Airlines Attempt to Lighten Load

With fuel prices skyrocketing, airplanes have been trying to figure out ways to lighten loads. Manufactures have taken the first step by constructing the planes with lighter material. According to the article, With fuel prices high, airlines lighten the load, "The pressure is immense to cut weight," said John Heimlich, chief economist for the Air Transport Association of America. "Every penny more per gallon adds $195 million to the industry's expenses per year. You simply cannot make all of that up with fare increases." In December 2007, 27 percent of operating expense was due to fuel. The airlines have been able to keep gas prices down by signing contracts with other companies. They have even changed first class silverware to something more light weight. The change includes using plastic instead of glass for cups. According to a survey issued to passengers, using plastic was not a top concern. According to Shamblin, "Twelve pounds is significant when you run anywhere from six to 35 carts on an airplane. The lighter carts will save the airline $1.7 million a year in fuel costs." The next step to conserving fuel would be cutting back in areas of service, flights, and seat spots. I believe that the airlines are headed in the right direction as being concerned about fuel prices and how it affects their company, but I think that they need to put a stop to it before it reaches the change of service and seat availability. Many airplanes as it is today already have full planes.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/TRAVEL/03/31/airlines.lighter.plane.ap/index.html

Three Kids Found Dead in Hotel Room

Sunday at the Marriott Hotel in Baltimore, Maryland, three kids were found dead in their hotel room. Mark A. Castillo, the father of the three kids, drowned them in the hotel bathtub. The father is currently at the hospital getting treatment for several cuts he has on his neck but is also in custody. Following the death of the three children, Castillo called the hotel's front desk to report the deaths. According to Police: Dad killed kids in hotel, then called front desk, Clifford a police officer said, "Why he brought them here to do this is something we don't know yet." Anothony, 6, Austin, 6, and Athena, 2, were identified as the children who were killed. This is a very tragic story that should never happen to anyone. It is sad how people get so angry or confused about life that they feel the need to take someone else's life.


http://www.cnn.com/2008/CRIME/03/31/children.killed.ap/index.html

Ken Burn Movie

Ken Burns Movie

Ken Burns Movie

Columbus Ohio Hit Hard

Columbus, Ohio had 20 inches of snow fall on Friday and Saturday. The storm cut down power lines, delayed over 90 percent of flights, and cancelled various activities. The previous record of snow fall of Columbus was 15.3 inches which happened in February of 1910. Two traffic deaths have been reported and four men have died shoveling snow. Flooding and ice covered roads as caused traffic to be hard because of blocked off roads. Vermont homes have been without electricty since Sunday. The electrition crew can not make it to homes because of fallen trees and icy roads. In New Jersey and New York wind has been recorded at 65 mph. We have been lucky not to have such harsh weather conditions yet here in South Dakota. Usually we are the ones to get hit hard but South Dakota weather is so unpredictable that anything could still happen. It is very unfortunate when deaths happen due to weather conditions.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/weather/03/09/march.snowstorm.ap/index.html

China Keeps One Child Policy

China has decided to keep their each family can have one child policy for another decade. The policy came into play in 1970 when the population of China was a rising concern. According to the article China to keep one-child policy, "Nearly 200 million Chinese will enter child-bearing age in the next 10 years, minister Minister Zhang Weiqing told the China Daily newspaper. He said abandoning the policy during this period would cause serious problems and add extra pressure on social and economic development." China's poplution is 1.3 billion people and could reach around 1.6 by 2050. The policy was designed because of the fear of not being able to feed all the people. Problems with the law are having more older citizens compared to younger and also a gender imbalance. I think this article was interesting because I never would thought that people have the power to say how many kids you can have. Even though i think it is a good idea because China's population is large and may have trouble finding resources to supply all the people.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/asiapcf/03/10/china.onechild/index.html

Woman Found On Ice

In Newport Beach, California, a woman's body was found in a hotel room. A man was convicted and told the newspaper that he kept the womans body on ice for religious reasons. Stephen David Royds was arrested at the Fairmont on Thursday when investigators found 33-year-old Monique Felicia Trepps body in a Rubbermaid container. As of now they are still trying to determine the cause of death. Trepp herself has been convicted of many past felonies including possession of a controlled substance. While Royds has had a criminal background also by being convicted in 2002 of four drug charges. Royds is now in Orange County jail in Santa Ana where he denies bail because of the concern of possible probation violation. This is a sad and sick story. Religion has always been a top issue but whenever someones life is on the line I believe any religion saying that killing is okay is not good.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/CRIME/03/10/frozen.body.ap/index.html

Memphis Shootings

Six people were killed monday in Memphis, Tennessee. Two out of the six were children and three more were wounded in the attack. The shootings were reported at 6:11 p.m when the bodies were found. The children that were wounded was a 7-year-old boy, a 4-year-old not identified yet, and a 10-month-old girl. They were rushed to the Le Bonheur Children's Medical Center. Their conditions have not yet been reported. This is such a tragic situation and should never happen. There has been too many reports of children getting involved in these horrible positions.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/03/03/memphis.killings/index.html

New England Holds Moss

Randy Moss has signed a three year contract with the New England Patriots for $27 million. After Moss posted on a personal webpage the signing happened. According to the article Moss Will Stay in New England, ''I want to take time out to thank all of the fans for their support and for wishing me well in my return to New England, I'm ready to get back." We have some unfinished business to take care of" (therealrandymoss.com). Because of Moss's record breaking year, he is very excited to start a new season. With Randy Moss and Tom Brady paired up, it will be a another competitive and maybe perfect season. Even though Moss has been in several bad situations, such as being fined $10,000 for pretending to the moon the Greenbay Packers, he will still play for the Patriots. I am a huge fan of the Vikings and since Randy Moss used to play for them I still enjoy following his career. He has great potential and has shown the NFL that he is a great player. I hope to see him progress even more throughout the next season.

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/sports/AP-FBN-Patriots-Moss.html?_r=1&ref=sports&oref=slogin
Related Links: http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/news/story?id=3274806
http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/wire?section=nfl&id=3275451

Catching ZZZ's

A survey of 1000 people was taken by the National Sleep Foundation to find that the average person is getting about six hours and 40 minutes of sleep a night. The amount of sleep a person should be getting to be at full potential is seven hours. In the last month how many people have become sleepy or even fell asleep on the job? About one-third of the people surveyed! At a Pennsylvania nuclear plant people noticed that security guards were sleeping on the job. According to the arcticle Survey: One-third of workers catching zzz's on job, "It wasn't until a videotape of guards sleeping in a "ready room" at the Peach Bottom plant in south-central Pennsylvania surfaced several months after it got the tip that the NRC announced in September a special investigation." Many people blame the fact that work is keeping them up late at night because of the longer days they put in. According to the survey average wake up time was 5:35 a.m. while bedtime was 10:53 p.m. This is an interesting case study because sleep is very important but many do not get enough. People try to function on only six hours and that hurts their performance, physically and emotionally, during the day.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/03/03/sleep.job.ap/index.html

Doctor's Accused of Death

Dr. Hootan Roozrokh, 34, a doctor from San Luis Obispo, California, is accused of giving a patient too much drugs. Ruben Navarro, 25, was suffering from delilitating nerve disease. When hearing word that Navarro was a donor, Dr. Roozrokh hurried with a transplant team to him, when he was taken off life support. Dr. Roozrokh gave him morphine which he should not have had. He was accused of "dependent adult abuse" and issuing a drug called Betadine in his feeding tube. According to the article Doctor accused of hastening death for patient's organs, "The standard of practice is for the transplant surgeon to be outside the operating room until death has been declared," said Thomas Mone, president of the Association of Organ Procurement Organization. "The unfortunate error in this case was the transplant surgeon being in the room and that's highly, highly unusual." If he is accused he can serve up to eight years. I believe this is a very serious issue. Everybody needs health care and if we can not trust our doctors that is a big concern. He should serve those eight years if he is quilty. No family needs to go through a situation like this because of a doctors "mistakes".

http://www.cnn.com/2008/CRIME/03/03/transplant.trial/index.html
Related link: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=Ruben+Navarro&btnG=Google+Search
http://www.mahalo.com/Ruben_Navarro

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