Probate courts across the nation serve many important functions: they resolve cases concerning the disposition of property belonging to deceased persons, administer court-supervised trusts, and handle proceedings to create guardianships and conservatorships for minor children as well as incapacitated or incompetent adults. But, while judges and others involved usually have the best interests of individuals at heart, gaps in the system leave open the opportunity for exploitation. Some states, like Arizona, have enacted specialized laws meant to provide an extra layer ...

Littlewoods Europe, part of the Shop Direct Group, the second largest online clothing retailer in the UK, has announced that its End of Season Sale has started early. The sale sees more than 5,000 product lines in Littlewoods Europe's online store, discounted, with savings of up to 75% off on offer. Amongst the lines included in the End of Season Sale are fashion and household related products, such as clothing and footwear for the whole family, as well as homewares, including basics such as bedding and towels. Customers can expect to see big brand names like Calvin ...

Jumeirah Group, the Dubai-based luxury hospitality company and member of Dubai Holding, has announced two management appointments for its two upcoming properties in the Maldives: Jumeirah Dhevanafushi and Jumeirah Vittaveli, scheduled to open in the first quarter of 2011. Stefan Huemer joins Jumeirah Group as area general manager for the Maldives, with a particular remit to lead the pre-opening team of Jumeirah's first two resorts in the Maldives. Mr. Huemer has over 20 years experience in the hospitality sector, having previously worked for international brands such ...

Jumeirah Group, the Dubai-based luxury hotel company and member of Dubai Holding, has signed a management agreement with Liuhe Group, a subsidiary of Hangzhou-based WEI Jun, to operate the Jumeirah Thousand Islands Lake Resort in Qiandaohu, China. The resort is situated on Qiandao Lake in the heart of the popular Hangzhou-Thousand Island Yellow Mountain Golden Tourism Route, approximately 135 km from Hangzhou. Surrounded by lush forests and offering beautiful lakeside views, the property will consist of a luxury hotel with 89 guest rooms and a further 50 rooms in villas ...

Jumeirah Carlton Tower, the luxury Knightsbridge hotel, has been voted as one of the world's best hotels in Conde Nast Traveller magazine's seventh annual Gold List - one of only three UK hotels to be recognised for outstanding service. The panel of judges cited the hotel's above and beyond service as the outstanding feature that propelled the hotel onto the Gold List. Feedback from the panel noted the Knightsbridge hotel staff are willing to go that extra mile, from preparing a private meal for two in the gardens of Cadogan Square to setting up cooking lessons with ...

From a man that possesses many musical mastery talents comes a debut album which incorporates almost 30 years of experience playing with some of middle America's most formidable bands, now it's time for Mark Hoevet's "Keys To The Journey" album to shine through as his personal storm of pain is over and the new solo journey begins. Backed by the album's Executive Producer, Mark A. Forrest who has put the wheels in motion for major distribution, radio promotions worldwide and mass media recognition with album reviews written by some the best in the music industry, Hoevet ...

Gottfried Medical manufactures medical devices. They specialize in the engineering and manufacturing of made-to-measure compression garments, including: stockings and sleeves. The majority of their products aid in controlling numerous vascular conditions and lymphedema. They also manufacture compression garments specially engineered to suppress and control hypertrophic scarring, resulting (most often) from serious burn injury. Their new facility is almost 12,000 square feet, nearly double the previous. This writer had the pleasant opportunity to spend a day there, asking ...

The 2011 golf season is fast approaching in Myrtle Beach, and the team at MyrtleBeachGolfVacations.com is ready to provide custom Myrtle Beach golf packages to golfers from around the world. Golfers that choose to book a golf trip through Myrtle Beach Golf Vacations will be personally assisted by Branden Player, who is the director of golf at MyrtleBeachGolfVacations.com. Branden is a Myrtle Beach native, and he has personally played at many of the golf courses on the Grand Strand. Why would one settle for booking through a phone operator who doesn't even play golf, when ...

The AAA Great Vacations EXPO, held January 21-23 at Veterans Memorial, will offer unheard-of discounts for travelers seeking the best deals on vacations and getaways. AAA Travel and the dozens of other EXPO exhibitors will offer a host of specials throughout the three-day event, but those deals are available exclusively to EXPO guests. Whether travelers are seeking a Caribbean cruise, a family road trip or a quick romantic getaway, they'll find incredible discounts and giveaways on many types of travel and travel-related products. Just a few of the deals include: - ...

Alpha Center for Divorce Mediation, pioneered integrated divorce mediation services 15 years ago, have once again brought critical advancements to the way divorce is handled by introducing a new concept that facilitates divorce mediation online. Pennsylvania and New Jersey divorcing couples now have an option to mediate online, as an alternative to in-office sessions. This affords clients the privacy of mediating their divorce using their personal computers in a home setting. Many savvy couples have already learned to forgo expensive and grueling court battles and ...

STONEVILLE, MS – Landscape trees, valued for their aesthetic nature and their environmental benefits, are becomingly increasingly valuable in urban environments. A single mature tree can add considerable value to commercial and residential properties. Conversely, tree mortality can result in significant economic losses. Urban trees must endure adverse growing conditions that reduce their structural strength and subject them to stresses, predisposing them to disease. One particularly devastating pathogen, wood-rotting fungi, can compromise the stability of urban trees, resulting ...

KINGSTON, RI – Erosion is a significant problem on highway embankments in New England. To mitigate erosion on the regions' highways, slopes are seeded with a grass–legume mixture that usually including red fescue, a grass preferred for its drought-tolerance and ability to thrive in acidic, infertile soil. "A mixture of red fescue, perennial ryegrass, and kentucky bluegrass is planted to stabilize the soil, but only the red fescue survives long term on slopes", noted Rebecca Nelson Brown, lead author of a report in HortScience. Brown and a team from the Department of Plant ...

ITALY – Most agricultural crops require large quantities of nitrate-rich fertilizer to realize optimal yields. The dilemma for growers is finding ways to balance the amount of nitrogen needed for production while minimizing potentially harmful nitrates that can leach into ground and surface waters. Increased interest in environmentally beneficial "low-input" approaches is challenging researchers to identify genotypes that have a characteristic called "high nutrient use efficiency", or NUE. Using vegetable types with high NUE could help growers lessen environmental impacts ...

EL PASO, TX – To conserve dwindling water resources, municipalities are encouraging the use of "recycled water", municipal wastewater that has been extensively treated and deemed safe to reuse for irrigation and other purposes. Using recycled water can be cost-effective and helps conserve the potable supply. In areas of the U.S. where production of bedding plants means income and jobs, commercial growers are looking for ways to use reclaimed or recycled water for irrigation, but using recycled water does not come without challenges. The water can contain high levels of ...

RALEIGH, NC – Christmas trees provide a significant source of revenue in southern Appalachia, resulting in millions of dollars in sales during the holiday buying season. The most popular species in the region is fraser fir, appreciated for its fragrance and consumer-friendly traits such as soft needles, strong branches, exceptional needle retention, and natural Christmas tree shape. Frasers, indigenous to isolated high-elevation mountains in southwestern Virginia, western North Carolina, and eastern Tennessee, are under attack by a pathogen called Phytophthora cinnamom, ...

A large collaborative study has added to the growing list of genetic variants that determine how tall a person will be. The research, published by Cell Press on December 30 in the American Journal of Human Genetics, identifies uncommon and previously unknown variants associated with height and might provide insight into the genetic architecture of other complex traits. Although environmental variables can impact attained adult height, it is clear that height is primarily determined by specific alleles that an individual inherits. Height is thought to be influenced by ...

ANN ARBOR, Mich. — A lung transplant can mean a new chance at life. But many who receive one develop a debilitating, fatal condition that causes scar tissue to build up in the lungs and chokes off the ability to breathe. University of Michigan researchers hope a new diagnostic tool they developed to predict bronchiolitis obliterans syndrome (BOS) will allow doctors to intervene earlier and, ultimately, to provide life-saving treatments. BOS is the leading cause of death for those who survive one year after lung transplantation and more than half of recipients will develop ...

Emergency department overcrowding can result in long waiting times for seriously ill patients. They then compete with patients with less severe illnesses for the next available treatment. In this edition of Deutsches Ärzteblatt International (Dtsch Arztebl Int 2010; 107[50]: 892𔃆), Michael Christ and his coauthors provide an overview of current practice for initial assessment of emergency patients. Triage provides reliable methods that can be used to assess the severity of an illness and the urgency of treatment in emergency departments. In English-speaking countries, ...

An influx of invasive species can stop the dominant natural process of new species formation and trigger mass extinction events, according to research results published today in the journal PLoS ONE. The study of the collapse of Earth's marine life 378 to 375 million years ago suggests that the planet's current ecosystems, which are struggling with biodiversity loss, could meet a similar fate. Although Earth has experienced five major mass extinction events, the environmental crash during the Late Devonian was unlike any other in the planet's history. The actual number ...

Tel Aviv ― It has long been believed that modern man emerged from the continent of Africa 200,000 years ago. Now Tel Aviv University archaeologists have uncovered evidence that Homo sapiens roamed the land now called Israel as early as 400,000 years ago ― the earliest evidence for the existence of modern man anywhere in the world. The findings were discovered in the Qesem Cave, a pre-historic site located near Rosh Ha'ayin that was first excavated in 2000. Prof. Avi Gopher and Dr. Ran Barkai of Tel Aviv University's Department of Archaeology, who run the excavations, ...

CORVALLIS, Ore. – Members of the engineering faculty at Oregon State University have invented a new type of radiation detection and measurement device that will be particularly useful for cleanup of sites with radioactive contamination, making the process faster, more accurate and less expensive. A patent has been granted on this new type of radiation spectrometer, and the first production of devices will begin soon. The advance has also led to creation of a Corvallis-based spinoff company, Avicenna Instruments, based on the OSU research. The market for these instruments ...

AUDIO: Addiction researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have noticed an unexpected link between alcoholism risk and obesity. They report when a person has a genetic risk... Click here for more information. Addiction researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have found that a risk for alcoholism also may put individuals at risk for obesity. The researchers noted that the association between a family history of alcoholism ...

The GOES series of satellites keep an eye on the weather happening over the continental U.S. and eastern Pacific and Atlantic Oceans and had a busy time with wild weather in 2010. Today, GOES-13 captured one of the last images of North and South America in 2010 as the world continues to turn toward 2011. The Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite called GOES-13 satellite captured a "full-disk image" of North and South America in an image created December 30 at 1445 UTC (9:45 a.m. EST) as the world awaits the new year. The stunning image shows cloud cover associated ...

System 98S is currently bringing rains and gusty winds to the northwestern coast of Western Australia, and NASA's Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission satellite spotted areas of moderate to heavy rainfall in the system. NASA's TRMM satellite captured an image of System 98S' rainfall when it passed overhead in space on Dec. 30 at 1310 UTC (8:10 a.m. EST). TRMM is a joint mission between NASA and the Japanese space agency JAXA that can estimate rainfall in a tropical cyclone from its vantage point in space.The heaviest rainfall was occurring over the Southern Indian Ocean ...

AUDIO: It’s not news that exercise is good for your health, but scientists continue to learn more about just how beneficial regular exercise can be. Now a study led by researchers... Click here for more information. Consistent exercise is associated with a lower risk of dying from colon cancer, according to a new study led by researchers at the Siteman Cancer Center at Washington University School of Medicine and Barnes-Jewish Hospital in St. Louis. The study is among ...