Fewer health care options for illegal immigrants

ALAMO, Texas (AP) — For years, Sonia Limas would drag her daughters to the emergency room whenever they fell sick. As an illegal immigrant, she had no health insurance, and the only place she knew to seek treatment was the hospital — the most expensive setting for those covering the cost.

The family's options improved somewhat a decade ago with the expansion of community health clinics, which offered free or low-cost care with help from the federal government. But President Barack Obama's health care overhaul threatens to roll back some of those services if clinics and hospitals are overwhelmed with newly insured patients and can't afford to care for as many poor families.

To be clear, Obama's law was never intended to help Limas and an estimated 11 million illegal immigrants like her. Instead, it envisions that 32 million uninsured Americans will get access to coverage by 2019. Because that should mean fewer uninsured patients showing up at hospitals, the Obama program slashed the federal reimbursement for uncompensated care.

But in states with large illegal immigrant populations, the math may not work, especially if lawmakers don't expand Medicaid, the joint state-federal health program for the poor and disabled.

When the reform has been fully implemented, illegal immigrants will make up the nation's second-largest population of uninsured, or about 25 percent. The only larger group will be people who qualify for insurance but fail to enroll, according to a 2012 study by the Washington-based Urban Institute.

And since about two-thirds of illegal immigrants live in just eight states, those areas will have a disproportionate share of the uninsured to care for.

In communities "where the number of undocumented immigrants is greatest, the strain has reached the breaking point," Rich Umbdenstock, president of the American Hospital Association, wrote last year in a letter to Obama, asking him to keep in mind the uncompensated care hospitals gave to that group. "In response, many hospitals have had to curtail services, delay implementing services, or close beds."

The federal government has offered to expand Medicaid, but states must decide whether to take the deal. And in some of those eight states — including Texas, Florida and New Jersey — hospitals are scrambling to determine whether they will still have enough money to treat the remaining uninsured.

Without a Medicaid expansion, the influx of new patients and the looming cuts in federal funding could inflict "a double whammy" in Texas, said David Lopez, CEO of the Harris Health System in Houston, which spends 10 to 15 percent of its $1.2 billion annual budget to care for illegal immigrants.

Realistically, taxpayers are already paying for some of the treatment provided to illegal immigrants because hospitals are required by law to stabilize and treat any patients that arrive in an emergency room, regardless of their ability to pay. The money to cover the costs typically comes from federal, state and local taxes.

A solid accounting of money spent treating illegal immigrants is elusive because most hospitals do not ask for immigration status. But some states have tried.

California, which is home to the nation's largest population of illegal immigrants, spent an estimated $1.2 billion last year through Medicaid to care for 822,500 illegal immigrants.

The New Jersey Hospital Association in 2010 estimated that it cost between $600 million and $650 million annually to treat 550,000 illegal immigrants.

And in Texas, a 2010 analysis by the Health and Human Services Commission found that the agency had provided $96 million in benefits to illegal immigrants, up from $81 million two years earlier. The state's public hospital districts spent an additional $717 million in uncompensated care to treat that population.

If large states such as Florida and Texas make good on their intention to forgo federal money to expand Medicaid, the decision "basically eviscerates" the effects of the health care overhaul in those areas because of "who lives there and what they're eligible for," said Lisa Clemans-Cope, a senior researcher at the Urban Institute.

Seeking to curb expenses, hospitals might change what qualifies as an emergency or cap the number of uninsured patients they treat. And although it's believed states with the most illegal immigrants will face a smaller cut, they will still lose money.

The potential impacts of reform are a hot topic at MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. In addition to offering its own charity care, some MD Anderson oncologists volunteer at a county-funded clinic at Lyndon B. Johnson General Hospital that largely treats the uninsured.

"In a sense we've been in the worst-case scenario in Texas for a long time," said Lewis Foxhall, MD Anderson's vice president of health policy in Houston. "The large number of uninsured and the large low-income population creates a very difficult problem for us."

Community clinics are a key part of the reform plan and were supposed to take up some of the slack for hospitals. Clinics received $11 billion in new funding over five years so they could expand to help care for a swell of newly insured who might otherwise overwhelm doctors' offices. But in the first year, $600 million was cut from the centers' usual allocation, leaving many to use the money to fill gaps rather than expand.

There is concern that clinics could themselves be inundated with newly insured patients, forcing many illegal immigrants back to emergency rooms.

Limas, 44, moved to the border town of Alamo 13 years ago with her husband and three daughters. Now single, she supports the family by teaching a citizenship class in Spanish at the local community center and selling cookies and cakes she whips up in her trailer. Soon, she hopes to seek a work permit of her own.

For now, the clinic helps with basic health care needs. If necessary, Limas will return to the emergency room, where the attendants help her fill out paperwork to ensure the government covers the bills she cannot afford.

"They always attended to me," she said, "even though it's slow."

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Sherman can be followed on Twitter at https://twitter.com/chrisshermanAP .

Plushnick-Masti can be followed on Twitter at https://twitter.com/RamitMastiAP .

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Actor decapitated student, killed girlfriend, DA alleges

Clinging to keepsakes and memories more than two years after their
children were killed, the parents of two slain Orange Coast College
students say the pain of reliving the details of their deaths in court
can't match their desire for justice.

On Thursday, the families of Juri "Julie" Kibuishi, 23, and Samuel Herr, 26, sat in Orange County Superior Court
for a preliminary hearing to determine whether prosecutors could move
forward with charges of accessory after the fact against Rachel Buffett,
25, the then-fiancee of alleged killer Daniel Patrick Wozniak. Buffett is accused of helping Wozniak by lying to police after the crime.

The victims' families said that in spite of media attention garnered by the prosecution of Buffett,  who has claimed innocence of murder charges, they trust the legal system to do its job.

"We're not detectives," said Kibuishi's mother, June Kibuishi, expressing her faith in Deputy Dist. Atty. Matt Murphy. "We just want the truth."

"We're here to support Matt Murphy, the Costa Mesa Police Department
and the Orange County D.A.," said Samuel's father, Steve Herr.

Asked how he felt, Herr replied with a tired sigh. "How do you feel every day in court?"

Kibuishi said it never gets easier.

During a recess in the lengthy and at times gruesome hearing, Kibuishi tugged at a silver ring that had belonged to her daughter hanging on a chain around her neck.

"This is the only thing that we got back after it happened," she
said. "And a necklace in a little envelope. I wasn't able to see her
until the day before the service. And then we found out what happened to
Sam. Just .... " She shook her head.

"It doesn't make any sense to me," Kibuishi said. "My daughter was
not at the wrong place at the wrong time. She was used. She thought she
was helping out a friend."

Julie Kibuishi, police say, was Costa Mesa actor Wozniak's second victim.

On the afternoon of May 21, 2010, Wozniak shot and killed Herr, his upstairs neighbor, and then dismembered his body, prosecutors say. Wozniak, 28, a community theater actor, then allegedly lured Kibuishi, Herr's friend and tutor, to Herr's apartment.

When she arrived, prosecutors say Wozniak shot her and then staged her body to look as though Herr had sexually assaulted her.

To lure Kibuishi to her death, prosecutors say, Wozniak posed as Herr, using Herr's cellphone to send text messages telling her that
he was having family problems and wanted to talk to someone he could
trust.

Buffett is accused of making misleading statements to detectives investigating the slayings, including an allegedly fictitious third man who was involved in the crime. The judge Friday ultimately found there was enough evidence to move forward with the case against Buffett, but said it would be a tough case for prosecutors.

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-- Jill Cowan, Times Community News

Photo: Samuel Herr. Credit: Family photo

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Panetta Orders Deployment of U.S. Antimissile Units in Turkey

Manu Brabo/Associated Press

An injured woman was taken to a hospital in a rebel-controlled area of Aleppo on Friday.

INCIRLIK AIR BASE, Turkey — Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta signed an official deployment order on Friday to send 400 American military personnel and two Patriot air defense batteries to Turkey as its tensions intensify with neighboring Syria, where government forces have increasingly resorted to aerial attacks, including the use of ballistic missiles, to fight a spreading insurgency.

The American batteries will be part of a broader push to strengthen Turkey’s defenses that will include the deployment of four other Patriot batteries — two from Germany and two from the Netherlands. Each battery contains multiple rounds of guided missiles that can intercept and destroy other missiles and hostile aircraft flying at high speeds.

Mr. Panetta’s deployment order, the result of NATO discussions last week, represents the most direct American military action so far to help contain the Syrian conflict and minimize its risk of spilling across the 550-mile border with Turkey, a NATO member that is housing more than 100,000 Syrian refugees and providing aid to the Syrian rebels trying to oust President Bashar al-Assad.

Tensions between Turkey and Syria have escalated in recent months as Syrian forces have bombed rebel positions along the border and occasionally lobbed artillery rounds into Turkish territory. The Turks have also grown increasingly alarmed that Mr. Assad’s forces could fire missiles into Turkey.

News of the Patriot deployment order came as antigovernment activists inside Syria reported fresh mayhem, including an unconfirmed rebel claim to have downed a government warplane attacking insurgent positions near the international airport in Damascus, the capital.

In Moscow, meanwhile, the Russian Foreign Ministry sought to distance itself from comments a day earlier by its Middle East envoy that the Syrian rebels might defeat Mr. Assad, a longstanding Kremlin ally and arms client. A ministry spokesman, Aleksandr K. Lukashevich, said Russia remained committed to a political solution in Syria.

“We have never changed our position and will not change it,” Mr. Lukashevich said. He rejected a comment made by a State Department spokesman on Thursday that Moscow had “woken up” and changed its position as dynamics shifted on the battlefield, saying, “We have never been asleep.”

All six Patriot units deployed in Turkey will be under NATO’s command and are scheduled to be operational by the end of January, according to officials in Washington.

George Little, the Pentagon spokesman, said Mr. Panetta signed the order as he flew from Afghanistan to this air base in southern Turkey, close to the Syrian border.

“The United States has been supporting Turkey in its efforts to defend itself,” Mr. Little said.

The order “will deploy some 400 U.S. personnel to Turkey to support two Patriot missile batteries,” Mr. Little added, and the personnel and Patriot batteries will arrive in Turkey in the coming weeks. He did not specify their deployment locations.

After landing at Incirlik on Friday, Mr. Panetta told a gathering of American Air Force personnel of his decision to deploy the Patriots.

He said the United States was working with Turkey, Jordan and Israel to monitor Syria’s stockpiles of chemical weapons, and warned of “serious consequences” if Syria used them, but he did not offer any specifics.

“We have drawn up plans for presenting to the president,” Mr. Panetta said. “We have to be ready.”

Turkey’s worries about vulnerability to Syrian missiles, including Scuds that might be tipped with chemical weapons, were heightened recently by intelligence reports that Syrian troops had mixed small amounts of precursor chemicals for sarin, a deadly nerve gas, at one or two storage sites, and loaded them into artillery shells and airplane bombs.  “Their arsenal of chemical weapons has been configured for use at a moment’s notice,” Representative Mike Rogers, a Michigan Republican who heads the House Intelligence Committee, said in an interview on Friday.  Mr. Panetta, however, said this week that intelligence about chemical weapons activity in Syria had “leveled off.”

Recent Scud missile attacks by Mr. Assad’s forces against rebels in northern Syria have only added to Turkey’s concerns. The Scud missiles were armed with conventional warheads, but the attacks showed that the Assad government was prepared to use missiles as it struggled to slow rebel gains.

With the nearly two-year-old Syrian conflict entering its second winter and many thousands of people struggling for food and warmth in cities ruined by protracted fighting, the humanitarian costs seemed to be mounting.

An activist in Syria’s central province of Homs, who identified himself as Abu Ourouba, said the town of Houla — where the United Nations confirmed in May that Syrian troops had killed more than 100 people, including at least 32 children — was facing a catastrophe.

“Houla has been besieged from all directions for the past 10 days,” he said. “Until now, not even one loaf of bread has entered Houla. The food that was available is beginning to run out very quickly. Most children don’t have milk anymore. The kids are at risk of dying from hunger,” Shelling along access routes means that no one can walk “unless they crawl” to avoid hundreds of strikes from tanks, warplanes and rocket launchers, the activist said.

Thom Shanker reported from Incirlik Air Base, Turkey, and Michael R. Gordon from Washington. Reporting was contributed by Eric Schmitt from Washington; Anne Barnard, Hania Mourtada and Hwaida Saad from Beirut, Lebanon; Alan Cowell from London; and Ellen Barry from Moscow.

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Sony’s PlayStation 4 could lose to the next Xbox before it’s even released

I love all game consoles equally. My Xbox 360 is used equally as much as my PlayStation 3. The Wii — oh, I’ll just leave it at that. The current generation of consoles is all but over — 10-year life cycle be damned — and new consoles are rumored to be coming next fall. If not next fall, then in 2014. Whatever is the case, Sony (SNE) can’t afford to lag in third place again. Sure, the Xbox 360 and PS3 are neck-in-neck in global lifetime sales, and the Xbox 360 did have a one year head start, but coming off the disappointing PS Vita, “confidence is less high” that Sony will deliver a console next year in time to compete with Microsoft (MSFT), according to Kotaku.

[More from BGR: Has the iPhone peaked? Apple’s iPhone 4S seen outselling iPhone 5]

I want a new console just as much as any other gamer. There’s a reason people are still pouncing on those Wii U consoles and flipping them on eBay. Six years is unusually long for a console to still be kicking around.

[More from BGR: Apple execs said to be ‘seething’ over Google Maps praise]

According to the well-informed Stephen Totilo, Editor-in-Chief of Kotaku, the game blog that first broke news on the next-gen Xbox, Microsoft’s “Durango” is ”on the mark” and “Sony appears to inspire less confidence…due to the on-and-off troubles of the PlayStation 3 and the struggles of the Vita vs. how much lost confidence is due to any problems looming for PS4.“

Totilo says “confidence is high that the next Xbox will be out in time for next Christmas” and confidence is low that the PS4 will be right there on store shelves next to it.

The “on-and-off troubles of the PlayStation 3″ Totilo is referring to is the anchor that’s weighed the console down since launch: tougher development due to the Cell processor and less available RAM – 256MB vs. 512MB in the Xbox 360.

In the months before the PS3′s launch in 2006, Sony said the console would be the most powerful console ever created, and here we are six years later and multi-platform games on the console consistently end up being buggier and uglier than on the Xbox 360 in many cases. Cases in point: Skyrim, Mass Effect 3 and Call of Duty: Black Ops II.

Sony’s in a rut right now. It has the chops to build beautiful and powerful hardware that’s a developer’s dream (ex: PS Vita), but at the same time, it’s always launching after the competition nowadays.

If Sony’s learned any lessons in the last half a decade, it better apply them to the PS4. The console needs to offer next-level processing and graphics. It needs to be backward-compatible with PS3 games and play Blu-ray discs. It should be small and quiet. It should have a strong online platform, support a greater array of apps and most importantly be easy for developers to program for.

Game exclusives will always be important, but now that games are million-dollar productions, multi-platform will be where developers hope to reap back their costs.

With Microsoft said to be preparing an “Xbox 720″ and an “Xbox Lite,” Sony can’t make the mistake of launching late or pricing the console too high. A launch in spring of 2014 would mean Sony will miss Black Friday and Cyber Monday, the two biggest shopping days of the year that bring in massive sales.  Ceding sales and market share to Microsoft and Nintendo by launching late would be disastrous.

The PS3 screwed up too many times. At this point, the PS4 needs to be perfect out of the door.

This article was originally published by BGR

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Gaming News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Let's Talk About Kristen Stewart's Sheer Dress, Shall We?

Stylewatch
Style News Now

12/14/2012 at 02:00 PM ET

Michael N. Todaro/FilmMagic (3); FameFlynet

So kudos to Kristen Stewart for having an amazing body and a stylist who helps her take risks. She’s gone a little out of the box on her recent On the Road press tour, and it’s been fun to watch.

But Stewart’s most recent look — a bra top and boy shorts combo covered with a sheer, floral-print overlay, worn to a premiere in New York Thursday night — has us a little stumped. The Erdem spring 2013 creation — seen on the runway this fall — was for spring, when it’s not 40 degrees in New York. And that’s not the only issue we have with the dress:

1. The midriff. Stewart has one of the hottest bodies in Hollywood, yet her toned tummy is looking a little scrunched in this bra top, thanks to the low bra band, high boy short waistline and satin material, all of which are very unforgiving.

2. The side. The back of the dress is solid, made in the same ice blue as the bra top and shorts. That means an unsightly side seam that makes the dress even busier, and cuts her profile in a strange way.

3. The length. On the runway, this dress was knee-length, making it more appropriate and much more feminine. Though we’d give anything to have Stewart’s killer legs, cutting the dress right at the middle of her thighs isn’t particularly flattering — or ladylike.

On the plus side? Her hair and makeup are flawless, and we’re lusting after those hot heels. But sorry, Stewart: We’re going to have to call this one a major miss. Tell us: How do you feel about this confusing dress? 

PHOTOS: SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS ON MORE STAR LOOKS IN ‘LOVE IT OR LEAVE IT?’

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APNewsBreak: Texas cancer probe draws NCI scrutiny

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — The National Cancer Institute confirmed Friday that federal officials are taking a closer look at a troubled $3 billion cancer-fighting effort in Texas that is under a criminal investigation over a lucrative taxpayer-funded grant awarded by the state agency.

The Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas has coveted status as an NCI-approved funding entity — an exclusive group headlined by the nation's most prominent cancer organizations. The list is fewer than two dozen and includes the American Cancer Society, Susan G. Komen for the Cure and federal entities like the Center for Disease Control and Prevention.

The designation is a federal seal-of-approval that signals high peer review standards and conflict of interest policies. Yearlong turmoil within the Texas institute, or CPRIT, reached a new peak this week when the agency's beleaguered chief executive asked to resign and prosecutors opened cases following an $11 million grant to a private company that was revealed to have bypassed an independent review.

NCI spokeswoman Aleea Farrakh Khan told The Associated Press that officials are "evaluating recent events" at CPRIT. She said officials have not made decisions or contacted the agency directly.

Members of CPRIT's governing board did not immediately return an email seeking comment.

NCI designation is not required for CPRIT to continue running the nation's second-largest pot of cancer research dollars, Khan said. But jeopardizing that status — and especially losing it — would be a severe blow to CPRIT's reputation, which already has been battered by sweeping resignations, internal accusations of politics trumping science and now a criminal investigation.

A recent internal audit at CPRIT discovered an $11 million funding request from Dallas-based Peloton Therapeutics was approved without the agency ever scrutinizing the proposal's merits. The revelation came only months after two Nobel laureates and other top scientists left the agency in protest over a $20 million grant some accused of being rushed to approval without a proper peer review.

While CPRIT is funded by taxpayers, donors to cancer nonprofits might look to an NCI designation for assurance that their money is in good hands.

"It says, 'If I'm donating money to this agency, if NCI is approving them, that means NCI says it's handling its money well,'" Khan said.

Khan added that CPRIT's inclusion on the list does not mean all of its funding mechanisms are NCI-approved.

An entire page of CPRIT's website is devoted to boasting its NCI designation. The agency says the status is important because it means cancer centers in Texas seeking its own NCI designation — so as to reassure patients or bolster recruitment — can include CPRIT research dollars in their calculations to maintain levels needed to be NCI approved.

"This enhances Texas' ability to leverage additional federal funding for cancer research and raises Texas' profile as a center for cancer research," according to the website.

Executive Director Bill Gimson submitted his resignation letter Tuesday but offered to stay on through January. He has described Peloton's improper funding as an honest mistake and said no one associated with CPRIT stood to personally profit from the company's award.

Prosecutors have not made any specific criminal allegations. Launching separate investigations into CPRIT are the Texas attorney general's office and the Travis County district attorney's public integrity unit, which investigates criminal misconduct within state government.

___

Follow Paul J. Weber on Twitter: www.twitter.com/pauljweber

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Man sought to videotape girlfriend's murder for Christmas, DA says

A south Orange County man who solicited his ex-girlfriend's murder and asked that the killing be videotaped so he could watch it on Christmas was sentenced Thursday to 31 years to life in state prison.

Mark Alan Jarosik, a Ladera Ranch resident, was in custody at the time of the murder solicitation, being held on suspicion of raping his former girlfriend.

Jarosik, 46, was found guilty in October of forcible rape, solicitation to commit murder and attempted murder with premeditation and deliberation, according to the Orange County district attorney's office.

Prosecutors said Jarosik went to the Ladera Ranch home of his 41-year-old ex-girlfriend in May 2009 to use her computer. They had broken up a month before, after living together and dating for several years.

The woman was at dinner with friends and when she returned, prosecutors said, the two got into an argument. The woman allegedly thought Jarosik had been spying on her, driving past the restaurant where she had been having dinner.

Prosecutors said the argument escalated into a physical and sexual assault, with Jarosik raping the woman.

On May 16, 2009, the incident was reported to law enforcement, and within days, prosecutors had filed rape charges. Jarosik was held in lieu of $100,000 bail. 

A protective order was issued requiring him -- should he make bail -- to stay more than 200 yards away from the woman at all times and forbidding any contact, directly or through a third party.

But after he posted bail, prosecutors said, Jarosik attempted to break into the woman's home. The woman's two children saw a hand come through a window near the front door of the house and screamed, and Jarosik fled.

The next morning, prosecutors said, Jarosik violated the protective order, attacking the woman outside her home. He pushed her to the ground, punched her in the face and banged her head against the curb, according to prosecutors.

Neighbors who witnessed the attack pulled Jarosik off of her, called authorities and pinned him down until police arrived. The woman was left in serious condition with a concussion and lacerations to the head.

While he was in custody at the Orange County Jail, prosecutors said, Jarosik asked another inmate to have a relative murder the woman, requesting that he have it videotaped.

The solicitation was never carried out.

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-- Rick Rojas and Richard Winton

Photo: Mark Alan Jarosik. Credit: Orange County District Attorney.

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Chávez Experiences Complications From Cancer Surgery

CARACAS, Venezuela — President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela experienced complications related to his cancer surgery, resulting in bleeding that required “corrective measures,” but his vital signs were returning to normal and he was showing signs of recovery, a government official said Thursday.

The surgery, which lasted more than six hours, was done in Havana on Tuesday. Ernesto Villegas, Mr. Chávez’s information minister, did not say when doctors detected the bleeding or got it under control. But he said Mr. Chávez was recuperating in a way that he described as “progressive and favorable.”

Given how little information the government has released on Mr. Chávez’s health throughout the course of his illness, the recent change in its tone suggests that his condition is extremely serious and that there are doubts about how fully he may recover.

On Wednesday, Mr. Villegas had warned the country that Mr. Chávez, 58, might not be able to return to Venezuela by January 10, when he is scheduled to be sworn in for a new six-year term. In that case, Mr. Villegas wrote in a note posted Wednesday on the information ministry’s Web sitethat “the people should be prepared to understand. It would be irresponsible to hide the delicacy of the present moment and the days to come.”

If Mr. Chávez cannot begin his new term, the constitution calls for new elections to be held within 30 days. Mr. Chávez has said that if that occurs, his vice president, Nicolás Maduro, should be his party’s candidate.

In the note on Wednesday, Mr. Villegas wrote that the operation had been “hard, complex, delicate” and that the period following surgery would be as well.

He urged Venezuelans to treat the situation in the same way as someone who has “an ill father, in a delicate situation.”

Despite several brief announcements this week about Mr. Chávez’s surgery, central details about his cancer and treatment have been kept secret since he received the diagnosis in June 2011. Mr. Chávez and government officials have refused to say what kind of cancer it is and where exactly in his body it is, other than to say that it was found in the pelvic region.

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Verizon Offering $5 Shared 4G Plan for Samsung Galaxy Camera

Imagine the powerful Samsung Galaxy S III smartphone, except that it can’t make phone calls and its backplate has been replaced by a digital camera — handgrip, zoom lens, and all. That’s basically the Samsung Galaxy Camera in a nutshell, and whether it’s a small, awkwardly-shaped Android tablet or a digital camera that you can play Modern Combat 3 on depends on how you look at it.

When the Galaxy Camera launched last month, it was only available in white, and cost $ 499 on AT&T’s network with a month-to-month data plan. But on Dec. 13, it launches on Verizon’s network, in both white and black. The Verizon Galaxy Camera costs $ 50 more up front, but in return it has 4G LTE instead of HSPA+, and Verizon is offering a “promotional price” for the monthly charge: Only $ 5 to add it to a Share Everything plan, instead of the usual $ 10 tablet rate.

A 4G digital camera

While it’s capable of functioning as an Android tablet (or game machine), the biggest reason for the Samsung Galaxy Camera’s 4G wireless Internet is so it can automatically upload photos it takes. Apps such as Dropbox, Photobucket, and Ubuntu One offer a limited amount of online storage space for free, where the Galaxy Camera can save photos without anyone needing to tell it to. Those photos can then be accessed at home, or on a tablet or laptop.

Most smartphones are able to do this already, but few (with the possible exception of the Windows Phone powered Nokia Lumia 920) are able to take photos as high-quality as the Galaxy Camera’s.

Not as good of a deal as it sounds

Dropbox is offering two years’ worth of 50 GB of free online storage space for photos and videos, to anyone who buys a Samsung Galaxy Camera from AT&T or Verizon. (The regular free plan is only 2 GB.)

The problem is, you may need that much space. The photos taken by the Galaxy Camera’s 16 megapixel sensor take up a lot more space, at maximum resolution, than ordinary smartphone snapshots do. Those camera uploads can eat through a shared data plan, and with Verizon charging a $ 15 per GB overage fee (plus the $ 50 extra up-front on top of what AT&T charges) it may make up for the cheaper monthly cost.

On top of that, the Galaxy Camera’s photos are basically on par with a $ 199 digital camera’s — you pay a large premium to combine that kind of point-and-shoot with the hardware equivalent of a high-end smartphone.

It does run Android, though, right?

The Galaxy Camera uses Samsung‘s custom software for its camera app, and lacks a normal phone dialer app. Beyond that, though, it runs the same Android operating system found on smartphones, and can run all the same games and apps.

Some apps don’t work the same on the Galaxy Camera as they do on a smartphone, however. Apps which only run in portrait mode, for instance, require you to hold the camera sideways to use them (especially unpleasant when they’re camera apps). And while it can make voice and even video calls over Skype, it lacks a rear-facing camera or the kind of speaker you hold up close to your ear. So you may end up making speakerphone calls and filming the palm of your hand.

Jared Spurbeck is an open-source software enthusiast, who uses an Android phone and an Ubuntu laptop PC. He has been writing about technology and electronics since 2008.
Linux/Open Source News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Katie Stagliano Feeds the Hungry Through Her Gardening Nonprofit

Heroes Among Us

By Moira Bailey and Diane Herbst

12/13/2012 at 04:20 PM EST

Ever since she was a little girl, Katie Stagliano knew how to make things grow.

Four years ago, Katie planted the seedling for a 40-pound cabbage that would end up making meals for hundreds of hungry people in her Summerville, S.C., community. Now 14, she's been growing and feeding people ever since, with her nonprofit Katie's Krops that now seeds 55 kid-grown gardens in 21 states and produces thousands of pounds of vegetables.

In September, the cabbage that started her crusade landed the Pinewood Prep 8th grader in New York City – and in the company of President Bill Clinton, as one of six recipients of this year's Clinton Global Citizen Awards. "He's really into science," says Katie. "He talked to me about photosynthesis."

Katie works with groups addressing childhood health and nutrition issues and is part of an upcoming documentary Give Me Your Hungry. She's also been featured on the Great American Country cable network's Great American Heroes with Trace Adkins show.

"He's a country boy," says Katie of Adkins. "He makes fun of me and my mom for wearing gardening gloves."

Her now-famous cabbage seedling that she planted in her family's backyard made 275 meals (supplemented with ham and rice) at a homeless shelter in Katie's community.

Says Katie, "I thought, 'Wow, with one cabbage I helped feed that many people? I could do much more.' "

She started other gardens – in her subdivision, on donated land and on a field at school – seeded with donated plants and tended by school and community volunteers Katie recruited.

Those vegetables and volunteer networks have sprouted, feeding growing numbers of the needy. Her nonprofit, started in 2010, offers grants of garden center gift cards to fledgling gardeners ages 9-16 to start their own gardens, with a new grant application cycle that goes through Feb. 12. Katie hopes to eventually have gardens in all 50 states.

Katie is active in monthly suppers in Summerville, where kids cook vegetables from their gardens and feed anywhere from 50-150 people. A November dinner in a neighboring community transformed an elementary school into a restaurant for several hundred students and their families.

"A lot of these kids have never been to a real restaurant before and they're not really eating as healthy as they should be," she says.

Despite being thankful for the oversized vegetable that started it all, Katie offers a tiny admission: "I don't really eat cabbage that much. I know I'm supposed to probably love it but it's not one of my favorite vegetables," she says. "But I mean, it's not that bad."

Know a hero? Send suggestions to heroesamongus@peoplemag.com. For more inspiring stories, read the latest issue of PEOPLE magazine

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