Attorneys general in 17 states are demanding that craigslist remove its adult services section to make sure prostitution and child trafficking ads don't appear.
A joint letter from AGs in Arkansas, Connecticut, Idaho, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Maryland, Michigan, Missouri, Montana, New Hampshire, Ohio, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia. said that even though the San Francisco-based company would lose revenue, no amount of money "can justify the scourge of illegal prostitution and the suffering of the women and children who will continue to be victimized, in the market and trafficking provided by Craigslist."
In November craigslist added protections that include making posters provide a legitimate phone number and pay a fee to post in the erotic services portion of the site high risk personal loans.
Craigslist has already been subpoenaed by Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, who wants proof that it is taking action to stop prostitution ads.
In a posting on its site, craigslist CEO Jim Buckmaster wrote that the company is "working intensively … with experts and thought leaders at leading nonprofits and among law enforcement on further substantive measures we can take."
The post says that craigslist "is committed to being socially responsible, and when it comes to adult services ads, that includes aggressively combating violent crime and human rights violations, including human trafficking and the exploitation of minors."
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Two new eateries have signed leases to move into the renovated Rainbow Vista Apartments building in Moiliili.
Kokoro Tei, a Japanese restaurant that specializes in bento lunches, is scheduled to open in August, said Emalia Pietsch of Colliers Monroe Friedlander. The restaurant will move into the Diamond Head side of the three-story building on S. Beretania Street, she said.
Domino’s Pizza also signed a lease with landowner Kamehameha Schools to occupy a ground-level retail space.
Pietsch said Domino’s is scheduled to open in late fall or early winter.
The two restaurants will join Teddy’s Bigger Burgers, which opened in Rainbow Vista in May.
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The World Cup might be over, but for the Los Angeles Galaxy, potential roster moves, or non-moves, are making headlines.
One report from the Associated Press has Major League Soccer commissioner Don Garber saying the league will not entertain transfer offers from overseas clubs for Galaxy captain Landon Donovan.
Donovan has recently gone out on loan to German club Bayern Munich and English club Everton. Donovan's time in Everton, along with his performance at the World Cup have made him a more attractive asset for international clubs.
However, it is the World Cup performance, which included a game-winning goal against Algeria that helped the United States win its group, that makes MLS want to keep Donovan stateside.
"MLS needs soccer heroes, and we have a great American soccer hero playing for us in L.A., holding the torch for the sport in our country, and that's very important," Garber said in the AP report payday loans with no fax.
Another potential roster move for the Galaxy could be the signing of Brazlian superstar Ronaldinho, according to an ESPN report. The report cites a radio interview of Real Salt Lake Owner Dave Checketts on KALL, where he hinted that on the heels of New York's signing of Thierry Henry, another club might be looking to lure an well-known player stateside.
“I would imagine this guy is coming to L.A., and you'll all recognize who he is," Checketts said. The interviewer asked if he was Brazilian, and the response was, "I think he might."
The rumors of Ronaldinho signing with the Galaxy have been off-and-on in recent times.
The Galaxy is owned by Los Angeles' AEG.
The Obama administration says it is increasing border security and cracking down more on drug trafficking and smuggling from Mexico into Southwestern states such as Arizona.
On Friday, U.S. Attorney for Arizona Dennis Burke said the federal government has upped illegal drug case filings by 99 percent since 2008, filed 25,200 illegal immigration cases and boosted wiretaps by 50 percent for cases related to money shipped from Arizona to Mexico and other foreign locations.
On Monday, the White House released additional figures as administration officials met with Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer, Attorney General Terry Goddard, Burke and other state officials.
The White House offered the following stats:
K9 patrol units along the border have been increased to 13 from five.
384 agents were added at Southwestern ports of entry along with five high-tech detection units to the six already deployed at Mexican border crossings.
$85 million in illicit cash was seized along the border over the last 12 months — a 22 percent jump from the preceding 12 months.
Federal agencies seized 1,404 firearms and 1.62 million kilograms of drugs along the border the past 12 months — increases of 22 and 14 percent, respectively.
Former U.S. Attorney Paul Charlton said more resources are being focused on border and immigration cases as well as crimes on Indian lands and white-collar and mortgage fraud crimes since Burke took over as federal prosecutor in 2009 and the Obama took office.
Charlton — now a private attorney for the law offices of Gallagher & Kennedy PA — served as U lowest fee payday loans.S. Attorney for Arizona from 2001 until the end of 2006. Charlton exited from that post as part of Bush administration purge.
After 9/11 there was a heavy focus of federal investigation into national security and potential terrorism cases, he said, adding the Bush administration also focused on child pornography.
He expects federal pursuit of child and illegal sex rings to continue under Obama. “It’s still a very serious problem,” he said. But he said the Obama administration appears to be moving more aggressively and with more resources on white collar and mortgage fraud cases as well as on the immigration front.
The statistics were released as Brewer and U.S. Sens. Jon Kyl and John McCain press for more federal resources along the border. Brewer, in particular, has argued the state is under siege from drug cartels and smuggling rings and says more border walls, air patrols are needed.
“Administration officials continue to say that the border is as safe as it has ever been, yet the feds are posting signs 80 miles from the Arizona border warning Americans to stay away from our public lands,” Brewer said in a e-mail promoting her reelection bid. “We need action from the federal government not signs ceding sovereign U.S. territory to international drug cartels and human smugglers.”
Discount Windows & Doors has opened a showroom on Kamehameha Highway, next to King Nissan in Kaneohe.
The facility, at 45-564 Kamehameha Highway, is in addition to the company’s 4,000-square-foot office and warehouse space in North Kaneohe.
The St. Louis public relations community has been buzzing about BP’s response to the deadly Gulf oil spill and how it’s a lesson in what not to do.
“Unfortunately for BP, they have let the crisis manage them; they have not managed the crisis,” said Tim Beecher, a senior vice president and senior partner at Fleishman-Hillard.
Beecher knows a thing or two about crisis communications. After the 1989 Exxon Valdez disaster in Alaska, many companies built crisis response centers and started doing drills for refinery fires and shipping accidents. Beecher helped Amoco with such a plan in Chicago so officials could rehearse and prepare for the worst. “They (BP) need to start asking the federal government and state governments for help and maybe even put out an international appeal, ‘We can’t find our way out of this by ourselves.’ They need to ask for the best and brightest engineers and scientists. They need that kind of brilliance right now to stop the leak and start the cleanup.”
Fueling the fire of BP criticism are the many gaffes BP CEO Tony Hayward has made, PR professionals say.
BP should have immediately recognized the seriousness of the problem instead of downplaying the incident, said Mary Sawyer, director of public relations at the Brighton Agency. “As late as May 18, Hayward insisted the environmental impact of the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico would be ‘very, very modest.’”
Sawyer called the remarks “terribly self-centered and completely inappropriate.”
“This disaster killed 11 people, and we can’t even begin to estimate the environmental and economic impact of tragedy,” she said. “He was right to apologize for his remarks, saying they were hurtful and thoughtless.”
But the apology was too little, too late, said Jill Haynes, a spokeswoman for Isle of Capri Casinos and president of the St. Louis Chapter of the Public Relations Society of America.
“At this point, over 40 days after the tragic explosion on an oil rig off the Louisiana coast, (Hayward) has finally taken the step he should have taken weeks ago. He apologized. Unfortunately, that apology fell on deaf ears … To top it off, immediately after he apologized, he added, ‘I want my life back,’ resulting in an outpouring of additional criticism.”
Lauren Kolbe, president and founder of Kolbe Co., described BP’s communications as “relatively cold and lacking compassion.”
“They don’t appear to be communicating confidently or expressing confidence in their plans and actions, which is leaving people uneasy,” she said. “That, coupled with the seemingly slow and ineffective actions being taken to deal with the spill, is making BP appear incompetent, resulting in the loss of the public’s confidence.”
BP recently hired former vice president Dick Cheney’s press secretary to handle media relations but still has a way to go to restore its reputation. New photos of oil-covered animals also aren’t helping the BP’s carefully cultivated “green” image.
PR experts said if they were BP’s spokespeople they would have used social media to more quickly communicate to the public about the disaster.
“BP underestimated the impact of the Internet on spreading news, photo and video,” said Craig Kaminer, president of Twist. “They were quick at dealing with TV and print reporters, but not at dealing with websites, YouTube, live webcam feeds, blogs and social media sites. When Toyota had their problems, they stopped production and focused all attention on the problem.”
Ron O’Connor, principal of O’Connor & Partners, said BP’s first mistake was to commit to a quick and positive outcome. Instead, the company should have stressed the difficulty of the situation and do so in a way that paints a picture that everyone can understand, he said. “What engineers were attempting was similar to blindfolding a four-year-old youngster, then facing that youngster into a 120-mile-an-hour wind and telling him/her to swing a golf club at a whiffle ball in an attempt to make a hole-in-one at a distance of four football fields,” O’Connor said. “Difficult to achieve, especially when the world is watching and the mere presence of a TV camera gives us the incorrect impression that what we're seeing may be just a foot or two underwater.”
The disaster is now much bigger than BP, Kaminer said. “It will impact millions of lives and livelihoods, and potentially wipe out coastal communities for generations. This is not only possibly fatal for BP but it will impact every oil company and their operations.”
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has donated $5 million to the Public Health Foundation of India for tobacco control efforts.
According to the Seattle foundation, smoking kills 1 million people in India every year and is the leading cause of death among Indians between the ages of 30 and 69. The grant will focus on two states in India — Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh — over the next three years.
Departments of Health, Gujarat & Andhra Pradesh announce the launch of project STEPS with Public Health Foundation of India
(Strengthening of Tobacco control Efforts through innovative Partnerships and Strategies)
Public Health Foundation of India (PHFI) has been awarded five million dollars by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to strengthen the National Tobacco Control Program in two states of India, namely Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh, over a three year period (2009-2012). Project STEPS will provide the much needed district specific strategic response to the rapidly escalating global tobacco epidemic in India.
The Government of India, in compliance with the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, launched the National Tobacco Control Program (NTCP), under the 11th Five Year plan, to build state capacity to effectively implement tobacco control laws, and also to bring about greater awareness of the ill effects of tobacco use. Under the program, Tobacco Control Cells have been set up at each state for implementing State and District Tobacco Control Programs.
PHFI is a public-private partnership linking the government, academia, civil society and the private sector, and engages key stakeholder groups in strategic partnerships. PHFI and its educational institutions – the Indian Institutes of Public Health − are in a unique position to promote and sustain the tobacco control movement in India in partnership with the state governments. PHFI and IIPHs adopt a broad, integrated approach to tobacco control, targeting 11 districts in 2 states with long term vision of extending the successful models and interventions tested through this project, all over India.
The goal of project STEPS is to reduce the health burden of tobacco and associated risks; promote health equity through reduction in health and economic burdens resulting from tobacco consumption by engaging, enabling and empowering two key states and their stakeholders. STEPS seeks to facilitate state level action for implementation of centrally designed tobacco control programs. PHFI will be actively assisting the State Governments and NGOs in developing innovative models of community mobilization, community based self help cessation groups, replicating and adapting effective school based tobacco prevention interventions in India, alongside working with Indian Language Print Media to enhance tobacco control coverage in regional newspapers.
Project STEPS will also be conducting economic research to generate data to fill the research gap in India and examine various intervention models to identify opportunities and barriers for adopting alternate employment opportunities for the workforce involved in tobacco production, manufacture and distribution sector along with multiple government and NGO stakeholders. Along with Government of India and State Governments, this project will test models to mainstream tobacco control into existing health programs to improve quit rate among Indian tobacco users payday advance lender.
PROJECT STEPS will work in the following districts to strengthen implementation of COTPA in Andhra Pradesh/ Gujarat:
Distance Learning programs to strengthen capacity of state and district level health workforce, NGO professionals and other public health professionals are being launched as part of STEPS activities by PHFI. Short term courses on tobacco control serving Lawyers, Journalists, Health Professionals and Administrators, too will be launched by December this year.
To mark this event, Prof. K. Srinath Reddy, eminent cardiologist, tobacco control activist, and President, PHFI said:
“We hope to see Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh emerging as the champion states for tobacco control, demonstrating how various proven measures for tobacco control can be effectively implemented to reduce tobacco consumption. We expect to see a greater number of tobacco consumers quitting their deadly habit and others, especially women and young persons, being provided greater protection from becoming the victims of the tobacco trap and passive smoking. These two states will then become role models for other states, to adopt their best practices and gear up their own tobacco control programs”.
Project STEPS will have a strong presence in Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh. In the next three years, multi-dimensional interventions, research and capacity-building initiatives under Project STEPS will strengthen implementation of tobacco control programs at the district level with active involvement from the Indian Institutes of Public Health at Gandhinagar and Hyderabad.
Commenting on Project STEPS initiatives in Gujarat, Prof. Jay Satia, Director, Indian Institute of Public Health, Gandhinagar, observed that:
“Gujarat faces enormous and complex public health challenges related to tobacco use mainly due to high and varied use of tobacco. Even among school going adolescents it is as high as 18%. PHFI through its Indian Institute of Public Health-Gandhinagar (IIPHG), is partnering with the Department of Health, Government of Gujarat to implement the STEPS project. It will demonstrate innovative strategies for wider adoption at state level leading to significant reduction in health and economic burden of tobacco use.”
Prof. Mala Rao, Director, Indian Institute of Public Health, Hyderabad, observed that:
“Tobacco consumption is a reflection not only of individual choice but also of the socio-economic conditions which determine how people behave as well as their chances of a healthy life. We welcome the STEPS initiative which, for the first time, offers us the opportunity to marshal the evidence on how to establish a truly coherent approach to tobacco control with a better chance of success in rooting out this killer habit.”
Project STEPS looks forward to a fruitful collaboration with the State Government, district administration, Indian Language Print Media, Non Government organizations, community based groups stakeholders and activists to create an enabling environment for tobacco control activities.
Urban Outfitters Inc. said Thursday it fashioned a first-quarter profit of $53 million, a 72 percent increase.
The net income, equal to 31 cents a share, compared to $30.8 million, or 18 cents, a year earlier.
Performance was helped by greater store productivity, e-commerce and international expansion and new brands, the company said.
Sales for the three months ended May 6 totaled $480 million, an increase of 25 percent. On a comparable basis, measuring the same stores as a year earlier, sales were up 16 percent.
Philadelphia-based Urban Outfitters (NASDAQ:URBN) sells clothing and household accessories. It has 157 Urban Outfitters, 142 Anthropologie and 35 Free People locations.
Thirty-eight states assess a tax when you sell a home.
Missouri’s real estate agents want to make sure their state never makes it 39.
The "Vote YES to Stop Double Taxation Committee" — funded by state and national real estate trade groups — said it submitted "tens of thousands" of signatures Sunday to put a constitutional amendment on the November ballot that would prohibit transfer or sales taxes on real estate in Missouri.
Spokesman Scott Charton would not say exactly how many signatures the group submitted, but said it was "very comfortable" that it had more than the roughly 160,000 needed to qualify to put an amendment on the ballot.
The measure is preventative. Neither the state nor any cities or counties in Missouri now have a transfer tax. But real estate groups worry that, in a budget crunch, state or local lawmakers may start taxing home sales in a bid to raise revenue.
"As state, county and city revenues decline, politicians are tempted to impose new transfer taxes — just as Missouri citizens are struggling to make it," the group said in a news release. Elizabeth Mendenhall, president of the Missouri Association of Realtors, described transfer taxes as "unfair double taxation," because Missourians also pay property taxes every year.
Still, such taxes are hardly unusual.
They’re in place in 38 states and the District of Columbia, generally at less than 1 percent of the purchase price. Illinois taxes sales at 0.1 percent, though some municipalities, like the city of Chicago, assess taxes of their own. In some cities, the funds are used to pay for open space or affordable housing programs.
But they don’t exist in Missouri. And real estate agents, already battered by the weak housing market, hope to keep it that way.
Sangamo BioSciences Inc. appointed APT Pharmaceuticals Inc. chief Stephen Dilly as a director, increasing the size of the board from six to seven members.
The Richmond-based company, best known for its “zinc finger” DNA-binding proteins, said Dilly will receive standard fees for non-employee directors: an annual cash retainer of $30,000 and $1,000 per board meeting, if the board meets more than 10 times a year.
Dilly also will receive an option to buy 50,000 shares of common stock at an exercise price of $5.42 per share. Sangamo stock closed last week at $5.42 per share.
Dilly is president and CEO of Burlingame-based APT, which is developing inhaled cyclosporine to treat chronic rejection of lung transplants. The treatment is in a Phase III trial.
Dilly previously was chief medical officer and senior vice president of development at Chiron, leaving after the company’s purchase by Novartis. He also held senior management positions at Genentech Inc., including vice president of development sciences, from 1998 to 2003, and worked in drug development with SmithKline Beecham.
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