The week of October 17-23 marked the fourth annual Operation Safe Driver campaign, a collaborative effort among federal, state and local enforcement agencies and the trucking industry to promote safe driving among commercial truck and passenger vehicle drivers. The program was created in 2007 by the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance (CVSA) and Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) with the goal of decreasing the number of deadly accidents involving trucks, buses and other commercial vehicles in the US. Nationally, nearly 5000 people die annually in trucking ...

The effects of domestic partner violence -- also known as domestic abuse, domestic violence, spousal abuse and intimate partner violence -- are felt all throughout our society. Violence between partners impacts a range of areas, and it has the possibility of affecting everything from child custody to emotional development and work status to criminal history. Partner or child abuse in a home can have a dramatic impact on whether or not custody is granted to a particular party in the event that parents separate. Of course, there are implications even if they are no children ...

Medical expenses are second only to divorce as a cause of bankruptcies across our nation. Everyone -- from politicians to homemakers -- seems to know that we are in the midst of a health care crisis, but no one seems to know what to do about it. Skyrocketing costs and a floundering economy have put more hospitals in need of aggressive collection tactics as fewer people are financially able to pay their medical bills. Unpaid bills are not just written off by the providers, however. Hospitals, clinics, physicians and others in the medical industry pass those expenses along ...

A ruling from the California Court of Appeals has conclusively established the California Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1973 (Cal-OSHA) as having the force of law. Importantly, one provision of Cal-OSHA requires anyone working on a worksite to report hidden hazards that they have discovered at a multi-contractor work site. If a contractor does not warn others about a discovered but non-obvious danger, the contractor may be held liable in a personal injury lawsuit. Attorney Bradley Corsiglia of Corsiglia, McMahon & Allard, successfully argued this appeal. The ...

Not as Many Lives Saved by Mammogram, Study Finds A recent study published in the New England Journal of Medicine suggests that frequent mammograms may not be as big a factor in reducing breast cancer deaths as previously thought. Researchers studied the medical records of more than 40,000 women with breast cancer in Norway and found that mammogram detection of the cancer was responsible for only one-third of the women who survived. According to the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, annual mammograms for women starting at age 50 are thought to reduce the likelihood ...

Lump Sum Payments for Workers' Comp Benefits Colorado law allows injured workers to seek compensation for injuries they suffer while on the job. When such injuries prevent use of arms, fingers or legs, the law allows for scheduled payments that correspond with the severity of the particular injury. These payments, whether assigned to permanent partial disability (PPD), permanent total disability (PTD) or death benefits, are based on what the worker would have earned if he or she would not have been injured. While some workers may prefer monthly workers' compensation ...

Distracted Driving in NY Takes Deadly Bite out of The Big Apple By now, most of us realize that texting and driving do not mix. Yet, drivers who are distracted by various tech-toys remain a constant source of danger for commuters and pedestrians alike. In September, four people were killed and 24 injured when a New York bus driver crashed into a railroad overpass. The driver later admitted that he was distracted by his personal GPS device. This is just one tragic example of the distracted driving accidents that plague our states' roads. According to the National ...

Elderly Drivers Can Endanger Other Drivers and Pedestrians in New York In one day, two elderly drivers injured pedestrians and property in Brooklyn and Queens. In one incident, a 79-year-old driver hit three teenagers while driving against traffic in Brownsville, New York. Personal injury lawyers following the media also learned that a driver, aged around 80 years old, trapped a restaurant customer under her vehicle after she drove her Mercedes Benz into a Queens deli. The New York Post reports that the deli customer involved in the auto accident is in critical but ...

Religious Freedom Has a Place in the Workplace The past ten years have been difficult for actively religious workers across America. The United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) has received a dramatic increase -- nearly 90 percent more -- in complaints involving alleged religious discrimination in the workplace. The rate of religious discrimination claims has grown at around four times the rate as other claims. Not surprisingly, complaints from Muslims have almost tripled in the years since the events of September 11, 2001, but Muslim workers ...

CSA 2010 Aims to Reduce Trucking Accidents Semi trucks and other commercial vehicles involved in accidents can cause significant damage. Trucks are usually traveling at a high rate of speed with these collisions occur. And because of the size and speed of these vehicles, these accidents can cause serious injuries or death. With that in mind, legislators are making accident reduction a focus when crafting new legislation or regulations. Trucking companies throughout the U.S. are headed for major changes in 2010 and 2011. The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration ...

Domestic Violence Arrests in Arizona October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month and police in Mesa recently completed a crackdown on domestic violence warrants. The campaign was designed to reduce outstanding warrants, which number over 500 in the Mesa area. Other law enforcement agencies across the state also targeted domestic violence offenders. According to the Arizona Department of Public Safety, there were over 25,000 domestic violence arrests in 2007. Those arrests resulted in over 42,000 domestic violence charges being brought against offenders. In Arizona, ...

Perception of Fairness in Divorce Toward the end of 2009, details about the impending divorce of billionaire businessman Peter Brant and model Stephanie Seymour began to emerge in a Vanity Fair article. Over the next year, both sides threw allegations at one another through the media. Brant, according to Seymour, was a controlling and intimidating husband; while Brant alleged that Seymour was a chronic drinker, bad mother and abused controlled substances. After nearly 18 months of publicly bashing one another and spending millions of dollars in legal fees, a report ...

Most Dangerous Bus Route in New York City Identified The most dangerous bus in New York City is the M101 bus, according to The New York Post. Buses on this route crashed 268 times in 2009. The 12-mile route circling between Washington Heights and the East Village is one of New York's longest and busiest. The second most dangerous bus was the M15 with a reported 203 accidents on its approximately14-mile trip between East Harlem and South Ferry. As reported by The New York Post, the M101 route has a greater number of inexperienced drivers. Apparently, more experienced ...

Hospital Accreditation Commission Targets Medical Safety Issues The Joint Commission, which accredits 18,000 health care organizations nationwide, recently established the Center for Transforming Healthcare to explore solutions for critical quality and safety problems in the industry. The first basic issue that the center targeted is handwashing, the most obvious hygiene practice that any health care worker should follow. Poor compliance with hygiene protocols contributes to the many deaths from infections that occur in American hospitals every year. The center continues ...

Protecting Yourself From Medication Errors Most patients, particularly those in vulnerable populations (the elderly, children and people with special medical, mental or physical needs), do not question a doctor's judgment in ordering treatment or a nurse's administration of it. Unfortunately, that trust can be misplaced. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) estimates that nearly ten percent of annual medical error reports arise from the improper dosage, ordering or administration of a prescription drug. A statistic from the Institute of Medicine puts this into perspective ...

Heroin Use Increasing Among Utah Teens Low cost, savvy marketing and easy availability have made heroin the recent drug of choice for youths around the country, including Utah's Wasatch Front. Police have been alarmed by the level of sophistication involved in the drug rings, and the young age of the clientele. "We are seeing school-aged children involved in heroin use," said Cottonwood Heights police officer Beau Babkaa to KSL Newsradio. Dealers are even putting the logos of popular films targeted to teens, like Twilight, on heroin bags and giving them away for free. ...

New Law Changes Mandatory Minimums, But More Must Be Done On August 3 of this year, President Obama signed legislation changing the federal mandatory minimum sentences for crack cocaine, bringing them closer to that of powder cocaine. The new law repeals older legislation passed in the 1980s, when many saw crack as a growing epidemic that could devastate urban areas. At the time, the earlier laws had the support of many African-American lawmakers and leaders, but the fallout from those laws has been that of unfair bias against urban blacks. Along with other recent changes ...

Russell Jones & Walker, one of the UK's top family law firms, has opened a specialist international divorce division in response to the demand from ex-pats wishing to get divorced in England. The client base of Russell Jones & Walker includes people living in China, USA, Australia and Singapore, and, according to the firm's national head of family law, Amanda McAlister, there is often doubt as to which country proceedings should be issued in. In international family law, speed is very important. This is because the country where proceedings are issued first has jurisdiction, ...

New findings from Confused.com reveal that charity credit cards may not be as 'giving' as customers think. After analysing the rewards given on 45 of the UK's top charity credit cards Confused.com found that those wishing to be charitable could provide greater support by ditching their charity card and replacing it with a cash-back reward card instead, potentially earning up to three times as much 'cash' which can then be donated to a charity of the cardholder's choice.   Charitable giving in 2009 was 11% lower than 2008 according to the Charities Aid Foundation, no ...

Npower has announced that it is making a hundred pairs of tickets to Football league matches available in support of the Tickets for Troops charity. During the weekend of Remembrance Sunday serving members and those medically discharged from HM Forces will be able to attend football matches for free under the scheme set up by Tickets for Troops using tickets donated by npower, sponsors of the Football League. 28 npower Football League teams from Bournemouth to Yeovil will host men and women from the armed forces who will enjoy the match free of charge through the ticket ...

Standard Life Wealth, the investment specialist for private clients, has appointed five people to boost its team. The latest expansion brings a total of 15 new recruits* to Standard Life Wealth this year. The appointments will be made up of two senior client portfolio managers (Alastair Garvie and Gregg Henderson), one client portfolio manager (John Payne) and two client portfolio manager assistants (Eileen Morrison and Clare Messham) and will be based in Birmingham giving Standard Life Wealth a third fixed location in the UK alongside Edinburgh and London. Richard ...

M&S Money has revealed the results of its Under 18's Work and Money Survey 2010, showing that many of the UKs 'tweens' and teens are financially clued up and eager to start work. The survey - based on research of more than 3,000* UK under 18s - highlights that: - A child aged 8-9 has an average monthly income of GBP9.70 and by 18 years of age monthly income has soared to an average of GBP219. However, while the older age group 'earn' substantially more, they have to subsidise a greater range of expenses. - Both tweens (50%) and teens (30%) save significant percentages ...

San Diego, CA, November 10, 2010 – Heavy drinking among college students results in over 1800 deaths each year, as well as 590,000 unintentional injuries, almost 700,000 assaults and more than 97,000 victims of sexual assaults. In a new study published in the December issue of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, researchers report on the results of the Safer California Universities study, a successful community-wide prevention strategy targeted at off-campus settings. This is one of the first studies to focus on the total environment rather than on prevention aimed ...

The laboratory of Huda Zoghbi, where the discovery that mutations in the gene MECP2 cause the severe childhood neurological disorder Rett Syndrome was made, has taken yet another step toward unraveling the complex epigenetic functions of this gene, implicated also in cases of autism, bipolar disease and childhood onset schizophrenia. The November 11 issue of Nature reports that removing MECP2 from a small group of neurons that typically make the inhibitory neurotransmitter, GABA, recapitulates many symptoms of Rett as well as numerous neuropsychiatric disorders. The ...

Millions will escape hunger and poverty in a widening campaign to achieve global food security and deliver major environmental gains within 25 years Hanoi, Vietnam – One of the world's largest global scientific partnerships for sustainable agricultural development has launched a bold new research initiative that aims to dramatically improve the ability of rice farmers to feed growing populations in some of the world's poorest nations. The efforts of the Global Rice Science Partnership, or GRiSP, are expected to lift 150 million people out of poverty by 2035 and prevent ...