Nevada complaint seeks to require condoms in porn

RENO, Nev. — A Los Angeles-based group that wants porn performers to wear condoms during film shoots has filed its first complaint in Nevada.

The AIDS Healthcare Foundation filed a formal complaint with Nevada's Occupational Safety and Health Administration against a San Francisco production company that made an adult film in Las Vegas in June.

The organization says the film shows performers engaging in activities that are highly likely to spread potentially infectious materials, in violation of federal OSHA rules the group says require the use of condoms in shoots.

"This new complaint in Nevada is based on the simple fact that they cannot hide from federal law there or anywhere in the U.S.," said Michael Weinstein, president of the AIDS Healthcare Foundation. "Are workers in Nevada any less entitled to protection from harm than those in California?"

The film, "Vegas Road Trip," was made for a website run by Kink.com. Its CEO, Peter Acworth, called the complaint baseless.

"Current federal regulations make no mention of condoms, and use standards that were developed in the 1990s for hospitals, not porn sets," he said in a statement. "We will continue to work with performers, doctors and regulators to develop protocols that keep sets safe, and still respect performers' rights."

Furthermore, even if OSHA rules did apply to porn actors, there was no violation during the Las Vegas shoot because it only involved oral sex, added Michael Stabile, a spokesman for the company.

Nevada OSHA spokeswoman Teri Williams said the agency is reviewing the AIDS Healthcare Foundation's complaint, which was received July 25.

After the review, she said, the agency could choose to initiate an inspection or it could send a letter asking for more information from the company.

"I'm not aware of any (previous) referrals to us related to this particular industry," Williams said.

The filing comes two years after voters in Los Angeles County approved a measure that requires adult film performers to wear condoms while filming there. The AIDS Healthcare Foundation is pushing a similar measure that is pending in the California Legislature and would apply statewide.

"From our point of view, this (Nevada filing) is a retaliatory measure for some of the work we're doing to fight their bill in California," Stabile said.

In August 2013, the AIDS Healthcare Foundation filed a similar complaint with California OSHA against Kink.com, saying performers may have been exposed to HIV after failing to wear condoms during a shoot.

California OSHA officials fined the company more than $78,000 early this year for maintaining dangerous workplace conditions, among them allowing performers to have sex on camera without using condoms.

The company argued that many of its performers prefer not to use condoms and that the fine was the result of a long-running campaign by those who oppose the adult film industry.

12.32 | 0 komentar | Read More

China's inflation stays at 2.3 percent in July

BEIJING — China's consumer price index rose 2.3 percent in July from a year earlier, well below the ruling Communist Party's 3.5 percent target for the year.

The latest inflation rate was unchanged from June, according to data released Saturday by the National Bureau of Statistics.

The rise in the index was driven largely by higher food prices, which increased by 3.6 percent. Prices for fruits and eggs rose the fastest.

Experts expect the inflation to stay stable this year, leaving room for interest rate cuts or other measures to stimulate the economy if necessary.

12.32 | 0 komentar | Read More

Logan employees hold rally for higher wages, union

Mobilizing to form a union in a quest for "livable wages," service workers at Logan International Airport rallied yesterday, flanked by Democratic pols, including gubernatorial candidates Attorney General Martha Coakley and state Treasurer Steve Grossman.

Employees who work for contractors secured by airlines, including cabin cleaners, wheelchair assistants and baggage handlers, make as little as $8 an hour with few, if any, benefits, and are fighting for increased pay and a "livable wage," said Roxana Rivera, district leader for SEIU 32BJ.

"Workers have been playing by the rules," she said. "They have been coming to work every day to keep the airport running, now the only thing we are asking for is decent wages."

Coakley told the crowd that service employees deserve to "make a living wage and get ahead just like everybody."

Grossman said, "Let's talk to Massport. Let's talk to public officials. Every public official who is not standing with us today is standing on the other side."

Massport in a statement said it is "sympathetic to the concerns raised regarding working conditions and take them seriously. This matter is primarily one between private employers — hired by the airlines — and their workforce."

12.32 | 0 komentar | Read More

Live large in Danvers 
brick estate

A million dollars buys a lot less house these days, and it's become the going rate for two-bedroom condos in Boston's most desirable neighborhoods.

But with this brick estate at 9 Kenmore Drive in Danvers, you get a lot of house for $1.15 million — six bedrooms, six bathrooms, an attached three-car garage and almost 10,000 square feet of living space in­cluding the finished basement.

The custom Mediterranean-style house, located in a choice neighborhood near St. John's Prep, features five marble fireplaces, oak floors with inlays, tall windows and has a showpiece entry foyer and two double-height great rooms. It's set on more than a half-acre that backs up to town-owned conservation land.

The beautiful back yard features a large slate veranda leading down to a built-in heated swimming pool with a cabana. The front and back yards are landscaped with fig, peach and apple trees and many flowering bushes.

Since it was built in 1992, the home has been in the family that owned the now-closed Despina's Place, a Greek/pizza eatery on Mass. Ave. in the Back Bay.

"This isn't a house that was built to be sold, but for someone to live in for a lifetime," said owner George Tzantyos, whose relative, original owner John Gikas, passed away in 2009.

The house can support a large extended family or someone who wants live-in help, as its finished basement has a full kitchen, bathroom, laundry room, cedar closet and several bedrooms. There are twelve heating zones and central air conditioning.

It's not the easiest house to sell, admits listing agent Gail Tyrrell of Re/Max Advantage in Salem, who recently reduced the price from $1,430,000. Although it was built with high-­quality finishes, the 1990s-era colored bathroom fixtures look outdated.

"Buyers are looking for the latest and greatest finishes," Tyrrell said. "But this large home has everything else a buyer could want, all the high-end bells and whistles. To reconstruct this home today would cost well over $2 million."

But even if the kitchen could use some freshening up, it's spacious — with lots of cabinets, a central island, newer wall ovens and electric cooktop, and a glass-­enclosed breakfast room with views out to the back yard.

The soaring barrel-­vaulted grand foyer has granite floors and a mahogany bridal staircase with a large crystal chandelier.

Corinthian columns on either side of the foyer lead to formal living and dining­ rooms with inlaid hardwood floors, crown molding and floor-to-ceiling windows. The living room has a marble fireplace and the dining room a large crystal chandelier. There's also a mahogany-­lined private library with another marble fireplace.

There's a great room off the foyer with 25-foot vaulted ceilings, a marble fireplace and glass doors out to the veranda and pool and a second vaulted great room off the kitchen that also opens to the veranda.

"It's a house that can hold lots of people," Tzantyos said. "The original owner did a lot of entertaining here."

12.32 | 0 komentar | Read More

Billion stolen usernames just tip of crime iceberg

The theft of 1.2 billion usernames and passwords by Russian hackers in a series of Internet heists affecting 420,000 websites is "likely the largest and therefore most significant and catastrophic cyber breach to date," part of a growing trend of attacks that governments, businesses and individuals need to respond to with a sense of urgency, according to one expert.

"This is the greatest criminal threat of the 21st century," said Anthony Roman, president of Roman and Associates, a global investigation and risk-management firm. "The most sophisticated cyber criminals are capable of hitting utilities, governments, banks, corporations — elements that keep society's autonomy and infrastructure functioning."

Alex Holden of Hold Security, whose firm uncovered the breach, said the Russian hackers had been collecting databases of personal information for years but they recently unleashed a new online attack technique that quickly shot from computer system to computer system.

"Their cache of stolen goods grew quite quickly," Holden said.

In June, the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C., estimated the total cost of cyber crime to be $575 billion per year. And that figure may not account for all of the loss of intellectual property and litigation that can result from the theft of data such as the credit card and personal information stolen from more than 100 million Target customers last year, at a cost to the company of $148 million in the second quarter.

"Although we're never going to be able to stop all these crimes, we can deter them," Roman said. "We can minimize their effect."

Roman and Gus Coldebella, a partner at the law firm Goodwin Procter and former general counsel for the Department of Homeland Security in the George W. Bush administration, offered tips on how to deter attacks:

• Never use the same username and password across multiple sites. Passwords should be changed regularly and include upper- and lower-case letters, numbers and symbols.

• Never click on a link in an email from someone you don't know.

• Use antivirus software and, to safeguard particularly sensitive information, use encryption software.

• A company's board of directors should have oversight over its information technology department, as well as an outside contractor to assess security.

12.33 | 0 komentar | Read More

The Ticker

Pfizer pays $35M to settle marketing case

Pfizer will pay $35 million to resolve allegations by 42 states that its subsidiary, Wyeth Pharmaceuticals, illegally marketed an organ transplant drug for unapproved uses. Massachusetts will get $726,000 under the settlement.

The states' attorneys general said yesterday that Wyeth, which Pfizer bought in 2009, trained sales representatives to encourage doctors to prescribe Rapamune for uses other than preventing rejection of transplanted kidneys.

Rapamune was approved in 1999 for use in kidney transplant patients. Promoting drugs for uses not cleared by the Food and Drug Administration is illegal.

Experts divided on job impact of robots

A new survey released yesterday by the Pew Research Center's Internet Project and Elon University's Imagining the Internet Center found that, when asked about the impact of artificial intelligence on jobs, nearly 1,900 experts and other respondents were divided over what to expect 11 years from now.

Forty-eight percent said robots would kill more jobs than they create, and 52 percent said technology will create more jobs than it destroys.

Vineyard town can challenge gaming hall

A federal judge has ruled that a Martha's Vineyard town and a local taxpayers association can join the state's lawsuit challenging plans to build a gambling facility on tribal land on the resort island.

Judge F. Dennis Saylor yesterday said both the town of Aquinnah and the Aquinnah/Gay Head Community Association have legal standing to intervene in the case because both were party to a 1983 settlement between the state and the Aquinnah Wampanoags that gave the federally recognized tribe ownership of roughly 400 acres on the western tip of Martha's Vineyard.

TODAY

•  Labor Department releases weekly jobless claims.
•  Federal Reserve releases consumer credit data for June, 3 p.m.
•  Selected chain retailers release July sales.

TOMORROW

• Labor Department releases second-quarter productivity data.
• CohnReznick, the 10th largest accounting, tax and advisory firm in the U.S., has announced that Keith Denham, left, will join the firm as managing principal and national director of CohnReznick Advisory Group. Denham will lead the national advisory services arm of the firm.
•  FORGE Worldwide has promoted Nicholas Vitale to studio manager from designer/production. Vitale will be responsible for print production and vendor management at the agency.

12.33 | 0 komentar | Read More

Asia stocks fall on Russia-Ukraine concerns

MUMBAI, India — Worries over Russian troops amassing near the Ukraine border sent most Asian stock markets lower Wednesday.

KEEPING SCORE: Japan's Nikkei 225 fell 1.1 percent to 15,154.65 and the Hang Seng in Hong Kong lost 0.6 percent to 24,498.32. The Kospi in Seoul shed 0.4 percent to 2,058.73 and China's Shanghai Composite gave up 0.5 percent to 2,313.78. Markets in Southeast Asia, Taiwan, Australia and India also lost ground.

UKRAINE JITTERS: Asian traders were following the lead of Wall Street, which dropped after news reports of a buildup of Russian troops on the Ukraine border and comments from a Polish politician who said Russia is poised to invade or militarily pressure Ukraine's eastern border. The developments come after the most recent round of sanctions imposed on Russia by the U.S. and Europe. Russia has reportedly called for a meeting of the U.N. Security Council.

ANALYST TAKE: Evan Lucas, market strategist at IG in Melbourne, Australia said if Russia increases its presence in eastern Ukraine, then "buyers of all things risk will disappear fast as this is an undefinable event with an undefinable outcome for markets." Energy stocks in particular have been hard hit and this will be the industry to "watch over the next few days as more information flows out of Europe around Russian military positioning."

EYES ON OIL: Benchmark U.S. crude for September delivery was up 20 cents to $97.50 in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. With winter a few months away, Europe's recovering economy remains dependent on Russian natural gas for heat and electricity. Germany imports nearly all its natural gas from Russia, and France also gets a significant amount of its energy needs from Russia. "Europe's economy is far more exposed to Russia than the U.S.," said Randy Frederick, a managing director at Charles Schwab.

WALL STREET: The Dow lost 139.81 points, or 0.8 percent, to 16,429.47, the lowest level for the index since mid-May. The Standard & Poor's 500 lost 18.78 points, or 1 percent, to 1,920.21 and the Nasdaq composite fell 31.05 points, or 0.7 percent, to 4,352.84.

CURRENCIES: The dollar fell to 102.54 Japanese yen from 102.61 late Tuesday. The euro dipped to $1.3368 from $1.3371.

12.33 | 0 komentar | Read More

Everett cleanup report on hold

A report that would detail how a contaminated site in Everett would be cleaned for a $1.3 billion Wynn casino will not be available to the state Gaming Commission before it makes its Boston-area license decision, after the state Department of Environmental Protection granted a request to extend a deadline for a year.

The "Phase IV" report was due June 15, but The DeNunzio Group — which has an option agreement to sell the Mystic River land to Wynn for $35 million — petitioned DEP to extend the deadline to June of next year, saying cleanup plans "could vary" if the site is picked for a casino. DEP approved the delay June 9.

The report will detail how Wynn's $30 million cleanup plan will be implemented, including how dirty soil would be excavated, how dust will be monitored, and how contaminated material would be managed. Wynn Resorts said its environmental impact report filings address many of those questions.

"There's no mystery as to what would have been in their Phase IV," Wynn project manager Chris Gordon said of the site's owners, who could not be reached for comment. "I don't think that the commission is missing anything."

The commission votes Sept. 12 to award the license to Wynn or Mohegan Sun, which is eyeing a casino at Suffolk Downs in Revere.

Commission spokesman Hank Shafran said the panel is satisfied with the cleanup details filed to date and that "the entire process will be carried out under the watchful eye of a licensed site professional."

"The commission is confident that he or she, acting under extensive and comprehensive regulations — and with DEP's oversight — will assure that the cleanup is done carefully and properly," Shafran said. "The commission does not need to see the Phase IV plan to have that assurance."

But Cindy Brooks, an environmental cleanup expert and founder of Greenfield Environmental Trust Group, said the detail contained in a Phase IV report is important when weighing the feasibility of a development on tainted land.

"That is essentially a full cleanup plan," Brooks said. "If you're going to move ahead with a land-use development scenario, in a perfect world, you would have all of that information. From a public policy standpoint, I think it's best to know what you're signing up for, and what a quasi-public entity is authorizing."

DEP spokesman Joe Ferson said the agency granted the request because the site's owner "is in the midst of a real estate transaction which, to the best of our knowledge, could not be finalized until the deadline."

Wynn's site on the Mystic River contains arsenic and lead in soil and groundwater from its decades as a Monsanto chemical site.

12.33 | 0 komentar | Read More

USB may be port of entry for malware

Black Hat, the most controversial information security conference in the world, kicks off this week in Las Vegas with a topic that affects nearly every consumer: the security of USB devices.

USB — or Universal Serial Bus — is the ubiquitous port found on nearly every laptop and desktop. It's what you use to connect everything to your computer — cameras, smartphones and of course, USB keys. And now, two German-based researchers say it's a huge risk.

Karsten Nohl and Jacob Lell are scheduled to unveil their findings about the vulnerability of USB on Wednesday at Black Hat, and they've already begun insinuating that everyone should throw away their USB keys and fill their ports up with hot glue.

"No effective defenses from USB attacks are known," write Karsten Nohl and Jacob Lell in a blog post, later adding, "Once infected, computers and their USB peripherals can never be trusted again."

Nohl is credited with discovering a major flaw in 750 million SIM cards last year. This time, the pair says they have reverse-engineered a type of malware that can be installed on a USB device and travel to the device's computer. This malware, which they've dubbed BadUSB, is particularly nefarious because it can't be removed or detected. The pair contends the security problem is allegedly built into the core of USB — its firmware — and undetectable by virus screens.

But are they offering a veritable "how-to" for the bad guys? Or providing the good guys with the intel needed to ensure protective measures?

Whether or not the proof-of-concept for BadUSB pans out on Wednesday, the researchers will feel heat for digging up this discovery in the first place. They follow in a long line of Black Hat melodramas that have shaken the information security world. In past years, Black Hat has been host to the live-hacking of an ATM (to continually dispense money on stage), a diabetic security expert who reprogrammed his insulin pump and a demonstration in how to subvert digital hotel key systems.

There's a fine line between being a proactive information security expert and a hacker. This is the continuous debate about Black Hat. Information can always get into the wrong hands, so is it better to suppress the truth?

No. It's better to arm the good guys with information even if it means you're arming the bad guys, too. Consumers deserve to know when devices they rely upon may be vulnerable. Especially when it's as universal as USB.

12.33 | 0 komentar | Read More

Wal-Mart's website to personalize shopping

NEW YORK — Wal-Mart, in its latest bid to compete with nemesis Amazon.com, is making changes to its website to personalize the online shopping experience of each customer.

Wal-Mart is rolling out a feature that will enable its website to show shoppers more products that they may like, based on their previous purchases. It also will customize Wal-Mart's home page for each shopper based on where that customer lives, showing local weather and events, as well as the customer's search and purchase histories.

So if a new mom just bought a stroller or crib on Walmart.com, the revamped website might recommend diapers and car seats, too. And if someone who lives in Dallas searches the website for sports jerseys, Walmart.com could suggest Rangers or Dallas Cowboy gear.

The personalization feature is part of a push by Wal-Mart to improve the online shopping experience of its customers, leading up to a complete re-launch of the site in early 2015. The retailer is looking to boost its business online at a time when its U.S. discount division has seen disappointing sales.

Wal-Mart Stores Inc.'s e-commerce sales increased by 30 percent to over $10 billion in its fiscal year that ended Jan. 31. By comparison, Wal-Mart's U.S. discount division has had five straight quarters of sales declines at stores opened at least a year. Wal-Mart sees big growth opportunity in the online business: Online sales still are only a fraction of the $473 billion Wal-Mart generated in overall annual revenue, dwarfed by Amazon's $60.9 billion in annual sales.

The move to personalize websites for shoppers has become a top priority for traditional brick-and-mortar retailers like Wal-Mart as they play catch up with Amazon.com, the online king that pioneered customizing content for shoppers. Retailers increasingly are trying to use their reams of customer data they get from mobile devices and computers to personalize their websites and ultimately, boost sales.

Other retailers, including home-improvement chain Home Depot and office-supplies retailer Staples, have been ahead of Wal-Mart in the race to personalize the online shopping experience. In fact, a quarter of customers who visit Home Depot's home page see product recommendations that are based on recent purchase or browser history, according to the company.

Retailers have seen benefits in personalizing their websites for customers, as well as other efforts to improve the online shopping experience. Overall, Forrester Research analyst Sucharita Mulpuru said that changes in customization can help lift a retailer's online sales in the mid-single digits.

Wal-Mart said that customers have responded well to improvements it has made to its website in the past two years, including quadrupling the assortment of items it offers online to 8 million. For example, when Wal-Mart updated its search tool, it saw a 20 percent increase in shoppers completing a purchase after searching for a product using the new search engine.

Wal-Mart has other changes in store for customers. Among them: Over the next couple of months, customers will see a quicker online checkout process: They'll view one page instead of six before clicking on the "buy" button. And the company will be able to update web pages quicker with new products.

_________

Follow Anne D'Innocenzio at — http://www.Twitter.com/adinnocenzio

12.33 | 0 komentar | Read More

Explorer’s odd symptoms point to torque converter

My 2000 Ford Explorer 4-liter Control-Trac 4WD has 120,000 miles on it. At 84,000 miles the O/D (overdrive) light began flashing randomly. The shop identified fault code P0741, indicating a potential issue with the transmission. I chose to keep driving the vehicle and the transmission has not failed yet, but I've noticed something peculiar. The light will begin flashing at specific locations on the routes I commonly take, and always where there is a power line overhead. It is also directional. The light will flash, for example, if I'm headed north but not if I'm headed south on the same road. Is there a sensor that could be sensitive to temperature and magnetic flux? Is the transmission failing?

Magnetic flux? Interesting thought, but highly unlikely. (I did have an early computerized fuel-injected vehicle — a beautiful '77 Cadillac Seville — that could be turned off by keying the microphone on a nearby handheld walkie-talkie. Took a while to figure what was shutting down the car as I drove out to a corner of the racetrack to observe my Skip Barber students! Apparently, the RF signal from the radio was interfering with the PCM and shutting down the engine.)

But as much as I'd like to believe that "magnetic flux" could be the culprit, the fact that the event only seems to trigger the O/D warning light rather than affecting any or all of the other computerized systems in your vehicle points to some more earthbound cause.

The P0174 code is triggered when the PCM detects excessive torque converter clutch (TCC) slippage under normal driving. Have you noticed whether the light comes on as you are driving slightly uphill? The extra load on the drivetrain may generate excess slippage in this location, but of course driving in the opposite direction on the same piece of road would be downhill, far less likely to generate TCC slippage.

TCC slippage does not mean impending transmission failure, but it does mean the TCC is worn, the transmission fluid is significantly contaminated and/or hydraulic pressure is somewhat low.

At the current mileage my suggestion is to add half a can of SeaFoam Trans-Tune to the transmission fluid and hope this reduces the symptoms, and continue to drive the vehicle until something catastrophic happens — then decide whether to repair or replace the vehicle.

I recently purchased and am restoring a 1971 Volvo 1800E. This car is fuel-injected. Do you believe it is necessary to use a lead alternative additive until the day I need a valve job and can add hardened valve seats? Should I try to purchase non-oxygenated gasoline?

This is an older question I "rediscovered" recently, but since it's the heart of the summertime collector-car driving season, I thought it worth answering — sorry for the delay.

To my knowledge, most carmakers were installing hardened valve seats by about 1970, so I don't think you need to be particularly concerned about excess wear unless you are really "leaning" on the engine — full throttle, high RPM — regularly.

Most so-called lead substitutes are not actually tetra-ethyl lead, which is no longer permitted in highway-use motor fuels, they are similar "metallics" that hopefully perform the same cooling and lubricating functions to prevent valve seat overheating, sinking and erosion.

I do, on the other hand, believe you should seek out, purchase and use non-oxy fuel for your older vehicle to protect fuel system components from contamination and corrosion. These parts, including the fuel tank and fuel lines, were not designed for oxygenated fuels.

Paul Brand, author of "How to Repair Your Car," is an automotive troubleshooter, driving instructor and former race-car 
driver. Readers may write to him at: Star Tribune, 425 Portland Ave. S., Minneapolis, Minn., 55488 or 
via email at paulbrand@startribune.com. Please explain the problem in detail and include a daytime phone number. We cannot provide personal replies.

12.33 | 0 komentar | Read More

Cool idea for saving produce

A MassChallenge finalist is developing mobile refrigeration units that run on sun and water and are capable of saving the nearly one-half of developing-world produce that spoils before it ever reaches the consumer.

Evaptainers was the brainchild of Quang 
Truong, who was taking a class at MIT called "Development Ventures" last year, when his professor posed a challenge to the class: Think of a major problem in the developing world, and then come up with a solution.

"I've been to many developing countries over the years, and the one thing I've always noticed was how much produce spoiled," said Truong, a 27-year-old graduate of the Tufts Fletcher School, where he studied agriculture. "It's a huge problem a lot of agencies and governments are trying to deal with."

In his travels, he also had come across a "cool" invention, developed by a Nigerian, called the Pot-in-Pot Preservation Cooling System, essentially a small earthenware pot within a larger one, separated by a layer of wet sand.

The inner pot is filled with produce and covered with a wet cloth. And as the water in the sand and cloth evaporates, the temperature of the inner pot drops by as much as 40 degrees.

For farmers trying to get their produce to market, however, it had one important drawback, Truong said: The pots break easily, making them impractical to transport.

"I thought, hey, there's this really simple invention," he said. "Can I just make it mobile?"

Truong teamed up with a friend, Spencer Taylor, and founded Evaptainers, combining the time-tested evaporative cooling technique of the pot-in-pot system with modern design and materials.

In place of earthenware pots, Evaptainers are made of a breathable crate with wheels on one end and a storage container nestled inside. Between the crate and the container is an evaporative medium such as jute, sawdust or ceramic beads, supplied with water from a tank in the lid. When water evaporates from the medium into ambient air, latent heat is carried by evaporation into the surrounding environment, reducing the temperature inside the container to keep the produce cold.

Currently, Truong and Taylor are building their initial field test unit, which they hope to use in a three-month pilot in Morocco either late this year or early next year. If the pilot is successful, the two would sell Evaptainers for $80 to $120 to agricultural cooperatives there, allowing farmers to nearly double the amount of produce they could sell, with no more work, said Taylor, 32.

In the future, the co-founders said, Evaptainers also could be sold in the U.S. for use in farmers markets, farm shares and campsites.

12.33 | 0 komentar | Read More