Friday, December 14, 2012

17-MONTH-OLD WITH LEUKEMIA IN DESPERATE NEED OF TRANSPLANT
A benefit will be held this weekend for a 17-month-old girl recently diagnosed with leukemia. Sadie Davis was diagnosed with AML on November 16 and is in desperate need of a bone marrow transplant. The Journey Church on Leeville Pike in Lebanon is hosting a "Be The Match Registry" event in her honor this Saturday from 3 p.m. to 7 p.m.  Supporters are asked to come and get swabbed to see if they could be a match for Sadie or someone else in need. To be a donor you must be between the ages of 18 and 44.  Sadie lives in Mt. Juliet with her dad Tim, mom Amber and big brother Eli who is three years old. READ MORE

PLAN TO ATTACK 30 U.S. BANKS DEEMED 'CREDIBLE'
A new report from Intel Corporation's McAfee unit says plans announced by a cyber group to attack 30 U.S. banks could leave hundreds of accounts vulnerable.  McAfee officials say they've already found evidence that the cyber criminals conducted early attacks that planted software that could ultimately help thieves steal money. They're working on the problem.

STATE AUDIT OF NES UNCOVERS QUESTIONABLE SPENDING 
The state comptroller audited NES and found a lot of problems, including millions spent without going through proper procedures. The District Attorney, however, says there don't appear to be any laws broken. The report says the Nashville Electric Service has paid $17 million to two vendors that did not go through the bidding process to get the best price. The audit also found improper use of a credit card, issues with travel expenses, non-disclosure of a conflict of interest and other problems. NES is promising "change."

THIS IS COOL!  SANTA MAILBOXES TO GET LETTERS BACK FROM SANTA
Don't forget to let your kids write letters to Santa and drop them into the specially marked Santa Mailboxes. The Santa Mailboxes are at the Franklin and Fairview Recreation Complexes, the Longview Recreation Center at Spring Hill, and the Hillsboro-Leiper's Fork Community Center. If you include your return address, Santa will write a letter back to your child, but the deadline is Dec 20th. That's next Thursday. www.wcparksandrec.com for more information.

DAVIDSON COUNTY'S COURT CHANGES HELP FAST TRACK DUIS
Davidson County's Criminal Judges cleared their dockets for the first two weeks this month to clear pending DUI cases before the end of the year.
The annual effort helps keep DUI cases moving through the courts in an efficient way, thereby reducing the amount of time accused DUI offenders are able to be out on the roads before their trial.
In 2008, Mayor Karl Dean called on the Davidson County District Attorney's Office and the criminal court judges to elevate a backlog in DUI cases.
According to Judge Fishburn, there were between 600 to 700 pending DUI cases with 15 to 20% of them being older than three years.  In response to the mayor's request to alleviate the backlog, Judge Fishburn started devoting his entire Friday docket to handling DUI cases.
The next challenge is stopping people who have already been convicted of multiple DUIs from re-offending.

BIDDERS FOR HOSTESS
Some big names are among the bidders for assets being sold by Hostess Brands as the Twinkie-maker goes through bankruptcy proceedings.  Walmart and Kroger are among about two-dozen bidders in the liquidation sale, though it's not clear whether they're just buying parts of the business or if they want the whole thing to keep it going. 

BEST HOLIDAY LIGHTS
A lot of people have the holiday tradition of driving around, looking at Christmas decorations. But instead of hit-and-miss, we've got a list of the best decorations in town. The top 30 finalists in the Metro Holiday lights contest are online. HERE'S THE LINK, so you can map out your own Christmas lights tour, and go for a ride this weekend. (www.nashville.gov/pw.)

STUDY SHOWS WIND BLEW DEADLY GAS TO U.S. TROOPS
A new study seems to have found what helped cause the so-called Gulf War Syndrome. U-S bombings of iraqi munitions factories in 1991... released a cloud of poison sarin gas... that was blown over American troops 300 miles away in Saudi Arabia. 250-thousand Gulf War veterans now have lingering health problems because of it. 
(The study is published in the journal "Neuroepidemiology.")

ONE IN TEN SAY HEALTH-RELATED WEBSITES SAVED THEIR LIVES
We're getting a lot of our healthcare information online these days. A Philips Healthcare survey found about half of us are comfortable using the website to check symptoms, but most of us don't take it as gospel until we check with a real life doctor. One in ten of us, however, claim the information we got on some health website .. like Web MD... probably saved our lives.

STUDENT PILOT INJURED IN CRASH
You may have heard about a plane crash in Murfreesboro... but just so you'll know, it wasn't a big passenger plane. It was 49 year old Randy Ray, a student pilot, who was practicing, when he veered off the runway and into a culvert. He broke his leg but he's expected to make a full recovery.

FOUR IN TEN AMERICANS BLAME SEVERE WEATHER ON "END TIMES"
Nearly four in ten people in America believe that the severe weather and natural disasters we've had like Superstorm Sandy is evidence that the world is coming to an end, as predicted in the Bible. That's four in ten of us. MOst of the rest of us blame global warming for the weather events.

CONSTRUCTION CLOSING COUNTRY MUSIC HALL OF FAME
The Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum will close next month, and reopen a couple of weeks later, 210 thousand square feet larger. The museum's expansion project will also connect it to the new Omni Hotel being built across from the Music City Center.

GEORGE H.W. BUSH MAY BE HOME FOR CHRISTMAS
Former President George H.W. Bush may be home for Christmas. The 88-year old has been battling the "lingering effects of bronchitis," at a hospital in Houston, and he's been doing a physical therapy program to get his strength back. 

WOMAN GETS STUCK IN TRASH CHUTE TRYING TO SAVE MAKEUP
If you've had to buy makeup lately you may be able to commiserate with this woman; it's expensive!
This lady in Russia was getting ready to go out, when she accidentally dropped her makeup bag down the trash chute. So she went in after it... and got stuck. Had to be cut OUT of the trash chute. But she's okay, and she got her makeup back.

2 WANTED FOR SHOPLIFTING FROM FRANKLIN WALMART  (link has pictures)
Franklin police are working to identify two women who stole nearly $700 worth of merchandise from a Franklin Walmart over the weekend. The incident occurred at the retailer located on Mallory Lane on Saturday morning.
According to police, the suspects were seen loading the unpaid merchandise into a white Ford Expedition.
Anyone with information on the suspects' identities is urged to contact Crime Stoppers at 615-794-2513.

MAYA 'END OF WORLD' IS A MISTRANSLATION
Holiday shopping still beckons, even with the ancient Maya supposedly forecasting the end of the world for 2012. Reluctant shoppers may hate the news, but the long-awaited, much-hyped and entirely farcical Maya apocalypse is just that — and archaeologists can't wait until it passes so they don't have to explain anymore why it was never going to happen.
"I would suggest to people that they not sell their house, quit their job, leave their spouse, nor say something nasty to someone they think they will never see again," University of Illinois archaeologist Lisa Lucero says. Her students still need to do their homework, she adds.
On Dec. 21, or thereabouts, the ancient Maya calendar rolls over to start a new 394-year century, or baktun. And that's pretty much it, despite all efforts by writers and filmmakers to market the notion that the Maya predicted the crack-up of Earth this year.
Born from a misinterpretation of an inscription found at a now-pulverized Maya site in Mexico's Tabasco region, the end-of-the-world talk reached its highest point with the 2009 disaster thriller 2012, starring John Cusack.
Theories about how the world would meet its end have ranged from the appearance of a rogue planet called Nibiru that would sideswipe Earth to a European physics experiment spawning a world-gobbling black hole.
"People tend to worry about the wrong things," says MIT physicist Max Tegmark, who studies the possible real end of the universe tens of billions of years from now. "I don't spend a lot of time worrying about anything particular to this year," he adds. Rather than ancient prophecies, Tegmark say what worries him is computer intelligence getting out of control in the coming decades.
The idea of the 2012 apocalypse springs from stone inscriptions now housed at the Carlos Pellicer Cámara Regional Anthropology Museum in the Mexican city of Villahermosa. Discovered in the now-destroyed ruin called Tortuguero, the inscriptions were part of the dedication of a tomb or shrine at the site carved around the 7th century A.D., according to Maya scholar David Stuart of the University of Texas, author of The Order of Days: The Maya World and the Truth About 2012.

DOG HELPS EASE VICTIMS' FEARS IN DICKSON COUNTY COURTROOM
A new program is allowing dogs inside courtrooms in Dickson County in an effort to help young children who face tough questions on the stand. Pavlov is a retriever that was trained by the group Courthouse Dogs Foundation.
Currently he is one of 39 dogs in the program and the first in Tennessee.
Former prosecutor Ellen O'Neill-Stephens, who now heads up the foundation, told Nashville's News 2 that the dogs have proved invaluable in certain cases.  "In some occasions these dogs will go into the courtroom to sit with the witness when they testify in court because testifying in court can be a particularly stressful situation to be in," she explained.
According to O'Neill-Stephens, victims of child sexual abuse are particularly comforted by dogs such as Pavlov.
"As you can imagine it's very scary for children to come in and talk to a complete stranger about this, but when they see the dog they relax," she said.  Pavlov has been working with children at the Child Advocacy Center of the 23rd District for the past 6 weeks.

NEW APP AVAILABLE FOR WARNER PARKS
Need help getting around Warner Parks? There's a new app for that!
On Thursday, the Friends of Warner Parks announced the unveiling of a new app for iPhone users. The app, called "Natural Areas" features a wealth of information about the park including park amenities, facility hours and driving directions.
The app also includes and interactive feature which links to the phones GPS system and guides users through the parks trails and attractions. The interactive map was created to help runners, hikers and walkers determine their location within the park in real time. The free app is available for download on iTunes.

CONCUSSIONS MAY AFFECT KIDS FOR MONTHS
In children who suffer concussions, the effects of the injury may linger for months, a new study says.
Researchers studied 30 children between the ages of 10 and 17, performing brain scans and administering cognitive tests. Half of the children had recently suffered concussions in which they'd lost consciousness and shown an altered mental state.
Two weeks after their injuries, children with concussions showed small deficits in their cognition and changes in their brains' white matter, compared with those who hadn't suffered brain injuries. 

TOP EARNING FEMALE IN MUSIC
Britney Spears was the top earning female in music this year, earning an estimated $58 million in just 12 months, according to Forbes.  But the craziest thing is, Britney didn't even release a new album or go on tour in the last year! Most of the 30-year-old pop superstar's earnings came from her Femme Fatale tour that grossed $68.7 million worldwide, followed by her Femme Fatale album, which was released in 2011. In addition to her music, Britney brought in some extra cash with her Elizabeth Arden fragrance line and her $15 million deal with The X Factor.          22-year-old Taylor Swift came in second place with $57 million from her tour and endorsement deals with Sony and CoverGirl, while Rihanna snagged the number three spot, Lady Gaga at number four.