It doesn't get any easier for Lindsay Lohan: The "Liz & Dick" actress was arrested early Wednesday morning in New York for "leaving the scene of an accident and causing physical injury," a spokesperson with the New York Police Department told NBC News.
According to the spokesperson, Lohan, 26,?was driving a 2010 Porsche SUV down an alley on the west side of Manhattan, heading to the Dream Hotel, when she struck a pedestrian while traveling at a low speed.
The NYPD spokesperson said Lohan went into the hotel on West 16th Street after the accident and was arrested after she came out at 2:30 a.m. Lohan was booked, issued a desk appearance ticket and released without bail.
TMZ reports that alcohol was not involved. The 34-year-old pedestrian was injured in the knee and taken to Bellevue Hospital where he was in stable condition, Reuters reported.
Though she was released from formal probation in March of this year after being charged in 2007 with drunk driving and cocaine possession, the actress remains on informal probation until 2014 in connection with the theft of jewelry in 2011. According to Access Hollywood, the L.A. City Attorney's office has forwarded information about the incident to the relevant authorities. It's unclear if Lohan will be charged with a violation of probation.
New York - Is it advisable to enter into sexual intimacy hastily if you want a long-lasting, quality relationship? Does living together lead to successful marriages? A Cornell University study on the effects of early sexual activity on the future of the relationship has been published recently in the Journal of Marriage and Family. The researchers of the article "The Tempo of Sexual Activity and Later Relationship Quality" reviewed data from nearly 600 married and cohabiting couples and found that rapid sexual involvement together with cohabitation affect the quality of long-term relationships. I contacted the lead author of the article, Professor Sharon Sassler of the Department of Policy Analysis & Management at Cornell University, New York about the findings. What was the aim of the review?
The aim of this study was to find out whether the speed of entry into sexual relationships among couples is associated with relationship quality since previous studies have suggested this.
Cornell University - Professor Sharon Sassler
image:125572:0::0
After reading the results of earlier research, we assumed that rapid sexual involvement would affect the matching process and relationship quality, especially if sexual dependencies replaced emotional compatibility as a primary basis for cohabitation and marriage.
What were the overall findings of your research?
Overall, our empirical results suggest that couples moved rapidly into sexual relationships and more than one third reported having sex within 1 month of the start of their relationships.
What are women?s views on the speed of entry into sexual activity?
We found that for women the speed of entry into sexual relationships was negatively associated with marital quality and that slowing things down may improve women?s views of overall relationship quality, particularly if commitment and intimacy are also improved. We also found that early sexual activity, may have greater symbolic value as an indicator of relationship commitment for women, regardless of whether the relationship is ??right?? for them - implied by the fact that women may be more sensitive to the quality of their relationship than men are.
What about men?
From the men?s perspective, the speed of entry into sexual activity was largely unrelated to the quality of the relationship.
So you are saying that men basically don't really care when the sex happens, as long as it happens?
Yes, I suppose you could put it like that :)
So does early sexual activity in relationships eventually lead to poor quality marriages?
The association between relationship tempo and relationship quality is largely driven by entry into cohabitation. That is, early sexual activity was linked to subsequent cohabitation and less satisfying marriages.
So early sexual engagement has a less detrimental effect on marriage than cohabitation?
The research review found that it's not necessarily the tempo to sexual involvement, per se, but yes, the rapid movement into shared living, which mediates the effect of rapid sex on most measures.
Peter Drier
File photo: Laughing couple
image:68805:0::0
So does this research suggest that there should be no sex or cohabitation before marriage?
No, that is not what the research wishes to suggest at all since the vast majority of young American adults do have sex or cohabit. This is a review of previous research about how long studies have said Americans wait to have sex. We haven?t found much evidence that entry into sexual relations has sped up in recent years - but other factors (such as cohabitation) have.
So is the main question of your research the effects of cohabitation on long term relationships?
Yes, we are trying to situate our research in the body of work that is exploring what effect cohabitation may have on marriage. We're not promoting abstinence or virginity pledges - just looking at potential contributing factors to stronger or weaker relationship quality. Yes.
What does research say about cohabitation?
Much of my research of late has focused on cohabitation, and we really do not know that much about how rapidly couples end up moving in together, or if that is occurring more rapidly than it used to in the past, as cohabitation becomes more normative. But relationships may be harder to get out of once couples are living together -- and many couples, especially those from less advantaged backgrounds (less education, jobs that pay less, from disrupted families who may not have the resources to subsidize their children's independent living) seem to move in with new romantic/sexual partners quite quickly. It could be that deciding to live together quickly doesn't leave couples enough time to figure out if they are on the same page regarding values, goals, the future. In my qualitative interviews, respondents who are cohabiting seem to confirm this by telling me that they have often not discussed the future before moving in, because it is just "too soon to do that."
So from the research can you assume that once couples are living together they may feel obliged to take the next step and get married?
No. The empirical evidence indicates that the duration of cohabiting unions is increasing, and the proportion of those that cohabit that go on to marry that partner has also declined over time.
image:99361:1::0
That is interesting ? living together may be making couples rethink?
Yes, it seems that it is time to reassess the belief that cohabitation is a "stepping stone" to marriage. While some couples may feel pressure -- whether from their own internal clocks or parental pressure - to wed if they are living together, many also express the strong desire to have various things in place before they do so - completed education, a stable job or career, money saved in the bank.
Concerns with "readiness" can therefore enable couples to delay tying the knot, particularly as the prerogative of proposals still remains largely a male responsibility.
So it isn?t the case of couples feeling obliged to get married because of cohabitation?
Some research, by Scott Stanley and colleagues, has suggested that cohabiting couples may "slide" into marriage and that men who do so are less dedicated and committed to their partners. But as the role of cohabitation changes, and fewer proceed into marriage, social pressure to get married may also decline.
My qualitative research suggests that men and women who are wary of marriage have ways to avoid taking that step. For the men, they can put off asking; for the women, expressing ambivalence about marriage is a key way to avoid forcing the issue, since men are not inclined to ask a woman they are not sure will say yes to their proposal.
Tasered youth fare as well as adults, new research saysPublic release date: 18-Sep-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Bonnie Davis bdavis@wakehealth.edu 336-399-8274 Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center
Wake Forest Baptist continues taser safety research
WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. Sept. 18, 2012 -- Adolescents who are tasered by law enforcement officers do not appear to be at higher risk for serious injury than adults, according to new a new study from Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center researchers.
This latest research from Wake Forest Baptist is the first to specifically investigate Taser use on adolescents. Lead author Alison R. Gardner, M.D., an assistant professor of emergency medicine at Wake Forest Baptist, found no major differences in the injury rates or types of injuries to youth when compared to adults.
"We were looking closely for increased risk of cardiac effects and bodily injuries because of the differing body size and build of adolescents, but there were no significant injuries reported for this age group," said Gardner. "There were 20 mild injuries recorded and the majority of these were expected superficial puncture wounds from the weapons' probes."
The research appears this month online ahead of print in Pediatric Emergency Care. This was a retrospective study of Taser use from law enforcement data collected by the largest, independent multicenter database established in 2005 with funding by the National Institute of Justice. Tasers, or conducted electrical weapons, are non-lethal defense weapons used by law enforcement personnel to shock a person with probes from a distance.
Gardner and colleagues reviewed 2,026 Taser uses and found that 100, or 4.9 percent, were against adolescent suspects ranging in age from 13 to 17, with an average age of 16. Most of the youth were tasered by law enforcement officers during incidents involving civil disturbance, assault, robbery and burglary. Alcohol or other drug intoxication was known or suspected by police in 30 of the 100 cases, according to the study.
A limitation of the study is that the mean age (16), weight (168 pounds) and height (5 feet 8 inches tall) of the individuals reviewed indicates that this "population of minors mirrored the physiology of older adolescents and adults, more so than that of young or small children," Gardner said. "In real-life situations, Tasers were used in adolescents who were larger and older. This implies that law enforcement personnel are using Tasers as apprehension aids when physical apprehension is not easily accomplished, as would be the case in smaller and younger subjects."
This latest research builds on the work of its senior author William P. Bozeman, M.D., also of Wake Forest Baptist, who conducted the world's first large, independent study of injuries associated with Tasers to assess the overall risk and severity of injuries in real world conditions. Published in 2009, those results showed that the rate of significant injuries was low (less than 1 percent) and most injuries appeared to be minor.
Bozeman followed up with additional research in 2009 that evaluated the immediate cardiac and cardiovascular effects on a group of volunteer police officers, finding that CEW exposure overall was safe and well tolerated. His was only the second study to document the heart rhythm before, during and after a Taser application. In June he published a new study of real-life Taser uses by law enforcement agencies and found none in which the devices could be linked to cardiac complications, even when the probes landed on the upper chest area.
"Tasers have been proven to reduce the risk of injury in both suspects and officers and have prevented far more injuries and deaths than they have produced," said Bozeman. "While no tool is risk free, Tasers are clearly safer than alternate force options available to law enforcement officers such as batons, hand-to-hand combat and firearms, and the appropriate use of Tasers by police officers should be supported."
###
William E. Hauda II, M.D., operational medical director, Fairfax County Police Department, Va., was also a co-author.
Media contacts: Bonnie Davis, bdavis@wakehealth.edu, 336-716-4977; Marguerite Beck, marbeck@wakehealth.edu, 336-716-2415.
Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center is a fully integrated academic medical center located in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. The institution comprises the medical education and research components of Wake Forest School of Medicine, the integrated clinical structure and consumer brand Wake Forest Baptist Health, which includes North Carolina Baptist Hospital and Brenner Children's Hospital, the commercialization of research discoveries through the Piedmont Triad Research Park, as well as a network of affiliated community-based hospitals, physician practices, outpatient services and other medical facilities. Wake Forest School of Medicine is ranked among the nation's best medical schools and is a leading national research center in fields such as regenerative medicine, cancer, neuroscience, aging, addiction and public health sciences. Wake Forest Baptist's clinical programs are consistently ranked as among the best in the country by U.S.News & World Report.
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Tasered youth fare as well as adults, new research saysPublic release date: 18-Sep-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Bonnie Davis bdavis@wakehealth.edu 336-399-8274 Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center
Wake Forest Baptist continues taser safety research
WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. Sept. 18, 2012 -- Adolescents who are tasered by law enforcement officers do not appear to be at higher risk for serious injury than adults, according to new a new study from Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center researchers.
This latest research from Wake Forest Baptist is the first to specifically investigate Taser use on adolescents. Lead author Alison R. Gardner, M.D., an assistant professor of emergency medicine at Wake Forest Baptist, found no major differences in the injury rates or types of injuries to youth when compared to adults.
"We were looking closely for increased risk of cardiac effects and bodily injuries because of the differing body size and build of adolescents, but there were no significant injuries reported for this age group," said Gardner. "There were 20 mild injuries recorded and the majority of these were expected superficial puncture wounds from the weapons' probes."
The research appears this month online ahead of print in Pediatric Emergency Care. This was a retrospective study of Taser use from law enforcement data collected by the largest, independent multicenter database established in 2005 with funding by the National Institute of Justice. Tasers, or conducted electrical weapons, are non-lethal defense weapons used by law enforcement personnel to shock a person with probes from a distance.
Gardner and colleagues reviewed 2,026 Taser uses and found that 100, or 4.9 percent, were against adolescent suspects ranging in age from 13 to 17, with an average age of 16. Most of the youth were tasered by law enforcement officers during incidents involving civil disturbance, assault, robbery and burglary. Alcohol or other drug intoxication was known or suspected by police in 30 of the 100 cases, according to the study.
A limitation of the study is that the mean age (16), weight (168 pounds) and height (5 feet 8 inches tall) of the individuals reviewed indicates that this "population of minors mirrored the physiology of older adolescents and adults, more so than that of young or small children," Gardner said. "In real-life situations, Tasers were used in adolescents who were larger and older. This implies that law enforcement personnel are using Tasers as apprehension aids when physical apprehension is not easily accomplished, as would be the case in smaller and younger subjects."
This latest research builds on the work of its senior author William P. Bozeman, M.D., also of Wake Forest Baptist, who conducted the world's first large, independent study of injuries associated with Tasers to assess the overall risk and severity of injuries in real world conditions. Published in 2009, those results showed that the rate of significant injuries was low (less than 1 percent) and most injuries appeared to be minor.
Bozeman followed up with additional research in 2009 that evaluated the immediate cardiac and cardiovascular effects on a group of volunteer police officers, finding that CEW exposure overall was safe and well tolerated. His was only the second study to document the heart rhythm before, during and after a Taser application. In June he published a new study of real-life Taser uses by law enforcement agencies and found none in which the devices could be linked to cardiac complications, even when the probes landed on the upper chest area.
"Tasers have been proven to reduce the risk of injury in both suspects and officers and have prevented far more injuries and deaths than they have produced," said Bozeman. "While no tool is risk free, Tasers are clearly safer than alternate force options available to law enforcement officers such as batons, hand-to-hand combat and firearms, and the appropriate use of Tasers by police officers should be supported."
###
William E. Hauda II, M.D., operational medical director, Fairfax County Police Department, Va., was also a co-author.
Media contacts: Bonnie Davis, bdavis@wakehealth.edu, 336-716-4977; Marguerite Beck, marbeck@wakehealth.edu, 336-716-2415.
Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center is a fully integrated academic medical center located in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. The institution comprises the medical education and research components of Wake Forest School of Medicine, the integrated clinical structure and consumer brand Wake Forest Baptist Health, which includes North Carolina Baptist Hospital and Brenner Children's Hospital, the commercialization of research discoveries through the Piedmont Triad Research Park, as well as a network of affiliated community-based hospitals, physician practices, outpatient services and other medical facilities. Wake Forest School of Medicine is ranked among the nation's best medical schools and is a leading national research center in fields such as regenerative medicine, cancer, neuroscience, aging, addiction and public health sciences. Wake Forest Baptist's clinical programs are consistently ranked as among the best in the country by U.S.News & World Report.
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Chrome: Keyboard shortcuts for mouseless browsing are plentiful in Chrome, but if you're looking for a little customization, then Keyboard-fu is an extension that allows you to do just about anything you can imagine.
By default, Keyboard-fu lets you customize anything you want provided you're willing to mess around with javascript a little. Within that, you can create keyboard shortcuts to work only on specific pages, or globally. It is a bit complicated to set everything up, but thankfully Keyboard-fu's internal documentation is enough to at least get you started. You can define all your actions in the extension's settings panel, including setting up new hotkeys, URL filters, and the code you want to execute.
Smaller, more subdued groups of teachers picket outside Morgan Park High School in Chicago, Monday, Sept. 17, 2012, as a strike by Chicago Teachers Union members heads into its second week. Mayor Rahm Emanuel said he will seek a court order to force the city's teachers back into the classroom. (AP Photo/M. Spencer Green)
Smaller, more subdued groups of teachers picket outside Morgan Park High School in Chicago, Monday, Sept. 17, 2012, as a strike by Chicago Teachers Union members heads into its second week. Mayor Rahm Emanuel said he will seek a court order to force the city's teachers back into the classroom. (AP Photo/M. Spencer Green)
Smaller, more subdued groups of teachers picket outside Morgan Park High School in Chicago, Monday, Sept. 17, 2012, as a strike by Chicago Teachers Union members heads into its second week. Mayor Rahm Emanuel said he will seek a court order to force the city's teachers back into the classroom. (AP Photo/M. Spencer Green)
A handful of teachers picket outside Shoop Elementary School in Chicago, Monday, Sept. 17, 2012, as a strike by Chicago Teachers Union members heads into its second week. Mayor Rahm Emanuel said he will seek a court order to force the city's teachers back into the classroom. (AP Photo/M. Spencer Green)
Michael Grant, a parent of a Chicago public school student, is reflected in the glasses of teacher Yasman Vaughn as a handful of teachers picket outside Shoop Elementary School in Chicago, Monday, Sept. 17, 2012, as a strike by Chicago Teachers Union members heads into its second week. Mayor Rahm Emanuel said he will seek a court order to force the city's teachers back into the classroom. (AP Photo/M. Spencer Green)
CHICAGO (AP) ? Mayor Rahm Emanuel asked a state court Monday to force Chicago school teachers back to work and end a weeklong strike he calls illegal.
The union immediately condemned the move as an act of vindictiveness by a "bullying" mayor.
Emanuel spokeswoman Sarah Hamilton said city attorneys filed a request in the Cook County Circuit Court to force Chicago Teachers Union members off the picket line and back into classrooms.
The request argues that the labor action is illegal because state law bars the union from striking on anything but economic issues, and that the work stoppage is focused instead on such issues as evaluations, layoffs and recall rights.
The 700-page filing also contends the strike presents a danger to public health and safety, partly because more than 80 percent of 350,000 public students rely on school meals for their basic nutrition; it says 50,000 others, including autistic students, depend on special instruction. And out of school, children are more prone to fall victim to violence, it says.
"At a critical time in their lives, a vulnerable population has been cast adrift by the CTU's decision to close down the schools, with consequent grave implications for the residents of the city of Chicago," the court document says.
The union blasted the city's decision to resort to legal action.
In a statement released later Monday, the CTU said the filing appeared to be "a vindictive act."
"This attempt to thwart our democratic process is consistent with Mayor Emanuel's bullying behavior toward public school educators," the union said in the statement.
A spokesman for the city's law office, Roderick Drew, arguments have not been scheduled and that he didn't expect a ruling until later in the week.
"Nothing will be set today," he said. "Beyond that, we don't know."
The union and school leaders seemed headed toward a resolution at the end of last week, saying they were optimistic that students in the nation's third-largest school district would be back in class by Monday. But teachers uncomfortable with a tentative contract offer decided Sunday to remain on strike, saying they needed more time to review a complicated proposal.
That's when Emanuel said he would take legal action.
"This was a strike of choice and is now a delay of choice that is wrong for our children," Emanuel said in a written statement Sunday night.
The strike is the first for the city's teachers in 25 years and has kept students out of class, leaving parents to make other plans.
Working mom Dequita Wade said that when the strike started, she sent her son 15 miles away to a cousin's house so he wouldn't be left unsupervised in a neighborhood known for violent crime and gangs. She was hoping the union and district would work things out quickly.
"You had a whole week. This is beginning to be ridiculous," Wade said. "Are they going to keep prolonging things?"
Months of contract negotiations have come down to two main issues: teacher evaluations and job security.
Union delegates said they felt uncomfortable approving the contract because they had seen it only in bits. The union will meet again Tuesday, after Rosh Hashana, the Jewish new year holiday.
"There's no trust for our members of the board," Chicago Teachers Union president Karen Lewis told reporters Sunday night. "They're not happy with the agreement. They'd like it to actually be a lot better."
The strike has shined a spotlight on Emanuel's leadership, and some experts suggest the new contract ? which features annual pay raises and other benefits ? is a win for union.
"I'm hard-pressed to imagine how they could have done much better," said Robert Bruno, a professor of labor and employment relations at the University of Illinois at Chicago. "This is a very impressive outcome for the teachers."
With an average salary of $76,000, Chicago teachers are among the highest-paid in the nation, and the contract outline calls for annual raises. But some teachers are upset it did not restore a 4 percent raise Emanuel rescinded last year.
Emanuel pushed for a contract that includes ratcheting up the percentage of evaluations based on student performance, to 35 percent within four years. The union contends that does not take into account outside factors that affect student performance, such as poverty and violence.
The union pushed for a policy to give laid-off teachers first dibs on open jobs anywhere in the district, but the city said that would keep principals from hiring the teachers they think are most qualified.
The union has engaged in something of a publicity campaign, telling parents about problems that include a lack of important books and basic supplies.
Some parents said they remain sympathetic to teachers.
"I don't think they're wrong. The things they're asking for are within reason," said Pamela Edwards, who has sent her 16-year-old daughter to one of about 140 schools the district has kept open during the strike to provide meals and supervision.
Others said they understand why teachers are taking their time.
"What's the point of going on strike if you don't get everything you need out of it?" said Becky Malone, mother of a second grader and fourth grader, who've been studying at home and going to museums over the last week. "For parents, it'll be no more of a challenge than it's been in the past week."
___
Follow Sophia Tareen at http://twitter.com/sophiatareen .
The following guest post was written by John Madrid, a Managing Broker with John L. Scott Real Estate ? University Village and is a 2005-2012 Seattle Magazine ?Five Star? Agent. His clients include both home buyers and sellers. He can be reached at 206-498-1880,?john@live206.com?or?www.live206.com. Click on each image once to open them individually, then again for a larger view.
For the 8th consecutive month the median sale price for single-family homes sold in Northwest Seattle, including Wallingford, met or exceeded the sale price for the same period a year prior. ?Much of this trend can be attributed to a 38% decrease in the supply of homes compared to the previous year.
The median sale price for single family homes in NW Seattle was $420,000 for August compared to $397,500 for August of 2011. Wallingford sale prices ranged from $365,000 to $630,000 with a median sale price of $506,000 and an average sale price of $525,077.
The overall supply of NW Seattle homes in Aug was just 1.2 months of inventory compared to a 2.74 month supply for August 2011. A less than a 3 month supply of homes is considered a Seller?s market.
The average time on market was 27 days of all of NW Seattle and 25 days for Wallingford with many homes, especially those in the John Stanford Elementary reference area, going under contract with one to two weeks.
On average Wallingford homes in August sold for over 100% of their most recent list price which indicates multiple offers for well-priced homes.
More stats on North Seattle real estate can be found at http://www.live206.com/seattle-area-market-update-c21537.html
?
?
(This article originally appeared on Wallyhood, the Wallingford neighborhood blog. For more news and chatter about Wallingford, join us there.)
'I could end up judging 'America's Got Talent, and I smoke pot,' Wiz laughs to MTV News about what Nicki's new gig signifies. By Rob Markman, with reporting by Rahman Dukes
![[ Back to EurekAlert! ]](http://www.eurekalert.org/images/back2e.gif){kind=small}
Public release date: 18-Sep-2012
Share ] 
Chrome: Keyboard shortcuts for mouseless browsing are plentiful in Chrome, but if you're looking for a little customization, then Keyboard-fu is an extension that allows you to do just about anything you can imagine. 
For the 8th consecutive month the median sale price for single-family homes sold in Northwest Seattle, including Wallingford, met or exceeded the sale price for the same period a year prior. ?Much of this trend can be attributed to a 38% decrease in the supply of homes compared to the previous year.
The overall supply of NW Seattle homes in Aug was just 1.2 months of inventory compared to a 2.74 month supply for August 2011. A less than a 3 month supply of homes is considered a Seller?s market.
On average Wallingford homes in August sold for over 100% of their most recent list price which indicates multiple offers for well-priced homes.