In 2010, more than 2,000 businesses went through an immigration audit. And this year, ICE has already audited many more companies, including sending out 1,000 notification letters to businesses in early June alone. In a time when employers have enough to worry about, they must also make concerted efforts to ensure their employees are legally qualified to work in the U.S. Under the Obama administration, the focus on illegal immigration has moved from undocumented immigrants to their potential employers. Gone are the days of loud immigration raids like the ones we saw ...

COLUMBUS, Ohio – Researchers recently isolated 63 unique dust particles from their laboratory – and that's just the beginning. The chemists were testing a new kind of sensor when dust got stuck inside it, and they discovered that they could measure the composition of single dust particles. In a recent issue of The Journal of Physical Chemistry C, they describe how the discovery could aid the study respiratory diseases caused by airborne particles. Most dust is natural in origin, explained James Coe, professor of chemistry at Ohio State University. The 63 particles ...

Property rights are one of the essential tenets of our society. According to one California eminent domain attorney, property owners are entitled to use their property how they see fit within the bounds of the law. However, there are instances where the government is entitled to infringe upon one's property to support the greater good of the community. This is called eminent domain. Under the principle of eminent domain, it is the government's right to "take" private property for public use. When a "taking" occurs, a municipality must pay fair market ...

The sluggish economy is not only affecting job growth in the United States, it is also spurring more debt due to medical expenses. According to study conducted by the Commonwealth Fund, 57 percent of workers who lost jobs that previously had health insurance have become uninsured. This creates two problems for those who become sick: Not only do they no longer have health insurance to defray medical expenses, they also lack the income to pay such costs out of pocket. The Commonwealth Fund also found that debt collection companies contacted 30 million Americans in 2010 ...

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- Technology firms frequently require workers to sign non-compete agreements, which typically bar their employees from joining rival companies for one to two years. For firms, the agreements keep workers from taking the knowledge and skills they have acquired and using them to help a rival. But a new study of more than 1,000 engineers, conducted by an MIT professor, shows that non-compete agreements come with a high cost for employees: When those workers do shift jobs, roughly one-third of them end up leaving their chosen industry altogether, often ...

Over the past few years, a movement to reform spousal support (called "alimony" and "spousal maintenance" in some states) has been making its way across the nation. Spousal support in its traditional form consists of the money-earning spouse providing financial support to the other spouse after a divorce. The amount of spousal support can be agreed upon or calculated based on the earning spouse's ability to pay and the needs of the non-earning spouse. Because of changing times -- in which more and more wives and mothers work outside the home -- many ...

The Great Recession and the currently tepid economic recovery swelled the ranks of American households confronting hunger and food insecurity by 30 percent. In 2010 48.8 million Americans lived in food insecure households, meaning they were hungry or faced food insecurity at some point during the year. That's 12 million more people than faced hunger in 2007, before the recession, and represents 16.1 percent of the U.S. population. Yet hunger is not readily seen in America. We see neither newscasts showing small American children with distended bellies nor legions of thin, ...

Why are some places more prone to bribery and corruption than others? Part of the answer seems to be the level of collective feeling in a society, according to research by Pankaj Aggarwal, University of Toronto Scarborough (UTSC) professor of marketing in the Department of Management, and Nina Mazar, University of Toronto professor of marketing. Aggarwal and Mazar discovered that people in more collectivist cultures – in which individuals see themselves as interdependent and as part of a larger society – are more likely to offer bribes than people from more individualistic ...

Before Congress passed a budget deal in early August 2011, President Obama expressed concern in a televised speech that the federal government would be unable to pay Social Security benefits without a long-term agreement on the budget. Others in Washington, including President Obama's budget director Jack Lew and Senate majority leader Harry Reid, disputed the president's assertion, maintaining that Social Security is a self-funding program with a $2.6 trillion trust fund that is capable of funding benefit payments for the next 25 years. How could politicians deliver such ...

Zinc plays a critical role in regulating how neurons communicate with one another, and could affect how memories form and how we learn. The new research, in the current issue of Neuron, was authored by Xiao-an Zhang, now a chemistry professor at the University of Toronto Scarborough (UTSC), and colleagues at MIT and Duke University. Researchers have been trying to pin down the role of zinc in the brain for more than fifty years, ever since scientists found high concentrations of the chemical in synaptic vesicles, a portion of the neuron that stores neurotransmitters. ...

Miami Beach, Fla. — The prognosis for patients with stage II and III inoperable non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) is poor, with only about 15 percent of patients surviving at five years post-treatment for the disease. While new treatment strategies are being intensely studied, timely assessment of their efficacy has proven difficult. In a presentation today, Mitchell Machtay, MD, principal investigator of the ACRIN 6668/RTOG 0235 trial and RTOG deputy chair, reported the that post-treatment F-18 fluorodeoxyglucose-positron emission tomography (FDG-PET) scans show promise ...

EAST LANSING, Mich. -- What makes people great? Popular theorists such as the New Yorker's Malcolm Gladwell and the New York Times' David Brooks argue that intelligence plays a role -- but only up to a point. Beyond that, they say, it's practice, practice, practice. Zach Hambrick agrees with the practice argument -- imagine where Bill Gates would be if he hadn't honed his programming skills, after all -- but the Michigan State University scientist takes exception to the view that intelligence plays no role in determining excellence. In a provocative new paper, Hambrick ...

Social Security Commissioner Michael J. Astrue recently announced the expansion of the list of conditions that qualify a benefit applicant for a fast-track application under either the Quick Disability Determination (QDD) or Compassionate Allowances program (CAL). The SSA created the QDD and CAL programs in 2008 to help get disability benefit payments to those who need them most. It is important for those who apply for Social Security disability benefits to be aware of the fast-track process to see if they qualify. What Conditions Qualify? The fast-track program initially ...

New data gathered from the latest census and the Center for Disease Control's National Vital Statistics System reveal that states that perform or recognize same-sex marriage have lower divorce rates for all couples compared to states that do not recognize or ban same-sex marriage. Five of the ten states with the lowest divorce rates are among the eight states that perform or recognize same-sex marriage. In 2009, the divorce rate for these states was 41.2 percent, compared with 50.3 percent in states without same-sex marriage. That rate increases to 53.2 percent if one ...

A University of Colorado Boulder-led team excavating a Maya village in El Salvador buried by a volcanic eruption 1,400 years ago has unexpectedly hit an ancient white road that appears to lead to and from the town, which was frozen in time by a blanket of ash. The road, known as a "sacbe," is roughly 6 feet across and is made from white volcanic ash from a previous eruption that was packed down and shored up along its edges by residents living there in roughly A.D. 600, said CU-Boulder Professor Payson Sheets, who discovered the buried village known as Ceren near the ...

Atlanta fireplace supplier Craft Stove and Fireplace Center is promoting fire safety with guidance on how to safely enjoy a back yard fire pit. Crisp autumn nights are the perfect time to gather around a warm fire, and these tips will ensure that this pleasant family activity is also a safe one. "The first stop in practicing fire safety is to take the right precautions," explains Melinda Pulliam, Director of Marketing for Craft Stove and Fireplace Center. "There are many easy steps you can take to minimize safety hazards." Keep fires small, and ...

Not long ago, geologically speaking, a now-vanished lake covered a huge expanse of today's Canadian prairie. As big as Hudson Bay, the lake was fed by melting glaciers as they receded at the end of the last ice age. At its largest, Glacial Lake Agassiz, as it is known, covered most of the Canadian province of Manitoba, plus a good part of western Ontario. A southern arm straddled the Minnesota-North Dakota border. Not far from the ancient shore of Lake Agassiz, University of Cincinnati Professor of Geology Thomas Lowell will present a paper about the lake to the Geological ...

Atlanta granite countertops retailer Craftmark Solid Surfaces, Inc., reports that quartz has seen an increase in sales as a countertop surfaces. In recent years, granite has been the most requested surface, its success generally attributed to its natural beauty and durability. However, though Granite may have been the clear leader in Atlanta countertops resurfacing in 2010, quartz is rapidly gaining in popularity. Craftmark announced that quartz has soared in sales this year, challenging granite for the title of best countertop surface. "Sales for quartz surfaces ...

Alexandria, VA -- The universe is repulsive, but in a good way. In 2008, while studying bursts of light emitted from exploding stars, newly named Nobel Laureates Adam Riess, Saul Perlmutter and Brian P. Schmidt discovered one of the most mysterious, yet prevalent, components of our universe: dark energy. The three were using the brightness and color from supernovae to determine the speed with which the universe expanded in the past, versus how fast it is expanding now. What they discovered completely transformed how astronomers view the evolution of space. The growth of ...

"Wash away my troubles, wash away my pain," goes the song. Is there such a thing as soap and water for the psyche? Yes: Metaphor is that powerful, say Spike W.S. Lee and Norbert Schwarz of the University of Michigan in a literature review appearing in the latest issue of Current Directions in Psychological Science, a journal published by the Association for Psychological Science. Religious rites like baptism make psychological sense, the article suggests. Says Lee: "Cleansing is about the removal of residues." By washing the hands, taking a shower, or even thinking of ...

Atlanta tinting company The Tint Guy has been helping local business cut down on their energy costs this summer by installing protective window film on office windows throughout the city. Specializing in commercial, residential, and automotive window tinting in Atlanta, The Tint Guy provides only the highest quality window tint Atlanta has available. Commercial tinting is one of the most cost-efficient options for improving an office building, capable of recovering its cost in energy savings within a short period of time. The larger the building, the more potential to ...

Our life experiences -- the ups and downs, and everything in between -- shape us, stay with us and influence our emotional set point as adults, according to a new study led by Virginia Commonwealth University researchers. The study suggests that, in addition to our genes, our life experiences are important influences on our levels of anxiety and depression. "In this time of emphasis on genes for this and that trait, it is important to remember that our environmental experiences also make important contributions to who we are as people," said principal investigator ...

New Rochelle, NY, October 5, 2011 -- A possible new target for breast cancer therapy comes from the discovery that the Tyk2 protein helps suppress the growth and metastasis of breast tumors, as reported in Journal of Interferon & Cytokine Research, a peer-reviewed journal published by Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. The article is available free online for the next week at http://www.liebertpub.com/jir. Qifang Zhang and Andrew Larner, Virginia Commonwealth University (Richmond, VA), and colleagues from VCU, Temple University School of Medicine (Philadelphia, PA), Jagiellonian ...

The professionals at Atlanta Peach Movers, a full service Atlanta moving company specializing in local and long distance moves, remind Atlanta residents of the importance of hiring a professional moving service to move fragile or bulky items such as pianos, paintings, or arcade games. These items are valuable and often irreplaceable, and require special care when being moved. The Atlanta long distance movers at Atlanta Peach Movers are highly trained and experienced in moving all types of specialty items. In addition to Atlanta moving services, Atlanta Peach Movers ...

Researchers from Mount Sinai School of Medicine have found high levels of food toxins called Advanced Glycation End products (AGEs) in infants. Excessive food AGEs, through both maternal blood transmission and baby formula, could together significantly increase children's risk for diseases such as diabetes from a very young age. A second study of AGEs in adults found that cutting back on processed, grilled, and fried foods, which are high in AGEs, may improve insulin resistance in people with diabetes. AGEs -- toxic glucose byproducts previously tied to high blood sugar ...