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Baking is a science as well an art, and the key to better baking is understanding the chemical forces at play. Thankfully this graphic explains all of those things.

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Every month millions of people download and share movies, TV shows, music, software and ebooks without obtaining permission from copyright holders.

In most countries that activity is illegal, meaning that huge numbers of Internet users are breaking the law on a daily basis.

While there are plenty of criminals around, most illegal downloaders don’t equate their hobby to being tantamount to theft, despite huge efforts by copyright holders to paint it so. To most it just doesn’t ‘feel’ the same and now scientists in Australia think they may have discovered why.

A three-stage study published by Robert Eres, a PhD student within the Social Neuroscience lab led by Dr Pascal Molenberghs at the Monash Institute of Cognitive and Clinical Neurosciences, investigated why normally law-abiding people don’t have a problem with breaking laws which cover intangible items.

To that end the researchers investigated what happens inside the brains of people when they pirate intangible digital content versus stealing a physical item such as a handbag.

To begin, the researchers issued a questionnaire to discover whether people are more likely to “steal” non-tangible items (such as movie or music files) than their physical counterparts (DVDs and CDs). They found that their test subjects were indeed more likely to “steal” items that have no physical embodiment, no matter what their cost or associated risk of getting caught.

Next up the researchers carried out two sets of brain scans to try and understand why people are more happy to “steal” items that have no physical presence.

“The first brain imaging experiment revealed that people’s brains were much more active when trying to imagine intangible compared to tangible objects, which suggests people have more difficulty with representing intangible items,” the researchers write.

During the second set of scans, test subjects were asked to imagine themselves illegally or legally obtaining physical and digital versions of items such as movies, music, TV shows and software.

What the researchers found was that when imagining stealing an item, participants showed much more activation in the lateral orbital frontal cortex of their brains. Among other things, this part of the brain is associated with feelings of moral sensitivity and it was much more active when test subjects were thinking about stealing physical items than it was for intangible items such as digital files.

“The findings from the two brain imaging experiments suggest that people are processing the intangible and tangible objects very differently within their brains,” Mr Eres says.

Social Neuroscience lab head Dr Pascal Molenberghs says that this suggests that people have less problem breaking laws covering intangible items since they experience more difficulties imagining them so their brains feel less guilty when they “steal” them.

“Evolutionarily, we have interacted more with physical goods – particularly in respect to ownership so that is why we are hardwired to respect these more compared to intangible items such as ideas or software,” Dr Molenberghs says.

Finally, the researchers believe that the results of study have wider implications to other areas of online life, beyond Internet piracy.

“Overall, the data presented here suggests that the differences we see in moral behaviors (particularly concerning contexts of non-physical interactions; piracy, online surveillance and espionage) may be due to the differences in their neural representation and the discerning level of guilt felt for tangible items compared with intangible,” they conclude.

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and ANONYMOUS VPN services.

You can typically get a discount on big purchases like appliances or electronics, even at large retailers, just by haggling with the sales associate . And if you’re making that purchase online, expert deal hunter Kyle James suggests haggling via live chat instead.

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Over the weekend, I was so thoroughly ravaged by bug bites that I had trouble getting to sleep last night. More importantly though, Zika is here, and it’s as critical as ever to keep the mosquitos at bay. So please, let’s work together to identify the best bug spray on the market.

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Vaping’s wild west days are nearly over. Soon, e-cigarettes will be illegal for minors to buy, and ingredients will have to pass FDA approval. The new rules take effect in August, and also apply to hookah and cigars.

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It’s not always easy being a huge boat when it comes time to head into port, as a Carnival Cruise Lines ship found out while docking in Baltimore on Sunday. No one was hurt in the incident — unless you count the cars parked nearby.

The Carnival Pride cruise ship hit a gangway that’s used to unload and load passengers, sending it crashing down on three unoccupied parked vehicles, The Baltimore Sun reports.

No one was using the gangway when the ship struck it, officials said, adding that they weren’t too concerned after the incident once they learned no one was hurt.

Passengers reported feeling a thump, but most didn’t realize anything was amiss.

“We just thought that’s what happens when you dock,” one passenger told The Sun.

The cruise was returning from an eight-day trip to the Bahamas. Though it received minor damage, it managed to depart on Sunday for another cruise: according to MarineTraffic.com, the ship left Baltimore at about 11:30 last night.

Carnival cruise ship crashes into gangway at Baltimore port, causing it to collapse on three vehicles [The Baltimore Sun]

If you’re looking for a ride in Austin you’ll have one less option starting today, after Uber and Lyft suspended operations there over city requirements that include fingerprint-based background checks for all drivers.

The ride-hailing companies took their services offline within Austin city limits after voters put the kibosh on a ballot measure called Proposition 1 that would have overturned ridesharing regulations, reports the Austin American-Statesman.

Uber users receive a message alerting them of the shutdown when they try to request a ride: “No pickups as of May 9th. Uber not currently available in Austin. Due to regulations passed by City Council, Uber is no longer available within Austin city limits. We hope to resume operations under modern ridesharing regulations in the near future.”

A “contact City Council” link is included below the message, taking users to a contact page they can use to email all council members.

Lyft users get a similar message: “Due to City Council action, Lyft cannot operate in Austin. Contact your City Council member now to tell them you want Lyft,” with a button linked to the relevant contact page. Below the message is a “let them know” button.

UberEats is still running, however, with an announcement that food deliveries would continue within the city.

If you’re in need of a ride in the meantime, startup company Get Me — a Dallas company that offers rides as well as drivers who will bring items like coffee, dry cleaning, even lumber — remains in operation. Ahead of Uber and Lyft pulling the plug on Austin service, company executives said Get Me would try to swoop in and recruit any drivers left behind.

“We have a platform where we could actually — and we already have this in place and ready to go — sign up conceivably 5,000 drivers in a month, if not more,” Get Me chief experience officer Jonathan Laramy told the Texas Tribune last month, when Uber and Lyft pledged to suspend operations if Proposition 1 wasn’t adopted (h/t The Scoop).

We’re all very familiar with Google search results. Linked sites are shown in blue text (unless you’ve already clicked that link), and the text related to that link is in black. Now the tech giant is testing a move that has users confused: making all search results text black.

While Google has used red links in China, the revamped search result links are the company’s first real departure from their iconic blue links that came with the launch of the search engine.

9to5 Google reports that Google’s typical sea of blue unread links have transformed into black links for some users as part of an A/B test Google is reportedly performing on the back end of its network.

Not all users are seeing the change, and those who have seen the new links won’t see them each time they conduct a search on Google.

Previously, when a blue link was clicked, it would turn purple. The new system leaves these links black, a move some users say is confusing.

While the company hasn’t confirmed the tests, many users who have been targeted by the tests have posted screen grabs of the black links on Twitter, expressing their surprise with the new results.

Google testing black links instead of blue in search results [9to5 Google]

At the same time as their counterparts at the Justice Department are trying to circumvent smartphone security, the folks at the FCC and the Federal Trade Commission are talking to manufacturers about how to make these devices more secure.

In response to recently exposed cracks in wireless operating systems, like last summer’s Stagefright exploit that exposed hundreds of millions of Android phones to the possibility of being hacked, the FTC has sent requests for information [Sample PDF] to Apple and Google, along with other major wireless manufacturers — HTC, LG, Motorola Mobility, Samsung, Microsoft, and Blackberry — asking them for details on how and when they decide to patch vulnerabilities in their devices.

The orders sent to these companies seeks specific information regarding previous vulnerabilities for the devices and operating systems they make, and how those problems were ultimately resolved.

Because security updates — especially for Android devices — are pushed out not by phone manufacturers or OS developers, but by the wireless carriers, the FCC has written to these service providers, expressing concerns about any delays that might slow the rollout of a security update, and also that older devices may not be getting these patches because the carrier chooses to no longer support them.

There is also the issue of getting end-users to accept the security updates. Every second a device’s user delays that update, is a second their device continues to be vulnerable. The FCC wants to know if the carriers have any data on when customers ultimately get around to updating their phones, and what potential harm might be caused by devices that aren’t updated.

If you’ve already checked the list of products affected by a recent Pilgrim’s Pride recall involving chicken items possibly contaminated with bits of plastic, metal, wood, and rubber, you might want to check it again. The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety & Inspection service has expanded the nearly five million-pound recall list to include additional products. Check the full list here.

What would you do if you were on vacation abroad, and you found a skimmer attached to an ATM? Security consultant Matt South discovered a camera attachment on an ATM in Bali, Indonesia, and decided to bring it back to his hotel to take it apart. He found a plastic enclosure that contained a modified motion-activated spy camera, and four holes that turned out to be a USB port.

This system may have intercepted users’ card information through an additional skimmer on the data cable, or it may have captured card data using an almost undetectable deep insert skimmer inside the card slot. To capture users’ PINs, it used a pinhole camera on what appeared to be the hand guard on the ATM.

Have you ever wondered how skimmers with pinhole cameras work? Here’s some actual footage pulled from the camera, where you can see that the beeping sound when someone taps a button is useful toward deciphering the PIN.

North decided not to entangle himself with the local cops, but he did contact the bank that owned the ATM. He never heard anything back, but not long after his visit learned that police in Bali caught a man from Bulgaria and accused him of installing a similar skimmer on a supermarket ATM.

Check out his site if you’re interested in reverse-engineering scam technology: even if you aren’t a big techie, it’s useful to see what ATM parts are being remade into skimmers. Experts say that a useful way to detect exterior skimmers is to jiggle molded parts of the ATM like the card slot or hand guard to see if they come loose: parts that don’t belong may be attached with double-sided tape or even Velcro.

Can’t Hack a Hacker: Reverse Engineering a Discovered ATM Skimmer [Trust Foundry]
Crooks Go Deep With ‘Deep Insert’ Skimmers [Krebs on Security]

If you’re using PayPal to help fund yet some friend’s hot sauce Kickstarter project, listen up. Starting next month, PayPal’s Purchase Protection won’t cover the transactions made on crowdfunding platforms. 

PayPal sent emails to users last week notifying them that as of June 25 any transaction completed on a crowdfunding site like Indiegogo or Kickstarter will be made at the account holders’ own risk.

The upcoming user agreement change means that if a campaign or project goes bust or doesn’t deliver what was promised, PayPal users can’t dispute the charge to get their funds back.

The update was made as an amendment to Section 13.5 which covers ineligible items under the purchase protection system.

In all, three new items were added to the ineligible list:

• Payments on crowdfunding platforms
• Anything purchased from or an amount paid to a government agency
• Gambling, gaming and/or any other activity with an entry fee and a prize

Additionally, the company updated the length of time users must wait to contest a transaction. Buyers must now wait at least seven days to escalate a dispute to a claim regardless of the transaction amount.

A rep for PayPal tells Engadget that the crowdfunding change was made to reflect the potential risks associated with crowdfunding.

“In Australia, Brazil, Canada, Japan, United States and certain other countries, we have excluded payments made to crowdfunding campaigns from our buyer protection programs,” the company said in a statement. “This is consistent with the risks and uncertainties involved in contributing to crowdfunding campaigns, which do not guarantee a return for the investment made in these types of campaigns.”

The company said it would continue to work with “our crowdfunding platform partners to encourage fundraisers to communicate the risks involved in investing in their campaign to donors.”

PayPal stops protecting you when crowdfunding goes bust (updated) [Engadget]

In case you’re wondering whether the $5,600 Smart Hub refrigerator from Samsung is something that your family should buy, our colleagues down the hall at Consumer Reports are testing it separately as an electronic gadget and as an appliance. So far, they’ve found that the “smart” features are difficult to set up, the cameras that track what’s on your shelf don’t show everything and can easily be blocked by a tall bottle of orange juice, the speakers are lousy, and you can’t download additional apps. That’s just the electronics: they haven’t tested how it actually works as a refigerator yet. [Consumer Reports]

California’s Bay Area is probably emitting a heck of a lot of stinky garlic breath right now, after all the McDonald’s in the vicinity sold out of Gilroy’s Garlic Fries, a new test item added to the menu only last week.

McDonald’s reps confirmed to the SFGate.com that the chain has run out of garlic fries — and there won’t be any relief in sight for weeks.

“In less than two weeks, our small, four restaurant test of Gilroy Garlic Fries has been a huge success, and we are now experiencing a temporary shortage of supplies,” the statement read. “We are excited about how many people have visited our restaurants to try the fries, and we apologize for any inconvenience to our customers.”

McDonald’s Bay Area spread the news on Twitter as well:

Lest you San Franciscans be upset over the lack of garlic fries in the coming days, this could be a blessing in sadness’ clothing, and put the menu item one step closer to permanence. After all, McDonald’s said it would consider adding the fries to the menu at all 250 restaurants or so in the Bay Area if the initial four-location test was a success.

iTunes gift cards, NeverKink hoses, and a Hue accent light kick off Monday’s best deals.

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You might not know the name JAB Holding, but it could be behind your morning’s breakfast: the company already owns coffee brands like Peet’s Coffee & Tea, Caribou, and Keurig Green Mountain, and now it’s folding a doughnut brand into its ranks with a just-announced acquisition of Krispy Kreme.

Krispy Kreme agreed to let a unit of JAB Holding buy it for around $1.35 billion, offering $21 a share for the doughnut company. The move comes just a few months after Keurig joined the company for $13.9 billion.

The two companies said in a news release today that Krispy Kreme will continue to be independently operated from its headquarters in Winston-Salem, N.C.

JAB has been on a buying spree in the last few years, not just buying coffee but also snapping up other food, retail, and consumer product companies. Along with the coffee brands, JAB Holding owns Mondelez – the maker of Oreos and Trident gum, and counts OPI nail polish and Jimmy Choo brand of shoes in its roster of investments.

RIDGEDALE, Mo. (AP) — Instead of panicking, Johnny Morris saw an adventure worth digging into when a massive sinkhole swallowed tons of earth at his exquisite golf course deep in the Missouri Ozarks.

Experts urged the 68-year-old founder of outdoors megastore Bass Pro Shops to fill the hole at Top of the Rock Golf Course near Branson with clay and boulders and move on. But Morris has long been a cave enthusiast — even discovering one with spectacular formations two decades ago — and was intrigued by the possibility that an unknown cave system lay underneath.

To the self-made billionaire, unlocking a natural mystery by burrowing further underground is worth it, no matter the cost. Morris has long seen opportunity in unexpected places, and his instincts are seemingly good: Forbes lists him as the world’s 397th wealthiest person with an estimated net worth of $4.4 billion.

“People say I’m crazy but I’m happy about every nickel we’ve spent down here,” said Morris, who declined to say how much exactly.

Morris spent as much time fishing as studying in his college years. Eventually, he collected the best fishing tackle he could find from around the U.S. and sold it, along with homemade bait, from his dad’s Brown Derby Liquor store in Springfield, Missouri. He quickly developed a following in the Ozarks region — its lakes and rich streams a haven for anglers — created the Bass Pro Shop Catalog in 1974 and opened the first of his now 98 stores in Springfield seven years later.

Over the years, he’s developed a love for caves and discovered several himself, including one on property where the golf course now stands.

On a cold day in 1993, steam hung like smoke at the entrance of his new find as the warm cave air mixed with the January chill. He ventured inside with Jack Herschend, a fellow cave enthusiast whose family owns Silver Dollar City in Branson and other theme parks.

“Man, I was so excited to be potentially the first person ever in that cave,” Morris said of the cave on a property about a half-mile away from where the sinkhole emerged.

Morris dubbed it “John L’s Cave” — his middle initial is L — and a National Geographic photographer went inside and described it as “an underground chapel.”

“It’s a beautiful, pristine cave,” Morris said. “Just magical in there.”

Morris opened Top of the Rock Golf Course in 2014. A year later, after days of heavy rain, a sinkhole 40 feet deep and 70 feet wide opened along the large Tom Watson-designed putting green. No one was hurt, but golf course officials “were in a panic,” Morris recalled.

Government experts suggested the best course of action was to fill the hole and go back about normal business. But soon, water from a pond drained into the hole, and a worker who happened to be near John L’s Cave reported a torrent of water pouring through the cave.

“So I knew there was a connection,” Morris said. “And that’s when we started to dig.”

The dig uncovered tall limestone formations that Morris believes are further clues of caverns. Every day, one backhoe at the bottom of what is now a 100-foot-deep hole painstakingly moves dirt to a ledge, where a second backhoe removes it one scoop at a time.

The same circulating groundwater that causes caves to form can also cause sinkholes, said Doug Gouzie, a Missouri State University cave and sinkhole expert. The U.S. Geological Survey says states like Missouri, Florida and Texas that have large areas of underlying water-soluble rock are most prone to sinkholes. Missouri has nearly 16,000 sinkholes, including one encompassing 700 acres in mid-Missouri.

Gouzi concurs that there is likely a cave system beneath the golf course, but what isn’t known is how spectacular — or ordinary — that cave might be. For Morris, that’s part of the intrigue.

“Whether it’s just like a foxhole thing you have to crawl in or whether there’s big caverns, that’s the mystery,” he said, “and that’s the exciting part of all of this.”

The post Sinkhole spurs search for cave by Bass Pro Shops founder appeared first on WTOP.

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Rolland Gregg and his family have fought federal marijuana charges for more than three years, arguing that the roughly 70 marijuana plants investigators found on their Washington property were for their own medicinal use and fully complied with state law.

A federal jury last year convicted Gregg, his mother and his then-wife of growing 50 to 100 marijuana plants — amounts their attorney said are in compliance with state medical marijuana law. With prison sentences looming, they have now turned to a recent act of Congress that they say should have stopped the U.S. Department of Justice from prosecuting them because they were doing what their state allowed. Marijuana is illegal under federal law, and the DOJ disagrees with Gregg’s understanding of the new law.

“It’s been the hardest thing I’ve ever had to deal with in my life when you see the government coming down on you for simply trying to be healthy,” Gregg said.

A federal appeals court is expected to issue a ruling soon on the scope of the law that could pave the way to end or overturn at least six federal marijuana criminal prosecutions and convictions in California and Washington, including Gregg’s, and limit future prosecutions of medical marijuana users and dispensaries in eight Western states that allow them.

“The 9th Circuit is the biggest circuit, one that contains lots of marijuana states. If they were to say, ‘The federal government is prohibited from enforcing medical marijuana law,’ that would be huge,” said Sam Kamin, a professor at the University of Denver Sturm College of Law who studies marijuana regulation.

At issue is a Congressional amendment that said the DOJ could not use funding Congress allocated to it for 2015 and 2016 to prevent states that have legalized medical marijuana from implementing laws that permit its use, distribution and possession.

The amendment’s bipartisan sponsors — California Congressmen Sam Farr, D-Carmel, and Dana Rohrabacher, R-Costa Mesa,— say it prohibits the DOJ from prosecuting people who are complying with state medical marijuana laws. California and more than 20 other states have legalized marijuana for medical use. The drug, however, remains illegal under federal law.

The DOJ has interpreted the law more narrowly, saying it prevents prosecutors from trying to block state medical marijuana laws or charging state officials who implement them, yet permits U.S. attorneys to go after marijuana dispensaries and growers.

The 9th Circuit is expected to clarify the amendment in appeals by three sets of defendants who have cited it as grounds for judges to dismiss their marijuana charges.

Steve McIntosh, a dispensary owner in Los Angeles, had permits from local officials that show him in compliance with state law, according to his attorney, Marc Zilversmit. Under the Congressional amendment, the most the federal government can do is refer him to state authorities for prosecution, Zilversmit said.

Another defendant, marijuana grower Samuel Doyle, met Washington’s requirements for collective cannabis grows for medical marijuana patients, his attorney Douglas Hiatt said.

“He was growing medical marijuana for people who needed it, whether they could afford it or not,” Hiatt said.

The DOJ says McIntosh’s dispensary had ties to a street gang, and Doyle and his co-defendants did not meet the legal requirements for medical marijuana in Washington. Investigators found more than 550 plants growing on the Spokane property Doyle oversaw, and at least one of Doyle’s co-defendants indicated the marijuana was being sold, prosecutors said.

The DOJ did not respond to a request for further comment.

Gregg’s case is not among the ones the 9th Circuit is set to rule on. But he has raised the same argument as the other defendants, and the 9th Circuit has put his appeal on hold pending the outcome of the other appeals, his attorney Phil Telfeyan said.

“The feds think they have the power to override voters of the State of Washington and the will of Congress,” said Telfeyan, co-founder of the nonprofit civil rights group Equal Justice Under Law. “It’s up to the 9th Circuit to tell them, ‘Enough is enough. You can’t keep prosecuting people who are using medical marijuana for their needs.'”

The DOJ cited a county investigator’s testimony that he saw evidence of a for-profit marijuana growing operation on Gregg’s family property. The investigator said he found records that he believed were for drug sales, a scale and packaging material in the house as well as firearms, according to court documents.

Gregg, 34, who owns an alternative energy company, denied he sold marijuana, saying he used the drug to treat pain following a snowboarding accident that left him with a broken back and neck. His mother has rheumatoid arthritis and his then-wife had an eating disorder, he said, adding that all three had medical marijuana authorizations.

But the DOJ argued in his case and Doyle and McIntosh’s cases that the Rohrabacher-Farr amendment doesn’t bar it from prosecuting people violating federal drug law, even if they meet state law.

Alex Kreit, a marijuana law expert at Thomas Jefferson School of Law in San Diego, said the DOJ and marijuana defendants have strong arguments for their conflicting interpretations of the amendment.

“The (amendment’s) language is not a model of clarity,” he said. “It really is open to a number of different interpretations.”

The post Looming marijuana ruling could limit federal prosecutions appeared first on WTOP.

NEW YORK (AP) — Nursing homes are increasingly evicting their most challenging residents, advocates for the aged and disabled say, testing protections for some of society’s most vulnerable.

Those targeted for eviction are frequently poor and suffering from dementia, according to residents’ allies. They often put up little fight, their families unsure what to do. Removing them makes room for less labor-intensive and more profitable patients, critics of the tactic say, noting it can be shattering.

“It’s not just losing their home. It’s losing their whole community, it’s losing their familiar caregivers, it’s losing their roommate, it’s losing the people they sit with and have meals with,” said Alison Hirschel, an attorney who directs the Michigan Elder Justice Initiative and has fought evictions. “It’s completely devastating.”

Complaints and lawsuits across the U.S. point to a spike in evictions even as observers note available records only give a glimpse of the problem.

An Associated Press analysis of federal data from the Long-Term Care Ombudsman Program finds complaints about discharges and evictions are up about 57 percent since 2000. It was the top-reported grievance in 2014, with 11,331 such issues logged by ombudsmen, who work to resolve problems faced by residents of nursing homes, assisted living facilities and other adult-care settings.

“When they get tired of caring for the resident, they kick the resident out,” said Richard Mollot of the Long Term Care Community Coalition, a New York advocacy group.

That is often because the resident came to be regarded as undesirable — requiring a greater level of care, exhibiting dementia-induced signs of aggression, or having a family that complained repeatedly about treatment, advocates say. Federal law spells out rules on acceptable transfers, but the advocates say offending facilities routinely stretch permitted justifications for discharge. Even when families fight a move and win an appeal, some homes have disregarded rulings.

“It’s an epidemic,” said Sam Brooks, who has litigated evictions for Community Legal Services of Philadelphia. “It’s a hard thing to catch and it’s a hard thing to enforce.”

He reviewed three years of nursing home violations in Philadelphia and found only one case in which an operator was actually cited for an involuntary discharge, as evictions are known in long-term care parlance. The citation carried no fine, he said.

“It’s a risk they’re willing to take,” he said, “because no one penalizes them.”

The American Health Care Association, which represents nursing homes, defends the discharge process as lawful and necessary to remove residents who can’t be kept safe or who endanger the safety of others, and says processes are in place to ensure evictions aren’t done improperly.

Dr. David Gifford, a senior vice president with the group, said a national policy discussion is necessary because there is a growing number of individuals with complex, difficult-to-manage cases who outpace the current model of what a nursing home offers.

“There are times these individuals can’t be managed or they require so much staff attention to manage them that the other residents are endangered,” he said.

The numbers of both nursing homes and residents in the U.S. have decreased in recent years; about 1.4 million people occupy about 15,600 homes now. The overall number of complaints across a spectrum of issues has fallen precipitously in the past decade, though complaints about evictions are down only slightly from their high-water mark in 2007, the federal figures show. The share of complaints that evictions and discharges represent has steadily grown, holding the top spot since 2010.

Whatever a facility’s reasons are, involuntary discharges leave families reeling.

When John Wilson, 61, was refused readmission to St. John’s Pleasant Valley, a nursing home in Camarillo, California, the facility cited his family’s repeated complaints about his care, his son Jeremy Wilson said.

The family sued to get Wilson back into the nursing home, but even when they prevailed, the facility refused. The younger Wilson said his father, who has Lou Gehrig’s disease and is unable to speak or walk, was needlessly kept hospitalized for more than seven months until management changed and the home finally relented.

“What they look for and what they want is basically the family to drop Grandpa off at the front door and not be involved,” he said. “They don’t want anybody monitoring them, they don’t want anybody complaining. They just want to take care of that person until they die and collect that check.”

Dignity Health, the facility’s parent company, said it could not discuss the specifics of the case but that patient care and safety are the top priority.

Advocates say hospitalizations are a common time when facilities seek to purge residents, even though the Nursing Home Reform Act of 1987 guarantees Medicaid recipients’ beds must be held in their nursing homes during hospital stays of up to a week.

“You’ve got facilities that sometimes would prefer that they be rid of certain residents,” said Eric Carlson, an attorney who has contested evictions for the advocacy group Justice in Aging. But when they don’t have legal cause to move someone out, he said, sometimes “they try and take the easy way out and refuse to let the person back in.”

Sara Anderson had been through several transfers of her father, Bruce Anderson, before he ended up at Norwood Pines Alzheimer’s Care Center in Sacramento, California. Eventually, she said the facility began insisting it wasn’t an appropriate setting for him. After being hospitalized with pneumonia, he wasn’t allowed back, she said.

“They just rolled up the welcome mat when he was better,” she said.

She saw the action as retaliatory after her repeated complaints about the facility’s use of restraints on her 66-year-old father, who suffered a brain injury more than a decade ago during a cardiac arrest. When she appealed the facility’s action and won, she said it still refused to let him back. Her father remains in a hospital.

“It doesn’t matter if you win or lose it, there’s not enforcement of these hearings. We didn’t know that the hearing was pointless,” she said.

Norwood Pines did not return calls seeking comment.

Federal law allows unrequested transfers of residents for a handful of reasons: the facility’s closure; failure to pay; risk posed to the health and safety of others; improvement in the resident’s condition to the point of no longer needing the home’s services; or because the facility can no longer meet the person’s needs.

Though that final category is often cited in evictions, advocates dispute how often it fits.

“The majority of the time, it’s because the resident is considered difficult,” said Tony Chicotel, an attorney for California Advocates for Nursing Home Reform, which represented Wilson and Anderson. “Federal law is pretty clear: They’re all required to be able to provide comprehensive, basic care. Every nursing home that takes Medicare or Medicaid funding should be very good or great at providing dementia care.”

Chicotel said involuntary discharges are almost entirely focused on Medicaid beneficiaries and that economics sometimes play a role in the ousters. Rather than a long-term Medicaid patient, many facilities would prefer to fill a bed with a private-pay resident or a short-term rehabilitation patient, whose care typically brings a far higher reimbursement rate under Medicare.

Vicki Becker of Sammamish, Washington, said she began receiving pressure from administrators at her mother’s assisted living facility about two years ago to have the then-94-year-old transferred elsewhere. For the first six years she had lived in the home, she had paid more than $5,000 monthly. It was only after Becker’s mother exhausted her savings and went on Medicaid that the facility initiated discharge proceedings, making her wonder if money was a factor.

Becker hired a lawyer and enlisted the help of the local ombudsman to fight the eviction. Though the facility eventually dropped the discharge case, it left her feeling as if her mother’s rights had been violated.

“It was her home,” she said. “What an awful thing to do to somebody.”

Glenn Hotchkiss of Temperance, Michigan, unsuccessfully fought the transfer of his mother, a dementia patient, from a nearby home to one about 35 minutes away. He’s able to visit far less often because of the distance.

“It’s pretty much an emotional roller coaster,” he said. “If you have money, you don’t get involuntary transfers.”

Manpower levels are another factor, according to Charlene Harrington, a University of California-San Francisco professor whose research has focused on nursing homes.

“These worst homes are allowed to have staffing at just dangerously low levels,” she said. “If they had staffing at the level that’s recommended, they wouldn’t be having problems with these patients.”

But Gifford of the industry association said the most difficult patients present nursing homes with “a very tricky balancing act” between meeting their needs and denying care to other residents.

“The question becomes, how much do you expect every home to meet every single need in the country out there,” he said.

Whatever the explanation, the eviction process can be harrowing.

Penny Monroe’s 89-year-old mother came to love her nursing home in Okemos, Michigan, enjoying ceramics classes, trips to the mall and luncheons. News of an impending eviction gave her panic attacks. “She cried and she told them, ‘If you send me home, I’m going to die,'” Monroe said. “She was afraid.”

Even months after it was resolved, she remains uneasy that she could be thrown out.

Richard Danford of the Center for Independence of the Disabled, who directs the New York City Long Term Care Ombudsman Program, said even small changes can be hard on the most fragile residents, and so an eviction can be devastating.

“It can be traumatic to move a person from one room to another in the same facility, never mind a whole new place,” he said. “The most common reaction is a sense of panic.”

Agyemang Bediako knows the feeling well. After breaking both legs in a jump from a burning building, he found himself recovering at a New York City nursing home. He said he was still undergoing rehabilitation when the facility told him it would be discharging him to a homeless shelter.

“I was panicked,” he said, describing his thoughts before an ombudsman successfully appealed his case: “What am I going to do? I couldn’t even eat. I became depressed. I wanted to kill myself.”

___

Sedensky can be reached at msedensky@ap.org or https://twitter.com/sedensky

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FLORENCE, Ala. (AP) — A judge has refused to lower the bond of a man accused of abusing children at a traveling petting zoo in Alabama.

The Times Daily (http://bit.ly/1rH3MAc ) reported Saturday that Lauderdale County District Judge Carole Medley declined to reduce bond for 48-year-old Daryl V. Raymond Jr. of Stockholm, Maine. Raymond is jailed on $300,000 bond.

Raymond worked with the Jungle Safari petting zoo. He was arrested last week and charged with inappropriately touching young girls. He has denied the allegations. The petting zoo had set up operations at a shopping center in Florence.

Police say the victims are all girls between the ages of 3 and 5.

Raymond’s court-appointed attorney, Cody Hand, had asked for the reduced bond because Raymond has limited funds.

The post Judge denies reduced bond for petting zoo worker appeared first on WTOP.

BALTIMORE (AP) — For 126 years, the annual yearbook of the Johns Hopkins University — called, at different times, the Debutante, the Hopkinsian and, most enduringly, the Hullabaloo — has documented a range of life on campus and beyond: the great tug-of-war team of 1892 and protests against the Vietnam War, the Class Yell and the deaths of the school’s graduates in World War II.

This year, for the first time in decades, graduating seniors won’t have a yearbook to buy. Hopkins and colleges around the state and country are phasing out yearbooks in an age when students who already document their experiences themselves — and can access their memories — on social media are less interested in shelling out $100 or more for the hard copy.

Towson University published its last yearbook in 2009. Morgan State University is scaling back to print-on-demand. The University of Maryland, Baltimore County printed its last in 1986.

Nationwide, the University of Virginia, Wesleyan and Purdue are among the many that have discontinued yearbooks in recent years. Virginia revived its book, Corks & Curls, last year.

Kelley Callaway, president of the College Media Association and yearbook adviser at Rice University in Texas, said yearbooks appear to be shrinking nationally, as the number of yearbook advisers with whom she stays in touch has shrunk in recent years. The association plans to start tracking the phenomenon.

They’re not all going away, Callaway said, but “they’re definitely morphing and changing.”

When universities stop publishing their yearbooks, they lose not only a once-cherished campus tradition, but also future historical records.

“I don’t know how people will replace this resource,” said James Stimpert, a senior reference archivist for Johns Hopkins’ Sheridan Libraries. “Even though (the Hullabaloo) was a shell of its former self in recent years, it still was something. It had some photographs, it had some documentation of student clubs and other activities. So going forward, I don’t know how that is going to be documented.”

Change has long been coming, Callaway said.

While yearbook staffs in the past featured portraits of all the students, she said, some of today’s colleges have so many students that they’re scaling down the portraits to focus more on pictures of campus life or sports.

Some are shrinking the number of pages to cut down on costs. While some seniors might not be thinking about the yearbook as they prepare for graduation, Callaway said, they might come to regret not having one decades down the line.

“There’s a lot of prestige to having an old yearbook and having something that is cherished in a way that newspapers and magazines won’t be,” she said. “You’re just losing that end-of-the-road piece, especially for seniors.”

At Johns Hopkins, the earliest editions of the yearbook were filled with flowery prose and poems written by the editors.

Smaller classes made it possible for the editors to write a detailed biography of each student — most of which were intended to be humorous. One laid-back Johns Hopkins student in 1928 was described as having “a most happy college career without having become embroiled to any great extent in extracurricular activities or intensive study.”

Hullabaloo adviser Joan Freedman struggled last year to find students interested in putting together the yearbook. The last edition sold 228 copies at $75 apiece.

“I can’t put my finger on when it became a problem,” Freedman said. “We just tried to sustain it as long as we could. Students will make time for things that they’re passionate about, and this just wasn’t one of them.”

Coppin State University has a different formula for its yearbook. Unlike yearbooks assembled by students, the Eagle has an adviser who compiles the bulk of the book himself. It’s given free to all graduating seniors.

“There’s something about having a yearbook that you can’t replace with social media,” adviser Jason Goode said.

Ryan Almon, the co-owner of Balfour Yearbooks’ Houston office, said three universities in the Houston area have dropped their books in recent years.

The industry is trying to provide the schools with resources and training for producing yearbooks, he said. It’s also trying to pitch reluctant students and advisers on the value of them.

“It’s definitely been a challenge and a battle to make sure that the yearbook is still relevant on campuses,” Almon said. “I think that’s what campuses are struggling with, is trying to convince students in the social media age that the instant information that they’re able to access now on their phones will not live and reside forever.

“It remains to be seen whether we can win the battle. Obviously, on some campuses, we’ve lost.”

At Towson University, archivists have been developing ways of documenting campus life since the Tower Echoes ceased publication in 2009.

They’re asking student groups to submit fliers, meeting minutes and more to be kept in the library’s collections, and trying to obtain software that can automatically archive students’ social media postings.

“Nowadays, they’re leaving their legacy and their mark in other ways,” said Ashley Todd-Diaz, head of Towson’s special collections and university archives. “They’re in social media, they’re creating more events on campus.

“It’s been kind of a challenge for the archivists to meet them where they are and figure out how we can still document their experience without something like a yearbook.”

The University of Maryland yearbook dates to 1897, when the school was the Maryland Agricultural College and the yearbook was called the Reveille.

The university has digitized many of its yearbooks and put them online. Alexandra Green, editor of the 2015-2016 edition, said the yearbook is still going strong.

The early Reveille concerned itself with nicknames, inside jokes and the male students’ alleged prowess with the ladies. The oldest books also featured poetry written by the editors and hand-drawn cartoons and sketches.

In 1935, it changed its name to the Terrapin, which is how it has been known since — except in 1971 and 1972, when it was called “Us.”

The 1971 edition blasted authority figures in the federal government and at the university, called for the end of the Vietnam War and chronicled campus unrest.

It included pictures of police appearing to beat student protesters. Editors wrote that the campus was “infiltrated with state and federal undercover agents” and that “marijuana users are persecuted for a personal freedom which has yet to be proven harmful.”

The 1972 yearbook had virtually no text at all — just page after page of uncaptioned photographs of empty classrooms, a dirty urinal and unsmiling students.

Among the items that could have been lost to history, if not for the yearbook, were the class yells, to be hollered at campus events.

In 1897, the Maryland Agricultural College had several. One started off “Hippity huss! Hippity huss! What the ____ is the matter with us?” (The Reveille offers no guidance on how to fill in the blank.)

Johns Hopkins’ class yell in 1892 was “Rah! Rah! Black! Rah! Rah! Blue!”

Anne Turkos, the university archivist at College Park, said the yearbook played a larger role in documenting events in the early years because there was no student newspaper until 1910.

As the campus has grown from a small agricultural school founded in 1856 to the state’s flagship university with 27,000 undergraduate students, it has become more difficult to document clubs and individual students.

“My impression here is that people relate more to their (departmental) college rather than the overall university, or a particular group that they’re involved in,” she said. “With this being such a large institution, having a yearbook that covers the entire institution may not be as effective.”

Many students are opting against having their pictures taken for the yearbook, Turkos said.

“When people come and say, ‘Can we see (Google co-founder) Sergey Brin’s picture in the yearbook?’ — he didn’t get his picture taken,” she said.

Green, the Terrapin editor, said there is still a great deal of interest in the yearbook, even though she has had to tell many people that it still existed.

Green, a junior from Sparks, said it’s important to keep a physical memento of the past.

“I think people will hopefully eventually realize that a yearbook isn’t the same as if you have it online,” Green said. “The great thing about the yearbook is it’s been around for so long. I can look at my grandma’s high school yearbook from 1940 — the hairstyles and activities have changed, but the premise is pretty much the same.”

___

Information from: The Baltimore Sun, http://www.baltimoresun.com

The post As yearbooks die, colleges lose a link to the past appeared first on WTOP.

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PHILADELPHIA (AP) — The pain and passion over the Penn State sexual abuse scandal were reignited with new allegations that Joe Paterno was told Jerry Sandusky sexually abused a child as early as 1976 and that two assistant coaches witnessed the abuse of other children.

The allegations were revealed in an order this week by Philadelphia Judge Gary Glazer in litigation between an insurance company and Penn State.

The insurers alleged that a boy told the longtime Penn State football coach in 1976 that he had been molested by Sandusky, who was an assistant coach. The order also cited reports by unnamed assistant coaches who said they witnessed inappropriate contact between Sandusky and children, according to Pennlive.com. Glazer wrote there was “no evidence that reports of these incidents ever went further up the chain of command at PSU.”

Sue Paterno defended her husband’s legacy and said the family had no knowledge of new claims.

“It is time to end this endless process of character assassination by accusation,” she said in a letter read Friday to Penn State’s board of trustees. She asked board members to seek the truth “in the spirit of our love for Penn State and our duty to the victims.”

The allegations were made in victim depositions taken in the insurance case, but those depositions remain under seal, Pennlive.com reported.

In 2001, Paterno told high-ranking university officials one of his assistant coaches reported seeing Sandusky acting inappropriately with a child in a team shower. In 2011, Paterno told a grand jury he did not know of any other incidents involving Sandusky, who retired from Penn State in 1999.

Paterno was fired following Sandusky’s November 2011 arrest and died of lung cancer in January 2012.

Sandusky is serving a decadeslong prison sentence for his conviction in the sexual abuse of 10 children. The university has paid more than $90 million to settle 32 civil claims involving Sandusky. How far back the acts occurred has not been made public.

In his ruling, Glazer found that Penn State had to assume the costs of settlements stemming from claims over most of the 1990s because its insurance policies did not cover abuse or molestation.

When Sandusky abused children at his home or at events held by the children’s charity he started, “he was still a PSU assistant coach and professor, and clothed in the glory associated with those titles, particularly in the eyes of impressionable children,” Glazer wrote.

“By cloaking him with a title that enabled him to perpetuate his crimes, PSU must assume some responsibility for what he did both on and off campus,” he said.

Penn State said in a statement late Friday it has “no records from the time to help evaluate the claims,” noting Paterno could not defend himself.

Tom Kline, a lawyer who settled an abuse allegation with Penn State, said he and other lawyers were aware of claims dating back to the ’70s. He said disclosure of the 1976 allegation “provides one more link in the chain which has been repeatedly denied by those who refuse to come to terms with the tragic reality here.”

But another plaintiff’s lawyer, Michael Boni, urged caution.

“The headlines of these stories is Paterno knew of Sandusky’s molestation in the ’70s — ’76 or ’77. I’m unaware of direct, irrefutable evidence that that’s the case,” Boni said. “Believe me, I’m the last person to defend the guy, but I am the first person to believe in our justice system. And I think you need more than anecdotal evidence or speculative evidence.”

The coach’s son Scott Paterno called the 1976 claim “bunk,” tweeting Friday that “it would be great if everyone waited to see the substance of the allegation before they assume it’s true. Because it’s not.”

Defense attorney Al Lindsay said after speaking with Sandusky that his client denied that any of the incidents described in the court ruling occurred. Sandusky also maintained his innocence throughout the trial.

Paterno was not charged with any crime, and his family is pursuing a lawsuit against the NCAA for commercial disparagement.

Three university officials await trial on criminal charges for their handling of the Sandusky scandal.

___

Scolforo reported from Harrisburg.

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HONOLULU (AP) — A Hawaii man remained jailed on suspicion of three murders Friday after officers responding to a home disturbance arrived just as he was driving away from the scene with blood dripping from the trunk of his car.

Officers pulled over and arrested John Ali Hoffman after spotting him leaving the house and driving away in a car with its headlights off and a gun on the front seat about 1:30 a.m. Friday, police said. The dripping blood led officers to a woman’s body stuffed in the trunk and two dead children inside the house in a subdivision in the rural Puna district, police said.

Though his relationship to the victims wasn’t clear, it “looks like they were all living in the same house,” police Capt. Robert Wagner said.

A relative said Hoffman had a wife and two young children — a boy and a girl.

Police were trying to identify the victims.

Hoffman’s sister-in-law, Marie Hoffman, was shocked to hear the allegations.

“That don’t sound right,” she said several times in a phone interview from Minneapolis.

She said she did not know much about John Hoffman’s wife but that he is originally from St. Louis and moved to Hawaii about 20 years ago.

Marie Hoffman, who is married to his brother, described John Hoffman as the kind of man who takes care of people, especially children.

“He’s stern, but he’s cool,” she said.

A man who lives next door to Hoffman told the Hawaii Tribune-Herald that he occasionally heard arguments coming from the home.

“I do know they were not a happy couple over there,” Tim Mullins told the newspaper. “They would argue and fight, and I would hear it from time to time. But before it got too bad, it would quiet out.”

Other residents said they did not know anyone with Hoffman’s name in the subdivision, which has about 800 to 900 homes on 1-acre or larger lots.

Police didn’t disclose the exact address, but Hoffman’s name is not listed as a property owner, said Richard Robbins, a Leilani Community Association board member. Robbins, who is in charge of enforcing association rules, said he has not heard of Hoffman.

Like much of the Puna district, the homes use rainwater catchment tanks and cesspools or septic tanks. A lot of residents rely on solar power and depending on the carrier, cellphone reception can be spotty, Robbins said.

It is the only Big Island subdivision with fully paved roads, spanning 21 miles, he said.

A triple homicide is rare, not only for the area, but for the entire island, police said.

“I can’t remember having one before,” Wagner, the police captain said. “It’s definitely unique.”

Some residents of the subdivision agreed.

“We have crime on the Big Island just like anyplace else,” said resident John Rivera, who also did not know Hoffman. “But this is surprising, really surprising.”

___

Follow Jennifer Sinco Kelleher at http://www.twitter.com/JenHapa . Her work can be found at http://bigstory.ap.org/content/jennifer-sinco-kelleher .

The post Police find dead woman in trunk, 2 juveniles in Hawaii home appeared first on WTOP.

(PROVO, Utah) — A California man said he and his family recently felt “discriminated against” after they were asked to leave an Allegiant Air flight because of their son’s severe peanut allergy.

Kyson Dana, 28, told ABC News the incident happened on Monday when he, his wife Sara Dana and their 1-year-old son Theo boarded an Allegiant Air plane at Provo Municipal Airport in Utah that was headed to San Francisco.

As they were boarding, Sara, 28, told a flight attendant Theo had a severe peanut allergy and asked if “they could make any small accommodations such as not serving peanuts during the flight,” Kyson said. He added that he and his wife carried an EpiPen just in case of an emergency and reiterated that “the airline wasn’t accountable for anything that could happen.”

Allegiant says on its website that the airline “does not guarantee an allergen-free flight” but that it “will attempt to re-seat a passenger affected by an allergy in an effort to minimize the passenger’s exposure to the allergen.”

Though one flight attendant “was very rude” and urged the family not to fly, a second flight attendant was “nice and helpful” and actually asked people to avoid eating peanuts, according to Kyson.

But a third flight attendant said the pilot wanted them “removed from the plane,” Kyson said. He and his wife were “rushed out” and a request to speak to the pilot was refused, Kyson noted.

Though Allegiant offered to book another flight for the family, it was scheduled to leave five days later, Kyson said. However, an airport employee who “felt bad” for the family, “pulled some strings” and got them onto an American Airlines flight the same day free of charge, Kyson said.

Allegiant has since sent the family an apology email that Kyson forwarded to ABC News Friday.

“On behalf of the entire Allegiant team, please allow me to offer my sincere apology for the inconveniences this incident has caused for you and your family,” the email read. “We regret that you were denied boarding due to any misunderstanding regarding the severity of your child’s peanut allergy. I realize that medical issues can be highly challenging. We just wanted to make sure you arrived home safely.”

Allegiant also sent the following statement to ABC News: “Upon boarding flight 1005 on May 2, 2016, the Dana family indicated to our flight crew that their son had a severe peanut allergy. The flight crew then contacted a third party organization that advises Allegiant and other carriers when making decisions about the safety of passengers with potential medical issues onboard an aircraft. The third party organization, which includes on-call medical doctors available to provide guidance, advised that the family not fly on that specific flight. Allegiant provided the family with airline tickets on another carrier, and they arrived at their destination later that night.”

Kyson said he hopes his family’s story will help start a larger discussion about how airlines treat people with allergies.

Copyright © 2016, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.

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DAYTON, Ohio (AP) — Authorities say the step-grandmother of an infant killed in a 2014 dog attack has been found guilty in the boy’s death.

A prosecutor in Ohio says 38-year-old Kimiko Hardy was convicted Friday. The 7-month-old boy, from Indiana, was killed at Hardy’s Dayton home in July 2014 after he was attacked by her pit bull mix, Busa.

The coroner initially ruled the death an accident. However, investigators later determined Hardy knew the dog was dangerous.

Authorities say the dog charged a letter carrier, causing the postal service to refuse delivery to her address. Then, weeks before the killing, it bit and attacked another dog in front of Hardy’s home.

Hardy will be sentenced June 9. She was convicted on counts including involuntary manslaughter, endangering children and failure to restrain a vicious dog.

The post Step-grandmother found guilty in dog attack that killed baby appeared first on WTOP.

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We all know you'd forgive your pet. You'd have no choice. You love that pet. But wouldn't it just SUCK to wake up on your birthday and find that all your presents had been eaten? Even if you could laugh about it later.

Help your dog control its animal nature. Put the good stuff on one side and your dog on the other. Set up a pet gate and endure a little bit of whining and you can enjoy a LOT of birthday after.

Which will be good. And it won't end with someone locking someone else into the garage while swearing.

In the Box:

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• (1) Super Wide Metal Walk Through Pet Gate 0930PW

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• (1) Home Accent Easy Close Gate in New Zealand Pine 1130DS