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Abcnews.go. Apr 24, 2012 10:59am The nationwide housing slump is far from over, with average home prices tumbling to their lowest level in nearly a decade, according to the closely watched S&P Case-Shiller index released today. A separate report from the Commerce Department says new home sales fell last month by the most in more than a year to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 328,000 units. That followed a 7.3 percent increase in February. The median sales price of new houses sold in March 2012 was $234,500; the average sales price was $291,200. As a percentage, new home sales in March were lower than those of February, because more new homes were sold in February than previously reported. Once again, warm weather could be impacting this economic data. The numbers from both reports show the housing market remains under strain.

The Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller home-price index showed that prices dropped in February from January in 16 of the 20 cities it tracks. Help with Appearance Can Boost Cancer Patients’ Spirits — Survey - Health Blog. By Laura Landro iStockphoto For women, the side effects of cancer treatment can take a toll on relationships, self-esteem and confidence — but a program to help manage appearance-related issues like hair loss and skin changes can help, according to a new survey. The survey was conducted by Harris Interactive on behalf of “Look Good…Feel Better,” a nonprofit that offers free tutorials on make-up, skin-care and wigs at hospitals and community centers, as well as online.

A third of respondents said their altered appearance due to cancer treatment had a negative impact on their relationship with their spouse, while a quarter reported a negative impact on their relationship with their children and friends. Only 27% said coworkers didn’t treat them differently. “It is really heartbreaking to know that more than a third of women surveyed avoided leaving their house because of the way they looked after going through treatment,” she says. Kurt Mix, BP Engineer, Faces First Oil Spill Charges, NPR Reports.

Federal officials arrested a former BP engineer on charges of obstruction of justice on Tuesday, in the first criminal charges filed in connection with the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Kurt Mix, 50, a senior BP drilling engineer, allegedly destroyed hundreds of text messages sent to a supervisor that described high volumes of oil flowing from the ruptured well, located 5,000 feet underwater, according to a federal affidavit. Mix "worked on internal BP efforts to estimate the amount of oil leaking from the well and was involved in various efforts to stop the leak," the Justice Department said in a press release. Throughout the spill, BP consistently provided flow estimates to the government and public that were later revealed to be far lower than the actual discharge from the well. For the first two months of the spill, BP claimed that its best estimate for the flow from the well was between 1,000 to 5,000 barrels of oil per day.

During the spill, Rep. Georgia Couple Held At Gunpoint, Arrested While Trying To Enter New Home. A Georgia couple who were trying to move into their new home were confronted by neighbors at gunpoint before they were then arrested and held overnight in jail. Jean-Joseph and Angelica Kalonji said they were told by their real estate agent to go to their new home in Newton County and change the locks. Their son had just purchased the home, and the entire family was slated to move in. But when they arrived and tried to enter, two neighbors, Robert Canoles and his 18-year-old son, Branden, snuck up behind the Kalonjis with semiautomatic weapons. "He [said] to put the hands up and get out from the house, otherwise he would shoot us," Jean Kalonji, who hails from the Congo, told a local television station.

The Kalonjis said they were held by the gunmen for 10 minutes with their hands above heir heads, and that they thought they were being robbed. The couple did not have their closing papers with them and could not prove that they owned the home. Blood in Leeches Alerts Scientists to the Presence of Hard-to-Spot Endangered Animals | 80beats. The scientists’ blood-sucking accomplices What’s the News: Scientists searching for new and endangered species in tropical highlands face a Catch 22. Spotting shy creatures is the order of the day, but bushwhacking through forests is anything but subtle. How can you get a sense of what’s there when you can’t get close enough to see it? Environmental DNA analysis is one of the answers—checking out the DNA in soil, for instance, can reveal what pooped there recently in amazing detail. But for a technique that can reach beyond a given patch of ground, scientists have been investigating using leeches from streamwater as their source of DNA.

It turns out that blood from their last meal sticks around in their gut for a good long time, and they happen to be partial to human blood too—which makes them, in the scientists’ words, “easy to collect.” How the Heck: The team had checked previously how long leeches would hang onto host DNA. The small-toothed ferret-badger. Facebook. Only 2 More Days to Vote for Mashable's Webby Award Nomination. Mashable has been nominated for a Webby Award in the Websites category for best business blog. There are only two more days left to vote! You can help us win the People's Voice Award by voting here. Polls are open until April 26. Business coverage has always been core to Mashable since our days covering early Web 2.0 companies. Today, we continue to document how digital transforms business at all levels. Beyond business news, our community depends on us as a resource for excelling in their own careers. Mashable has grown its editorial coverage of business over the past year, and now reports on a breadth of stories that span marketing, advertising, media, small businesses and startups.

We'd like to thank our community for helping us earn this nomination and we'd greatly appreciate your support in helping us win an award. A Few Favorites: Love Letters to the End of the World » The Kickstarter Blog. "If the world were to end this year, what would you want to say to it? " A simple question, sure, but one with an endless (and endlessly fascinating) variety of possible answers.

Answers that the interactive web series/community-letter writing initiative, Love Letters to the End, have set out to collect and share with the world. Phew! Intrigued by the premise, we asked creator Peter Spears Dean to share a few of the favorite letters he's received so far. Illustrations from Erik: I met Erik at an art and music show in Chinatown a few months ago. Haikus to the world: When we pulled this one out of the PO box, it felt thicker than any other we had received.

Letter from Slovakia: This was our first international letter! Caregiver Website Helps Families Sync Schedules. One quarter of Americans act as a caregiver to a family member — and that number will only increase as the baby boomer population ages. So how does one balance the emotionally demanding job of caring for your loved one? Hopefully, you can have others help with tasks such as doctors appointments, picking-up prescriptions, getting groceries, doing laundry, or one of the many responsibilities caregivers are charged with.

A new website, CareTogether.com, aims to make the caregiving process easier. It offers a free forum for caregivers and their families to share advice and offer support. The site also lets families share a calendar so everyone can see when it's their turn to take the loved one to a doctor's appointment or run an errand. It will also let you share doctor's notes and photos with select family members. CareTogether was created by BrightStar Care, a healthcare staffing service and in-home care placement agency. Keeping Student Interest Rates Low. On July 1, 2013 interest rates on many new federal student loans doubled. Because Congress failed to take action, a college education got a more expensive for millions of students and middle class families. Sound familiar?

That’s because we did this last summer. When interest rates were schedules to double last summer, students all over the country took to Facebook and Twitter, called on elected officials, and made their simple message heard: “Don’t Double My Rate.” To stop rates from doubling this year, President Obama put forward a long-term solution that cuts rates this year on nearly all new loans, ensures that all students have access to affordable repayment options, and does not charge students higher interest rate to pay for deficit reduction. Now is not the time to make school more expensive for our young people. Learn more about interest rates for subsidized student loans. “We cannot just cut our way to prosperity.

TSA pats down 4-year-old after she hugs grandmother. By Rebecca Ruiz, NBC News Updated April 26, 10:35 a.m. ET: A 4-year-old girl was patted down recently by Transportation Security Officers (TSO) at a Wichita, Kan., airport after she embraced her grandmother at the security checkpoint. Michelle Brademeyer, the girl's mother, wrote about the incident on her Facebook page last week. The post has since been taken down. The child's grandmother, Lori Croft, told The Associated Press that Brademeyer and her daughter, Isabella, initially passed through security at the Wichita airport without incident. Isabella had just learned about "stranger danger" at school, her grandmother said, adding that the girl was afraid and unsure about what was going on. "The Transportation Security Officers who were present responded to this very simple action in the worst way imaginable," Brademeyer wrote in her Facebook post.

"It was implied, several times, that my mother, in their brief two-second embrace, had passed a handgun to my daughter," Brademeyer said. U.S. Wal-Mart sets post to oversee bribery compliance. Google launches Dropbox competitor. FORTUNE -- After months of speculation, Google (GOOG) has finally unveiled its very own file sharing service, Google Drive. In a blog post Tuesday morning, the search company called the new product "a place where you can create, share, collaborate, and keep all of your stuff. " The "stuff" Google is referring to are all kinds of files -- videos, photos, documents, PDFs and the like.

Users will now be able to upload pictures or spreadsheets to Google Drive and share them with a link, instead of sending a bulky file. They can also access their files from an app available on Android phones and tablets. MORE: Splunk makes a splash If this sounds a lot like what's already available from companies like Dropbox, that's because it is almost exactly the same. But that doesn't mean Google Drive will kill off Dropbox, Box, SugarSync or any other player in the hotly-contested and fast-growing market for cloud storage services. MORE: Why Zynga loves the hybrid cloud. Windows 8 Release Preview Coming in Early June | Gadget Lab. Windows Division President Steven Sinofsky announced Monday that a near-final version of Windows 8, dubbed the “Windows 8 Release Preview,” will be available the first week of June. Sinofsky made the announcement at the Windows 8 Developer Days event in Japan, and Microsoft confirmed the release through its Build Window 8 Twitter account.

The June release preview will follow two previous releases: the developer preview released in September 2011, and the public consumer preview released in February. More than one million people downloaded the consumer preview within the first day of its release, according to Microsoft. When contacted by Wired, Microsoft declined to release further details about the release preview, so it’s unclear how it will differ from the consumer preview. We can, however, expect that the June release will have fewer rough edges. There’s still no confirmed retail release date for Windows 8, but reports point to an October release. New Spy Agency: Defense Clandestine Service to Focus on Global Threats in Iran and China. Michael Olenick: Rentals Gone Wild. By Michael Olenick, creator of FindtheFraud, a crowd sourced foreclosure document review system (still in alpha). You can follow him on Twitter at @michael_olenick or read his blog, Seeing Through Data … as Winston well knew, it was only four years since Oceania had been at war with Eastasia and in alliance with Eurasia.

But that was merely a piece of furtive knowledge, which he happened to possess because his memory was not satisfactorily under control. Officially the change of partners had never happened. George Orwell, 1984 Situated on one side of one hole of the McDowell Mountain Golf Club, on a cul-de-sac, is a 3BR, 2 bath, 2,000 square foot home for rent for the price of $2,150/mo. Our rental, which doesn’t have a pool, is across the street from a house that sits on the golf course: it seems to have a small back yard that backs up to another house.

Though it isn’t marked as such the home for sale screams short-sale; it’s price has been reduced and it’s being sold “As-Is.”