’re doing our job.”

Congressman Mica represents the 7th District of Florida which includes Daytona Beach, Altamonte Springs, outside Orlando and Saint Augustine.

Mica is also ranking Republican member of the US House Transportation Committee which oversees the TSA and aviation security issues.

As a member of that US House Transportation Committee, Mica helped design and create the TSA following 9-11.

The TSA was formed by the Aviation and Transportation Security Act passed by the 107th Congress on November 19, 2001.

“If these are so much more secure than the metal detector, why is the metal detector still there and why are half the people still going through it?” Kruger said he wanted to know.

“But,” Dzakovich said, “…under TSA it’s actually worse than zero security.”

“The public ought to be outraged,” said former FAA special agent Brian Sullivan.

“What we envisioned and what we have today are two totally different things,” said Mica. “The Congress is responsible for this.”

After he sent a follow up e-mail to TSA officials in Washington, D.C., Kruger said he suddenly found himself being stopped

For nine years Sullivan served as an FAA special agent serving inside the nation’s security apparatus before he retired in

Responsible, the Republican from Central Florida says, for a federal bureaucracy gone out of control.

“There are 200 people making more (money in salary) than the TSA administrator,” said Mica.

Mica points out that TSA now has 61,000 employees up from 16,500 originally hired by TSA. Mica says that 8,000 of those employees are official administrators sitting behind desks around the nation. Mica says 3,500 of those bureaucrats are located in Washington, D.C. “pushing paper” instead of in the trenches conducting or overseeing security at airports.

“We test the system. So I know how the system works and it doesn’t work,” said Congressman Mica.

As for the details on the results of that security testing: “That’s classified information,” said Mica. “But I can tell you publicly that the results that I’ve gotten, even of late, with this huge bureaucracy, this huge number of employees, even with this advanced technology, the (security test) results are not good.”

I-Team investigator Stephen Stock asked “I’ve been told that it ranges anywhere from 75 to 90 percent failure rate?”

“Again, I can’t quote on that,” said Congressman Mica. “But the failure rates are way off the charts. I’ve alerted the administrator, what we have now as our fifth TSA administrator. And that’s another problem, the TSA administrator (position) has been like a revolving door.”

The chairman of the US House Transportation Committee, Democrat James Oberstar agrees more needs to be done.

“There is a failure rate that is higher than it should be. But I don’t think it’s 75%, 80%,” said Oberstar, who has access to the same classified data on test failure rates that Mica sees. continued news powered by

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I-Team: Aviation Insecurity - Security Theater Loy worked closely with Congressman Mica establishing and getting the TSA up and running shortly after 9-11.

“I think John is absolutely right,” said Loy. “We should be constantly challenging the TSA administrator to validate that he continues to need “x” number of bodies for the payroll end which is a huge part of that. It’s a very people intensive agency.”

continued Democratic Representative Oberstar represents the 8th District of Minnesota including the North Shore and Boundary Waters area, Duluth, Little Falls and Grand Rapids. Oberstar once served as a top staffer for a former House Transportation Committee chair. After serving as ranking Democrat on the US House Transportation Committee, since 2007 he chaired the same Committee where Mica is a now the ranking Republican member. The Committee oversees the TSA. I-Team investigator Stephen Stock asked “But it (the failure rate for airport security tests) is still higher than you want?”

“It’s higher than it should be,” said Chairman Oberstar. “That is why there needs to be more recurrent training. They (TSA screeners) have to be at peak efficiency all throughout their shift.”

Admiral James Loy, a former TSA Administrator agrees there have been some rough patches for the agency.

“I hated it, but I remember in the early days TSA came to stand for, in many people’s minds, ‘Thousands Standing Around’,” said Admiral Loy. Retired Admiral Loy, a former Commandant of the Coast Guard, was the first administrator at TSA, Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security and now serves as a Senior Counselor at the Cohen Group in Washington, D.C. “We were designing a system to keep unknown terrorists off of airplanes,” said Admiral Loy. As the first TSA Administrator, Admiral

Admiral Loy agrees that the TSA today is not exactly what was first envisioned. But Admiral Loy also defends TSA and argues it was and remains successful.

“We armed pilots. We put in hardened cockpit doors. We did what we did at the checkpoints,” said Loy. “There’s a whole series of things that are lined up to be our system (of layered security) that we can have great confidence in.”

But not everyone shares Loy’s optimism in TSA’s effectiveness.

They agree with Dzakovich, Sullivan and Elson. They say failures at checkpoints are commonplace. They say TSA is a topheavy agency with too many administrators who are tone-deaf to those working in the trenches.

They believe if Congress doesn’t fix these problems now, Americans will pay an even greater price than just lost tax dollars.

“We in Congress, we have not appropriated enough money to advance the technology (of security),” said Congressman Oberstar. “We have to do more research (and keep) staying ahead of the state of the art being able to detect more arcane ways (that terrorists might use against us).”

While all this attention is focused on passengers boarding airplanes, critics say security vulnerabilities elsewhere in our aviation system go ignored.

In the second part of our special report

“As bad as it (security) was back then, it’s worse now,” said outspoken critic and former FAA red team member Steve Elson.

Elson served on the FAA red team along with Bogdan Dzakovich prior to 9-11.

Elson’s job was to take weapons and bomb materials through checkpoint security, testing aviation security around the country and the world. Though he retired about nine years ago Elson still maintains close contact to specialists within the nation’s aviation security community.

“We had about a 100% success rate,” Elson said of the tests he conducted. “In other words they (the screeners) failed about 100%. We, the terrorists, were successful about 100% of the time.”

“Now, in security in the TSA, we are increasing the odds of terrorist success,” said Elson of security efforts today. “It’s all a big facade. So you should be worried because somebody is going to hit us again.”

Several other sources still working at TSA in Washington, who did not want to be identified for fear of losing their jobs, say all this only scratches the surface.

“Aviation Insecurity” the CBS4 I-Team takes you behind the scenes to see those holes in the system firsthand. (© MMX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.) news powered by

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Can Money Buy You Happiness? If So, How Much?

Reporting Al Sunshine (CBS4) Can money make you happy?

That’s one of those questions that can really get you thinking.

New research indicates that the answer is yes, and no.

It’s hard in our consumer based society not to be attracted to glittering jewelry, designer clothes, fancy cars, or exotic vacations.

When we asked if money can make them happy, one man said it could make him happy, but that it’s not the only thing. A woman replied, “Money can certainly make life easier, but it cannot make you happy.”

Researchers have found money does matter. Satisfaction with life is dependent on household income, but only to a point.

“There are interesting psychological studies that show that double the stuff doesn’t necessarily double the happiness,” according to financial planner Dana Levit.

Of course you have to cover costs for the basics like food, housing and health. But researchers found that after about $75,000

a year, researchers found that more of our happiness is tied to other experiences.

“Having enough money is important because you need to be comfortable,” said Levit. “But real happiness seems to be driven by whether or not you have good relationships, whether you have strong ties, strong community bindings and that is actually what I find to be true.”

Levit often has to help clients set priorities. “One of my favorite exercises is a bit morbid. Basically, you write your own obituary,” she explained. “I think that really helps people get at, is this is what I really want my life to be about, and then you can come back and say, am I using my money, am I using my resources

to get there.”

It’s something to think about when the next gadget comes out, or you see a new outfit at the mall. “One of the dangers of chasing stuff is there is always going to be the next new shiny toy,” said Levit.

The United States ranks fifth in terms of happiness out of the 151 nations surveyed. Canadians, New Zealanders and Scandinavians topped the list of happy nations. (© MMX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.) news powered by

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Experts Warn Social Media May Damage Teens Reporting Carey Codd P a r k l a n d (CBS4) Ñ Is technology a hobby or an addiction?

Teenagers like 15 year old Spencer Kahn and his friends are surrounded by technology – Facebook, texting, emails and cell phones. Some psychiatrists and parents wonder if technology is replacing good old-fashioned family communication.

Spencer does put limits on his use of technology.

“While I’m studying I don’t use my phone or anything like that,” he said.

Spencer’s parents say their son keeps up with his homework and gets good grades, therefore he’s earned the use of the technology.

And his parents do have rules. For instance, Spencer is not supposed to use his cell phone while the family is out to dinner. Also, it’s chores first, Facebook later.

“Spencer has chores,” father Henry Ginsberg explains.

“He has responsibilities. We don’t accept the fact that he can’t do it because he’s on the laptop.”

Mother Dawn Kahn says her son is only online three hours or so a day, which is less than national estimates for other teens.

But she admits it can be overwhelming seeing her son sitting on one side of the couch with a laptop and a cell phone and her husband on the other with the same setup.

“At night they could both be sitting there with their laptops, phones,” she said.

“That’s what surrounding us.”

She believes the most important lessons to teach kids about using technology are honesty and making smart decisions.

“Don’t have anything inappropriate on your phone because that could come back to haunt you,” she said.

She and other adults wonder if all this technology – and the need to respond instantly to a text message or Facebook post – is causing teens and young people to lose focus.

At least one psychiatrist believes this is the greatest danger of the technological revolution because the distractions could cost a student in terms of school performance.

Even Spencer admits it can be overwhelming juggling homework, text messages and responding to a Facebook update.

“I just focus on one of them and mess up the other ones,” he said jokingly.

And Spencer does see the pros and cons of being connected.

“It could help us by communicating with other people and it could hurt us by people

getting bullied online and things like that,” he said.

Yet despite his love of texting and Facebook, Spencer still enjoys spending time with mom and dad. (© MMX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.) news powered by

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Is Your Smartphone Becoming Too Smart?

Reporting Al Sunshine MIAMI (CBS4) ÑFrom music to apps, Apple has changed the way we look at phones.

Now, Apple could be changing the way our phones look back at us.

It may sound like sci-fi, but they’ve filed a new biometric security patent.

“This is a fascinating way to figure out if the person who owns the phone has the phone,” explained CNET’s Brian Cooley. “You would

register a voice print, register a fingerprint scan and register a profile of your heartbeat.

That is your ownership profile. Now if someone else has it, that’s a way to lock them out.”

Once your stolen phone is locked, Apple can then record the thief’s biometric data. That includes their heartbeat, their voice, their face, and their conversations with people around them. And of course Apple can pinpoint their location.

It’s definitely high- tech security but critics point out, whatever Apple can do to a wouldbe thief, Apple can also do to you.

“This is all really sensitive information, the things you say on the phone, your face, your

heartbeat,” said Rebecca Jeschke of the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation, an industry watchdog, opposes the new spyware which they say would turn your phone into a virtual surveillance system.

CNET’s Brian Cooley points out, when it comes to technology, privacy as we know it may soon be a thing of the past.

“If Apple collects this information, it’s absolutely venerable to a subpoena from any kind of court battle, a custody battle, a divorce case,” explained Jeschke.

Apple has not responded to our requests for comment, so it’s not clear exactly how the biometric data would be collected and stored.

And it’s important to note that just because they applied for the patent doesn’t mean they will make the phone.

But not everyone is worried about privacy.

Some, who’ve had their phone stolen, are willing to trade privacy for security.

“Well, I recently lost my iPhone. I think that’s great. It’s pretty amazing how much we’ve advanced technologically, said Julia Kramer.

“You’ve got to realize privacy in the future is a relative term.”

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Retailers Try To Jump Start Black Friday Sales That has many retailers trying out some new strategies to get shoppers to open their wallets early for the end of the year holiday shopping blitz. Take for example a recent ad by Sears which told shoppers “This Christmas be savvy, it’s black Friday now at Sears”.

Black Friday is traditionally the day after Thanksgiving but with a sour economy, retailers are hoping to spark shoppers into hitting the stores before that to start their holiday shopping.

MIAMI (CBS4) Ñ Wall Street may have regained its confidence, but on Main Street consumer confidence has slipped again.

According to the University of Michigan/ Reuters survey, October’s index at 67.7 percent was even worse than Septembers

(68.2 percent) and marked an 11 month lows.

you can work the circulars,” said Teresa Taylor.

That’s why stores like Walmart, Target and online retailer Amazon are cutting prices now and JC Penny will start their deals in two weeks. So will their strategy pay off?

Retailers who are hoping for a greatly improved holiday shopping season over last year’s season are increasing their holiday employee numbers.

“I think smart shoppers will start to buy now,” said Wendy Liebmann, with WSL Strategic Retail.

Nearly two thirds of online retailers expect sales to jump at least 15 percent and four out of five say they’ll offer free shipping at some point in the season.

Starting now, some shoppers reason, means more time for bargain hunting.

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“It’s better, you can save more money,

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HURRICANE SECTION 2010 Everything You Need To Know To Be Prepared This Hurricane Season.

• Tracking Map • Emergency Phone Numbers • Safety Information • Important Articles

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Evacuation Information Evacuation Center Tips Evacuation centers are lifeboats, not cruise ships, intended to get you out of harm’s way. You will need to be self-sufficient during your stay.

When you arrive at a center, register with the management. Many times, people outside the storm area make inquiries about their relatives. Registering will allow the Red Cross to let them know you are safe.

EVACUATION ZONES: Areas near the coast that have a high risk of flooding from the storm surge, which is the leading cause of death in hurricanes.

MOBILE HOMES: All mobile home residents are evacuated in all hurricanes.

HIGH-RISES: Tall buildings are subjected to higher winds and stronger forces than single-family homes.

Residents of high-rises in the evacuation zone MUST evacuate, and residents of high-rises outside of the evacuation zone should not stay on high floors.

Eat before you come to the center. If food is served, it will take time to be prepared.

Do not bring pets, firearms or alcoholic beverages to the center. New this year, you can bring pets to 1 Miami-Dade & 1 Broward shelter as long as you’ve preregistered.

Bring your hurricane kit to the center. That includes the starred items listed in the shopping list. (© MMX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.) news powered by

Evacuation Assistance For The Elderly & Handicapped South Florida has a large population of people with special needs. These are people who are frail, elderly, or handicapped, and will be in need of special assistance in the event of a hurricane. You MUST register with your county’s Emergency Management Office at their Special Needs Registry NOW in order to ensure that you will be able to go to a Special Needs Evacuation Center, if you have no other options for riding out the storm. The county may also be able to help you with transportation.

Miami-Dade County Emergency Evacuation Assistance (305) 513-7700 Broward County Special Needs Registry (954) 537-2888 Monroe County Special Needs Registry (305) 292-4591 Palm Beach County Emergency Management (561) 712-6400 Red Cross evacuation centers are intended for those people who must leave their homes and have absolutely no where else to take shelter from a hurricane. If you must go to an evacuation center, be prepared for group living and crowded conditions.

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Shopping List Photo identification* Proof of residence (utility bills)* Medical history* Waterproof container for document storage Back up discs of your home computer files Camera & film

Cooking Sterno Portable camp stove or grill Stove fuel or charcoal, lighter fluid Aluminum foil Oven mitts Non-Perishable Foods* Canned meats, fruits, vegetables Bread in moisture-proof packaging Cookies, candy, dried fruit Canned soups & milk Cowdered or single serve drinks Cereal bars Condiments Peanut butter & jelly Instant coffee & tea Equipment & Other Items Manual can opener* Disposable plates, cups & eating utensils Napkins & paper towels Flashlight* (one per person) Portable battery powered lanterns Glass enclosed candles (only for use after the storm) Battery powered radio or TV Battery operated alarm clock Extra batteries, including hearing aids Ice chest & ice First aid kit, including aspirin, antibiotic cream & antacids Mosquito repellent Sun screen (SPF 45 recommended) Waterproof matches/butane lighter Money* Bleach or water purification tablets Maps of the area with landmarks Babies Disposable diapers & moist towelettes* Formula, food & medication* Documents Photo copies of prescriptions*

Other Necessities Tools: hammer, wrenches, screw drivers, nails, saw Trash bags (lots of them) Cleaning supplies Plastic drop cloth Mosquito netting ABC rated fire extinguisher Duct tape or strong masking tape for emergency repairs (not to tape windows) Outdoor extension cords Spray paint Rope Personal Supplies Prescriptions* (1 month supply) Toilet paper Soap, shampoo & detergent Toiletries & feminine hygiene products* Changes of clothing* Extra glasses or contacts Bedding: pillows, sleeping bag* Rain ponchos & work gloves Entertainment: books, magazines, card games, etc.* Pets Dry & canned food Water (half gallon per day) Litter box supplies Water One gallon of water per person per day (half for drinking, half for bathing) Store water in clean, plastic containers such as soft drink bottles or milk jugs.

Have TWO WEEKS supply of each item for each person in your home.

If you are planning to go to an evacuation shelter, be sure to bring these items. (Š MMX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.) news powered by

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Signs Of Small Improvements In Housing Market Home prices continue to struggle more than three years after the ‘bubble’ burst but there are some signs of small gains.

CBS4 Chief Consumer Investigative Reporter Al Sunshine said overall home sales and prices are still dropping nationwide and the impact of the socalled ‘foreclosure freeze’ due to faulty document has also hurt the recovery.

MIAMI (CBS4) ÑWhile 2010 has been a pretty good year for Wall Street, it has not exactly been a stellar year for Main Street.

According to the latest survey by CaseSchiller, home prices fell again in September by about two-tenths of a percent. Overall home prices are down about 30 percent from the market’s high of four years ago. Closer to home, the

South Florida market is seeing some small signs of improvement.

may hurt the overall economy into the next year.

Statewide, condominium sales are up about 10 percent, but the prices still continue to drop. Sales of single family homes are down about 8 percent but there some signs that prices are possibly bottoming out.

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Meanwhile the fallout from the foreclosure moratorium is getting worse.

More than a third of our local sales involved distressed properties and until the state and federal investigations into alleged phony paperwork are resolved, foreclosure sales remained stalled which

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Savvy Shopper Teaches Super Savings With Coupons Reporting Gwen Belton

and her mother have been sharing their secrets through public classes.

MIAMI (CBS4) Ñ Everybody loves to save money, but one South Florida woman has gotten it down to a science.

“We’ve had employers bring us in to do meetings for their employees,” said Pankoke.

For more on saving with coupons, check out Pankoke’s site at Couponclasses.com.

Judy Raleigh and Pat Dorsey said they swear by what they’ve learned.

(© MMX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)

For Mary Pat Pankoke and her mother Billy Gacka clipping coupons is not just a hobby, it’s a way of life. They’ve got shelves upon shelves of products purchased with coupons to prove it.

“The retail price on this (motion to a number of products on the shelves) is close to eleven hundred dollars and with coupons, using coupons before taxes, we paid $6.85,” Pankoke told CBS4’s Gwen Belton.

Sure, purchasing over 300 brand name products for less than seven dollars sounds too good to be true, but it isn’t.

Through the use of coupons from multiple newspapers and from the internet, Pankoke and her mother have mastered the art of saving money.

“For us, because we deal in volume, we buy extra Sunday papers, that’s one of the tricks,” said Pankoke.

Money saving tips and tricks are highly sought after, so for the past year Pankoke

“It’s a rush to go out and save over a hundred dollars on one shopping spree,” said Raleigh.

require a time commitment for those who really want to find the deals and save money.

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Pankoke said what makes her system work is simple math and savvy shopping.

“Most of these products were free,” said Pankoke motion to the products on the shelves. “Kraft dressing, we walked in and they were on sale at Publix for $1.50.

We had coupons for $1.50 off, so they were free, just free.”

Pankoke said it’s important that when you find good coupons, you need to hang onto them if you don’t need them right away and then wait for a sale.

“You want to be able to take advantage, buy ten dishwashing liquids because they’re not going to go bad, buy paper towels because they are not going to go bad,” said Pankoke. “Stockpile them when you can get them for free.”

Whether it’s clipping coupons from the papers or surfing the net for online coupons, Pankoke said her system does

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Treatment Decreases Risk Of Sudden Cardiac Death Reporting Cynthia Demos MIAMI (CBS4) Ñ Sudden cardiac death is the number one cause of death in the United States.

Larry Jakubaitis had a heart attack 22 years ago.

A recent lung problem forced him to take steroids which caused him to gain weight which created stress on his heart.

He said there are risk factors you can control such as cholesterol, high blood pressure, diabetes and a family history of premature death.

Then there are others you have no control over.

“Patients who have congestive heart failure, someone perhaps who underwent chemotherapy for breast cancer and some of those chemo drugs are toxic and toxic to the heart that can cause the heart to have a weakening affect on the pump function and put you at risk for sudden cardiac death,” added Anand.

“I never made it to the hospital. I ended up passing out at home and I had my heart attack there,” he said.

That’s what happened to Darlene Seachrist, 57, who was diagnosed with breast cancer 6 years ago and then went through chemo and radiation.

“A heart attack can cause someone to have sudden cardiac death but it’s not the only cause,” explained Cardiologist Dr. Rishi Anand with Holy Cross Hospital.

“Then afterwords I had a lot of symptoms, of being very short of breath, couldn’t climb stairs, lightheaded, dizziness,” Seachrist said.

She learned she had a weakened heart.

“I was devastated of course because after cancer and being afraid for breast cancer and making it through that you don’t want to hear you have heart disease.”

Doctors suggested both Darlene and Larry have defibrillators implanted, something Dr. Anand said has proven the best treatment.

“It’s with you 24 hours a day 7 days a week. It’s like having an ambulance planted inside your body, watching you at all times, ready to act in the event your heart decides to have a life threatening rhythm,” Anand noted.

“I got my life back,” Seachrist said. “I go scuba diving. I recently flew an airplane for the first time because it’s something I always wanted to do.”

Jakubaitis said, “If I didn’t have it I wouldn’t be here talking to you.”

According to Anand, implantable defibrillators increase a patient’s chances of survival by 30-40%. (© MMX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.) news powered by

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Personal Space: How Close is Too Close?

When she asked to sit in a seat next to one female rider, the woman actually asked her to sit someplace else and pointed out an empty seat in front of her.

A male rider later didn’t object to Brill sitting next to him though he did get off at the very next stop.

Nearly everyone Brill met seem to agree on how to cope with someone who gets too close.

MIAMI (CBS4) ÑHow close is too close?

When a person stands or sits next to you, and you’ve never seen him or her before, we all have our limits but what is the average person’s breaking point when it comes to personal space?

With a livable surface area of nearly 12 million square miles but a population of more than 7 billion people, planet Earth gets pretty crowded. In the course of an average day, we’ve all had those moments where we just need a little more elbow room.

So what are the rules of personal space in public places? Etiquette experts suggest that human beings should keep two feet of space between them.

Now most of us know the unwritten rules of elevator etiquette: find the least crowded spot, keep your eyes forward and your mouth shut. But what happens when you break those rules?

Reporter Taryn Winter Brill found out and captured the results on the elevator’s security camera.

Despite plenty of room, Brill moved uncomfortably close to other riders. Most simply stepped away and one guy even jumped. But several decided to hold their ground. Brill went toe to toe with one woman and she wouldn’t budge. Another woman, who stayed pressed against the back of the elevator, may have remained calm but she felt something very different.

She told Brill she had a moment where she wanted to push, shove or punch her.

The next stop for Brill was the bus where you’re expected to choose an open seat away from other riders. But when Brill boarded a bus with a hidden camera on a quiet day, there were plenty of empty seats but she preferred to try people’s patience instead.

“Step back, keep your distance, don’t get too close to people you don’t know,” were many of the replies.

But this unscientific social experiment revealed something more. When confined to small spaces, like in the elevator, people were more prone to protect their territory while those approached in wide open spaces, like a park, rarely moved at all. (© MMX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.) news powered by

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Book Helps Kids Cope With Loss Of Loved One Reporting Cynthia Demos MIAMI (CBS4) Ñ Breast cancer is the second leading cause of cancer death among women in the U.S. Approximately 40 thousand women die each year from breast cancer.

Years ago on Regen Foley’s 10 birthday, her stepfather died of brain cancer.

“It was devastating to her and it was devastating to me,” said Dr. Susan Foley, Regen’s mother.

in their hands, work through and come to some kind of terms with this horrible thing that has happened to them.”

Lynne Bray, a school guidance counselor, has used the book Close to My Heart: A Guided Workbook for Children After a Loved One has Died with students who’ve had a loss in their family.

“I like it because it really empowers the children. It also helps them to be able to identify something that they wish they had said to the person. It also gets them to remember special times,” said Bray.

Bray said even though it may be a stressful and emotional time, it is vital that children have their questioned answered.

Now as an adult Regen, along with her mother, has written a workbook to help grieving children.

“Developmentally children have difficulty processing what’s happened and often come up with their own very wrong reason,” said Bray.

“We wanted a book that a child could hold

And some of their questions, said Bray,

can be heart wrenching.

“Some of the children had similar questions: How did she die? Why did she have to die? Did she want to go? Will she miss me?”

Although there are no easy answers, just knowing that a child is asking questions is an important step in helping them deal with their emotions. (© MMX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.) news powered by

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Researchers Find Gene Connected To Depression

BALTIMORE, Md. (CBS4) Ă‘ Researchers at Yale University say they have identified a gene as a possible cause for depression. The discovery could yield a new version of antidepressants that could target the specific gene known as MKP-1.

The study conducted genome scans on tissue samples from 21 dead people who had depression and compared those to tissues samples from healthy people. The MKP-1 gene was more than twice as strong in those who had depression, according to the Baltimore Sun. The researchers then transferred the genes to mice and found the mice displayed depressive behavior associated with too much stress.

According to the study, the MKP-1 gene shuts down a pathway in the brain that causes neurons to not function properly.

Previous studies had shown a similar breakdown of the pathways.

Researchers hope the findings can lead to a new class of drugs that can target the gene rather than targeting the chemicals in the brain including serotonin, norepinephrine, and dopamine. It could revolutionize depression medications which have typically relied on selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors. (Š MMX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.) news powered by

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Table Food Treats Can Be Dangerous For Pets Reporting Cynthia Demos (CBS4) Pet owners often think feeding their dogs or cats something from the table is a treat, but that habit can do far more harm than good to those furry little friends.

Debbie Lynch loves to pamper her pooch.

She even tucks her dog, Roxie, under her arm when her Yorkie gets too tired.

“She likes her little treats. I give her treats a lot,” Lynch said.

However, sometimes our dogs eat things they shouldn’t.

“Unfortunately, he’s eaten everything from chocolate to roasts, but it’s never seemed to bother him,” Mary Butch said.

Dr. Mike Hutchinson said it’s hard to

believe what some people want to give their dogs. “‘I know we can’t give grapes and raisins and I can’t give them onions and raw garlic, but can I give them watermelon?

Can I give them cantaloupe? Can I give them…’ Don’t give them any of that stuff.

Just give them their dog food,” Dr. Hutchinson said.

Those foods can ferment inside a dog’s stomach creating alcohol, perhaps fatally.

Fat-laden grease from the grill can cause pancreatitis that could land your pet in the hospital for weeks, assuming they live.

“Another thing I used to see in the emergency clinic a lot is alcohol intoxication. Some people think it’s kind of comical to give the dog some beer or a taste of the drink. It’s just not a good idea.

Alcohol and dogs don’t mix,” Dr. Hutchinson said.

In recent years, Dr. Hutchinson has seen more dogs with food allergies.

“Whatever he gets off the floor, I can’t control that, but my husband has always been real opposed to that. Just from talking to vets and whatnot, they’ve said that those dogs are not healthy,” Christine Baileyc said.

Keep sugar-free gum and candy away from your pets as well. They contain xylitol, which can cause liver damage.

Butch’s family has had Buddy for eight years. She knows first-hand Brittany Spaniels are bird dogs with a nose for food.

“These commercial foods do a wonderful job. The majority of them do a wonderful job of providing our pets with an adequate diet,” Dr. Hutchinson said.

“It has to be in an oven or in a microwave.

If it is on the counter and everyone walks away, it’ll be gone,” Butch said.

Dr. Hutchinson admits he, like most pet owners, can’t ignore a dog begging for a bite.

“If you are going to give them some of the chicken off the barbeque, make sure the skin’s off it and give them the good chicken breast. Don’t give them all the skins and all the bad stuff and certainly don’t give them the bones. Steak bones, rib bones, chicken bones, they just don’t go well with dogs,” Dr. Hutchinson said.

For most pet owners, keep things basic by feeding them a high-quality food.

Another tip for those of you who bake, be very careful of leaving rising dough on the counter.

If a dog eats the raw dough, it can rise in their stomach causing dangerous bloating and could create alcohol from the yeast. (© MMX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.) news powered by

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Study: Alcohol More Lethal Than Crack Or Heroin Drinking rated the worst when measuring the damage to families and economic costs including health care, social services, and prison.

When drunk in excess, alcohol damages nearly all organ systems. It is also connected to higher death rates and is involved in a greater percentage of crime than most other drugs, including heroin.

LONDON (CBS4) Ñ British researchers have found that the most dangerous drug isn’t heroin, crack, or even oxycodone, it’s alcohol.

British experts evaluated substances including alcohol, cocaine, heroin, ecstasy and marijuana, ranking them based on how destructive they are to the individual who takes them and to society as a whole.

According to the study in the medical

journal Lancet, heroin, crack, and crystal meth were the most lethal to individuals.

For overall social effects, alcohol, heroin, and crack were the deadliest. Marijuana and LSD scored far lower than alcohol in the study.

Experts said alcohol scored so high because it is so widely used and has devastating consequences not only for drinkers but for those around them.

Still, before thinking it’s time to go back to the days of prohibition, researchers said governments should target problem drinkers, not the average person who enjoys a social drink.

Besides education, researchers said one way to help problem drinkers is to raise the price of alcohol so it isn’t as widely available. The study also said countries should reevaluate how they classify drugs. (© 2010 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.) news powered by

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New Treatment For Excessive Sweating Reporting Cynthia Demos MIAMI (CBS4) Ñ South Florida’s sweltering temperatures make everyone uncomfortably hot under the collar, but there are some who suffer more than others, no matter what the weather.

Now, there’s a new treatment that’s helping stop the sweat.

In an air-conditioned hair salon, stylist Miguel Angarita was still sweating profusely.

“I had just changed my shirt, I brought it in especially for today,” Angarita said.

“I’m stuck to wearing black, dark brown, and basically that’s it for work.”

For Angarita, underarm rings appeared in less than five minutes. He suffers from a condition called hyperhidrosis.

“Hyperhidrosis is a medical condition that essentially means excessive sweating,” Dr. Sharon Giese, a board-certified plastic surgeon, said.

Other treatments, like Botox injections, have been around for a while, but that can mean repeated doctor visits for about 20 injections under each arm.

The treatment is only effective for treating underarms. With a doctor’s diagnosis, some insurance carriers will cover part of the cost.

And that’s not just sweating from the heat or exercise. Hyperhidrosis is a medical condition that causes both physical and emotional discomfort.

Angarita opted for a new procedure which uses ultrasound, and a local anesthesia, to permanently destroy the sweat glands under the arms.

(© MMX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)

“As humans, we need to sweat to control our body temperature,” Dr. Giese said.

“So the diagnosis or definition of excessive sweating is when you’re having more sweat than is needed to control your body temperature.”

“The exciting thing about the procedure is it’s effective immediately, and people are bone dry immediately,” Dr. Geise said.

For most patients, it’s an effective treatment. Some may still have a small amount of sweating for a few weeks after surgery, but they can still count on a significant reduction.”

Angarita’s tried various anti-perspirants, including prescriptions, and other home remedies to keep his condition in-check.

“I mean, I have times where I have put napkins under my armpits, and I’m in the middle of a client,” Angarita said. “All of a sudden, a napkin comes out of my hand like a hand trick, like a card trick, and I’m like, ‘Whoops.’ I’m just like, ‘Where did that come from?’”

“I feel liberated. I’m going shopping tomorrow, I don’t care if I’m sore,” Angarita said. “I’m getting pink and yellow and green and everything that looks great with me.”

For Angarita, it’s a wardrobe investment to celebrate a more comfortable future.

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Dining In The Dark Concept Comes To South Beach restaurant staff offered diners blindfolds to join in the experience.

One dozen restaurants participated in this one-night-only event meant to raise awareness for the disabled.

Five restaurants will be turning out the lights completely including Catch 10 Seafood Bistro, Escopazzo, Indomania, Ola at the Sanctuary Hotel and The National Hotel.

MIAMI BEACH (CBS4) Ñ For those who ever wondered what daily life is like for blind people, that answer was revealed Wednesday when numerous South Beach restuarants invited guests to “dine in the dark.”

The concept is simple. On Wednesday, diners at select South Beach restaurants were served by waiters donning night vision goggles and diners were deprived of their sense of sight as owners turn off the house lights. In other cases,

“I just think it’s going to be fun for the diners and the staff and to get the whole experience of blind tasting. Sometimes you prejudge your meal when you look at it and most of our dishes include 30 to 60 ingredients,” said Katie Durgin, event coordinator for Ola. “It’s something different than your everyday dining experience.”

Events sponsored by Ability Explosion will be held throughout the week aimed

at raising awareness about the disabled.

For more information and a complete list of participating restaurants, click here. (© MMX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.) news powered by

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Seasonal Hiring Improving in Florida Reporting Al Sunshine MIAMI (CBS4) Ñ The latest n a t i o n a l unemployment numbers show for the third week in a row, claims for new unemployment benefits are dropping.

Last week, 434,000 people filed for new unemployment benefits and that’s down by about 21,000 people from the previous week.

Long-term unemployment is also down by 122,000 people nationwide, even though former workers are still collecting extended benefits.

Locally, there are definite signs of a slowlyimproving job market.

But the big question remains, is it just seasonal part-time work, or will it translate into permanent full time jobs that go beyond the end of the year?

College student Michelle Rico is still discouraged about how tough it is to find a job.

“It’s hard because there are so many other people out there looking for the same thing, asking for the same jiobs and doing the same interviews that you’re doing”, the MiamiDade College student says.

But the latest state job figures show more than 234,000 new “help-wanted “ ads were posted in Florida last month, and that’s the highest since the summer of 2008.

2,700 new positions were added to MiamiDade’s job market in September and that leads the state.

Some local job counselors say they’ve been hearing about an increasing number of parttime job openings since the end of the summer.

But that’s starting to change.

“Clients are calling for part time warehouse help for shipping but they are also now asking for permanent financial and management positions in their company”, says Odalys Girado of Doral’s RightHire Staffing.

So where are the new jobs coming from?

According to state figures from the Agency for Workforce Innovation, the top-growing fields are education-health with 39,200 new jobs, professional services with 15,400 positions and trade-related Ffelds with 13,600 new jobs.

Full-time hiring is slowly picking up again in some specialized fields like health care and professional services.

But “help wanted” signs for permanent positions are expected to remain scarce through at least the first half of next year according to some national labor analysts. (© MMX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.) news powered by

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NCAA Still Struggling With Athletes Grad Rates basketball and football, the numbers aren’t quite as stellar as the NCAA and member institutions would want.

The graduation rate for football players jumped from 66 percent in the last report to 69 percent for players who entered college in 2003-2004. In basketball, 66 percent also graduated, but that number didn’t increase year over year.

INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. (CBS4) Ñ The NCAA touted Wednesday that college athletes are graduating at record rates.

Overall, that’s true for all athletes, but when you look at the top schools in

Looking at teams in the current top 10 of the BCS, only two teams graduated more than 70 percent of their players, Texas Christian University and the University of Missouri. In the Top 25, Stanford and the University of Miami, FL, were the only two teams to graduate more than 80

percent of the players.

From a conference standpoint, the SEC reigns supreme on the football field. But in the classroom, the news wasn’t quite as good. Alabama and LSU were tops in the conference out of the BCS top 25.

Arkansas had the lowest graduation rate of 55 percent.

Looking at the top 25 schools from last year’s basketball season, Kansas was great on the court and had an excellent rate of 80 percent. Only Duke, Illinois, BYU, Butler, Richmond, and Villanova had higher graduation rates.

But, 6 of the teams in the final top 25

produced graduation rates of 50 percent or lower. Kentucky had stellar recruiting, but only graduated 44 percent of their basketball players. Kansas State had a rate of 40 percent, Temple was at 33 percent, and the University of Maryland came in dead last at 31 percent. (© 2010 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.) news powered by

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Electric Cars Coming To Showrooms This Fall There are incentives available for both the Volt and the Leaf, including a $7,500 tax credit. (© MMX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.) news powered by

MIAMI (CBS4) Ñ It’s been more than a decade since the last mass-produced electric vehicles hit the road. General Motors ended production of the EV-1 in 1996, but the company is staking it’s rebirth on a new electric car they hope will start a revolution of electric cars.

GM has hitched its proverbial wagon to the Chevrolet Volt. The new car is manufactured in Michigan, with a battery from South Korea and can reportedly travel up to 50 miles on a single charge.

After that, a gas engine kicks in to give the car a range of about 300 miles on a full-tank of gas.

For GM, a successful launch of the Volt is crucial to the long-term viability of General Motors.

“They were left behind on hybrids,” said hybrid expert Bradley Berman, “it can be their halo car for advanced, clean-tech, green vehicles.”

GM isn’t alone in trying to capitalize on the electric car market. Nissan’s Leaf will go on sale later in the year. The Leaf’s electric and will travel about 100 miles per charge, according to the manufacturer.

“This is just the beginning,” Berman said.

“We’re expecting, in the next couple of years, dozens of electric cars from every major automaker.”

But don’t expect to save a lot of money on the initial purchase. The innovation contained in the Chevrolet Volt will set you back about $41,000, while the Nissan Leaf will cost you $32,000.

November 5, 2010

53

The Adtimes Newspaper November 5, 2010 Edition

The Adtimes Newspaper

November 5, 2010

55

Horoscopes provided by www.starlightastrology.com

Leo

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Aries (Mar. 21-Apr. 20)

Libra (Sept. 23-Oct. 23)

You could be drawn to events that concern children. Do your own thing. Bring work home if it will help you get caught up. A series of misunderstandings may be at fault. Your luckiest events this month will occur on a Thursday.

Younger relatives may seek your advice. You can benefit financially if you put money or maintenance into your living quarters.

Knowledge can be acquired if you listen. Get rich quick schemes will not be successful. Your luckiest events this month will occur on a Saturday.

Scorpio (Oct. 24-Nov. 22)

Sagitarius (Nov. 23-Dec. 21)

Gemini (May 22-June 21)

Accommodate others but not before you do your own thing.

Do the proper safety checks before you go out. Your partner may push buttons that infuriate you. Be sure that you have all the facts before you take action. Past partners may try to come back into your life. Your luckiest events this month will occur on a Wednesday.

Don’t be too quick to judge your position or surroundings at work. Family outings or a quiet stroll through the park will lead to stimulating conversation and a closer bond. Travel for business will be advantageous. Unpredictable events will disrupt your routine. Your luckiest events this month will occur on a Saturday.

Take time to do something nice for yourself. Be cautious when dealing with foreigners. Be cautious not to get involved in office chatter that will cause problems for others. You can make progress professionally. Your luckiest events this month will occur on a Monday.

Taurus (Apr. 21-May 21)

Aquarius (Jan. 21-Feb. 18)

Capricorn (Dec. 22-Jan. 20)

Try not to overspend on luxury items. Travel will be on your mind, but you should be sure that you’ve got all your work up-todate. If you can get away for a vacation, do so. Try not to skirt issues if you think you’ll hurt some one’s feelings. Your luckiest events this month will occur on a Saturday.

This will not be the best day for communication or travel. Be prepared to overcome frustrations and obstacles at work. You will be in the mood for competition, and your ability to lead a group will bring you popularity. Keep your mind on your work and stay away from situations that could ruin your reputation. Your luckiest events this month will occur on a Tuesday.

Real estate investments will be profit able. Don’t jump too quickly if someone tries to make you join in on their crusade. Go out shopping this month. You will do best to entertain those you wish to close deals with.

Your luckiest events this month will occur on a Wednesday.

Pisces (Feb. 19-Mar. 20)

Virgo (Aug. 24-Sept. 22)

Cancer (June 22-July 22)

Tempers could boil if someone you work with has not been pulling their weight. Delve into worthwhile causes that will show results if you put in the effort. Talk to an older, established individual about your present situation. You will have a little more energy than usual. Your luckiest events this month will occur on a Monday.

Restrictions may be difficult for you to live with. You may have difficulties while traveling or problems dealing with close friends or relatives. Equilibrium in your romantic life is likely if you treat your partner well. It’s a good time for long awaited relationships to begin. Your luckiest events this month will occur on a Thursday.

You can learn a great deal more if you listen rather than rant and rave. Do your job and then spend some time with family; you’ll be glad you did. Your fun loving approach will be admired and appreciated by others. Someone you work with could have a personal interest in you. Your luckiest events this month will occur on a Tuesday.

Complete the grid so each row, column and 3x3 box Iin black borders) contains every digit 1 to 9.

October 15th Solution

3 5 9 4 8 2 6 7 1

1 7 4 6 5 9 2 8 3

6 8 2 3 1 7 5 9 4

4 6 5 8 3 1 9 2 7

8 2 3 9 7 5 1 4 6

9 1 7 2 4 6 8 3 5

7 3 6 1 9 8 4 5 2

2 4 8 5 6 3 7 1 9

5 9 1 7 2 4 3 6 8

4 6

6 5

7 3

5 2

2 1 4 9 1 6 5 3 9 7 3 6 4 8 7 2 4

Look For Our Next Edition: NOVEMBER 19, 2010

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THE ADTIMES

(July 23-Aug. 23) A friendship might suffer if money becomes an issue.

You may be frustrated by the way situations are being handled in your personal life.

You will be confused about the intentions of someone you work with. Realize that you don’t have to do everything yourself. Your luckiest events this month will occur on a Saturday.