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Circulated Weekly To Cities In Florida Volume 731 Issue 30 Established 1998 July 23, 2012

In FlorIda, obama

CrItICIzes romney

o v e r m e d I C a r e

west Palm beach, Fla. (aP) -- wooingFlorida voters, President barack obama warnedthursday that republican challenger mittromney would gut his health care reform lawand turn medicare into a voucher program, driv-ing up costs for the elderly on fixed incomes.romney, firing away near his boston homebase, accused obama of caring only about sav-ing his own job - not the jobs of americans.

In the daily war of words in an up-for-grabspresidential contest, health care politics took topbilling as obama opened two days of cam-paigning in Florida, the largest and most covet-ed of the nation's election day toss-up states.obama could see his chances for another termseriously damaged if romney prevails here.

For his part, romney, in hastily arrangedremarks to reporters near boston, kept the focuson the sluggish economic recovery underobama's watch. he cited new government fig-ures showing that the number of american seek-ing unemployment benefits rose by 34,000 lastweek, a figure that may have been skewed high-er by seasonal factors.

both candidates were pouring most of theirmoney and attention into the collection of fewerthan 10 states expected to decide the election.First lady michelle obama launched a neweffort to rally supporters behind her husband,trying to light a fire by saying the whole racecould "come down to just a few votes perprecinct in key states."

nowhere is the campaign potentially morepivotal than in Florida, which decided the 2000election and remains the ultimate swing state.with a large pool of retired voters, medicare hasbeen used by both parties to rally support fromseniors in Florida and elsewhere, mostly bywarning that the other party had in mind

In the news this week

changes that would curb the national insuranceprogram for older americans.

obama sought to broaden his attack onromney's support for a house republican planthat would shift medicare from a fee-for-serviceprogram into one where future retirees buyinsurance using subsidies. republicans say itwould introduce competition and give seniorsmore choices, but it is closely watched inFlorida, where about half of the 2008 electoratewas age 50 and older.

"he plans to turn medicare into a voucherprogram," obama said at west Palm beach'scentury village, home to thousands ofdemocratic retirees from new york, newJersey and elsewhere. "If the voucher isn't worthwhat it takes to buy health insurance in the pri-vate marketplace, you're out of luck. you've gotto make up the difference. you're on your own."

romney would provide subsidies -democrats call them vouchers - to help futureretirees buy private insurance, or let them havethe option of traditional medicare, with a grad-ually increasing age to qualify for benefits.current retirees would not be affected.

"(obama) has offered no serious plan of hisown to save medicare and is content to use it asnothing more than a political issue," saidlanhee chen, the romney campaign's policydirector.

romney has criticized obama's health carelaw, noting that obama calls for $500 billion incuts to medicare. but obama would make mostof those cuts by reducing payments to serviceproviders such as hospitals and nursing homes,not beneficiaries.

under the health care law, medicare cover-

In FlorIda, obamacrItIcIzes romney

over medIcarePresident barack obama warned thursday thatrepublican challenger mitt romney would guthis health care reform law and turn medicareinto a voucher program, Page 1

new mac soFtwareworth $20 uPgrade

mountain lion is made for a world where yourcomputer is just one of your computing devices,along with your iPhone and your iPad.

Page 2

rePort shows usdrought raPIdly

IntensIFyIng

20 percent of the nation now in the two worststages of drought - up 7 percent from last week.

Page 3

FlorIda accIdentstatIstIcs

accident statistics from Florida departmentof highway safety and motor vehicles. Page 4

FlorIda accIdentrePorts

this weeks accident reports from variouscountys in Florida. Page 5

hosPItal workercharged In nh hePatItIs

c outbreak

Injecting himself with stolen drugs and contam-inating syringes that infected at least 30 patientswith hepatitis c. Page 6

google's 2Q earnIngsrIse as clIcks on ads

soargoogle is getting even better at showing onlineads to the right people at the right time.

Page 7

nasa: strange and sud-den massIve melt In

greenland

nearly all of greenland's massive ice sheet sud-denly started melting a bit this month, a freakevent that surprised scientists.

Page 8

google's 2Q earnIngsrIse as clIcks on

ads soarcalifornia cities made up seven of the top 10

metro areas with the highest rates of new fore-closures. Page 8

Continued on page 7

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new york (aP) -- I didn't need to spenda lot of time with the new mac operating systemto see that phones and tablet computers havewon out over personal computers at apple.

mobile devices are already responsible forthe bulk of apple's sales and profits. now,apple is making the new mac system evenmore like the ios software that powers itsiPhones and iPads. It's also casually droppingthe "mac" name from the mac os X operatingsoftware, though computers will still be calledmacs, not "super-sized iPads."

the new system, formally os X 10.8 anddubbed mountain lion, went on salewednesday as a $19.99 download from apple'sapp store. It builds on the previous system,lion, which came out last July.

mountain lion is made for a world whereyour computer is just one of your computingdevices, along with your iPhone and your iPad.apple wants to make it easier to switch fromone to the other, several times a day.

It's already easy to switch between iPhoneand iPad. For instance, songs and apps you buyon an iPad will automatically pop up on youriPhone through apple's icloud online-storageservice. lion has some icloud features, butmountain lion really brings the mac into theiPhone-iPad family.

that's what I like most about mountainlion. It borrows a lot from its mobile cousin.

the mac already had such mobile-like fea-tures as the ability to zoom in or out on amacbook by pinching your fingers on its touch-pad. mountain lion goes a lot further:

- a notification center slides out from theright of the screen to offer calendar remindersand the latest mail items. It mimics, down to thebackground color, layout and font, the way youget Facebook updates, news alerts and othernotices on your iPhone.

- the mac's ichat app has been scrapped infavor of messages, which is made phone friend-ly by incorporating the imessage service foriPhone, iPad and iPod touch users to exchangetexts, photos and video. now you can send mes-sages from your mountain lion computer toyour mobile friends, or reach another mountainlion user from your phone. the way conversa-tions are presented feels more like texting thaninstant messaging.

- mountain lion borrows a "share" button

from iPhone and iPad apps. the iPhoto imageorganizer on lion had that, but it's now builtinto other apps such as the safari web browserand the Preview document reader. the optionschange depending on the app. In safari, forinstance, you can send a web page by email orpost a link on twitter. In Preview, you can sharea photo on Flickr or add it to iPhoto.

Facebook integration is coming this fall.you'll be able to limit who sees your post andadd your current location through that share but-ton. no longer will you have to cut and pastelinks. mountain lion will also sync contactinformation on Facebook friends with yourmac's address book. you need to sign on toFacebook only once, and mountain lion takescare of the rest.

that "single sign-on" feature is availableright away for other services, including twitterand Flickr. once you're signed in, you don'tneed to enter your username and passwordagain when accessing that service from anotherapp.

mountain lion brings over another philo-sophical change from the iPhone.

For the longest time, personal computers letyou install anything without question. but withapple's mobile devices, you are limited to pre-approved software from the company's appstore. apple wants to protect you from badexperiences, but it has also rejected some appar-ently harmless apps for mysterious reasons.

mountain lion adopts that gatekeeper phi-losophy, though the restrictions aren't as severe.If software you try to install doesn't come fromthe app store, it has to be from a softwaredeveloper who has registered with apple for$99. the company doesn't review softwareunless it goes through the app store, but themac checks to make sure the registration isvalid. a registration can be yanked if a develop-er turns out to be evil.

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Continued on page 3

the race. In other areas, communities are insti-tuting water restrictions and asking people tovoluntarily conserve.

the drought stretches from ohio west tocalifornia and runs from texas north to thedakotas. only in the 1930s and the 1950s has adrought covered more of the u.s., according tonational climatic data center in asheville,n.c.

rain-starved oklahoma could get a briefrespite with perhaps a quarter of an inch possi-ble through sunrise Friday, the nationalweather service said.

but that won't be of much help to peoplelike clinton rancher Paul schilberg, who wouldsell his herd of black angus cattle if he didn'tstand to lose maybe $2,500 per head for the ani-mals he usually buys for more than $3,000.with the grass and forage dead from lack ofrain, he's been forced to buy hay.

"I'm feeding just like I would during thewinter time," he said.

nationwide, ranchers have been selling offlarge numbers of animals they can't graze andcan't afford to buy feed for. the nation's cattleinventory, at 97.8 million head, is the smallestsince the u.s. department of agriculture begana July count in 1973.

mark thompson, a professional farm man-ager with about 1,200 acres of corn and soy-

__________________________________________________________Legal Street News Monday, July 23, 2012 3

r e p o r t s H o W s u s d r o u G H tr a p I d l y I n t e n s I F y I n G

beans near Fort dodge, Iowa, said good landmanagement practices including no-till farmingcould help crop farmers muddle through.

"eastern Iowa is in worst shape than weare," he said. "right around here, we're still atthe tipping point, but conditions have improvedsomewhat, even though last night's rain wasn'twidespread."

kansas gov. sam brownback declared adrought emergency in all of the state's 105counties this week and urged residents to con-serve as much water as possible as the droughtbecomes more intense. the latest droughtmonitor report, which covers conditionsthrough tuesday, lists 73 percent of kansas inan extreme drought, up 9 percent from a weekearlier.

brownback's move allows farmers, ranchersand communities to draw water from 28 statefishing lakes. tracy streeter, the kansas wateroffice's director, said thursday there was ade-quate supply in the state and u.s. army corpsof engineer lakes to meet the demand.

"even today, the lake elevations are good,all things considered," streeter said.

he said ranchers can take 4,000 to 5,000gallons of water at a time on semi-trucks loadedwith tanks, but that's not a permanent solution."Folks can't do that long term because of thecost of hauling the water. If they are buyingfeed, too, they may just have to sell the cattle."

st. louIs (aP) -- the widest drought togrip the united states in decades is gettingworse with no signs of abating, a new reportwarned thursday, as state officials urged con-servation and more ranchers considered sellingcattle.

the drought covering two-thirds of the con-tinental u.s. had been considered relativelyshallow, the product of months without rain,rather than years. but thursday's report showedits intensity is rapidly increasing, with 20 per-cent of the nation now in the two worst stages ofdrought - up 7 percent from last week.

the u.s. drought monitor classifiesdrought in various stages, from moderate tosevere, extreme and, ultimately, exceptional.Five states - colorado, Iowa, kansas, missouriand nebraska - are blanketed by a drought thatis severe or worse. states like arkansas andoklahoma are nearly as bad, with most areascovered in a severe drought and large portionsin extreme or exceptional drought.

other states are seeing conditions rapidlyworsen. Illinois - a key producer of corn andsoybeans - saw its percentage of land in extremeor exceptional drought balloon from just 8 per-cent last week to roughly 71 percent as ofthursday, the drought monitor reported.

and conditions are not expected to get bet-ter, with little rain and more intense heat fore-cast for the rest of the summer.

"some of these areas that are picking up ashower here and there, but it's not reallyimproving anything because the heat has beenso persistent in recent weeks, the damagealready is done," said brian Fuchs, a climatolo-gist at the national drought mitigation centerat the university of nebraska in lincoln."realistically, the forecast going forward is acontinuation of warm, dry conditions throughthe end of august easily, and we may see themin the fall."

some are reacting to the drought with inven-tiveness. at lake dePue in Illinois, the danger-ously low water level threatened to doom anannual boat race that's a big fundraiser for thecommunity. hundreds of volunteers joinedforces and built a makeshift dam out of sand-bags before hundreds of millions of gallons ofwater were pumped in from a river. bywednesday, the effort had added 2 feet to thewater level, doubling the lake's size and saving

m a c u p g r a d eI was denied the ability to install google's

photo-editing software, Picasa, likely because itwas written before the registration programbegan. It took some sleuthing to figure out howto override that.

now back to icloud, my favorite part aboutmountain lion. all you need is an Internet con-nection and an apple Id - the same one you cre-ate for free to buy songs and apps on itunes.that apple Id links your experience across thevarious devices. the icloud service comes withfive gigabytes of free storage; you can pay formore.

consider Pages, numbers and keynote -apple's versions of microsoft's popular officeprograms for word processing, spreadsheets andpresentations. documents are automaticallystored online through icloud, unless you changethe location to a folder on your computer. It's atactic microsoft plans with its just-announcedoffice upgrade.

that means your documents follow youwherever you go. type a sentence in a docu-ment on your macbook and see the changes onthe iPad a half-minute or so later. you canaccess your files even if you don't have anInternet connection. copies are stored on yourcomputer, and changes will be replicated to theicloud folder once you're back online.

It's not so graceful when you type on bothdevices at once, as you are stopped and asked tochoose one. but it's a promising start, and it'snot often you're working on both devices atonce anyway.

you get the benefits of icloud when surfingthe web on safari as well. you see what web-

sites are open on other devices, so if you startedresearching that dream vacation at home, youcan quickly access those same web pages in theoffice (note to boss: I meant to say "financialbalance sheet," not "dream vacation"). think ofit as automated bookmarks. For this to fullywork, your mobile devices need the ios 6upgrade this fall.

a number of other features jumped out:- the search and address bars are now com-

bined on safari, just as they are on google'schrome browser. too often, I had wasted mytime entering search terms in the box for theweb address.

- safari's reading list now works offline. Ifyou are reading a web page and need to gosomewhere, just click the small "glasses" iconfor the browser to store a copy. you can contin-ue reading in the car or on a train, even if youdon't have an Internet connection.

- gamers will appreciate game center,which started out as a way for mobile users tofind opponents and keep track of high scores.mountain lion users can now join in the fun.

the icloud features were easy to use once Isigned in, but I had difficulty getting the startupscreen to come up because of how my officewi-Fi network is set up. I also had some troublegetting a new notes program to sync, but itworked well once it did.

apart from that, my experience was rela-tively pain-free and seamless.

If you already have a mac, you can upgradedirectly to mountain lion only if it's runninglion or its 2009 predecessor, snow leopard. Ittook a colleague an hour and a half to downloadand install mountain lion. you can upgrade forfree if you bought your mac since June 11.

Continued from page 2

4 Legal Street News Monday July 23, 2012 ___________________________________________________________

F l o r I d a a C C I d e n t s t a t I s t I C sData From the Official Website of the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles. www.flhsmv.gov

Daylight 151,669 937 86,517 64,215

Dusk 6,115 44 3,305 2,766

Dawn 2,818 39 1,490 1,289

Dark 71,188 1,234 32,982 36,972

Unknown 3,671 7 553 3,111

Total 235,466 2,261 124,847 108,353

Dry 200,153 1,995 106,486 91,674

Wet 31,490 245 17,139 14.106

Slippery 975 7 542 426

Icy 61 1 27 33

Other 2,782 13 655 2,114

Total 235,461 2,261 124,847 108,353

LightingConditions

All Crashes

FatalCrashes

InjuryCrashes

Vehicleand/or

Prperty Damageonly Crashes

Road Surface Conditions at the Time of Crash

Lighing Conditions at the Time of Crash

LightingConditions

All Crashes

FatalCrashes

InjuryCrashes

Vehicleand/or

Prperty Damageonly Crashes

__________________________________________Legal Street News Monday, July 23, 2012 5

a u t o a C C I d e n t s I n s o u t H F l o r I d atHIs WeeK

http://www.worldwildlife.org

http://www.aging-research.org

Questions About Your Accident Report

CONTACT tHe leGal street neWs

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Man killed in Orlando carcrash after speeding away

from police

July 17, 2012ORLANDO -- Two suspects wanted over a murder inOrlando died Thursday evening when the car theywere traveling in raced away from police andcrashed into a canal.

Five people were traveling in the car when it left theroad, before over-correcting and crossing the medi-an, narrowly missing oncoming traffic and coming torest in a drainage canal

The two murder suspects died and their three com-panions were in critical condition.

Neither of the suspects, nor their alleged victim,have been named. Details of the initial crime werenot available.

Two lanes shut on NB I-95near 54th Street after

crash

A crash on northbound Interstate 95 south ofNorthwest 79th Street in Miami-Dade is blocking tworegular lanes.

A man from the Pasco County town of Land O'Lakes died Monday evening after having a medicalemergency while driving on Alligator Alley, accordingto the Florida Highway Patrol.

Casey Alan Brown, 40, was airlifted to ClevelandClinic in Weston and later died there, according toFHP.

The accident happened around 6 p.m. on eastboundInterstate 75 at mile marker 37, FHP Sgt. MarkWysocky said.

Brown was driving eastbound on I-75 in a 2011Buick Enclave when he had the medical emergency,causing him to cross the median and enter the west-bound lanes, according to FHP.

The SUV Brown was driving did not hit any othervehicles. But traffic was stopped to allow a rescuehelicopter to land in order to transport Brown to thehospital.

Crash, Boca Raton

The vehicle crashed into wall that leads into thedevelopment causing major structure damage. Thedemolished wall blocked traffic heading west forseveral hours. He says parts of the damaged vehi-cle were found at the scene like a headlight whichshows the vehicle appears to be a 2011 DodgeDurango.

Pasco County man diesafter medical emergency

on I-75

July 17, 2012

July 17, 2012

July 17, 2012

Lady Killed in FloridaHit-and-Run

Serious crashes on I-95 inMiami-Dade and Broward

July 20, 2012

A 19-year-old Bulgarian has died after being hit by acar on a recognized bicycle lane in Florida, localmedia reported.

Galina Bumbalova was riding a bicycle on the southside of US 98 near Hidden Dunes Drive in southWalton County on Monday night. She died after theimpact from the accident propelled her into a utilitypole.

The young Bulgarian was in the United States on astudent brigade.

Aaron Shipes, 22, of Santa Rosa Beach was drivingeastbound on US 98 at 9:40 p.m. when his 2005Nissan Extara for some unknown reason suddenlyveered to the right and into the bicycle lane, collidingwith the rear of Bumbalova's bicycle.

Shipes' vehicle reentered the roadway and left thescene.

Bumbalova was transported to Sacred HeartHospital of the Emerald Coast near Destin, whereshe was declared deceased.

The Highway Patrol report stated that Shipes wasnot under the influence of alcohol.

Charges are pending further investigation

July 21, 2012Several serious crashes are causing havoc on theroads Friday morning.

In Miami-Dade:A serious accident with injuries is blocking the west-bound ramp on Interstate 395 to Interstate 95 inMiami.

The ramp to Florida’s Turnpike on northbound I-95 is

The four vehicles were traveling in the southboundlanes when the accident occurred shortly before11:30 p.m. All southbound lanes were closed until3:10 a.m., Wysocky said.According to a press release issued by Wysocky,the chain-reaction crash played out like this: Rojowas driving a 2005 Volkswagen Jetta when heslowed for a crash and was rear-ended by a 2003Chevrolet van driven by Anthony Burke Taylor, 52,of Lauderhill.Rojo's Jetta spun so that it was facing north in thesouthbound lanes and was struck by a Ford F-150truck driven by Richardson N. Sid, 28, of BoyntonBeach.

Lake Mary man arrested onhit-and-run charges in fatal

motorcycle crash

According to the Highway Patrol, Spates was driv-ing southbound on I-95, just south of the GriffinRoad exit in Hollywood, about 11:30 a.m. when shesaw a vehicle ahead of her hit some debris in theroadway.

The debris "was kicked up in the wind" by the othervehicle, and it pierced the Range Rover's glass,Wysocky said. The pair were wearing their seatbelts during the accident, the Highway Patrol said.Given vehicles' high speed on I-95, the pole essen-tially became "a projectile" on the highway, saidMark Steele, division chief for Hollywood FireRescue.

July 16, 2012

Newlyweds unhurt as I-95debris pierces windshield

July 16, 2012

July 16, 2012

A motorcyclist died and sixpeoplewere injured crashon Interstate 95 north of

Sample Road.

A Lake Mary doctor was arrested on hit-and-runcharges after he hit a motorcyclist in VolusiaCounty and then left the scene, authorities said.

The Florida Highway Patrol said Dr. Kevin Wynnehit 50-year-old Sabra Vocaturo with his SUV inFebruary on State Road 415 and never stopped tohelp. Vocaturo was thrown from her bike intooncoming traffic.

Authorities said two drivers ran over Vocaturo.They stopped to help but told officers there wasnothing they could do.

Wynne was arrested at his Heathrow home onThursday by the Florida Highway Patrol.

His lawyer contacted FHP the day after the crash,telling them where to find Wynne's Infiniti SUV,which had a part missing.

Wynne is being held on $50,000 bail.

July 16, 2012MARION COUNTY -- The Florida Highway Patrol is investigating a crashthat killed a man late Friday night.

Officials said 22-year-old Daniel Lee Hunt was driv-ing southbound US-27, south of Southeast 80Street at high rate of speed at about 11:25 p.m.Hunt lost control of his Chevy Camaro, causing itrotate onto the grass shoulder and collide with twotrees.

A 29-year-old Sarasotawoman is in critical

concord, n.h. (aP) -- a hospital work-er accused of injecting himself with stolen drugsand contaminating syringes that infected at least30 patients with hepatitis c was chargedthursday with federal drug crimes.

david kwiatkowski, a former technician atexeter hospital, was arrested thursday morn-ing at a massachusetts hospital where he wasreceiving treatment. u.s. attorney Johnkacavas called kwiatkowski a "serial infector"who worked in at least six other states, includ-ing one in which he is a suspect in a similar inci-dent involving a hospital operating room.kacavas declined to name any of the otherstates but said they are not clustered in one partof the country.

"we are closer to the beginning of our inves-tigation than the end," kacavas said.

kwiatkowski, originally from michigan,worked at exeter's cardiac catheterization labfrom april 2011 through this past may, when hewas fired. he told investigators that he learnedhe had hepatitis c in may, but kacavas saidthere is evidence he had the liver-destroyingdisease since at least June 2010.

"this serial infector has been contained, andthe menace he posed to public health and safetyhas been removed," kacavas said.

authorities didn't say in what hospitalkwiatkowski was being treated so he couldn'tbe contacted for comment.

Investigators believe kwiatkowski, 33, stolesyringes containing fentanyl, a powerful anes-thetic more potent than morphine, and injectedhimself with them. they said he then put anoth-er liquid, such as saline, into the syringes, whichwere later used for patients. they said a searchof his vehicle found an empty fentanyl syringeand several needles.

according to an affidavit, kwiatkowskisometimes left the lab sweating profusely andattended procedures on his off days. one wit-ness said he appeared to be "on something." atleast once, he was sent home for the day after acolleague told a supervisor that he was unfit toperform medical care, kacavas said.

kwiatkowski was what is known as a "trav-eler," a technician hired by hospitals for tempo-rary stints around the country. In a statement,exeter hospital said he underwent drug testingand a criminal background check when he washired.

"It is deeply disturbing that the alleged cal-lous acts of one individual can have such animpact on so many innocent lives. as a result ofhis alleged actions, people in our community,who in many cases are the friends and neighborsof the 2,300 people who work here, now face

6 Legal Street News Monday July 23, 2012_____________________________________________________________

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the challenge of a potentially chronic disease,"hospital president kevin callahan said.

the hospital declined to comment furtherabout kwiatkowski, citing the ongoing investi-gation.

hepatitis c is a blood-borne viral infectionthat can cause liver disease and chronic healthissues. altogether, 31 people, includingkwiatkowski, have tested positive for the samestrain of the disease since the investigationbegan in late may, including an 89-year-oldwoman who was treated for a heart valve prob-lem in February.

the woman lives with her niece, who alsogot tested for hepatitis c because she wasexposed to the woman's blood while helping herafter she suffered a deep cut on her leg in april.the niece's test was negative, but she will gettested again in six months, she said thursday.

the niece, who asked not to be publiclyidentified because of the stigma associated withthe disease and because she wants to protect heraunt from the media, said she hopes the criminalcharges will deter others from similar schemes.she said she was happy to hear thatkwiatkowski had been arrested.

I n d o n e s i a n z o omoves orangutan

she said the ordeal has turned her family'slife upside down.

"we should be able to go into a hospital, putour lives in their hands and know that we'regoing to be ok," she said.

state and local health departments aren'trequired to report such outbreaks to the centersfor disease control and Prevention, but in areport released in June, the agency said it wasnotified of 13 outbreaks nationwide between2008 and 2011. of those, seven occurred in out-patient facilities; most were traced to unsafeinjection practices.

at least two have resulted in criminalcharges, including a colorado woman who wasconvicted of stealing syringes filled withpainkillers from two hospitals where sheworked and replacing them with used syringes.the syringes were later used on surgicalpatients, and up to three dozen patients werefound to have hepatitis c after being exposed.

kacavas said new hampshire is workingwith the cdc, law enforcement and depart-ments of public health in other states wherekwiatkowski worked.

"I'm unaware of such a scheme with suchreach," he said. "this one has the potential forvery far-reaching implications."

This undated photo provided by the U.S.

Attorney's Office in New Hampshire shows

David Kwiatkowski, a former lab technician

at Exeter, N.H., Hospital, arrested at a

hospital in Massachusetts where he is

receiving medical treatment. Kwiatkowski,

originally from Michigan, was charged

Thursday, July 19, 2012, with causing a

hepatitis C outbreak involving at least 30

patients who were treated at Exeter

Hospital's cardiac catheterization lab.

JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) -- Indonesianzookeepers have moved an orangutan out ofvisitors' sight so she'll no longer smoke lit ciga-rettes people regularly throw into her cage.

Taru Jurug Zoo spokesman Daniek Hendartosaid Thursday that Tori and her male compan-ion, Didik, were moved Wednesday to a smallisland within the zoo. There are four endan-gered orangutans at the zoo in the CentralJava town of Solo.

The 15-year-old Tori has been smoking for adecade. She mimics humans by holding ciga-rettes casually between her fingers while visi-tors watch and photograph her puffing awayand flicking ashes on the ground.

Hendarto said recent medical tests show thefour primates are in good condition. The twoother orangutans will be moved later to anoth-er island.

__________________________________________________________Legal Street News Monday, July 23, 2012 7

age would improve for those with high pre-scription costs, and would require no copay-ments for preventive care.

during stops in Jacksonville and in westPalm beach, obama jumped on romney'sopposition to his health care reform law, whichwas recently upheld by the supreme court. hesaid the former massachusetts governor'sapproach would force more than 200,000Floridians pay more for their prescription drugs.

"It's wrong to ask you to pay more formedicare so that people who are doing wellright now get even more," obama told seniors atcentury village. "that's no way to reduce thedeficit. we shouldn't be squeezing more moneyout of seniors."

For obama, who has frequently struggled tobuild support among elderly voters, the healthcare pitch was directed at retirees in Florida,home to the all-important prize of 29 electoralvotes. even in winning here in 2008, obamalost to John mccain among voters 65 and older.

back in massachusetts, romney again criti-cized obama for not having met with his advi-sory jobs council in six months while holdingmore than 100 fundraisers in that time. whitehouse spokesman Jay carney had saidwednesday that the president gets advice fromthe council all the time but also has "got a lot onhis plate."

"I think you've learned something about thepresident's priorities," romney said. "the jobhe's interested in protecting is his own."

the white house sought to counter that lineof attack by showing presidential action.obama's administration announced it wasspeeding up expansion projects at five majoru.s. ports, including two in politically impor-tant Florida. carney made a point to note thatthe idea came from obama's jobs council.

In speaking to a largely Jewish audience inwest Palm beach, obama said the nation was"heartbroken" over the terrorist attack launchedagainst Israeli tourists in bulgaria and said hisadministration hadn't "just preserved theunbreakable bond with Israel, we have strength-ened it."

during the day, obama held two privatefundraisers to help his re-election campaign,raising about $750,000 from a small number ofdonors in Jacksonville and west Palm beach.

as obama stuck to his economic message,his campaign kept up its aggressive attempt toraise doubts about romney's trustworthiness.obama and his surrogates have been pushingromney to release more than two years of taxreturns. some members of romney's party haveagreed, although others say the idea is a distrac-tion.

"we've given all you people need to knowand understand about our financial situation andabout how we live our life," romney's wife,ann, told abc news in an interview broadcastthursday.

In a separate interview aired thursday onwtol-tv in toledo, ohio, romney said onereason not to release more of his returns wasthat "the democratic Party and the oppositionhas all these people that comb through and tryand find anything they can to distract from theissues people care about, oftentimes in a dis-honest way."

Continued from page 1

G o o G l e ' s 2 Q e a r n I n G s r I s ea s C l I C K s o n a d s s o a r

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- Google isgetting even better at showing online ads tothe right people at the right time. Thatenabled the Internet search leader to hitanalysts' earnings target for the secondquarter and reassure investors about thecompany's moneymaking prowess.

The results announced Thursday weremuddled by Google's recently completed$12.5 billion acquisition of cellphone makerMotorola Mobility Holdings and a dramaticswing in currency exchange rates thatresulted in European sales converting intofewer U.S. dollars than at the same timelast year.

This much is clear though: Google Inc.has refined its selection and presentation ofits Internet ads in a way that is moreappealing to its users.

The company, based in Mountain View,Calif., has accomplished it by analyzing thedata that its search engine gathers aboutpeople's interests to determine how andwhen to present an ad. Ideally, Googlewants to show more ads when a user'srequest appears driven by a desire to buy aproduct, book a vacation or engage in someother kind of commercial transaction.

"We're serious about providing moreintelligent results," Susan Wojcicki,Google's senior vice president of advertis-ing, said Thursday during a conference callto discuss the second-quarter earnings."We're moving beyond a search engine thatjust matches strings of words to one thatunderstands people, the world, the waypeople do."

As expected, Google CEO Larry Pageskipped the conference call while he recov-ered from an unspecified throat problemthat the company revealed at its annualstockholders' meeting last month.

Google's search improvementsappeared to pay off during the three monthsending in June as the total number of clickson Google's ads surged 42 percent fromthe same time last year. That's the highestincrease since Google began to report theclicking volume on its ads four years ago.

The clicks are crucial to Googlebecause they trigger the advertising pay-ments that account for most of its revenue.

Google's gains in the quarter were offsetby a deepening decline in the prices that itis fetching for ads. The average price perclick plunged 16 percent from last year. Itmarked the third consecutive quarter ofyear-over-year erosion in Google's adprices.

The trend, in part, reflects that moreWeb surfing is happening on smartphonesand tablet computers, where the ad ratesare lower than on desktop computers. Thesmaller screens on mobile devices also

leave less space to show ads.

Google believes mobile ad rates willsteadily rise as the nascent market maturesand the company develops new ways toconnect marketers with prospective cus-tomers, including on Internet-connectedglasses that the company is testing.

Investors evidently liked what they sawin the second-quarter numbers. Googleshares gained $15.94, or 2.7 percent, to$609 in Thursday's extended trading. Thestock closed Thursday's regular session at$593.06, leaving the shares down by 8 per-cent so far this year. In contrast, the DowJones Industrial average has risen by 6 per-cent and the technology-driven Nasdaqcomposite index has climbed by 13 per-cent.

Some of the doubts weighing onGoogle's stock center on Motorola Mobility,a troubled company whose products areless profitable than Internet advertising.

Motorola suffered an operating loss of$233 million on revenue of $1.25 billion dur-ing the final 39 days of the second quarterthat Google owned the company.

As a whole, Google earned $2.8 billion,or $8.42 per share, during the three monthsending in June. That compared with netincome of $2.5 billion, or $7.68 per share,last year.

The earnings would have been $10.12per share, if not for Google's accountingcosts for employee stock compensationand the Motorola deal. That figure wasslightly better than the average estimate of$10.10 per share among analysts polled byFactSet.

Revenue climbed 35 percent from lastyear to $12.2 billion. If not for Motorola, rev-enue would have increased 21 percent.That would have been Google's slowestrate of revenue growth since the fourthquarter of 2009, when the company wasjust starting to recover from the GreatRecession.

Google's revenue, excluding Motorola,stood at $8.36 billion after subtracting thead commissions paid to is advertising part-ners. That was about $70 million belowanalyst projections.

The company's slowing revenue growthstemmed primarily from the economic tur-moil in Europe that has weakened curren-cies overseas.

obama, romney

n a s a : s t r a n G e a n d s u d d e nm a s s I v e m e l t I n G r e e n l a n d

washIngton (aP) -- nearly all of greenland'smassive ice sheet suddenly started melting a bit this month,a freak event that surprised scientists.

even greenland's coldest and highest place, summitstation, showed melting. Ice core records show that lasthappened in 1889 and occurs about once every 150 years.

three satellites show what nasa calls unprecedentedmelting of the ice sheet that blankets the island, starting onJuly 8 and lasting four days. most of the thick ice remains.while some ice usually melts during the summer, what wasunusual was that the melting happened in a flash and overa widespread area.

"you literally had this wave of warm air wash over thegreenland ice sheet and melt it," nasa ice scientist tomwagner said tuesday.

the ice melt area went from 40 percent of the ice sheetto 97 percent in four days, according to nasa. until now,the most extensive melt seen by satellites in the past threedecades was about 55 percent.

wagner said researchers don't know how much ofgreenland's ice melted, but it seems to be freezing again.

"when we see melt in places that we haven't seenbefore, at least in a long period of time, it makes you sit upand ask what's happening?" nasa chief scientist waleedabdalati said. It's a big signal, the meaning of which we'regoing to sort out for years to come."

about the same time, a giant iceberg broke off fromthe Petermann glacier in northern greenland. and thenational snow and Ice data center on tuesday announcedthat the area filled with arctic sea ice continues near arecord low.

wagner and other scientists saidbecause this greenland-wide melt-ing has happened before they can'tyet determine if this is a natural rareevent or one triggered by man-madeglobal warming. but they do knowthat the edges of greenland's icesheets have already been thinningbecause of climate change.

summer in greenland has beenfreakishly warm so far. that'sbecause of frequent high pressuresystems that have parked over theisland, bringing warm clear weatherthat melts ice and snow, explaineduniversity of georgia climatologistthomas mote.

he and others say it's similar tothe high pressure systems that haveparked over the american midwestbringing record-breaking warmthand drought.

ohio state university ice scien-tist Jason box, who returned

tuesday from a three-week visit, saidhe ditched his cold weather gear forthe cotton pants that he normally donsin nevada.

"It was sunny and warm and allthe locals were talking about howsunny it was," box said after gettingoff a plane. "beyond t-shirt weather."

8 Legal Street News Monday, July 23, 2012 ___________________________________________________________

C a l I F o r n I a s t I l l d o m I n a t e sF o r e C l o s u r e s C e n e

IRVINE, Calif. (AP) -- California is still dom-inating the foreclosure scene.

California cities made up seven of the top10 metro areas with the highest rates of newforeclosures in the first six months of this year,according to data to be released Thursday byRealtyTrac, which tracks foreclosure properties.That's unchanged from the same time last year.

Foreclosure activity also spiked by morethan 25 percent in and around Philadelphia,Chicago and New York. The new inventorycould start hitting the market in the next sever-al months, potentially weighing further on homevalues.

Stockton, Calif., located south ofSacramento, had a higher foreclosure rate thanany other metro area in the U.S. in the first halfof 2012. About 2.7 percent of homes - or one ofevery 38 - received a foreclosure filing betweenJanuary and June. That rate was more thantriple the national rate of 0.8 percent.

Stockton itself filed for Chapter 9 protectionlast month, making it the largest American cityever to declare bankruptcy. Officials were

unable to reach a deal with the city's creditorsto restructure hundreds of millions of dollars ofdebt.

Other Central Valley cities with high rates ofnew foreclosure filings were: Modesto, Merced,Bakersfield and Visalia-Porterville. Elsewherein California, Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontarioand Vallejo-Fairfield made the list. The Atlanta,Phoenix and Las Vegas metro areas roundedout the top 10.

It's a familiar template. Eight of the cities -all except Atlanta and Visalia-Porterville - wereamong the top 10 on RealtyTrac's list last year.

The number of U.S. homes entering theforeclosure process for the first time increasedin May and June, as banks aim to make up fortime lost last year when mortgage lenders grap-pled with allegations that they had processedforeclosures without verifying documents. Thenation's biggest lenders reached a $25 billionsettlement in February with state officials.That's cleared the way for banks to address

their backlog of unpaid mortgages. Californiasaw an 18 percent spike last month in foreclo-sure starts, or homes placed on the foreclosurepath for the first time.

Atlanta, which has the nation's sixth-highestrate, saw foreclosure activity rise 5 percentfrom the first half of 2011 and 3 percent from theJuly-December period. Of the 212 metro areaswith populations of 200,000 or more,RealtyTrac said foreclosure activity rose in a lit-tle more than half (125).

But Thursday's data also showed glimmersof encouraging news. Nine of the 10 cities withthe highest rates saw rates drop year-over-year. Stockton's rate fell from 3.2 percent in thefirst half of 2011. And Las Vegas, which toppedthe list last year with a rate of 5.4 percent, fell tothe No. 9 spot with a rate of 2 percent.

Seattle saw a 24 percent drop in foreclosureactivity in the first half of the year, the biggestdecline among the nation's 20 largest metroareas. San Francisco, Detroit, Los Angeles,Boston, and San Diego all saw drops of 10 per-cent or more.

The greater Buffalo, N.Y., area tied withKennewick-Richland-Pasco, Wash., andSyracuse, N.Y., for the smallest rate of newforeclosures on RealtyTrac's list. In thoseareas, just 0.04 percent of homes received aforeclosure filing. Utica-Rome, a neighbor toBuffalo and Syracuse, was also in the bottom10 for foreclosure rates.

There are some 3 million U.S. homesbehind on their mortgages, according to theMortgage Bankers Association.

What it suggested is that life, a

very different kind of life, could

possibly exist on some other

planet.

These undated handout images provided by NASA shows the extent of surface meltover Greenland’s ice sheet on July 8, left, and July 12, right. Measurements from threesatellites showed that on July 8, about 40 percent of the ice sheet had undergone thaw-ing at or near the surface. In just a few days, the melting had dramatically acceleratedand an estimated 97 percent of the ice sheet surface had thawed by July 12. In theimage, the areas classified as “probable melt” (light pink) correspond to those siteswhere at least one satellite detected surface melting. The areas classified as “melt” (darkpink) correspond to sites where two or three satellites detected surface melting. Nearlyevery part of the massive Greenland ice sheet suddenly and strangely melted a bit thismonth in a freak event that concerned scientists had never witnessed before. NASAsays three different satellites saw what it calls unprecedented melting from July 8 to July12. Most of the thick ice remains, but what was unusual was the widespread area wheresome melting occurred. (AP Photo/Nicolo E. DiGirolamo, SSAI/NASA GSFC, and JesseAllen, NASA Earth Observatory

This is thought-provoking. Over 75 percent ofthose that “own” a California home carry it witha mortgage. This is a much higher rate thannationwide data. More disturbing is when webring in another data source and examine howmany households are underwater. When wedo this, we find that 30 percent of the approxi-mately 5,100,000 owner occupied-homes areunderwater (aka negative equity). In otherwords, a renter would be in a better spotbecause these owners have negative equityand would have to bring money to the tableeven to sell their home. If we include thosethat are near negative equity (another 5 per-cent) the combined figure balloons to 35 per-cent of all owner-occupied units. To put this inperspective, there are more “owners” with neg-ative equity than folks that own their homesoutright in California. Is it any wonder then