pileofcrapola

A lot of recipes recommend you flour your hands to keep yeasty dough from clinging to your fingers, but that can end up inadvertently adding a lot of extra flour into your recipe. A little oil on your hands can work just as well.

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Removing snow from your driveway and footpaths can be a major hassle in the winter. With the right approach, however, you can handle it quickly and safely.

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I am not a loyal banking customer. Over the past 5 or 6 years, I’ve switched banks a few times because of fees, poor customer service, or just better options elsewhere. I regret nothing. If you’re thinking about leaving your bank, here are some signs it may be time to bite the bullet.

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Building your own cat tree means you can customize it for your home and for your cat. Here’s a compact one you can make from Ikea Lack side tables for less than most cat trees of similar size.

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Solo folks face unique challenges for eating healthy, beyond a lack of cooking skills. It’s less fun to cook and eat alone, and very little food comes in packs of one. The trick is to muster up the will to cook once a week so you can enjoy healthy meals for the next few days.

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It’s not easy to ask for more money. And because it’s so intimidating, a lot of people end up earning much less than they’re worth. Over time, not asking for a raise can cost you hundreds of thousands of dollars . Knowing the classic traits of an “underearner” can help you understand where you might be going wrong.

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FRANKFORT, Ky. (AP) — Kentucky Republican Gov. Matt Bevin ordered the state to prepare new marriage licenses that do not include the names of county clerks in an attempt to protect the religious beliefs of clerk Kim Davis and other local elected officials.

The executive order comes after Davis, the Rowan County clerk, spent five days in jail for refusing to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. Davis said she could not issue the licenses because they had her name on them.

Bevin said wanted to “ensure that the sincerely held religious beliefs of all Kentuckians are honored.” It was one of five executive orders he issued Tuesday, the first of his administration, that mostly revised or suspended recent actions by former Democratic Gov. Steve Beshear.

“Today, I took action to uphold several commitments I made during my campaign so that we can implement real solutions that will help the people of Kentucky,” Bevin said in a news release.

Fayette County Clerk Don Blevins, whose office serves the state’s second largest city, Lexington, said he believes Bevin exceeded his authority. He sees marriage licenses as a civil transaction and believes the clerk’s names should remain on them for the historical record, he said.

“Hundreds of years from now, these licenses will be used by genealogists and researchers. Having the names of all the parties involves is very important when you’re talking about a permanent record, for purely practical purposes,” he said. “I’m not pleased at all by this. This has gotten out of hand.”

Greg Stumbo, the Democratic speaker of the Kentucky House of Representatives, applauded Bevin for “finding a way to balance the law and the concerns (of) county clerks.”

It’s unclear how Bevin’s order will affect a federal lawsuit brought by four couples against Davis. One of Davis’ deputy clerks has been issuing altered marriage licenses to all eligible couples since September. They do not include Davis’ name or the name of the county.

The American Civil Liberties Union, which represents the four couples, has asked U.S. District Judge David Bunning to order Davis to reissue the licenses. Bunning has not made a decision yet.

Davis and her supporters had asked Beshear to issue a similar executive order. Beshear had refused, arguing only the state legislature had the authority to change the state law requiring the contents of the marriage license form.

“Gov. Bevin’s executive action has added to the cloud of uncertainty that hangs over marriage licensing in Kentucky,” William Sharp, legal director for the ACLU of Kentucky, said in a news release.

Bevin also took aim at two of Democrats’ proudest moments this year: raising the minimum wage for some state workers and automatically restoring the voting rights of some nonviolent convicted felons who had completed their sentences.

Bevin revised a previous order from Beshear that raised the minimum wage for most state workers to $10.10 per hour. That action went into effect on July 1 and impacted about 800 people at a cost to taxpayers of $1.6 million. Bevin’s order said state agencies and vendors do not have to pay the higher wage, but added it would not affect people who have already received a raise.

“Really? Out of the things you could have done, since you have been elected that’s something you choose to come right out of the gate with? Come on,” said David Smith, executive director of the Kentucky State Employees Association.

Before leaving office, Beshear issued an executive order automatically restoring the voting rights of convicted felons who had completed their sentences and did not have any pending charges or restitution orders. Bevin suspended that order, saying felons would have to apply to his office on a case by case basis. The order does not affect anyone who has already had their rights restored.

Mantell Stevens lost his right to vote in 2001. He pleaded guilty to a felony drug possession charge, spent 30 days in jail and another three years on probation.

“I’m very upset, I’m hurt,” he said when he learned of Bevin’s order. “I don’t know why anybody in their right mind wouldn’t want anybody to have the right to vote. What is it that is so bad about us having the right to vote?”

___

Galofaro reported from Louisville.

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MONTEREY, Calif. (AP) — There’s another reason to rejoice this holiday season: the birth of a wild sea otter at a California aquarium.

The Monterey Bay Aquarium posted news of the birth online this weekend, along with adorable photos of the fuzzy brown pup playing with mom.

For several days, the adult otter had been taking shelter in the aquarium’s open-ocean tide pool, perhaps seeking respite from the weekend’s wintry storms. Staffers were worried because healthy otters don’t visit the pool that often.

The mystery was solved Sunday, when staff members came to work to see a newborn on the sea otter’s belly, umbilical cord still attached.

“It was like, ‘Wow,'” aquarium spokesman Hank Armstrong said Tuesday. “It was pretty cool.”

Mom has been grooming her baby, fluffing the pup’s thick pelt to keep the newborn warm and able to float.

Armstrong said the mother has left the protected pool area once or twice, always with the pup.

“Usually, if she has to dive for clams or abalone or whatever, she’ll leave the pup floating on the surface,” he said.

Sea otters were once hunted to near extinction, the aquarium said. The otter population has bounced back to steady levels in the Monterey Bay area, with roughly 3,000 animals.

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RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — Police say a truck crash stranded thousands of piglets and drivers on a North Carolina highway.

Authorities say the tractor-trailer carrying more than 2,000 piglets overturned Tuesday on Interstate 40 south of downtown Raleigh, causing damage that triggered traffic problems for hours. They said a number of pigs died, but an exact figure wasn’t available.

The police report said the truck was headed west on I-40 about 10:30 a.m. when a car changed lanes in front of it, leading to a collision. According to the report, the tractor-trailer went off the interstate, across an access ramp and hit a guardrail, causing the rig to overturn.

The truck was removed from the scene, but officials said some closures would stay in effect into Tuesday night as road repairs continued.

No serious injuries were reported.

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COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — A gorilla that officials say is the oldest known gorilla living in a zoo has celebrated her 59th birthday with a party in Ohio.

The western lowland gorilla named Colo (KOH’-loh) celebrated her birthday on Tuesday at the Columbus Zoo with toys and an ice cake containing treats such as clementines and tomatoes frozen inside. The party was streamed online so viewers could see Colo’s habitat draped with colorful construction paper chains and watch zoo staff and visitors serenade her.

Colo was born at the Columbus Zoo in 1956 and has more than two dozen descendants at zoos across the country.

Zoo officials say the median life expectancy for female gorillas living in a zoo is about 37 years.

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DENVER (AP) — A Denver man who spent more than a quarter-century in prison for an attack he denies committing walked free Tuesday, locking arms with his wife as his tearful children applauded and his grandkids embraced a man they had never met.

Clarence Moses-EL, 60, had just posted a $50,000 bond that a judge required for his freedom after she overturned his 1988 conviction on rape and assault charges and found that he would likely be acquitted if his case went to trial again. Moses-EL was convicted after the victim identified him, saying his face came to her in a dream.

When police initially asked her who assaulted her, she named another man, who later confessed to having sex with her at the same time that night.

Outside the jail Tuesday, Moses-EL wore a black suit and tie as he stood beside his wife, Stephanie Burke, moments after hugging three of his 12 grandchildren for the first time.

Surrounded by his tearful children, he took a deep breath of the crisp late afternoon air.

“This is the moment of my life, right here,” Moses-EL told reporters. “I’m at a loss for words. I just want to get home to my family.”

Moses-EL has long maintained his innocence, and his case inspired legislation requiring preservation of DNA evidence in major felony cases for a defendant’s lifetime after police threw out body swabs and the victim’s clothing. Supporters posted bond for his release after Moses-EL was transferred from the prison where he was housed for decades.

“I waited a long time for this,” said Moses-EL, who eagerly anticipated arriving home to a special pizza “with chopped shrimp and steak, smothered in cheese,” and a comfortable chair.

His spirituality kept him from losing hope during 28 years of his 48-year sentence, he said.

“And my innocence,” he said. “That’s what really kept me going.”

But still looming was the prospect of a new trial. Prosecutors have not decided whether to try Moses-EL again, saying they are considering the age of the case and the availability of witnesses. A tentative trial date was set for May, if prosecutors decide to pursue new charges.

The case involved a woman who was attacked after she returned home from a night of drinking. When police initially asked who assaulted her, she named the man who later confessed to having sex with her.

More than a day after the assault, while in the hospital, the woman identified Moses-EL as her attacker, saying his face appeared to her in a dream.

Moses-EL’s efforts to appeal his conviction were unsuccessful and the legal and political system repeatedly failed him in his decades-long attempt to win his freedom.

He won a legal bid for DNA testing on the evidence to clear his name, but Denver police threw it away, saying they didn’t see any notice from prosecutors to hold on to it.

In 2008, the governor, a former Denver prosecutor, objected to legislation that would have given him a new trial and that received widespread support from lawmakers.

Moses-EL’s break came when L.C. Jackson, whom the victim had initially identified as her rapist, wrote to Moses-EL in 2013 saying he had sex with the woman that night. Jackson has not been charged in this case but is imprisoned for two other rapes in 1992.

His attorney, Eric Klein, said it would be foolish for prosecutors not to dismiss the case against an innocent man. But, at least in his first moments of freedom, Moses-EL’s mind was elsewhere.

“I’m just glad to be home,” he said. “That surpasses a whole lot of things right now.”

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TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — A woman who refused to leave a hospital when doctors discharged her died after she was forcibly removed by police, authorities said Tuesday.

Barbara Dawson, 57, collapsed Monday while being escorted in handcuffs from the Liberty Calhoun Hospital, where she went to seek treatment for breathing difficulties, said Blountstown Police Department chief Mark Mallory. Mallory said an officer had arrested Dawson for disorderly conduct and trespassing.

An autopsy on Dawson has been performed and the results should be released Wednesday, Mallory said. Florida Department of Law Enforcement officials have been called in to investigate, department spokesman Steve Arthur said. He declined to comment further.

Mallory said that the officer who arrested Dawson removed the handcuffs after she collapsed and escorted her back into the hospital.

“We were told by a doctor once she got back in the hospital that her vital signs were good and it was their decision to readmit her,” he said. He said dashcam footage from the officer’s car does not show the incident but does pick up the audio.

Hospital officials did not return telephone calls Tuesday night. Ruth Attaway, administrator and CEO of the hospital, was quoted by The Tallahassee Democrat as saying that staff did everything they could to save Dawson.

While doctors initially thought Dawson was stable and should be released, she felt like she was still having breathing issues and wanted to stay, said Tallahassee attorney Daryl Parks, who is representing Dawson’s family.

“The most reasonable thing to do is to let her sit there and be able to settle down until she felt well. Instead, she is forcibly removed and put in cuffs,” Parks said. “The early facts of this case should cause a great concern for everyone.”

The Calhoun-Liberty County chapter of the NAACP held an emergency meeting on Tuesday. Dale R. Landry, who is the regional vice president for the Florida State chapter of the NAACP, met with local leaders and the family.

Landry said he and others are glad state law enforcement officers are getting involved, “but we strongly believe the death was due to negligence by the police department and hospital.”

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SEATTLE (AP) — Astrid Rau just baked 16 kinds of Christmas cookies, including a batch in the shape of snowflakes. But she’s nevertheless having trouble getting in the holiday spirit, thanks to forecasts that have the temperature in her hometown of Perkasie, Pennsylvania, hitting 72 degrees on Thursday.

“I associate cold with Christmas,” the 55-year-old says. “And if it’s warm it just doesn’t feel quite right to me.”

A weather pattern partly linked with El Nino has turned winter upside-down across the U.S. during a week of heavy holiday travel, bringing spring-like warmth to the Northeast, a risk of tornadoes in the South and so much snow across the West that even skiing slopes have been overwhelmed.

In a reversal of a typical Christmas, forecasters expect New York to be in the mid-60s on the holiday — several degrees higher than Los Angeles.

The mild conditions have helped golf courses in New England do brisk business, but the pattern comes at a steep cost for ski resorts that have closed and for backcountry skiers who confront avalanche risks. And like Rau, many Americans complain that it just doesn’t feel like the holidays without a chill in the air.

“It’s been a great snow season so far from the Rockies to the higher elevations in the Cascades and the northern Sierras, and it’s been the total opposite on the East Coast,” said Bob Oravec, lead forecaster with the National Weather Service.

Big parts of the county are basking in above-average temperatures, especially east of the Mississippi and across the Northern Plains. Record warmth was expected on Christmas Eve along the East Coast, Oravec said.

He laid the credit — or blame — with a strong El Nino pattern, the warming of surface waters in the Pacific Ocean near the equator. That’s helped drive warm air west to east across the Lower 48 and kept colder air from the Arctic at bay, he said.

In the Pacific Northwest and California, the effects of El Nino haven’t really hit yet. They’re typically seen in January through March, and the heavy rains and snows in the region are probably not linked to the phenomenon, said Washington State Climatologist Nick Bond.

The winter in the Pacific Northwest is still predicted to be drier than normal, so the series of storms that dumped feet of snow in the Cascades this month and piled the snowpack back above normal, were helpful, he said.

Come summer, farmers and salmon alike will rely on that melting snow.

In Washington, authorities have closed the state’s main east-west route, Interstate 90, over the Cascade Mountains repeatedly this week due to heavy snows and avalanche danger. Officials closed a sledding hill near Snoqualmie Pass on Tuesday because the storm kept the state Transportation Department from plowing the parking lot. On Sunday, a heavy storm closed Oregon’s Mount Ashland Ski Area when it knocked out power.

California is in its driest four-year span on record, and experts anticipate a possible fifth year of drought. Weather forecasters say a strong El Nino weather system could drench the state, but one good, wet winter won’t be enough to rehydrate the parched land. A fresh round of chilly rain was expected to hit San Francisco late this week. The same system was expected to drop some 4 feet of snow in the Sierra Nevada Mountains.

While ski resorts celebrated a deluge that threatened to drop almost 2 feet of snow in parts of Colorado’s mountains, forecasters warned of serious avalanche risks.

An avalanche near the Montana-Wyoming state line on Sunday buried three snowmobilers, killing a 33-year-old North Dakota man. Another avalanche partially buried a ski patrol employee at the Snowbasin resort, about 45 miles north of Salt Lake City, and two snowboarders were caught in a backcountry slide southwest of Breckenridge Ski Area on Saturday. They escaped serious injury.

“We’re giving our generally weak snowpack a very large and rapid load, and it’s unlikely to be able to hold up,” said Brian Lazar, deputy director of the Colorado Avalanche Information Center. Warnings and advisories were posted for much of Colorado’s high country, with an emphasis on the risk of large, dangerous slides in steep terrain.

Meanwhile, the National Weather Service said the most recent storm had raised the level of Lake Tahoe by about 2 inches since midnight Monday. Officials calculated that that’s nearly 6.4 billion gallons of water.

Elsewhere, severe thunderstorms and possible tornadoes were forecast for Wednesday in northern Alabama, northern Mississippi, Arkansas and western Tennessee. Tornadoes are not unheard-of in the region in late December, but the extreme weather, driven by warm temperatures and large amounts of moisture in the atmosphere, was nonetheless striking, said Jeff Masters, director of meteorology at Weather Underground.

In addition to El Nino, a weather pattern called the North Atlantic Oscillation is also helping keep cold air bottled up in the Arctic. Combine that with warm temperatures around the planet from man-made global warming, he said, and you have a recipe for intense weather: “There are a couple of natural patterns at work, and then there’s this human-caused component too.”

With such balmy temperatures in the Northeast, Pine Oaks Golf Club in Easton, Massachusetts, is probably having its busiest December since it was built more than 50 years ago — a bonus for a club that doesn’t count on much winter revenue.

“We’ve got 65 degrees coming up on Christmas Eve,” said Scott Ibbitson, a golf specialist at the course. “It’ll be our busiest December day ever.”

___

Associated Press writers Martha Bellisle in Seattle, Michael Rubinkam in northeastern Pennsylvania, Sadie Gurman in Denver, Lindsay Whitehurst in Salt Lake City and Kristin J. Bender in San Francisco contributed to this report.

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OLYMPIA, Wash. (AP) — An error by Washington state’s Department of Corrections that resulted in wrongly calculated sentences for about 3 percent of the prison population led to the early release of more than 3,000 prisoners in the state since 2002.

At a news conference Tuesday announcing the error, Gov. Jay Inslee said he has ordered immediate steps to correct the longstanding computer glitch.

“Frankly, it is maddening,” Inslee said.

Authorities say a July 2002 state Supreme Court ruling required the Corrections Department to apply good-behavior credits earned in county jail to state prison sentences. However, the programming fix ended up giving prisoners with sentencing enhancements too much so-called good time credit.

Sentencing enhancements include additional time given for certain crimes, like those using firearms or those committed near schools. Under state law, prisoners who get extra time for sentencing enhancements cannot have that time reduced for good behavior.

An analysis showed as many as 3,200 offenders were released early, and another 3,100 who are still incarcerated had inaccurate release dates.

Inslee’s general counsel, Nicholas Brown, said most of the errors were 100 days or less. In some cases, inmates were released just a few days early, but at least one person who is still incarcerated had a release date that was off by about 600 days.

When asked if any of the prisoners who were released early committed additional crimes, Brown said, “We don’t have the answer to that.”

Based on a prior Supreme Court ruling, most of the affected offenders won’t have to go back to prison. But officials have identified at least seven prisoners who were freed but haven’t reached their corrected release date yet, and they will need to return to prison. Five of them have already been re-incarcerated.

The Department of Corrections was first alerted to the error in December 2012, when a victim’s family learned of a prisoner’s imminent release. The family did its own calculations and found he was being credited with too much time.

A timeline provided by the governor’s office shows the agency consulted with attorneys regarding the error the same month and scheduled a fix for the program. However, the coding fix was repeatedly delayed, and the governor says he didn’t learn of the issue until last week, when corrections’ officials notified his staff.

“For reasons we still don’t yet fully understand, that fix never happened,” Brown said. Corrections Department Secretary Dan Pacholke, who took over as head of the agency in October and just learned of the error last week, also said he couldn’t yet explain what happened.

“How that did not rise up in the agency to the highest levels is not clear to me,” he said.

Republican state Sen. Mike Padden said the Law and Justice Committee he chairs will convene hearings on the early releases when the Legislature returns to the Capitol in early January.

“We will see what we can find out about this and whether any of these individuals have committed crimes and what crimes they committed when they should have been in prison,” Padden said.

Brown said officials don’t yet have a complete list of prisoners affected. The Corrections Department and governor’s office have not released the names of those inmates who have been sent back to prison, or the name of the family who alerted the agency to the problem.

Inslee told corrections officials to stop releasing prisoners affected by the glitch until a hand calculation is done to ensure the offender is being released on the correct date. A broad fix to the software problem is expected to be in place by early January.

The governor said two retired federal prosecutors will conduct an independent investigation to figure out why it has taken so long to correct the problem.

“I have a lot of questions about how and why this happened, and I understand that members of the public will have those same questions,” Inslee said.

Pacholke said he welcomed the external investigation.

“The agency should be held accountable for this breach,” he said.

___

Associated Press correspondent Nicholas K. Geranios in Spokane contributed to this report.

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In 2014, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office canceled the trademark for the NFL’s Washington Redskins, deeming the term offensive and therefore not eligible for trademark. In July 2015, a federal court sided with the USPTO and ordered the agency to cancel the team’s trademark. But a ruling this week by an appeals court in Washington, D.C., adds a new wrinkle to this complicated and controversial issue.

At issue in this second case is Oregon-based rock band The Slants. The band members — all of whom are Asian-American and know that the term can be used pejoratively — chose the name as a multilayered play on race, culture, and music.

The USPTO had rejected the band’s efforts to trademark their name under the Lanham Act’s prohibition on registering “immoral, deceptive, or scandalous” marks. Rejecting or canceling a trademark application doesn’t mean the name can’t be used. It just means there are no protections against someone else using the same name for their products.

The Redskins case is not alone in being canceled or rejected. The USPTO has blocked dozens of trademarks deemed offensive to just about every imaginable ethnic, religious, and racial group.

But yesterday, a majority of the Appeals Court for the Federal Circuit ruled [PDF] in the Slants case that not only was the USPTO wrong in rejecting the band’s trademark, but that the portion of the law preventing the registration of offensive marks is unconstitutional.

The TL;DR Version

• The Lanham Act prohibits the registration of trademarks deemed offensive or scandalous.
• The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office rejected an application from The Slants to trademark their name.
• A federal appeals court has ruled that the law is too restrictive of Americans’ First Amendment rights and thus unconstitutional.
• If this ruling stands up to scrutiny (most likely from the U.S. Supreme Court), it could mean that the USPTO has no legal basis for canceling the Redskins trademark.  

“Many of the marks rejected as disparaging convey hurtful speech that harms members of oft-stigmatized communities,” writes the nine-judge majority. “But the First Amendment protects even hurtful speech.”

The court held that the government’s refusal to register disparaging trademarks is a curtailing of free commercial expression.

“The government regulation at issue amounts to viewpoint discrimination,” reads the ruling.

Previous courts had held that, because rejected trademarks could still be used in commerce that a rejection from the USPTO was not a restriction on free speech.

But the majority in this case points to precedent which found that content-restricting laws are “presumptively unconstitutional and may be justified only if the government proves that they are narrowly tailored to serve compelling state interests.”

Additionally, the appeals panel notes that viewpoint-based regulations, those “targeting the substance of the viewpoint expressed, are even more suspect.”

Because the Lanham Act specifically prohibits the registration of disparaging marks, the court says there is no reasonable way to argue that the law is not a content-based restriction or that it is content-neutral.

“And the test for disparagement — whether a substantial composite of the referenced group would find the mark disparaging — makes clear that it is the nature of the message conveyed by the speech which is being regulated,” writes the court.

By deeming something offensive or disparaging — and thus unable to be trademarked — the court contends that the government is expressing its disapproval.

“When the government discriminates against speech because it disapproves of the message conveyed by the speech, it discriminates on the basis of viewpoint,” reads the opinion. “The legal significance of viewpoint discrimination is the same whether the government disapproves of the message or claims that some part of the populace will disapprove of the message. This point is recognized in the Supreme Court’s long-standing condemnation of government impositions on speech based on adverse reactions among the public.”

The USPTO had argued that the Lanham Act is content-neutral, pointing out that an offensive trademark application is denied regardless of the applicant’s intentions. The members of The Slants have no intention to offend or disparage Asians, but some people still find the name just as hurtful as if it had been used by some deliberately seeking to malign a large segment of the population.

This issue is particularly relevant to the Redskins dispute. The team’s ownership and other supporters of the name say there is no malicious intent in its use, but opponents counter that it doesn’t matter whether the team intends to offend by using the name; it’s a hurtful word with a long history of being deployed pejoratively.

But the court’s majority concluded that the USPTO was not being viewpoint-neutral in its decisions, saying that the agency “looks at what message the referenced group takes from the applicant’s mark in the context of the applicant’s use, and it denies registration only if the message received is a negative one.”

The court gives the example of “Dykes On Bikes,” a trademark that was ultimately approved after the applicant showed that even though “dyke” can be used in an offensive way, it has been used frequently enough in a positive manner among the population of people who would most likely be offended by its use.

Likewise, the USPTO approved the trademark for “Squaw Valley” for use on some items, but not on others. The court contends that if the agency were truly neutral, it would approved or rejected all uses of the term “squaw” without regard to the registrant’s intention or end-use.

The government had also tried to argue that the Lanham Act only prohibits commercial speech, but the court held that trademarks “often have an expressive aspect over and above their commercial-speech aspect.”

It points to the contention by Slants frontman Simon Tam that he explicitly selected the name to create a dialogue on controversial political and social issues.

“With his band name, Mr. Tam makes a statement about racial and ethnic identity,” writes the court. “He seeks to shift the meaning of, and thereby reclaim, an emotionally charged word. He advocates for social change and challenges perceptions of people of Asian descent. His band name pushes people. It offends. Despite this — indeed, because of it — Mr. Tam’s band name is expressive speech.”

In dissenting from the majority, judge Alan Lourie points to the fact that this provision of the Lanham Act has been repeatedly upheld as constitutional since the law’s inception.

“[O]ne wonders why a statute that dates back nearly seventy years — one that has been continuously applied — is suddenly unconstitutional as violating the First Amendment,” writes Lourie. “Is there no such thing as settled law?”

In fact, notes the dissent, even before the Lanham Act — going back to the Trademark Act of 1905 — the government has had the authority to reject offensive or scandalous marks.

By declaring the law unconstitutional, argues Lourie, “we interfere with the long-standing Congressional policy of delegating authority to the USPTO to filter out certain undesirable marks from the federal trademark registration system. We should not further the degradation of civil discourse by overturning our precedent that holds that the First Amendment is not implicated by [the law]’s prohibition against disparaging trademarks.”

Yesterday’s decision comes as the Redskins are finalizing their own appellate brief, which is due to be filed in a federal appeals court in Richmond, VA, by Jan. 14. That court may come to a different conclusion than the one reached by the Federal Circuit.

As we noted earlier this year, given the high profile and sensitive nature of the Redskins case, it seemed headed to ultimately go before the U.S. Supreme Court. That looks even more likely now that this week’s ruling has created new precedent.

Tomorrow, newscasters across the country will share information about the whereabouts of Santa Claus, usually based on data from NORAD (North American Aerospace Defense Command), the military entity that monitors aerospace above the United States and Canada. This Santa-tracking effort is now celebrating its 60th anniversary, and its origin story is a feel-good Cold War fib.

Since the video game “Missile Command” wouldn’t be invented for another few decades, how could NORAD predecessor CONAD explain its purpose to the public without frightening children too much? There’s one very familiar manmade object that flies well above North America once a year, during a period when news is slow and radio, TV, and newspapers have lots of time and space to fill. What if they tracked Santa’s sleigh?

According to Matt Novak over at Paleofuture, the entire idea of the Santa Tracker is a cynical PR move that used the North Pole to give the scary machinery of the Cold War a friendlier face. It did begin with a real misdialed call to CONAD, though.

The standard version of the story blames a local Sears store in Colorado, which misprinted a phone number for “Santa” in an advertisement. NORAD promotes this version, where kids trying to call Santa on Christmas Eve reached NORAD predecessor CONAD instead. A quick-thinking colonel pretended to be part of Santa’s ground team, and everyone at NORAD provided updates to kids who called all night long.

What an amazing coincidence that the misprinted number went to the one military entity in charge of monitoring objects in the sky, and not to a butcher in Denver or something! We promulgated this version a few years ago, and it’s the version that Sears promotes, too.

I think that the truth is actually better than the legend. Novak shares newspaper stories about the real original call, where a child in Colorado called up CONAD on November 30, 1955 looking for Santa. That was six days after Thanksgiving and well into the Christmas marketing season, but not Christmas Eve.

That gave the sky-watchers the idea that they could pretend to watch Santa, which would allow them to explain their function by implying that the Soviets wanted to shoot down Santa. No, really. This idea was planted in kids’ heads firmly enough that one little girl sent a worried letter asking that exact question to President John F. Kennedy in 1961.

An Associated Press story published 60 years ago today actually spells this idea out without naming the Soviet Union, but who else was near the North Pole and had missiles that could shoot down Santa?

“CONAD, Army, Navy and Marine Air Forces will continue to track and guard Santa and his sleigh on his trip to and from the U.S. against possible attack from those who do not believe in Christmas,” the story says, because there’s nothing that the godless commies want more than to destroy our favorite bourgeois capitalist holiday.

The Soviets never did shoot down Santa, and the Cold War ended. Yet NORAD is still there, scanning the skies, and they still let us all know where the sleigh full of presents is every December 24th. Share the tracker with your kids, but leave out the part about the godless commies until they’re a little older.

How the U.S. Military Turned Santa Claus Into a Cold War Icon [Paleofuture]
NORAD Tracks Santa [NORAD]

It’s expensive being a woman, literally. At least according to a new study that found women will spend thousands of dollars more than men over the course of their lives on products that are effectively the same.

The study [PDF], conducted by the New York City Department of Consumer Affairs, examined gender pricing in New York City, comparing nearly 800 products with clear male and female versions from more than 90 brands sold in stores and online.

The products, which were virtually identical except for gender-specific packaging, came in five categories: toys and accessories; children’s clothing; adult clothing; personal care products; and senior/home health care products.

In all, the study found that on average across the five industries, women’s products cost 7% more than similar products for men.

When it came to toys and accessories, women paid an average of 7% more than men. Specifically, toys labeled as “for girls” cost more than boy-targeted versions 55% of the time.

The study examined six product categories consisting of 106 items: bikes and scooters, general toys, backpacks, preschool toys, helmets and pads, and arts and crafts.

In one example, the study found that bikes and scooters marketed toward girls cost an average of $86.72, while the boy-focused toy cost $81.90.

Specifically, a red Radio Flyer scooter for sale at Target was found to cost just $24.99, while the designated pink girl scooter retailed for $49.99.

Results were similar for children’s clothing, with girl-specific items costing on average 4% more than boy-designated clothing.

DCA analyzed nine types of children’s clothing – children’s shirts, children’s jeans, baby pants, onesies, baby sweaters, baby shirts, baby shoes, children’s underwear, and toddler shoes – for a total of 168 articles of apparel.

In one example for children’s jeans, a pair of Carter’s-branded skinny jeans cost $12 for boy, while the embellished pair designated for girls cost $14.

Overall, the price discrepancy for children’s clothing was the lowest of all categories included in the study.

Pricing becomes a bit more segregated when it comes to adult clothing with women’s clothing costing on average 8% more than men’s.

In all, DCA analyzed 292 articles of clothing including dress pants, dress shirts, sweaters, jeans, shirts, socks, and underwear.

Similar dress shirts from Levi’s cost $48 for men, but $78 for women.

The widest pricing discrepancy was found in personal care products, where women paid on average 13% more than men.

Of the 122 individual products analyzed, including shampoo and conditioner, razor cartridges, razors, lotion, deodorant, body wash, and shaving cream, the average item cost women $57.18, and cost men $50.75, a difference of $6.43.

Similar packages of razors for sale at CVS cost women $2 more than men, $6.99 versus $4.99 for men. The discrepancy widened for razor cartridges, with women paying $18.49 and men paying $14.99 for Schick-branded refills.

Senior home health care products also favored men in pricing, with women’s paying on average 8% more than their counterparts.

The 106 items analyzed by DCA included supports and braces; canes; compression socks; adult incontinence products; personal urinals; and digestive health products, consisting of laxatives and probiotic supplements.

In total, one of each average item cost women $140.46, and cost men $130.08, a difference of $10.38.

On average, the largest price discrepancy was found in personal urinals; women were charged 21% more, with an average difference of $2.00 more per urinal.

Perhaps the most confusing pricing difference came in the average price for supports and braces, which the study found came in nearly identical packaging. Women paid nearly 15% more than men in this category, with the average difference for these often-identical products being $4.74.

While some of the pricing differences for gender-specific products were rather minuscule, DCA found that over the course of a woman’s life the disparities were significant. However, the agency did not provide a specific figure representing the costs over a lifetime.

“Though there may be legitimate drivers behind some portion of the price discrepancies unearthed in this study, these higher prices are mostly unavoidable for women,” the study’s authors say. “Individual consumers do not have control over the textiles or ingredients used in the products marketed to them and must make purchasing choices based only on what is available in the marketplace. As such, choices made by manufacturers and retailers result in a greater financial burden for female consumers than for male consumers.”

Weeks after Chipotle CEO Steve Ells proclaimed that the fast casual restaurant would be the “safest place to eat,” the company appears to be getting the ball rolling with a slew of new cooking methods aimed at preventing future E. coli and norovirus outbreaks that have recently sickened more than 200 customers in the U.S. 

The Associated Press reports that Chipotle will tweak several of its current cooking methods while it continue to search for the cause of recent E. coli and norovirus contaminations.

Under the new methods, which will be implemented in coming weeks, Chipotle spokesman Chris Arnold says the company doesn’t expect the taste of its food to change.

Among the changes Chipotle plans to make are:

• onions will be dipped in boiling water to kill germs before they’re chopped.
• raw chicken will be marinated in re-sealable plastic bags, rather than the current method of marinating in bowls.
• cilantro will be added to freshly cooked rice so the heat can rid it of microbes.
• cheese will be shipped to restaurants pre-shredded.
• ingredients like onions will be splashed with lemon or lime juice to kill germs.
• 60 samples of every 2,000 pounds of steak will be tested before being sent to stores. A similar test for chicken will be performed.
• Tomatoes, cilantro and other ingredients – with the exception of onions – will be chopped in a centralized location rather than in stores. This allows the company to test the products.

The new cooking methods come after CEO Ells promised new safety standards during his string of public apologies.

“It’s a really tough time,” Ells said during an interview on the Today show in early December. “I have to say I’m sorry for the people that got sick. They’re having a tough time. I feel terrible about that, and we’re doing a lot to rectify this and make sure it doesn’t happen again.”

He went on to say that the company was implementing procedures that were “so above industry norms that we are going to be the safest place to eat.”

Chipotle has been busy in recent months with its latest food-related illness issues, after more than 150 Boston College students fell ill with norovirus after eating at a campus location.

This, on the heels of the nine-state E. Coli outbreak linked to Chipotle that’s sickened more than 50 people in California, New York, Ohio, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Minnesota.

And earlier this week, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced it was investigating five additional illnesses linked to a rare, specific strain of E. coli. The five people who became sick reported eating at Chipotle restaurants in Oklahoma and Kansas.

Chipotle tweaks cooking after E. coli scare [The Associated Press]

“Try ’em,” the cardboard shelves on this Pringles display whisper to passing shoppers. The display promotes a new Walgreens-exclusive, limited-edition flavor: “Hot Diggity Dog,” which tastes like hot dogs. Probably. Maybe just salt that tastes like beef and mustard.

Very few of you have probably jumped up from your desk to rush to the nearest Walgreens to pick these up, which is understandable. It sounds more edible than white chocolate potato crisps, but the season is wrong. Aren’t hot dogs a summer food?

The dominant flavors to capture the essence of hot dog would be salt, mustard, and catsup for a persecuted minority of Consumerist editors. There could be pickles or relish in there, which they could just borrow from the pickle-flavored Pringles that actually exist.

In an almost completely unrelated piece of information, you can make a handy solar hot dog cooker out of a Pringles can.

SPOTTED ON SHELVES: Hot Diggity Dog Pringles (Walgreens Exclusive Flavor) [The Impulsive Buy]

Christian Science Monitor

Gun, badge, radio stolen from Secret Service agent on downtown street Washington Post A handgun, radio and badge were stolen Monday afternoon from the private vehicle of a U.S. Secret Service agent who had parked near the agency's downtown Washington headquarters. The theft occurred about 4 p.m. in the 1000 block of G Street NW, two ... Secret Service agent's gun, badge stolen from car near White HouseWashington Times Secret Service Agent Leaves Gun, Badge, Cuffs, Etc. in Car Near White House ...Town Hall Secret Service agent's gun, badge, ID card stolen near White HouseCBS News New York Post -CT Post -International Business Times -CNN all 241 news articles »

Retailers love the idea of customers picking their online orders up in a local store, but shoppers are starting to find it inconvenient. One store has an idea to promote the practice: PetSmart is offering a special discount on online orders that are picked up in a store tomorrow, a day when it’s too late to ship gifts purchased online. The name, “National Fetch it Day,” is unlikely to catch on with other retailers, though.

In a statement, Eran Cohen, the company’s Chief Customer Experience Officer, emphasizes the important reason why the chain is pushing in-store pickup: pet food and litter can be heavy to ship, and there’s probably already a PetSmart store near you.

Cohen says that in-store pickup is a delivery option that “…truly offers the best of both worlds for our pet parents – the convenience of shopping online from home or while on-the-go via a mobile device and then simply swinging by any one of our conveniently located 1,440-plus stores.”

The important sale details are that you need to place an order online tomorrow, December 23, and pick it up in the store the same day or on Thursday the 24th. (They’re closed on Christmas, so plan your emergency bully stick and catnip toy runs accordingly.) Those orders will get 10% off, with some exclusions.

Those exclusions include gift cards and donations to charities (makes sense) and specific other items that aren’t spelled out in the disclaimer.

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — Concealed handgun permits held by residents of 25 states will no longer be valid in Virginia, the state’s attorney general said Tuesday, drawing swift criticism from GOP lawmakers.

Attorney General Mark Herring, a Democrat, said the state will revoke its reciprocity agreement with the states because their concealed weapon laws don’t meet Virginia’s standards. Those states hand out permits to people who are barred under the Virginia law, like fugitives, convicted stalkers and drug dealers, which undermines the state’s law and puts residents at risk, he said.

“Evenly, consistently and fairly enforcing Virginia’s concealed handgun permit law, as we are now doing, means that it will be more difficult for potentially dangerous individuals to conceal their handguns here in Virginia and that will make Virginians safer, especially Virginian law enforcement,” Herring said.

The move means that Virginians will no longer be able to use their concealed handgun permits in six states that require a mutual reciprocity agreement: Florida, Louisiana, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, South Carolina and Wyoming.

John Whitbeck, chairman of the Virginia Republican Party, said Herring’s announcement was further proof that Democrats have “declared war on the Second Amendment.”

The top Republican in the GOP-controlled House of Delegates said that Herring is “damaging the integrity of the office he holds.”

“Despite promising to take politics out of the attorney general’s office, Mark Herring consistently seeks to interpret and apply the law of the Commonwealth through the lens of his own personal, political opinions,” House Speaker William Howell said.

Lars Dalseide, a spokesman for the National Rifle Association, said concealed handgun reciprocity agreements between states have ended before, but his organization is unaware of another state ever implementing a change of this magnitude.

States are currently being notified about the change, which goes into effect on Feb. 1, Herring said. The only states that have tough enough laws to maintain their reciprocity agreement with Virginia are: Michigan, Oklahoma, Texas, Utah and West Virginia, he said.

The states whose permits Virginia will no longer recognize are: Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Delaware, Florida, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Minnesota, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, New Mexico, North Dakota, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Washington, Wisconsin and Wyoming.

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Follow Alanna Durkin on Twitter at twitter.com/aedurkin. Her work can be found at http://bigstory.ap.org/author/alanna-durkin

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CHANTILLY, Va. (AP) — A team of professionally trained comfort dogs at Dulles International Airport are helping ease travelers’ stresses this holiday season.

The dogs are part of the United Airlines United Paws Program. For the first half of Christmas week, the airline has invited the comfort animals to seven of its hub airports nationwide. The dogs’ purpose is to reduce stress and anxiety for holiday travelers.

The dogs walk the terminal during a morning and afternoon shift and will continue through Wednesday.

On Monday, the four-legged messengers of calm participating in the event included Rugi, a Great Dane-Labrador mix, Cinnamon, an English bulldog, and Pepper, a rescue blend of retriever, among others.

United spokesman Jonathan Guerin says science proves that simply petting a dog can reduce stress. Plus, they always bring smiles.

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Arlington native Marvin Spencer Binns fought his first fire as a teenager. He liked it, a lot. For the next six decades, he kept plugging away.

“I’m a fireman,” Binns said not too long ago.

On Monday morning, the long-time president of the Cherrydale Volunteer Fire Department passed away following a lengthy illness. He was 80.

Until the end, Binns kept a two-way radio chattering in his room at The Carlin retirement home near Ballston. When he heard an emergency call originating from the 10-story complex, he would march downstairs to aid the arriving Arlington County Fire Department crews.

“I can’t put the gear on, and my knees are terrible,” Binns allowed, “but I can still go and do things.”

Binns’ remarkably durable volunteer career earned him a unique reputation. Tellingly, in a county where relations between volunteer and career firefighters have not always been harmonious, ACFD Honor Guard members stood watch in early March during a public viewing for Binns’ late wife, Betty.

“There are certain volunteer members over the years who have been accepted into the career family,” noted Capt. Randy Higgins, a career Arlington firefighter at Fire Station 2 who has known Binns for many years. “Marvin was always around, pitching in and helping out.”

Born in Arlington on March 20, 1935, Binns attended Washington-Lee High School and, later, vocational school in Manassas. By the time he was 16 or so, he was starting to hang out at the Cherrydale station, home to the county’s oldest volunteer fire organization.

The two-story, red-brick station dedicated in 1920 held multiple attractions for Binns. Some nights, he would just sit outside while music floated down from the weekly dances held in the upstairs social hall. Binns would also listen to the career and volunteer firemen chewing the fat while awaiting a summons.

Though Arlington County had initiated a career fire department in 1940, volunteers still responded to emergencies, sometimes informally. When he was 16 and still too young to join, Binns drove himself to Rosslyn on the bitterly cold night of Dec. 30, 1951 to pitch in on the fight against a devastating fire at the Murphy & Ames lumber yard.

“I went to a lot of fires,” Binns recalled, “and I wasn’t even a member of the fire department yet.”

When he turned 18, Binns paid $5 and formally joined the Cherrydale department. There was no particular school to attend; the learning was hands-on and experiential. At the training academy, officers would set fire to hay bales or old tires and the men would enter the burn house with only rudimentary protection.

“You couldn’t see a foot in front of you, it was so black,” Binns recalled.

Binns moved into the Cherrydale fire station for a time before he joined the Navy in 1957 and served as a baker aboard the USS Norfolk, a destroyer leader.

It wasn’t always sweetness and light. Tensions sometimes arose between the career guys and volunteers. The volunteer department sometimes struggled financially or administratively; the old fire station, some neighbors occasionally opined, could attract rowdies. Sometime in 1967, Cherrydale historian Kathryn Holt Springston recounted in her history of the Cherrydale department that Arlington officials received complaints that firefighters were whistling at women passing by.

“All were asked to stop such practices,” Springston reported.

Binns could spin a yarn; he had plenty of stories from his decades of service. The way the old siren would wail, summoning volunteers. The winter calls that would leave the firefighters covered in ice. The two dead sisters he helped carry out of the house near Washington Golf and Country Club; some bad, bad car accidents.

The incomparable fellowship.

“I wanted to protect the county,” Binns said; besides, he added, “to me, it was fun. I mean, I enjoyed it. You never knew when you got on the scene what you were going to find. Going down the road, in your mind, you’d be thinking what you were going to run into.”

Binns is survived by five children, 27 grandchildren, 34 great-grandchildren and 10 great-great-grandchildren. A daughter pre-deceased him.

Photo and story by Michael Doyle, who is also a member of the Cherrydale Volunteer Fire Department. Editor’s note: the Cherrydale Volunteer Fire Department provides support services for the professional firefighters and EMTs in the Arlington County Fire Department.

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This weekend, Georgetown’s Crumbs & Whiskers held its Ugly Sweater Party and invited cute kittens—and some humans.

The idea was to find homes for the cats currently living at the Lost Dog and Cat Rescue Foundation. And it worked.

The post Ugly sweater party helps find cats forever homes appeared first on WTOP.

Inside NoVA

Manassas clinic employee charged with sexually assaulting 71-year-old patient Inside NoVA Thomas A. Purcell, 42, of Manassas, is charged with aggravated sexual battery in a 2014 assault on a patient at a clinic in Manassas. App promo 300x250. Posted: Tuesday, December 22, 2015 11:20 am | Updated: 1:44 pm, Tue Dec 22, 2015. Manassas ... Medical staffer arrested after alleged sexual assaultW*USA 9 Police: Patient Assaulted at Medical ClinicPatch.com all 8 news articles »

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In their new book Kitchen Hacks: How Clever Cooks Get Things Done, Kimball (farewell, sweet prince) and company aim to show you how to prep, cook, and clean in the most efficient way possible. In short: it’s a helpful, practical guide for how to use your kitchen better.

Read more...

A roasting rack and an aluminum baking sheet not only cost less combined than many roasting pans, in most cases, the combo works better than a roasting pan.

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PALATKA, Fla. (AP) — Authorities say about 100 people fled a dog fight in northeast Florida after deputies responded to the scene.

The Florida Times-Union (http://bit.ly/1UY0HoG) reports that deputies were called to a wooded area in western Putnam County late Saturday after people heard barking and loud noises in the area.

Deputies say two wounded dogs were found in an arena constructed of wood. They were among 19 dogs found.

Police say one of the seized dogs was later stolen after a break-in at the county’s animal control facility.

Police say 39 vehicles were left behind, some registered to addresses in Georgia and South Florida. They also found a 12-gauge shotgun, a digital hanging scale and other items.

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Information from: The (Jacksonville) Florida Times-Union, http://www.jacksonville.com

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