Newzity

Looks that way. The report by America’s Promise Alliance released today says that the public high schools in the 17 of the 50 largest cities had a less than 50 percent graduation rate while their suburban counterparts did much better.

Nationally, about 70 percent of U.S. high school students graduate on time with a regular diploma and about 1.2 million students drop out annually. Which in itself is troubling. But the performance of public schools in the biggest cities was abysmal. City School District in Detroit, MI, is worst with 24.9% graduation rate - that means three in four ninth graders fail to graduate. Indianapolis and Cleveland follow with 30.5% and 34.1%, respectively. The contrast between urban schools and their suburban counterparts can be striking: the urban and suburban school districts in Baltimore, MD, have 34.6% and 81.5% graduation rate, respectively - a gap of 47.0%. The corresponding numbers for Detroit are 47.9% and 75.0% with a gap of 27.1%. Overall, the urban schools have one in eight students, about 1.7 million in total, but for every four failing students one comes from urban schools. The overall graduation rate for 50 biggest metros is about 58% while the number for their suburban schools is 75.4%.

It is a national shame that half of the city school kids won’t be able to understand all the numbers in the report.

Yes. That is according to iMac owner Chandra Sanders who has filed a lawsuit against Apple on Monday.

Only a few days ago Apple settled another lawsuit involving its claim of millions of colors on 20-inch iMAC monitors. The new lawsuit is similar in its argument that 20-inch model can just display about 262 thousand true colors instead of close to 17 millions claimed, a mere 2 percent. It goes on to say that though the 24-inch and the older 20-inch models are at par with the claim, the newer model is just new and inferior. The new 20-inch model uses a dithering technology that just creates the illusion of millions of colors. It involves displaying lots of similar shades real fast to create all the colors in between two true colors. Though it can fool our eyes, it can cause crippling problem for photo and video editing. Apple is not saying anything.

So is the good guy image Apple’s true color, or it is just an illusion created by really fast talking Jobs?

Yes you can. American Heart Association says hands-only CPR is as effective for cardiac arrests, and there is no harm in losing the lip action.

That is a major shift from earlier recommendations. The acceptance of hands-only CPR did not happen overnight; it was gradual. Even in the last update in 2005, the mouth-to-mouth breathing between chest compressions was preferred. This is the first time hands-only CPR is recommended without any reservation. It has two big advantages: it is easier and people are less reluctant to perform it on a stranger. Hands-only CPR needs only chest presses, about 100 per minute. For many adults besides being yucky, mouth-to-mouth breathing also carries the risk of infection, and that is why they shy away from doing it. Though CPR can double or even triple the survival rate, less than one in three people receive it outside hospital. With the added ease and risk free approach, hands-only CPR will improve the chance of survival for many of the 310 thousands cardiac patients that die annually.

But if you find a kid in trouble, try the mouth-to-mouth breathing because most likely she is suffering from breathing trouble to start with. But then it is easier to do on a kid.

Sadly, yes. That is what Mark Castillo has done over the weekend.

Forty one year old Mark from Maryland is divorced and was suffering from mental problems. His wife Amy A. Castillo filed for a restraining order against him fearing the potential danger to the kids, though she said he never hurt them before. This year, on 10th January, circuit court Judge Joseph Dugan refused to issue a permanent restraining order. More than once her effort to prevent him from visiting the kids was refused by the court. She tried everything to keep Mark away from the kids. But all her efforts came to an end this weekend when she heard the tragic news: Mark drowned two boys, age 4 and 6, and the 3 year old girl one at a time in the bathtub of the Baltimore Marriott Inner Harbor Hotel. He called the front desk on Sunday afternoon to report the killings and warned them that he was about to commit suicide. He was rescued and treated for superficial cuts on his neck.

I am sure, he would plead not guilty for the reason of insanity. But how insane can you be if you kill your kids one at a time, and when it comes to suicide you just injure yourself, and have the mind to call the front desk for help.

Sure. The low-fare British airline Flybe is paying people, but you have to travel between Dublin and Norwich in Eastern England.

Why such generosity? Well, it is mostly out of self interest - doesn’t it always. Flybe need to show a yearly total of 15 thousand passengers in the Norwich-Dublin route. The year ends today on March 31, and Flybe is 172 passenger short. As a result they are facing over half a million penalty from Norwich Airport for not meeting the goal. So they came up with a plan: hire 172 people to fly. Yes, besides the free ticket, free bar, and in-flight entertainment the people are also getting paid about $70 per flight. But the Airport authority is not happy about it and called the plan ludicrous. They are claming the plan won’t work either since the passengers need to be normal fare-paying customers, just like you and me and not hired to fly. Flybe is calling Norwich authorities ludicrous in return.

Not sure who is being silly, but free airline travel with pay surely sounds a lot of savings. I am waiting to see when Southwest starts this service.

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Shine, of course. The portal leader Yahoo has set its sight on women and started a site just for them: Shine.

Creativity and sense of venture come out of pressure. And Yahoo has been under lots of pressure these days: from revenue decline to talks of hostile take over. So Monday Yahoo ventured into something it never did for the past decade: launch a site targeting specific demographic. The first in line are the women of age group 25 to 54 who make all the decisions of running day to day life from buying grocery to decorating homes. They are a prime target for advertisers. Shine promises to be one-stop-shop for women. It offers topics such as Fashion & Beauty; Healthy Living; Entertainment; Parenting; Love & Sex; Work & Money; Food; At Home; and all important Astrology. It is in a blog format, so there is a Speak Up section too - finally someone gave women a voice. Of course, they are not the first one to think of women, and there are already sites like iVillage. The content for the Shine site will come from established media companies like Hearst Corporation, the publisher of household names such as Cosmopolitan, Good Housekeeping, and Redbook.

So may be this is the year of the women: a woman in the white house and a place to Shine online. What more can they ask for.

Islam has taken the number one spot from Roman Catholicism. Worldwide Muslims outnumber Catholics by about 170 millions.

Vatican sources found that in 2006 Islam has surpassed Roman Catholicism for the first time in history. The number of Catholics account for 17.4 percent of the world population where as Muslims today account for 19.2 percent. That is about 1.13 billion Catholics as opposed to 1.3 billion Muslims. Number of Catholics grew as the same rate as world population keeping the percentage almost the same. However, Muslims grew faster increasing their share. Vatican says it is due to the imbalance in birth rate:

“It is true that while Muslim families, as is well known, continue to make a lot of children, Christian ones on the contrary tend to have fewer and fewer.”

But number of Christians from all denominations - including Protestants, Anglicans, and Orthodox Christians - is still much higher than that of Muslims. In the world, Christians account for 33 percent of the population or about 2 billion out of 6 billion. That is one in every three people on the planet is Christian.

But if the Muslims continue to produce more children than Christians then it is only a matter of time before Islam takes over the Christianity as a whole.

Sure you can. The cleaning crew of a Continental Airline found a fetus in the rest room of a plane in Houston.

On Sunday, Continental Flight 433 was flying from LaGuardia Airport to Houston and landed on the destination about half an hour late. After all the passengers left the plane, the cleaning crew came to do their work, and within 15 minutes found a fetus in the restroom. The new born fetus was hidden in a trash can. Authorities suspect a teen gave birth in the plane and left the fetus behind. They are talking to her, but they won’t file formal charge before an autopsy determines that a crime was committed.

It is only a crime if the fetus was born alive. And that is the law. But if you throw paper towels, you can get $1000 fine for littering.

Surely not, especially if they contain plastic and glass fragments. Stonyfield Farm is recalling several batches of its blueberry yogurt after consumers complained of finding plastic or glass fragments in the 6 oz. cups.

Stonyfield Farm said:

The recall applies only to Stonyfield Organic Fat Free Blueberry Yogurt in 6 oz. cups carrying product codes printed on the cup bottoms that start with the following dates: Apr 13 08, Apr 14 08, April 15 08, April 25 08 and April 26 08.

Please check your refrigerator before you find free plastic or glass fragments in your favorite yogurt. And if you are one of those health-conscious blueberry-flavored-yogurt-lovers, then return the yogurt containers (opened or unopened) to stores for full refunds.

Live culture is good, but not the dead plastic ones.