Associated Press, June 5, 2014

NEW YORK (AP) — Fire tore through three townhouses on Staten Island early Thursday, injuring 34 people including two young children who were tossed out of a smoke-filled second-floor window into the arms of neighbors below, authorities and witnesses said.

About 200 firefighters responded to the blaze that erupted at about 1 a.m. and battled the five-alarm fire for several hours.

A Fire Department of New York spokesman said 23 firefighters and 11 civilians suffered injuries ranging from minor to serious but none was considered life-threatening. He said the number was expected to climb slightly.

He said the flames were so heavy that firefighters were unable to say where the fire originated. That would be part of the investigation into what caused the blaze, he said.

“My life is in there,” said Cindy Piscopo, who lived on the first floor of one of the four-family townhouses.

Caption: Fire tore through three townhouses on Staten Island early Thursday, injuring 34 people including two young children who were tossed out a window from a smoke-filled second-floor apartment into the arms of neighbors below, authorities and witnesses said. (Photo by @DonChampionTV of WCBS pic.twitter.com/H25dNaBLAX)

She said she was awakened by a top-floor neighbor knocking on her door and yelling at her to get out.
“I saw fire upstairs and flames shooting out of the side of the building” and an adjacent townhouse, she said. “The top floors are gone from both buildings.”

The fire spread to the third building about two hours later, said Piscopo, who escaped safely with her 12-year-old daughter. Firefighters later found her cat behind the building, soaked from the overnight rain.

A neighbor, Anthony DiSimone, said he and his fiancee, Darleen Cerzosie, helped two young children to safety after seeing a man screaming and dangling his young son from a second-floor window thick with smoke.

“The father was stuck up there … he couldn’t do anything — black smoke was just billowing out that window,” DiSimone told the Staten Island Advance. “So I went underneath — he threw him right to me and I caught his son.”

The man also threw his young daughter to Cerzosie, DiSimone said. The children, believed to be 5 and 3, were treated by emergency officials and seemed to be OK but shaken up, he said. Firefighters were eventually able to get to their father as well, he added.
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Associated Press video journalist Ted Shaffrey and photographer Kathy Willens contributed to this report.

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They criticize the silent ones. They criticize the talkative ones. They criticize the moderate ones.
There is no one in the world who escapes criticism. ~ Thich Nhat Hanh

The secret to happiness is happiness itself.
Wherever we are, any time, we have
the capacity to enjoy the sunshine,
the presence of each other, the wonder
of our breathing. We don’t have to travel
anywhere else to do so. We can be
in touch with these things right now.

~ Thich Nhat Hanh

When you are able to train your Heart to be happy with what you have in front of you, and to never expect anything from anyone in this world, but a genuine smile, that is the moment you will feel that you have everything in the world and no one can take this beautiful treasure a way from you.This is the Beauty of Nothingness…

Below is a great message from Mother Teresa that I love so much. No one could say it better than this:

“Humility is the mother of all virtues; purity, charity and obedience. It is in being humble that our love becomes real, devoted and ardent. If you are humble nothing will touch you, neither praise nor disgrace, because you know what you are. If you are blamed you will not be discouraged. If they call you a saint you will not put yourself on a pedestal.”

― Mother Teresa

The real things haven’t changed. It is still best to be honest
and truthful; to make the most of what we have;
to be happy with simple pleasures; and have courage
when things go wrong. ― Laura Ingalls Wilder

Doggy and monkey don’t want to share the lollipop.
Must be too yummy!

By The Daily Ticker, June 4, 2014

The future of driving is looking bright, literally. In the video above, The Daily Ticker meets a new U.S. automaker, Elio Motors, with a bright orange prototype of its Elio automobile. It’s got one door, two seats, three wheels and stands to make driving more affordable for many Americans. Why? It’s being engineered to achieve 84 MPG on the highway at a cost of $6,800.  It’s also being made in the U.S.A.

Elio’s founder and CEO, automotive engineer Paul Elio, tells us the original concept behind Elio Motors was to help Americans struggling with high prices at the pump. The automaker is marketing it as an “and” (i.e. in addition to your current vehicle) not “or” car, for things like driving to work.

They’re planning to build it at a former General Motors (GM) plant in Shreveport, Louisiana, which GM got rid of in its bankruptcy. Elio pledged to create 1,500 jobs when it purchased the plant.

motorreview

“If you’re going to build a sophisticated product like a vehicle, America is still the best place to do it, hands down … we have the skilled labor force, we have the infrastructure,” Elio says, adding that he thinks the price tag of his car will demonstrate a product can be made in the U.S. at a low cost.

One secret to keeping costs down is by using parts already in use in other vehicles, says Elio vice president of sales Jerome Vassallo.

The Elio is technically a motorcycle, because it has fewer than four wheels. The automaker is engineering it for a 5-star crash test safety rating. Kathryn Henry, a spokesperson for the Department of Transportation, says the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration will not test the Elio though, as it is not technically a car. (The company is lobbying for an exception). Elio’s safety features include a roll cage, three airbags that cover all the windows, and engineering built to absorb frontal, side and rear collision impact.

Another hitch to the Elio: Drivers may need a motorcycle license to drive it in some states. One potential bright side is that it will require motorcycle insurance, which Vassallo says is less expensive, and you may be able to drive it in the carpool lane.

Production of the Elio is scheduled to begin in March of 2015, but interested buyers can reserve their spot on the website. More than 18,000 people already have.

As for how the car drives, we tested it out – in the safety of an empty parking lot – and you can see how it performs in the video (remember – it’s a prototype, so no seatbelts and some features will be different).

As for those incredulous that the price will only end up being $6,800, when pressed, Vassallo says that is what they are aiming for and he is 80% to 90% confident it will be below $7,000.

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By Charlene Sakoda, Odd News, June 4, 2014

An unnamed Cincinnati woman has filed a lawsuit against the University of Cincinnati (UC) Medical Center alleging that their employees posted her private medical records, including her positive diagnosis for a sexually transmitted disease, on Facebook. Mike Allen, the woman’s attorney, spoke to WLWT News 5, “She was absolutely devastated. That is the most private of private medical information that was posted on Facebook and went out to a group on Facebook that had a huge dissemination.” A screenshot of the woman’s medical record with her personal information and syphilis diagnosis, was posted to a Facebook group called “Team No Hoes,” which has over 2,300 members. The court documents indicate that comments followed the post calling the woman a “’hoe’ and a ‘slut.’”

The lawsuit names UC employee Ryan Rawls, another unnamed UC employee (believed to be a nurse), and the victim’s ex-boyfriend, Raphael Bradley. The station tried to get a comment from the named defendants but there was no answer at either home.

Exhibit 1 of the lawsuit: a screenshot of the victim’s medical record that was posted on Facebook. (WLWT)

Allen said that the woman’s ex-boyfriend convinced the UC employees to release the medical records, which was in violation of state and federal laws. “To have that kind of information in the public domain when it is clearly legally to be protected, that’s a problem and that’s a problem that UC’s responsible for,” the attorney said.

Diana Lara, spokeswoman for the UC Medical Center, told WLWT that they have not yet received the lawsuit, and they could not comment on pending litigation.

The lawsuit is asking UC Medical Center to examine their procedures to prevent an incident like this in the future. They are also seeking more than $25,000 in damages and a jury trial. About his client, Allen said, “She doesn’t want to go out. She doesn’t want to talk to people. People who were formerly her friends have made fun of her for it. She’s chastised in the community and all of this could’ve been avoided if UC Med Center had proper protections in place.”

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