Belga archives, AFP/Getty Images

A December 1984 photo of Bishop Roger Vangheluwe. He tendered his resignation amid speculation of phedophilia.

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Belga archives, AFP/Getty Images

A December 1984 photo of Bishop Roger Vangheluwe. He tendered his resignation amid speculation of phedophilia.

The Vatican on Tuesday clarified the punishment against the former Bruges Bishop Roger Vangheluwe after Belgian bishops reported over the weekend that he had merely been sent outside Belgium for spiritual and psychological counseling, a seemingly cushy punishment given the seriousness of the crime.

The decision was the first known application of the Vatican

By Harry Wallop, Consumer Affairs Editor

6:02PM GMT 03 Feb 2011

Harry Wallop’s Twitter

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The average joint electricity and gas bill will now be £1,133, up from £1,069
last year. This is an increase of £65, or 6 per cent – compared with a rate
of inflation of 3.7 per cent.

The figures come as EDF became the final one of the big six energy suppliers
to announce it was increasing bills for its 5.5 million customers, adding
7.5 per cent to electricity bills and 6.5 per cent for gas. The jump takes
effect on March 2.

The company has attracted many new customers in recent months thanks to its
winter guarantee, which promised that bills were frozen until March 1. Its
rivals had started raising prices from November.

Experts pointed out that it was depressingly inevitable that EDF was moving
bills up on the first possible day after its freeze had ended.

Audrey Gallacher, head of energy at Consumer Focus, the Government-funded
watchdog, said: “EDF Energy’s customers will be hugely disappointed
that the supplier has chosen to up its prices as soon as possible after its
price freeze ends. Consumers will be further annoyed that this rise is even
higher than that of most other suppliers, particularly given that the firm
already increased electricity prices in October.

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Article extracted from telegraph.co.uk

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TelegraphPlayer-8299373

6:46PM GMT 02 Feb 2011

Mr Mubarak’s supporters were out in the streets for the first time in large
numbers, with thousands demanding an end to the anti-government movement a
day after the president went on national television and rejected demands for
him to step down.

Those calling for Mr Mubarak to go have been out in Cairo and many other
cities for more than a week, and they drew by far their largest crowd on
Tuesday, when at least 250,000 packed Tahrir Square and the area around it.

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Article extracted from telegraph.co.uk

A storm warning was issued in New York City, where pavements are still covered in huge mounds of snow Photo: AP

By Jon Swaine, New York

5:04PM GMT 01 Feb 2011

More than 4,000 flights were cancelled at major airports across half of the USA,
and schools and businesses were closed, as snow fell on the mid-west at a
rate of three inches per hour.

The National Weather Service issued an urgent warning stating: “Do not
travel! Stay inside! Strong winds and blinding snow will make travel nearly
impossible.”

States of emergency were declared from Oklahoma in the south to Illinois in
the north, while 600 members of the National Guard were dispatched in
Missouri, in the centre of the country.

Chicago was set for up to 20 inches of snowfall, which would be its third
heaviest on record, while central states such as Kansas were anticipating a
foot or more.

Meanwhile winds in excess of 60 miles per hour were expected across the
region, with temperatures set to plummet well below zero as far south as
Texas.

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Article extracted from telegraph.co.uk

By Garrett Hubbard, USA TODAY

Umaid Qureshi leading an afternoon prayer for family members in their home in Herndon, Va., a suburb of Washington, D.C.

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By Garrett Hubbard, USA TODAY

Umaid Qureshi leading an afternoon prayer for family members in their home in Herndon, Va., a suburb of Washington, D.C.

The number of U.S. Muslims will more than double, so you are as likely to know a Muslim here in 20 years as you are to know someone Jewish or Episcopalian today.

Those are among key findings in ” The Future of the Global Muslim Population,” the first comprehensive examination of Muslims, whose numbers have been growing at a faster rate than all other groups combined.

Article extracted from usatoday.com

USA TODAY has found that the well-being of passengers who are traumatized in harrowing incidents can often be ignored or forgotten.

Instead of getting passengers help to deal with shock and trauma, some say, airline and airport personnel are often more preoccupied with rebookings, collecting baggage information and issuing meal or travel vouchers.

TRAUMA: Lingers for passengers long after flight

Airlines are required by law to inform survivors and families of victims that the American Red Cross will provide care and crisis assistance when there’s a crash that involves deaths.

However, there’s no law requiring airlines or anyone else to help those who have near-death experiences while flying — a situation that some air victims and passenger groups say needs to be changed.

“The emotional and psychological needs of fliers traumatized in harrowing incidents have been neglected for too long,” says Gail Dunham, executive director of the National Air Disaster Alliance/Foundation, largely made up of families of air crash victims. “Airlines and the government should be required to provide assistance and help them recover.”

Any support that passengers get from the airlines after frightening incidents is offered voluntarily by the airlines.

The Air Transport Association, which represents U.S. airlines, would not comment on whether airlines should be required to assist passengers.

Dunham says the federal law for providing help in fatal accidents, the 1996 Aviation Disaster Family Assistance Act, should be broadened to assist fliers who say they’ve been traumatized in harrowing incidents even when there’s no death or serious injury.

“The act has worked well and been terrific for many families, but it needs to be updated and expanded,” Dunham says.

Others disagree and say broadening the law would expose airlines to unnecessary litigation by anyone saying they were traumatized.

“If the family assistance act was expanded to folks on airplanes that had non-fatal incidents, it would need to be renamed the Lawyers Assistance Act,” says veteran aviation consultant Michael Boyd. “It would be a field day for airplane chasers trying to prove their clients had severe mental strain.”

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FAITH & REASON: Ted Williams, once homeless, uses golden voice to thank God

That was the case recently with golden-voiced Ted Williams, the Columbus man who was living on the streets until a newspaper reporter helped turn him into an overnight sensation.

It’s also the idea behind Dayton-area pastor Ryan Riddell’s January journey.

The clergyman is hoping to bring awareness to the issue of homelessness this month by sleeping and living in his van on the streets of Dayton instead of in his comfortable Miamisburg home. He seeks shelter from bitter January days at the downtown library or bus hub.

According to Joyce Probst MacAlpine, Montgomery County’s manager of housing and homeless solutions, there are about 4,000 homeless in the Dayton area and there was an 11% increase in people at local shelters in 2010.

It’s the medium that makes Riddell’s experiences unique; he’s using social media to bring home his message in creative new ways. He’s constantly updating his website, tweeting and posting on Facebook to let followers know when someone he’s encountered on the streets needs a pair of long johns, overnight housing or a pair of shoes.

Riddell, bundled up and unshaven, shares his daily reflections through both video and written blogs, appearing on television and radio to tell his story and to grow his audience. He’s been featured in media outlets ranging from the Huffington Post to ABC.com and was one of Friday’s Intriguing People on CNN’s “This Just In.”

He’s racked up 1,000 friends on Facebook and has had 30,000 hits on his web page.

A minister at Shelter Community Church of the Nazarene in Belmont as well as a realtor for Keller Williams, Riddell, 45, also owns a roofing business in Miamisburg.

“I have four reasons for doing this,” he explains. “The first is for my own spiritual renewal. I’m trying to take 30 days to step back from the things I do in the business world and the church.”

A second reason, he says, is that “Jesus became like us in order to reach us.” Riddell says the more he gets into the world of the homeless, the more receptive people have been, allowing him to be of help.

That help may range from passing out drinks and snacks to locating overnight shelter for someone who has been sleeping in a tent and on the street for months. A growing number of followers, including area church members, are helping him by filling needs as they arise.

For example, earlier this week, Riddell was attending a service and meal at Target: Dayton Ministries when an 18-year-old girl named Samantha asked if he could get her a Bible. Within 45 seconds after he’d posted the request on Facebook, someone had offered to drop off the book at St. Vincent’s that night. The same thing happened when Riddell requested a pair of new shoes for a young person who had been wearing the same pair for the past three years.

Riddell says he also hopes to create an awareness of what’s happening downtown, just minutes from where many members of his congregation reside.

“We all hang out at the Oregon District, we socialize, eat, find entertainment, but on the other side of the trestle there’s a semi-tractor trailer and people are sleeping under that on skids with cardboard for insulation,” he says. “I typically drive through there with my windows up and have no awareness of the stuff going on there. I’m trying to live and walk these streets to create an awareness.”

Riddell says we all expect our community organizations to “take care of these things.”

“I believe that biblically we have a responsibility to cry out and help these people,” he says, adding that many people are quick to insist that the homeless get a job and help themselves.

“These folks are so beaten down and so consumed with basic needs such as food and shelter, it’s hard to get out of that hole,” he explains.

He is particularly concerned about the kids who “age out” of the foster care system and end up living on the streets. He’s working with Salem Church of God in Englewood to help create a new nonprofit organization, New Family Tree, that will provide transitional housing for young people who may have no place to go after age 18.

Riddell insists he isn’t “pretending” to be homeless. He set up rules for himself from the get-go: He’s sleeping in a van rather than taking up a bed at a shelter, eating alongside the homeless at local food missions by invitation. He’s seeing his wife and children and showering twice a week; he carries and uses a credit card when he feels it can help someone.

At first, Riddell says, he was intimidated when hanging out at places like the downtown bus hub. One day, a lady to whom he’d recently sold a house didn’t recognize him.

“I had no idea how engaged I would become,” he says. “It’s gripping me more than I had expected. These weeks on the street have helped me better understand those who are homeless.”

“These people have a story,” he says. “They have a name and a soul. They want their story told, they want to be heard. They appreciate my being their voice.”

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Online:

http://30dayshomeless.wordpress.com/

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Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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Cellphones have already proven to be a potent medical instrument in improving patient outcomes. Diabetes patients who are sent videos on their cellphones and actually view them are more likely to check blood sugar levels and comply with their care regimens, said U.S. Army Col. Ron Poropatich, who spoke at the International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas last week.

And wounded veterans sent text messages via cellphone have better follow-up treatment routines and feel more connected to caregivers, said Poropatich, deputy director of the U.S. Army’s Telemedicine and Advanced Technology Research Center at Fort Detrick, Md.

Several military-run treatment trials are testing the promise of cellphones and online apps in patient care. Poropatich foresees patients tracking their blood pressure and other measurements using computers and devices, and those findings being monitored remotely by caregivers. Similarly, cellphones and online video can connect care-intensive patients who want to remain in their homes with off-site doctors and families.

Both of Poropatich’s parents are alive and “I would like to be able to log onto my Blackberry and see how they are doing,” he said.

Already, commercial firms are making their own evolutionary strides in telemedicine and personal health monitoring.

A look at some of the health and medical advances on display last week at CES:

•Homebound parents can stay connected online using VitalLink, a touch-screen based computer system that allows real-time video chatting using the phone line and webcam. The New Jersey-based company created online software that can be used with touchscreens, no mouse or keyboard required. “We’re keeping it easy to use for the elderly who are computer-phobic and don’t have the skills,” says company president Rich Brown.

Photo galleries can also be uploaded for viewing. Chat and photo software features start at $4.99 monthly; touchscreens start at about $300 (vitallink.net).

In some assisted living and skilled nursing facilities, VitalLink is being tested with an additional activity monitor feature that lets caregivers and primary family members track the resident’s involvement. “If they are not active, you can try and call or you can initiate a call from their end and see what’s going on,” Brown says.

•For elderly relatives who want to remain in their own homes, the My Guardian Angel service provides automated fall and wander detection, emergency readings and other behavioral and medical monitoring. Residents wear a wristwatch that tracks location, sends out fall alerts, records body temperature and can be upgraded to record pulse as well.

Additional health data from Bluetooth devices (blood pressure, glucose monitoring) can be captured by My Guardian, too. Base price for the system with watch, wireless Internet gateway, three wireless electrical plug-in routers and charging unit is under $1,000; $79.95 monthly service (atguardianangel.com).

The system is highly customizable. “My mom does not like to sleep with (the watch on) and she takes it off every night. If she doesn’t have it on by 8 a.m. I get a text message to call my mom and tell to put it on,” said CEO Ed Caracappa. “It’s a very complete and fully functional system for those who wish to age in place.”

•Data tracking can also help those who aim to get – and remain – physically fit. MapMyFitness records and tracks your workout progress using free iPhone apps and compatible devices such as hear monitors and GPS devices.

Runners and bicyclists can wirelessly input data from a heart rate sensor (made by Garmin, Wahoo, Adidas or Timex, for instance) to the iPhone or iPod Touch (also compatible with Blackberry and Android devices). ” That gives you instant feedback,” says MapMyFitness senior mobile development manager Chris Glode. “You can just look at your phone and know whether you are in your target zone or not.”

Other data types that can be input include runner cadence and speed, power expenditure (good for cyclists) and weight ($130-up, www.mapmyfitness.com).

Beyond that, a Web-based subscription service lets you view workout charts and reports, as well as training plans (free to $100 annually). “More and more people are wanting to track every aspect of their life using more and more sophisticated types of sensors,” Glode says. “The data you get, in addition to how you feel during the workout and how many calories you burned, is crucial to people.”

•Workouts can tracked and more enjoyable by incorporating your big-screen TV. BodyMedia’s Fit Armband BW ($249) tracks calories burned and consumed, physical activity, steps taken and sleep. The Bluetooth device lets you monitor activity on your iPhone or Android phone already, but starting in April Panasonic will let you access BodyMedia’s software on its Viera HDTVs.

That will allow exercisers to watch their activity levels and calories burnt add up while they watch movies, TV shows or while playing video games. “Our partnership with Panasonic is on the cutting edge for adding important health and wellness information to everyday TV viewing,” says BodyMedia chief information officer Steve Menke. “The integration of a body monitoring technology with the TV is enabling real-time health and wellness management.”

The marrying of consumer electronics and medical technologies is going to be needed especially as baby boomers age, Poropatich says. “Electronic devices are going to hooked to the cloud. That’s all happening.”

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His successor heard their call. On Friday, in the fastest process on record, Pope Benedict XVI set May 1 as the date for John Paul’s beatification — a key step toward Catholicism’s highest honor and a major morale boost for a church reeling from the clerical sex abuse scandal.

He set the date after declaring that a French nun’s recovery from Parkinson’s disease was the miracle needed for John Paul to be beatified. A second miracle is needed to be canonized a saint.

Benedict himself will preside at the May 1 ceremony, which is expected to draw hundreds of thousands of pilgrims to Rome for a precedent-setting Mass: Never before has a pope beatified his immediate predecessor.

Although the numbers may not reach the 3 million who flocked here for John Paul’s funeral, religious tour operators in his native Poland were already preparing to bus and fly in the faithful to celebrate a man many considered a saint while he was alive.

“We have waited a long time and this is a great day for us,” said Mayor Ewa Filipiak of John Paul’s hometown of Wadowice, where the faithful lit candles Friday and prayed at a chapel in the town church dedicated to John Paul.

The Rev. Pawel Danek, who runs a museum in John Paul’s family home, said Benedict had listened to the prayers.

“The Holy Father has confirmed what we all felt somehow,” he said. “For us, John Paul II’s holiness is obvious.”

Benedict put John Paul on the fast track to possible sainthood just weeks after he died, waiving the typical five-year waiting period before the process could begin. But he insisted that the investigation into John Paul’s life be thorough to avoid any doubts about his virtues.

The beatification will nevertheless be the fastest on record, coming a little more than six years after his death and beating out Mother Teresa’s then-record beatification in 2003 by a few days.

It is not without controversy, however. While John Paul himself was never accused of improprieties, he has long been accused of responding slowly when the sex abuse scandal erupted in the United States in 2002. Many of the thousands of cases that emerged last year involved crimes and cover-ups during his 26-year papacy.

Critics have faulted John Paul’s overriding concern with preserving the rights of accused priests, often at the expense of victims — a concern formed in part by his experiences in communist-controlled Poland, where priests were often accused of trumped-up charges.

The most damaging case linked to John Paul concerned the Rev. Marciel Maciel, the founder of the Legionaries of Christ, a conservative order beloved by the late pope because of its orthodoxy, fundraising prowess and ability to attract priestly vocations.

Allegations that Maciel had raped young seminarians were brought by the victims to the Vatican in the 1990s, but under apparent orders from John Paul’s No. 2, a canonical trial was shelved.

Only after Benedict became pope was Maciel sanctioned in 2006; Maciel died two years later.

Despite the Maciel case, Vatican officials have said there was nothing in John Paul’s record that put his beatification into question. Vatican watchers noted on Friday that beatification isn’t a “score card” on how John Paul administered the church but rather a recognition that he led a saintly life.

Carl Anderson, head of the Knights of Columbus, one of the world’s largest Catholic fraternal service organizations, said John Paul’s life was a model of “love, respect and forgiveness for all.”

“We saw this in the way he reached out to the poor, the neglected, those of other faiths, even the man who shot him,” Anderson said in an e-mail to The Associated Press. “He did all of this despite being so personally affected by events of the bloodiest century in history.”

The Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano described his saintliness in these terms Friday: “A passionate witness to Christ from his childhood to his last breath.”

The last remaining hurdle before beatification concerned Benedict’s approval that the cure of the French nun, Sister Marie Simon-Pierre, was a miracle due to the intercession of the late pope.

The nun has said she felt reborn when she woke up two months after John Paul died, cured of the disease that had made walking, writing and driving a car nearly impossible. She and her fellow sisters of the Congregation of Little Sisters of Catholic Maternity Wards had prayed to John Paul.

On Friday, Simon-Pierre said John Paul was and continues to be an inspiration to her because of his defense of the unborn and because they both suffered from Parkinson’s.

John Paul “hasn’t left me. He won’t leave me until the end of my life,” she told French Catholic TV station KTO and Italy’s state-run RAI television.

Wearing a white habit and wire-rimmed glasses, she appeared in good health and showed no signs of tremors or slurred speech, common symptoms of Parkinson’s.

“John Paul II did everything he could for life, to defend life,” she said. “He was very close to the smallest and weakest. How many times did we see him approach a handicapped person, a sick person?”

Last year, there were some questions about whether the nun’s original diagnosis was correct. But in a statement Friday, the Congregation for the Causes of Saints said Vatican-appointed doctors had “scrupulously” studied the case and determined that her cure had no scientific explanation.

Once he is beatified, John Paul will be given the title “blessed” and can be publicly venerated, or worshipped. Many people, especially in Poland, already venerate him privately, but the ceremony will allow Catholics to publicly worship him.

The Vatican said John Paul’s entombed remains, currently in the grotto underneath St. Peter’s Basilica, will be moved upstairs to a chapel just inside a main entrance for easier access by the public.

Visitors are expected in droves. Rome Mayor Gianni Alemanno had a previously scheduled audience with Benedict on Friday and said he had assured the pope that the city was up to the task.

Born as Karol Wojtyla in 1920, John Paul was the youngest pope in 125 years and the first non-Italian in 455 years when he was elected pontiff in 1978.

He brought a new vitality to the Vatican, and quickly became the most accessible modern pope, sitting down for meals with factory workers, skiing and wading into crowds to embrace the faithful.

His Polish roots nourished a doctrinal conservatism — opposition to contraception, euthanasia, abortion and female priests — that rankled liberal Catholics in the United States and Western Europe.

But his common touch also made him a crowd-pleasing, globe-trotting superstar whose papacy carried the Catholic Church into Christianity’s third millennium and emboldened eastern Europeans to bring down the communist system.

He survived an assassination attempt in St. Peter’s Square in 1981 — and promptly forgave the Turk who had shot him.

After suffering for years from the effects of Parkinson’s, he died in his Vatican apartment on April 2, 2005. He was 84.

Cardinal Stanislaw Dziwisz, John Paul’s most trusted friend and aide who was at his bedside that night, gave thanks Friday from Krakow, where he is archbishop.

“We are happy that this process came to an end, that what people asked for — “Santo subito” — was fulfilled,” Dziwisz said. “I express great joy on behalf of the entire diocese of Krakow — and I think I am also authorized to express this on behalf of all of Poland.”

The selection of May 1 — the first Sunday after Easter — as the beatification date is significant. It’s the Feast of Divine Mercy, which John Paul himself inaugurated in 2000 after canonizing Sister Faustina Kowalska, a 20th century Polish mystic to whom he was particularly devoted.

It’s also May Day or labor day, what was once a major communist holiday. While there was some irony in the date, few in Poland noted it and Poles today celebrate May 1 as a welcome and uncontroversial holiday like the rest of Europe.

Copyright 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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Arizona makes it easier than most states to commit mentally ill people to psychiatric care, even against their will. But that doesn’t mean that everyone gets the help they need.

“The state laws are some of the best in the country,” said Jack Potts, a forensic psychiatrist in Phoenix. “The follow-up is not.”

Under Arizona law, anyone can call the county or regional health authorities with concerns about a person’s mental health, and authorities are required to send out mobile units to assess the person’s condition, said Brian Stettin, policy director at the Treatment Advocacy Center in Arlington, Va., which advocates for involuntary commitment for mental illness.

The person who files a request for commitment must list the names of two witnesses who can attest to the subject’s behavior, although they don’t have to sign the document themselves, Potts said.

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Typically, states allow involuntary commitment only if people pose a danger to themselves or others, or if they are profoundly disabled by their mental illness, to the point of being unable to take care of themselves, said Paul Ragan, associate professor of psychiatry at the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine in Nashville.

But Arizona allows for involuntary commitment if someone is deteriorating from a mental illness and could benefit from treatment, Potts said. The law is intended to catch people before they do something dangerous.

He said he knows of a high school principal, for example, who requested a mental health evaluation for an unstable student.

The law also provides up to 90 days of inpatient hospital treatment, Potts said. A judge can order a patient to take his medication; patients who refuse can be sent back to the hospital.

Yet Arizona often lacks the resources to treat people, he said. The state has one of the lowest ratios in the country for inpatient psychiatric beds for its population size.

Across the USA, budget cuts have forced hospitals to close 4,000 inpatient psychiatric beds since 2009 — leaving them less able to take in the mentally ill, said Michael Fitzpatrick, executive director of the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI).

Arizona has eliminated hundreds of positions for mental health case workers, who help coordinate patients’ care, Fitzpatrick said.

In a national score card rating the accessibility of mental health services, the alliance in 2009 gave Arizona a C, “which is pretty close to a failing grade,” said psychiatrist Anand Pandya of Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles; 21 states scored a D, and none earned an A.

To create the score card, the alliance had volunteers in each state try to schedule an appointment with a mental health professional.

“It’s very hard to get an appointment with a psychiatrist in Arizona,” Pandya said. “Pretty much across the board, it takes a lot of time. There’s no one clear number to call, and it’s hard to figure out where to go from their website, even if you are completely mentally competent. The services in Arizona just aren’t designed to be readily accessible.”

PARENTS: Mental health lessons from the Tucson tragedy

Arizona state officials, for example, were unable to tell NAMI how many patients they actually serve, according to the report.

Arizona residents who spoke to NAMI for the report said they had many problems getting care, facing six- to eight-week waits to see a psychiatrist. Others complained of overworked case workers with nearly 100 clients.

One unnamed patient quoted in the report told NAMI, “When I first tried to get help after attempting suicide, I was told that I wasn’t sick enough to qualify.”

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