| Video games triumph as Hollywood falters
The allure of Hollywood's biggest stars is losing out to entertainment based on microscopic circuitry and fancy software. Do you doubt it? While movie attendance has essentially been flat for six years, games for computers and video consoles have been booming. If the trend continues, many people in the entertainment industry will lose their jobs, but new types of jobs are already opening up, particularly in Orange County and Los Angeles, which form a digital entertainment hub. "I feel a massive shift," said Dana Settle, a venture capitalist at Greycroft Partners in Los Angeles who invests in online companies, including game company K2 Network of Irvine. "Movie studios are corporate behemoths. They're going to crumble." Movie stars Tobey Maguire as Spider-Man, Mike Myers as the voice of Shrek, and Johnny Depp as Jack Sparrow came out with hit sequels last year, which helped raise box office receipts in North America to $9.7billion.
Doctors' wheezy answer: Cut mold
Asthma specialists want the city to crack down on mold and other housing code violations that are triggers for the disease. Forty doctors wrote to Mayor Bloomberg, Health Commissioner Thomas Frieden and Housing Commissioner Shaun Donovan asking for stricter enforcement of mold removal. They also want pest infestations reclassified from "hazardous" to "immediately hazardous." They say housing code violations for mold, which contributes to asthma, have doubled in the past two years. "The vast majority of our asthma patients - at least 80% - live in apartments rife with asthma triggers," said Dr. Bob Morrow of Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx. Hospitalization rates for kids in "Asthma Alley" - North Brooklyn, East Harlem and the South Bronx - are more than 10 times higher than the rest of the city, the doctors say.
Deadline approaches for quarry appeal responses
Ian Southcott, UK community affairs manager for Cemex, said as well as lodging the appeal the company had also submitted a revised application, seeking permission to operate the coating plant round the clock on no more than 60 days a year. He said: "Although this will reduce flexibility, the company believes it represents a reasonable compromise. It should be remembered that the original application never envisaged round the clock operations throughout the year but was so presented to provide the flexibility to meet demand when it arose." Mr Southcott also said if the revised application was successful, the appeals would be withdrawn. A fourth application by Cemex to extend the existing limestone quarry towards Charfield is yet to be discussed by the council's planning committee.
Is public getting too apathetic over avian flu?
Worrying about avian flu isn't just for the birds, medical experts warn. But now that last fall's fears of a pandemic spreading through the U.S. human population haven't panned out, some health officials are fretting about a possible letdown in public preparedness. "I'm concerned. The avian virus isn't getting much attention from the news media this year. But the threat hasn't changed," said Erin DeCarli, a health educator for the Virginia Department of Health in Roanoke. She was hired in July 2006 to get area businesses, schools and households ready to deal with a possible pandemic. "That's still my full-time job," she said. But is her constituency letting down its guard? Maybe, say federal agencies, and they're trying to revive awareness. "The public has become accustomed to news about outbreaks among poultry in Indonesia and other faraway places.
A new chance to sparkle on NYC plates
Sooner and closer to home, Lachlan Mackinnon-Patterson of Frasca Food & Wine in Boulder will cook for the Taste of the NFL, an annual event the night before the Super Bowl featuring chefs from NFL cities. (Are they the Boulder Broncos?) It's a big walk around — with proceeds fighting hunger. Lachlan will serve up artisan link sausages from Fra'Mani with horseradish sauce on little buns. Corn liquor. My friends know that I am a nut for fresh corn, especially sweet Colorado corn from Olathe. I also appreciate the occasional sip of vodka (meaning every night at 6 on the dot). So I entered some kind of pleasure vortex to come upon Goat Artisan Vodka, made in Palisade from Colorado grain — including Olathe sweet corn. The vodka, which is certainly distinctive, is created with loving kindness by Rory Donovan, Bill Graham and Dave Thibodeau, "three good friends with a penchant for hooch" it says on their website, which is peachstreetdistillers.com.
Doomsday plan would close 2 Cook hospitals
(Crain's) — Cook County would close two of its three hospitals and a center that treats one-third of the area's HIV patients under a doomsday budget scenario officials put forth Friday. Provident and Oak Forest hospitals and all 12 of the county's neighborhood clinics would close if the Cook County Bureau of Health Services is forced to cut $108 million, or 13% of its fiscal 2008 budget, to help fill the county's overall $238-million budget shortfall. Under that scenario, “There's no way you could take care of all the people . . . who have no insurance and no other means," interim health chief Robert Simon told commissioners at a Finance Committee hearing Friday. “That's the price." County Finance Chairman John Daley had asked each county department to outline plans to cut 13% of its budget in case County Board President Todd Stroger and commissioners can't agree on how to erase the deficit.
UI Goes Smokeless In 2009
IOWA CITY – Do not plan to light up on the University of Iowa campus anywhere. It is going completely smoke-free. Smokers are obviously upset.The idea has been debated for years. But on Monday came the burning reality, University of Iowa President Sally Mason announced the decision. And now begins the time of transition. The haze hovering around the University of Iowa campus Monday is not from smokers trying to get their last puffs in before the ban goes into effect. It does not happen until July 1, 2009. The university believes that will be enough time to educate the thousands of people who work and go to school here. University spokesman Steve Parrott said, “Really what we're looking to do is create a healthy environment, healthy culture for everyone on campus." The university will spend the next 17 months letting people know of smoking cessation programs.
Fuel protest leaves organisers disappointed
These are the very people who will not get off their fat backsides to even vote in the very few elections that we are allowed to have in this ever increasing un-democratic country. When will they wake up and realise that they are being taken for every penny that can be sucked out of them whilst the political class along with their backers sit back and get it all. Take a look around you and calculate what percentage of your salary is now taken away from you to pay for fuel, fares, income tax, council tax etc compared to say 20 years ago. For people to slag off the few who do try to stand up for themselves I think just shows a certain amount of "it's not my problem" and does nothing except show a servile attitude to those that are going all out to screw you. .
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