Stunning Photos of the New World Trade Center!

These amazing photos of the 1776 foot tall new trade center have now been published, and boy are they exciting! This new tower is certainly beautiful, and will be a source of pride no doubt to people of New York City, who have lost so much 12 years ago. See the stunning views and the enormous amount of construction this project entails!  

Working above 1,700 feet in the air! Iron workers install final sections on top of One WTC, May 2013

“Iron workers and engineers prepare the beacon that will sit on top of One WTC’s spire.”

Incredible view of the city and its new tower

“From on top of One WTC, you can see the East River bridges, Brooklyn and Queens.”

“Workers install 3 communications rings on top of One WTC,which will bring back broadcast capabilities 2 Lwr Manhattan.”

 

“Window installers walk along beams at dizzying heights from the 102nd Fl., of One WTC to install curtain wall panels.”

Final 2 pieces of #OneWTC spire sit next to previously installed sections. When connected, One WTC will stand 1776 ft.

“Ironworkers courageously guide spire sections 17 and 18 into place.”

English Language Lab

English Lab Volunteers Increase Hours

WHAT: Library Increases Lab Hours with Volunteers

WHO: English language learners

WHEN: now

WHERE: Wicomico Public Library, Main Library

SALISBURY, MD – Wicomico Public Library is increasing hours at its English Language Learning Lab, thanks to the help of dedicated volunteers. The lab is now staffed whenever the Main Library is open, with Lab hours on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays from 10 a.m. until 5 p.m., and Tuesdays and Thursdays from 10 a.m. until 8 p.m.
Volunteer Katie Potvin has been helping in the lab for about six weeks. She volunteers because she is planning to major in TESOL (Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages), and this position gives her practice in the field. 
Evelyn Gomez volunteers because she thinks it’s an important place for the community where people can learn English for free and that is a big help. “My mom has used the lab. I know a lot of people who don’t speak English and I tell them to come in because it’s free, there’s no time limit, and it’s easy” Gomez says. 
Potvin says, “One day while working in the lab, a boy and his friend/tutor from Salisbury University came in, and after finishing the lesson he taught his friend and me how to write ‘okie dokie’ in Korean characters. It was really fun.”
Wicomico Public Library received $15,000 to support outreach to county residents who are learning English and becoming citizens. The Library is one of 150 libraries to receive such funding nationwide, and one of only 11 that received funding in 2012 and 2013 from the American Library Association and Dollar General Literacy Foundation.
Funds are used to build capacity, strengthen literacy services and reach out to new library customers. The Library has already expanded its language learning collection, provided information on library services in several languages, and conducted open house programs and tours to introduce library services. The Lab provides access to online language programs, citizenship education programs, basic skills programs and more.

State Department Thief

A former State Department contract specialist has pleaded guilty to funneling millions of dollars to a company she set up with her husband. Kathleen McGrade worked in the State Department office that awards contracts for construction on U.S. embassies. She never told anyone that she had opened a construction company with her husband. She negotiated nearly $53 million in contracts with the company, Sterling Royale Group. A news article in 2011 exposed the fraud. It revealed McGrade and her husband had bought houses, a yacht and other luxury items on the State Department's dime. McGrade and her husband, Brian Collingsworth, have agreed to forfeit the items. They face up to 30 years in prison each.

The Pampered, Good Life Of Fort Hood Shooter

Nearly four years after Islamist Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan shouted “Allahu akbar!” (“Allah is greater!”) and brutally murdered 14 people (including an unborn baby) and injured 30 others at Fort Hood, Texas, he now receives free helicopter rides from the local jail nearly every day, lives in a private room built to accommodate his medical needs, wears a beard against Army regulations, travels with his own security detail, has received numerous trial delays and collects a full salary of about $80,000 a year – all while many of his victims say they’ve been forgotten.

According to KXAS-TV, the NBC News affiliate in Dallas, the Army psychiatrist has been paid more than $278,000 since the Nov. 5, 2009, shooting because the military has said it cannot suspend his pay without a conviction.

Hasan, 42, is facing 13 counts of premeditated murder and 32 counts of attempted premeditated murder as his trial begins Tuesday. The New York Times reported the Army has spent more than $5 million on Hasan’s case and secured the courthouse with massive sand-packed barriers to protect him from explosions.
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USPS Saturday Beer & Wine Deliveries

You might have to say goodbye to Saturday mail drops but hello to beer and wine deliveries. Both would be possible under a Senate bill to help the Postal Service cut costs. Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Chairman Tom Carper and Ranking Member Tom Coburn introduced the package. If it becomes a law, the Postal Service would have one more year to deliberate ending Saturday mail delivery. It would not be able to close mail processing plants for another two years. But it could save money from changes in how pensions and retirees health care costs are calculated.

Personal 'Obamacare' Accounts Debut

You can now open your own personal “Obamacare” account — but you’ll have to wait a while before you can actually use it to pick a health insurance plan.

Just eight weeks before the Oct. 1 launch of open enrollment under President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul law, administration officials announced Monday that the Affordable Care Act is a step closer to reality for millions of uninsured Americans.

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said consumers can now go online to healthcare.gov and create personal accounts by establishing a username and password.
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Ruff Dog Day Official Video

OCPD Reminds Citizens to Stop at Red Lights

Ocean City Police Officers are joining law enforcement officers across the country to honor National Red Light Awareness Week. Beginning August 5, Ocean City police will be increasing enforcing against red-light running.

“Our officers continually enforce safe driving and cite drivers who run red-lights,” said Ocean City Police Chief Ross Buzzuro. “We want our residents and visitors to enjoy everything that Ocean City has to offer and arrive to their destination safely by following the rules of the road.”

The Ocean City Police Department is dedicated to keeping citizens safe and would like to remind residents and visitors to ensure the safety of yourself and others by stopping at all red lights and stop signs. For more information about National Red Light Awareness Week or for red-light safety tips, visit:http://oceancitymd.gov/Police/media/wp-content/uploads/red-light-awareness-brochure.pdf

CIA Was Running Arms In Benghazi

The Telegraph reports that the CIA has been regularly polygraphing operatives to see if anyone is talking about a gun running operation that was taking place out of Benghazi prior to the 9.11.12 attack.

According to the report, 35 CIA operatives were working in Benghazi when the attack took place. They were allegedly in an "annex near the consulate [working] on a project to supply missiles from Libyan armories to Syrian rebels."

The Telegraph says more Americans were hurt in the attack than early reports indicated, but only losses among State Department personnel had been reported to Congress. This was because "CIA chiefs were actively working to ensure the real nature of its operations in the city did not get out."

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Unlike Adult Use, Teen Pot Smoking Causes Long-Term Damage

Adolescents who smoke pot regularly may suffer long-term problems, including permanent brain damage. However, according to a study from the University of Maryland School of Medicine, the same isn't true for adult smokers.

Also, there's an increased risk of youth smokers developing serious psychiatric disorders such as schizophrenia. The new research, which attempts to lay out the long-term side effects of adolescent marijuana smoking, was conducted on mice.

"Children who start around pre-adolescence, 13-15 years of age, tend to develop very severe deficits and these include a very high incidence of neuropsychiatric disorders like schizophrenia and attention deficit disorders, as well as, long- term permanent reductions in intelligence as measured by IQ tests," says Asaf Keller, a professor of anatomy and neurobiology with the University of Maryland School of Medicine and the senior author of the study.
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Salisbury Council President Jake Day Wants The Public To Be Enthusiastic And Optimistic About THEIR Plans For Downtown

Read the entire article HERE.

Exclusive-RNC To NBC, CNN: Dump Hillary Docs Or We Will Dump Debates

On Monday, RNC Chair Reince Priebus sent stinging letters to NBC and CNN concerning their recently announced decisions to produce films celebrating the life of Hillary Clinton. The RNC sees the odd programing move as an in-kind contribution to Clinton's presumed campaign for President in 2016. As a result, the party will formally bar Republicans from partnering with the networks on any primary or Presidential debates in 2016.

Priebus wrote to CNN:
I find CNN’s actions disturbing and disappointing. Your credibility as a supposedly unbiased news network will most certainly be jeopardized by the decision to show political favoritism and produce an extended commercial for Secretary Clinton’s nascent campaign.

And to NBC:
I find this disturbing and disappointing. NBC cannot purport to be a neutral party in American politics, and the credibility of NBC News, already damaged by the partisanship of MSNBC, will be further undermined by the actions of NBC Universal executives who have taken it upon themselves to produce an extended commercial for Secretary Clinton’s nascent campaign.

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Half Of $1 Trillion In Federal Student Loan Debt Unpaid

About half of the outstanding $1 trillion in federal student loan debt in the U.S. isn’t being repaid. And 1 out of 8 borrowers are defaulting on their loans despite unprecedented federal attempts to help.

An analysis released Monday by the CFPB shows borrowers are struggling to repay their loans and are seemingly unaware of options that could them help avoid default or forbearance.

“That can have serious consequences for their economic future,” said Rohit Chopra, the bureau’s student loan ombudsman. “The troubling part is that many of those defaults could have been avoided if borrowers knew about their options and were able to easily enroll in them.” 
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Equality For All Races?

ARMED HUSBAND DISHES OUT ‘LETHAL DOSE OF TEXAS JUSTICE’ AFTER SUSPECTS KIDNAP HIM AND HIS WIFE, THEN FORCE THEM TO ROB BANK

A pair of suspected criminals got what the Huffington Post described as a “lethal dose of Texas justice” last week after allegedly kidnapping a couple and then forcing them to rob a bank.

Investigators are not releasing the names of the couple, but believe the suspects knew the wife worked at First National Bank of Eagle Lake in Columbus, Texas, or they would’ve have staked out the couple’s home and forced her to withdraw an undisclosed amount of money from the bank after-hours.

After the robbery, police say the suspects — identified as 20-year-old Jordan Kutach and 21-year-old Preston Kutach — forced the husband to drive the group in his truck down Highway 71.
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Scare Tactics, Lies And Intimidation

As it turns out, there is more to the story about the anti-terrorism task force’s visit to the family who was suspiciously Googling backpacks and pressure cookers.

The Google searches were the basis for the visit, but the former employer of Michelle Catalano’s husband was the person who put the searches together and thought, “Wow, these people must be terrorists.”

It also seems, according to Catalano’s clarification, that the men who searched the home and questioned her husband, wanted the family to believe that they had this omnipotent power to catalogue their searches.

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Amazon Founder Bezos To Buy Washington Post

Jeff Bezos, the Amazon.com founder who helped bring books into the digital age, is going after another pillar of “old media”: the newspaper.

Bezos is buying The Washington Post and other newspapers for $250 million, The Washington Post Co., announced Monday. Bezos is buying the paper as an individual. Amazon.com Inc. is not involved.

Washington Post chairman and CEO Donald Graham called Bezos a “uniquely good new owner.” He said the decision was made after years of newspaper industry challenges. The company, which owns the Kaplan education business and several TV stations, will change its name but didn’t say what the new name will be.
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How Russia Deals With Illegal Immigrants

Forced to march in a human chain and lined up with hands behind their heads, this is how to round up illegal immigrants Russian-style.
Moscow police launched a no-nonsense crackdown on suspected illegals working on stalls in a market. 
Officers prodded suspects with batons and pinned them against police vans as searches were carried out. 

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Wicomico County Hosting Car Seat Safety Class

Wicomico County is hosting a car seat safety class on Monday, September 9, 2013. This free class comes complete with a free convertible or booster seat to fit your baby perfectly.

The class will take place from 1:00 p.m. to 2:00 p.m. at the Fritz Health Center at 300 W. Carroll Street in Salisbury, MD.

Click here for more information and to see how you can reserve a car seat for your child.

Heartless SeaWorld Staff Leave Bloodied Dolphin Stranded