In 2003, Texas implemented the Texas Driver Responsibility Program. The Texas legislature thought the program would be an optimal way to combat problems like drunk-driving accidents, and budget shortfalls. However, critics say the program has been a failure and are now urging the legislature to repeal the program. What is the Texas Driver Responsibility Program? The Texas Driver Responsibility Program requires drivers who accumulate points on their driver's license for certain traffic citations or who are convicted of certain traffic offenses to pay a fine known ...

DURHAM, N.C. – Rising salinity in the primary source for desalinated tap water in North Carolina's Outer Banks has been traced to fossil seawater, not – as some have feared – to recent seawater intrusion. This means the saline groundwater in the Yorktown aquifer can remain a valuable source of desalination for decades to come, without Dare County communities having to switch to the much more costly alternative of desalinating seawater, says Duke University researcher Avner Vengosh. Vengosh, professor of geochemistry and water quality at Duke's Nicholas School of the ...

A dollar is a dollar is a dollar, so goes the economic theory of fungibility. But do people really act that way? In a new working paper, Brown University economist Justine Hastings and Jesse Shapiro of Chicago Booth School of Business find striking evidence that basic consumer choice behavior violates this bedrock theory. "Fungibility is an important assumption in many economic models, but we have a lot of laboratory evidence suggesting that people don't, in fact, treat a dollar as a dollar," said Hastings, associate professor of economics. "People instead try to manage ...

The Wendell H. Ford Aviation Investment and Reform Act for the 21st Century (AIR21) 49 U.S. C. Section 42121 is a federal law that provides retaliation protections for employees of commercial air carriers and their contractors or subcontractors, who report alleged violations of federal laws related to aviation safety. AIR21 provides that no air carrier or contractor or subcontractor of an air carrier may discharge an employee or otherwise discriminate against an employee with respect to compensation, terms, conditions or privileges of employment, because he or she provided ...

Men and women infected with HIV reduced the risk of transmitting the virus to their sexual partners by taking oral antiretroviral medicines when their immune systems were relatively healthy, according to findings from a large-scale clinical study sponsored by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health. The clinical trial, known as HPTN 052, was slated to end in 2015 but the findings are being released early as the result of a scheduled interim review of the study data by an independent data and safety ...

CHAPEL HILL, NC — A research study led by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has made a major discovery in the effort to halt the spread of HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. The study results show that early initiation of antiretroviral treatment in people infected with HIV prevents them from transmitting the virus to their partners. The study, known as HPTN 052, was designed to evaluate whether antiretroviral drugs can prevent sexual transmission of HIV infection among couples in which one partner is HIV-infected and the other is not. The results are ...

South Carolina drunk driving charges are a serious matter. In addition to a criminal record, motorists charged with and convicted of driving under the influence (DUI) face up to a month in jail and nearly $1,000 in fines. And those are just the criminal consequences, because a DUI record will also result in higher insurance rates, license suspension of up to six months and notoriety within an offender's community and at work. But like any other criminal justice process, drivers accused of DUI or driving with an unlawful alcohol concentration (DUAC) are entitled to due ...

COLUMBIA, Mo. –A University of Missouri researcher has found that stress related to pregnancy uniquely affects the health of expectant fathers, which in turn, influences the health of expectant mothers and their infants. Health services should incorporate counseling and assessments for men and women to reduce stressors and promote positive pregnancy outcomes, says ManSoo Yu, assistant professor in MU's Public Health Program. Mental distress in pregnant women – caused by anxiety, lack of social support or low self-esteem – is associated with poor infant health. The importance ...

A law inspired by the 2008 death of 33-year-old Ashley McIntosh now requires that Virginia police vehicles, fire trucks and ambulances responding to emergency calls not only have their so-called "blue lights" flashing but that they also activate their sirens and use their horns while crossing intersections. McIntosh was fatally injured by a Fairfax County officer on February 12, 2008 when Perry's police cruiser went through a red light -- with emergency lights flashing but without the siren turned on -- along U.S. Route 1 in Hybla Valley and struck McIntosh's ...

PASADENA, Calif.—Stronger than steel or titanium—and just as tough—metallic glass is an ideal material for everything from cell-phone cases to aircraft parts. Now, researchers at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) have developed a new technique that allows them to make metallic-glass parts utilizing the same inexpensive processes used to produce plastic parts. With this new method, they can heat a piece of metallic glass at a rate of a million degrees per second and then mold it into any shape in just a few milliseconds. "We've redefined how you process ...

Legislation has been introduced that would require suspects charged with felonies and some misdemeanors to be swabbed for DNA samples in Pennsylvania. The bill is expected to move rapidly through the legislative process. Prosecutors favor the move as making it easier to obtain convictions. The present law limits DNA samples to those convicted or where permitted by a search warrant. The Pittsburg Tribune-Review quotes Sgt. Joe Gannon, from the Pittsburg police sex assault squad, and he explained that as evidence, it could go either way, "I think it's a good ...

Interactive teaching methods significantly improved attendance and doubled both engagement and learning in a large physics class, according to a University of British Columbia study published today in Science. Led by Louis Deslauriers, a post-doctoral researcher at UBC's Carl Wieman Science Education Initiative (CWSEI), the study compared the amount of learning students experienced when taught – in three hours over one week – by traditional lecture and by using interactive activities based on research in cognitive psychology and physics education. The research team ...

Hampton Inn & Suites Hotel Scottsboro offers nearby lodging to golfers and fans attending the National Junior College Athletic Association (NJAA) Division II Men's Golf Championship. The tournament will take place on Tuesday, May 17 at Goose Pond Colony Golf Course and will feature the best young golfers from across the country. Colleges that participate in Division II NJCC Golf are located across the country. Goose Pond Colony is a municipally owned resort located on the banks of the Tennessee River at Lake Guntersville, Alabama's largest lake. Goose Pond Colony ...

WASHINGTON — Warning that the risk of dangerous climate change impacts is growing with every ton of greenhouse gases emitted into the atmosphere, a National Research Council committee today reiterated the pressing need for substantial action to limit the magnitude of climate change and to prepare to adapt to its impacts. The nation's options for responding to the risks posed by climate change are analyzed in a new report and the final volume in America's Climate Choices, a series of studies requested by Congress. The committee that authored the report included not only ...

DALLAS – May 12, 2011 – A cancer drug already used to treat adults and school-age children with sickle cell anemia is safe and significantly reduces pain and other complications of the disease in children as young as 9 months, according to a national study involving a UT Southwestern Medical Center researcher. Pediatric researchers at UT Southwestern and 13 other academic medical centers say hydroxyurea should be offered to all young children with sickle cell anemia, regardless of disease severity and clinical symptoms. The findings of the Pediatric Hydroxyurea in Sickle ...

Guoman Hotels' flagship five star hotel, The Royal Horseguards, has opened the doors to The Equus Bar, London's newest destination bar created specifically with the modern gent in mind. The transformed stylish bar and lounge area of the AA London Hotel of the Year has a strong gentlemen's club feel, styled with crushed velvet reds, chain mail gold and period oil paintings to signify the hotel's historic past. Fabrics in leather, chenille and rich weaves give it a luxurious touch whilst illuminated carved glass panels display cognacs and fine malts. The bar menu - ...

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — Aggregating nearly the entire landmass of Earth, Pangaea was a continent the likes our planet has not seen for the last 200 million years. Its size meant there was a lot of space for animals to roam, for there were few geographical barriers, such as mountains or ice caps, to contain them. Yet, strangely, animals confined themselves. Studying a transect of Pangaea stretching from about three degrees south to 26 degrees north (a long swath in the center of the continent covering tropical and semiarid temperate zones), a team of scientists ...

From private dinners with Paris Hilton at the Sundance Film Festival to the Men's Luxury Toy Expo, to the Muhammed Ali "Night of Champions" charity dinner, millionaire entrepreneur Keith Middlebrook has a long standing reputation for funding charity events, funding promotions, and for funding just plain fun. This includes several weekends of partying at the Chateau Marmont Hotel with Lindsay Lohan. Keith Middlebrook was recently featured on the cover of Star magazine when someone from inside the Chateau Marmont sold his American Express credit card receipts ...

According to a new study released online today, a majority of Americans, including most African Americans, stand together in support of banning menthol in cigarettes just as other cigarette flavorings have now been banned by the FDA. According to established reports, 83 percent of African American smokers and 24 percent of white smokers smoke menthol cigarettes. This new study was done by the Center for Child and Adolescent Health Policy at MassGeneral Hospital for Children (MGHfC), the American Academy of Pediatrics' Julius B. Richmond Center of Excellence, and the ...

Getting two fluids to mix in small or confined spaces is a big problem in many industries where, for instance, the introduction of one fluid can help extract another — like water pumped underground can release oil trapped in porous rock — or where the mixing of liquids is the essential point of the process. A key example of the latter is microfluidics technology, which allows for the controlled manipulation of fluids in miniscule channels often only a few hundred nanometers wide. Microfluidic devices were first introduced in the 1980s and for many years were best known ...

Plants can overcome their evolutionary legacies to become much better at using biological photosynthesis to produce energy, the kind of energy that can power vehicles in the near future, an all-star collection of biologists, physicists, photochemists, and solar scientists has found. A U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) workshop that drew a prestigious collection of 18 scientists to compare the efficiency of plants and photovoltaic solar cells led to an important and provocative scholarly article in today's issue of the journal Science. Two of the scientists are from DOE's ...

Films depicting the 1787 mutiny aboard the British ship HMS Bounty show sailors living cheek by jowl, being forced to dance, enduring storm-ridden Cape of Good Hope crossings to satisfy the ship captain's ego and being flogged for trivial reasons. We may not think that these harsh conditions have much relevance today. But mutinies continue to occur, especially in the armed forces of developing nations. And mutinies have similarities to other types of rebellions, including worker strikes, riots, prison rebellions and political uprisings. University of Washington sociologists ...

EAST LANSING, Mich. — In a head-to-head battle of harvesting the sun's energy, solar cells beat plants, according to a new paper in Science. But scientists think they can even up the playing field, says researcher David Kramer at Michigan State University. Plants are less efficient at capturing the energy in sunlight than solar cells mostly because they have too much evolutionary baggage. Plants have to power a living thing, whereas solar cells only have to send electricity down a wire. This is a big difference because if photosynthesis makes a mistake, it makes toxic ...

Since 2008, the U.S. economy has been "seizing" uncontrollably. Now a Tel Aviv University researcher says that a comparison of the multifaceted economic downturn with the uncontrolled spasms of an epileptic is not inappropriate — and may say something about the origins of the disaster. In a recent article published in the journal PLoS ONE, Prof. Eshel Ben-Jacob of Tel Aviv University's School of Physics and Astronomy, his doctoral student Dror Y. Kenett and economist Dr. Gitit Gur-Gershgorn examined the dynamics of the S&P 500 over the last decade, employing methods originally ...

The Wildlife Conservation Society and other organizations released a new study recommending a disease screening program for farm-raised caiman in ranching facilities in Argentina to ensure the safety of people and wildlife alike. The recommendations focus on two crocodilian species, the yacare caiman and broad-snouted caiman, both of which are reared in caiman ranches for sustainable harvest. The research team sought to assess the presence of potentially harmful bacteria in captive-raised caiman at a typical ranching facility in Argentina's Chaco region, where several ...