BOSTON (WHDH) -- Channel 7s free Health and fitness Expo has been a hit from the beginning, with 70,000 people turning out each year for health screenings and fitness exams. Plus, the chance to meet Channel 7 personalities and more.

Now plans are under way to make the sixth health fair the best one yet.

"I think the exciting part of that is that you can go in and you can ask any doctor any question and they're doing screening for things that you wouldn't normally get screened for and the fact that it's free and there's this wealth of information is what gets people the most excited."

Boston Medical Center is Channel 7s partner for the health fair and it's the perfect partner for this unique event.

"We're now going to bring health and fitness information to the general public to the greater Boston community and really partner to showcase what can be done, how we keep people healthy."

Dr. Ravin Davidoff is Boston medical Center's chief medical officer. BMC not only offers state of the art robotic surgery and cancer care but also set up the first in the nation hospital based food pantry.

Putting people first, BMC lives up to its motto of providing 'exceptional care without exception.'

"We always have fun. Thats what this place is really about, bringing enthusiasm and energy. That will really be felt at the expo. We will bring that enthusiasm and energy and commitment to the patient. Well bring lots of excited people who are really leaders and thinkers in this world in the health care world. And that's what we'll bring to the health and fitness expo."

Making health care accessible and even 'fun' is what the free Health and Fitness Expo is all about.

Watch The Dish live or even try your hand at being a 7News sports anchor or weather person.

The rest is here:
7News Health and Fitness Expo 2013

9/28/2012 9:19 AM ET (RTTNews) - While the Commerce Department released a report Friday morning showing that U.S. personal income was nearly flat in the month of August, personal spending still showed a notable increase amid the recent jump in gas prices.

The report said personal income inched up by 0.1 percent in August, matching the downwardly revised increase reported for July. Economists had expected income to edge up by 0.2 percent compared to the 0.3 percent growth originally reported for the previous month.

Disposable personal income, or personal income less personal current taxes, also edged up by 0.1 percent, in August following a matching increase in the previous month.

When adjusted to remove price changes, disposable personal income actually fell 0.3 percent in August compared to a 0.1 percent increase of in July.

At the same time, the Commerce Department said personal spending increased by 0.5 percent in August compared to a 0.4 percent increase in July. The spending growth matched economist estimates.

The increase in spending was largely due to the higher gas prices, however, and spending edged up by just 0.1 percent when adjusted to remove price changes.

Paul Dales, Senior U.S. Economist at Capital Economics, said, "The U.S. personal income and spending data for August are worse than the headline figures suggest and indicate that subdued jobs growth is hitting incomes."

"As long as real spending is flat in September, annualized real consumption growth in the third quarter will match the second quarter's 1.5 percent," he added. "A 0.4% m/m increase in September would be needed to get up to 2.0%."

Dales said the weaker performance of income was even more worrying, noting that it casts some doubt over the outlook for consumption.

With spending rising at a faster pace than income, the report also showed personal saving as a percentage of disposable personal income was 3.7 percent in August compared with 4.1 percent in July.

Link:
U.S. Personal Spending Rises 0.5% Amid Higher Gas Prices

Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T_dGhmLPCoc

27-09-2012 05:29 Since joining from Benfica in 2010, Angel di Maria couldn't have wished for a much better first two years at Real Madrid. The Argentine international won the Copa del Rey in his first season and helped Real to La Liga glory earlier this year. The 24-year-old, who's recently extended his contract at the Bernabeu until 2018, played a big part last season with seven goals and 16 assists. And he puts most of that success down to one man - head coach Jose Mourinho. SOUNDBITE (Spanish) ANGEL DI MARIA Real Madrid "The day he told me to come I was at the World Cup and I was not doing very well but he kept trying, and I think most of what I am doing here is thanks to him and I try to repay that with hard work every day." Real haven't had the best start to the defence of their league title with only two wins from five. But after all the domestic success di Maria has enjoyed, could this be the time to win that elusive UEFA Champions League? SOUNDBITE (Spanish) ANGEL DI MARIA Real Madrid "I wish, I wish. The fist year with Mourinho we won La Copa, then La Liga, and I wish this year we are able to win not only the Champions. We are going to fight for every title because we are Real Madrid and that is what we have to do, and we'll see what we get." Madrid's biggest rivals Barcelona have had an impressive start this year. But despite five league wins from five, Barca forward Alexis Sanchez isn't getting carried away just yet. SOUNDBITE (Spanish) ALEXIS SANCHEZ Barcelona "We've got an ...

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Di Maria praises Mourinho for personal success - Video

ATLANTA It's a brilliant blue September afternoon, and the mood around the Turner Field batting cage is loose. The Braves have just clinched yet another postseason berth, and all is right in the world as they play out the regular season. Terry Pendleton, the 1991 NL MVP, is here tossing a baseball, a few steps from John Schuerholz, the architect of the Braves' record run of postseason appearances. All-Star outfielder Ron Gant is nearby, and somewhere in the depths of the stadium, Chipper Jones is talking to a local radio station about What It All Means. Pearl Jam's "Evenflow" is blaring over the stadium PA, and if you squint hard really hard, because Turner Field didn't even exist when "Evenflow" was released you can imagine that it's the early '90s again

Chipper Jones has made the playoffs in 14 of his 19 seasons with the Braves. (AP)But it's 2012. Terry Pendleton is a coach tossing batting practice. John Schuerholz has ceded the general manager's office, and his once-black hair is now full-on gray. Ron Gant is in a suit, preparing to broadcast the ballgame for a local network. And the line of flags commemorating Atlanta's postseason appearances stretches the length of the high-end luxury club that would have been unthinkable way, way back in 1991.

Only Chipper Jones is still playing ball, the last remaining link to one of the great, if underachieving, dynasties in baseball history. Fittingly enough, his career will end the way it began: a Braves trip to the postseason.

It was a simple play, really; the proverbial "doesn't-show-up-in-the-box-score" move that speaks volumes.

Twenty-two years ago, Jones was one of dozens of ballplayers sweating in the rookie league in Bradenton, Fla. He was surrounded by players headed up, players headed down, players headed nowhere at all. On this day, he was at first base with one out in the inning. The batter hit a sharp grounder to the first baseman, who reasonably enough stepped on first to get the runner and fired a throw to second, presumably to nail Chipper with 30 feet to spare.

[Related: Chipper Jones' 10 best "Natural" moments]

But things didn't work out that way. Chipper had deked toward second and walked casually back to first after the ball was gone. The first baseman could have tagged the kid out if he'd just looked, but Jones, just weeks out of high school, had outthought everybody on the field.

"You don't see this kind of instinct in the Rookie League," former Braves coach Bobby Dews later told Schuerholz. "In my entire baseball career, I'd only seen the play twice before. Once by Mickey Mantle and once by Pete Rose."

"This is a guy, who as a youngster, demonstrated great physical ability," Schuerholz said recently, "but more importantly, the uncanny ability to be better in tough situations, to deliver the goods when the game was on the line, when the circumstances were the most difficult and the pitcher was the best he had faced all day. He demonstrated at a very young age that he could succeed."

"Oh, we all knew about Chipper," laughed Gant, who was just entering his prime when Atlanta drafted Jones in 1990. "We'd hear about what he was doing in the minors. First time I met him was at batting practice. He was swinging this little toothpick bat, and I said, 'Kid, you need to be swinging a man's bat.' I gave him one of my 36-[inch], 33-[ounce] bats, and he's been using it ever since."

See the original post here:
As Chipper Jones bids farewell, he leaves behind legacy of success

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif., Sept. 28, 2012 /PRNewswire/ --StockCross Financial Services recently hosted Golf For a Cure at the Trump National Golf Club, Los Angeles. StockCross and the Associates for Breast and Prostate Cancer Studies (ABC's) are a long time partner and fundraiser for the John Wayne Cancer Institute. This was the first time StockCross and the ABC's have hosted a golf event and judging by the support of their generous sponsors and golfers they look forward to hosting the event again in 2013. Together the partnership has raised over $12 Million dollars year to date and the latest event supports the effort which includes a Black Tie Gala "Talk Of the Town" and a Mother's Day Luncheon honoring cancer survivors and doctors.

(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20100316/LA71656LOGO-b)

"We take pride in our partnership with the ABC's and supporting the talented women and men at JWCI," said Eric Tassell, Senior Vice President of StockCross Corporate Services. "I'm thankful for the generous support of our sponsors and team, everyone pulled together to make this an outstanding event."

A memorable day of golf with 80 degree weather and sunshine, celebrities in attendance included actress and model Nicky Whelan, actress and model Bria Murphy, actor Bill Smitrovich, actor Kevin Dobson, actor Bob Cotanzo, actor Joe Torrey, Lakers great Mitch Richmond, NBA star Pooh Richardson, NFL star Billy Miller, NBA Star Thomas Robinson, NBA Stars Marcus and Markeiff Morris, StockCross owners David and Richard Gebbia.

There were over 100 golfers participating in the inaugural event with the winning team led by Shervin Mirahshemi, shooting 15 under par. This year's sponsors include AEG, Ken and Carol Shultz, Wells Fargo Private Bank, Rival Sports Management Group, Plaza Home Mortgage, Tosh Classic, Incapital, the Grill on the Alley, Anheuser-Busch, Leblon Cachaca, Mercedes-Benz Calabasas, Nathaniel James and EASi.

About StockCross Financial Services

StockCross was founded in 1971 in downtown Boston's financial district and over the years has grown into one of the premiere international financial services companies.

StockCross today is headquartered in Beverly Hills, with offices in major cities nationwide. Our robust online platform serves individual and corporate investors coast-to-coast and around the world, while we continue to offer the personal, one on one attention and service our clients expect and deserve.

Our goal is to exceed the expectations of our clients, while holding true to our values of honesty, integrity, trust and respect.

StockCross' formula for success from 1971 remains unchanged today: get to know our customers as well as we know the market, and provide them with the resources and expertise they need to make educated investment decisions.

Continue reading here:
Golf For A Cure Benefitting John Wayne Cancer Institute A Smashing Success

DUBLIN--(BUSINESS WIRE)--

Research and Markets (http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/w7b9n2/personal) has announced the addition of the "Personal Accessories: Global Trends and Prospects" report to their offering.

In terms of global Personal Accessories sales, recessionary concerns in Europe are likely to dilute strong gains coming through the emerging regions of Asia Pacific and Eastern Europe in 2012. That said, industry sales growth over the 2012-2017 forecast period is projected to beat that seen over 2007-2012. Despite their status as non-essentials, jewelry and watches will lead growth for Personal Accessories over this period.

What this report includes

- Up-to-the minute analysis of the latest trends in the industry

- New product development, forecasts and other themes

- Unique graphics and illustrated case studies

- Most recent brand and company news

- New insight into the size and shape of the market

Why buy this report

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Research and Markets: Personal Accessories: Global Trends and Prospects

PARENTS and teachers are thrilled that the Government will be spending RM38.7bil to improve the quality of education.

National Union of the Teaching Profession (NUTP) secretary- general Lok Yim Pheng said not many countries could afford to invest as much as 21% of total spending in education.

The extra RM500mil to train teachers in core subjects through the Higher Order Thinking Skills approach is no small sum either, she said, adding that continuous professional development was synonymous with the quality of teachers and education.

Teachers have to grab this opportunity and see it as a means of personal development, she said, adding that NUTP had been pushing for training to be monitored.

On Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razaks statement that investments in education were not producing comparable returns, Lok said: Education is a long-term investment. Whatever you spend in education will produce yields eventually.

Sarawak Teachers Union president Willian Ghani Bina said although it would take time, education was key to the nations success, describing the RM500mil to train teachers as necessary and timely.

Parent Action Group for Education (PAGE) chairman Datin Noor Azimah Abdul Rahim said if the Government had wanted to emphasise on research and development with large allocations for research universities, then Malaysians have to prepare their children by teaching them Science and Mathematics in English.

If youre serious about going into high-tech industries, then youll need English, she said.

Proton Edar corporate sales head Roslan Mohamed said as Malaysia reached the status of developed nation, it needed to emphasise on education.

Giving RM500mil for teachers development is a good start, said the father of four.

Continued here:
Grab chance for personal development, teachers urged

CollegeWeekLive to Power Online College Admission Event as Part of Univision's Education Initiative !Educate, Es El Momento! On Thursday, October 11; Register at http://www.eselmomento.com

NEEDHAM HEIGHTS, Mass., Sept. 28, 2012 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- As part of Univision Communications' multi-year initiative to promote educational attainment in Hispanic America, !Educate, Es El Momento! (Educate Yourself, The Moment is Now), the leading media company has partnered with CollegeWeekLive to offer a free online college fair on Thursday, October 11, 2012. The college admissions event, which will be available at http://www.eselmomento.com, is part of Univision's Education Week and will address the higher education needs of Hispanic students and their families.

The interactive program, which runs nationwide from 12:00 noon to 10:00 pm ET, will provide free access to expert college admissions advice through streaming video presentations and live chat with college representatives. The online college fair addresses higher education topics of particular importance to Latino families -- both students and their parents, who may not have experience with the college application process and could be apprehensive about sending their children away to college.

"The goal is to create a culture of college readiness in the Hispanic community and focus specifically on what is necessary for college completion," said Cesar Conde, president, Univision Networks. "The addition of a free online college fair powered by CollegeWeekLive to Univision's Education Week will help students and parents to better understand what the process is to get into college, and what steps are needed to earn a degree."

Nationally, Latinos have a 14 percent lower college graduation rate than non-Hispanic whites, and Latinos lag behind other racial groups by 25 percent when comparing the number of degrees attained. Latinos make up 16 percent of the overall population and 22 percent of the K-12 population, yet only 19 percent of Latinos in America have earned an associate degree or higher compared to 38 percent of all adults, according to a research study conducted by EdExcelencia cited in USA TODAY. Because Latinos make up one sixth of the total population, Latino educational attainment is at the heart of the future economic viability of the United States.

"The growing population of Latino students represents an enormous opportunity for colleges and universities. Higher education best contributes to a thriving democratic society when we educate students from all walks of life, including students who are the first in their families to go to college," said Fernando M. Reimers, the Ford Foundation Professor of International Education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and the Program Chair for the event. "I admire the leadership provided by CollegeWeekLive and Univision in producing this rich and comprehensive program to empower Latino students and families with knowledge that will help them chart a path to college."

Admissions representatives from more than 120 colleges will be standing by, ready to chat live online with students and their families in English and Spanish. Online video programming, with the ability for online attendees to get live answers to their questions via chat, includes:

THURSDAY OCTOBER 11, 2012 (All Times Eastern)

12 PM, The College Essay Zaragoza Guerra, College Coach

1 PM, Hidden Gems of Financial Aid Opportunities Stella Flores, Assistant Professor, Department of Leadership, Policy & Organizations, Vanderbilt University, Ed.M., Ed.D., Harvard Graduate School of Education, M.P. Aff, University of Texas at Austin

Read more:
Univision Delivers Free Online College Fair With More Than 120 Participating Colleges

A hundred years ago, higher education seemed on the verge of a technological revolution. The spread of a powerful new communication networkthe modern postal systemhad made it possible for universities to distribute their lessons beyond the bounds of their campuses. Anyone with a mailbox could enroll in a class. Frederick Jackson Turner, the famed University of Wisconsin historian, wrote that the "machinery" of distance learning would carry "irrigating streams of education into the arid regions" of the country. Sensing a historic opportunity to reach new students and garner new revenues, schools rushed to set up correspondence divisions. By the 1920s, postal courses had become a full-blown mania. Four times as many people were taking them as were enrolled in all the nation's colleges and universities combined.

The hopes for this early form of distance learning went well beyond broader access. Many educators believed that correspondence courses would be better than traditional on-campus instruction because assignments and assessments could be tailored specifically to each student. The University of Chicago's Home-Study Department, one of the nation's largest, told prospective enrollees that they would "receive individual personal attention," delivered "according to any personal schedule and in any place where postal service is available." The department's director claimed that correspondence study offered students an intimate "tutorial relationship" that "takes into account individual differences in learning." The education, he said, would prove superior to that delivered in "the crowded classroom of the ordinary American University."

We've been hearing strikingly similar claims today. Another powerful communication networkthe Internetis again raising hopes of a revolution in higher education. This fall, many of the country's leading universities, including MIT, Harvard, Stanford, and Princeton, are offering free classes over the Net, and more than a million people around the world have signed up to take them. These "massive open online courses," or MOOCs, are earning praise for bringing outstanding college teaching to multitudes of students who otherwise wouldn't have access to it, including those in remote places and those in the middle of their careers. The online classes are also being promoted as a way to bolster the quality and productivity of teaching in generalfor students on campus as well as off. Former U.S. secretary of education William Bennett has written that he senses "an Athens-like renaissance" in the making. Stanford president John Hennessy told the New Yorker he sees "a tsunami coming."

The excitement over MOOCs comes at a time of growing dissatisfaction with the state of college education. The average price tag for a bachelor's degree has shot up to more than $100,000. Spending four years on campus often leaves young people or their parents weighed down with big debts, a burden not only on their personal finances but on the overall economy. And many people worry that even as the cost of higher education has risen, its quality has fallen. Dropout rates are often high, particularly at public colleges, and many graduates display little evidence that college improved their critical-thinking skills. Close to 60 percent of Americans believe that the country's colleges and universities are failing to provide students with "good value for the money they and their families spend," according to a 2011 survey by the Pew Research Center. Proponents of MOOCs say the efficiency and flexibility of online instruction will offer a timely remedy.

Data from Institute of Education Sciences and Pew Research Center.

But not everyone is enthusiastic. The online classes, some educators fear, will at best prove a distraction to college administrators; at worst, they will end up diminishing the quality of on-campus education. Critics point to the earlier correspondence-course mania as a cautionary tale. Even as universities rushed to expand their home-study programs in the 1920s, investigations revealed that the quality of the instruction fell short of the levels promised and that only a tiny fraction of enrollees actually completed the courses. In a lecture at Oxford in 1928, the eminent American educator Abraham Flexner delivered a withering indictment of correspondence study, claiming that it promoted "participation" at the expense of educational rigor. By the 1930s, once-eager faculty and administrators had lost interest in teaching by mail. The craze fizzled.

Is it different this time? Has technology at last advanced to the point where the revolutionary promise of distance learning can be fulfilled? We don't yet know; the fervor surrounding MOOCs makes it easy to forget that they're still in their infancy. But even at this early juncture, the strengths and weaknesses of this radically new form of education are coming into focus.

Rise of the MOOCs

"I had no clue what I was doing," Sebastian Thrun says with a chuckle, as he recalls his decision last year to offer Stanford's Introduction to Artificial Intelligence course free online. The 45-year-old robotics expert had a hunch that the class, which typically enrolls a couple of hundred undergraduates, would prove a draw on the Net. After all, he and his co-professor, Peter Norvig, were both Silicon Valley stars, holding top research posts at Google in addition to teaching at Stanford. But while Thrun imagined that enrollment might reach 10,000 students, the actual number turned out to be more than an order of magnitude higher. When the class began, in October 2011, some 160,000 people had signed up.

The experience changed Thrun's life. Declaring "I can't teach at Stanford again," he announced in January that he was joining two other roboticists to launch an ambitious educational startup called Udacity. The venture, which bills itself as a "21st-century university," is paying professors from such schools as Rutgers and the University of Virginia to give open courses on the Net, using the technology originally developed for the AI class. Most of the 14 classes Udacity offers fall into the domains of computer science and mathematics, and Thrun says it will concentrate on such fields for now. But his ambitions are hardly narrow: he sees the traditional university degree as an outdated artifact and believes Udacity will provide a new form of lifelong education better suited to the modern labor market.

See the rest here:
The Crisis in Higher Education

CollegeWeekLive to Power Online College Admission Event as Part of Univision's Education Initiative !Educate, Es El Momento! On Thursday, October 11; Register at http://www.eselmomento.com

NEEDHAM HEIGHTS, Mass., Sept. 28, 2012 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Please note, the agenda for the event has been revised. The updated release follows:

As part of Univision Communications' multi-year initiative to promote educational attainment in Hispanic America, !Educate, Es El Momento! (Educate Yourself, The Moment is Now), the leading media company has partnered with CollegeWeekLivea to offer a free online college fair on Thursday, October 11, 2012. The college admissions event, which will be available at http://www.eselmomento.com, is part of Univision's Education Week and will address the higher education needs of Hispanic students and their families.

The interactive program, which runs nationwide from 12:00 noon to 10:00 pm ET, will provide free access to expert college admissions advice through streaming video presentations and live chat with college representatives. The online college fair addresses higher education topics of particular importance to Latino families -- both students and their parents, who may not have experience with the college application process and could be apprehensive about sending their children away to college.

"The goal is to create a culture of college readiness in the Hispanic community and focus specifically on what is necessary for college completion," said Cesar Conde, president, Univision Networks. "The addition of a free online college fair powered by CollegeWeekLive to Univision's Education Week will help students and parents to better understand what the process is to get into college, and what steps are needed to earn a degree."

Nationally, Latinos have a 14 percent lower college graduation rate than non-Hispanic whites, and Latinos lag behind other racial groups by 25 percent when comparing the number of degrees attained. Latinos make up 16 percent of the overall population and 22 percent of the K-12 population, yet only 19 percent of Latinos in America have earned an associate degree or higher compared to 38 percent of all adults, according to a research study conducted by EdExcelencia cited in USA TODAY. Because Latinos make up one sixth of the total population, Latino educational attainment is at the heart of the future economic viability of the United States.

"The growing population of Latino students represents an enormous opportunity for colleges and universities. Higher education best contributes to a thriving democratic society when we educate students from all walks of life, including students who are the first in their families to go to college," said Fernando M. Reimers, the Ford Foundation Professor of International Education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and the Program Chair for the event. "I admire the leadership provided by CollegeWeekLive and Univision in producing this rich and comprehensive program to empower Latino students and families with knowledge that will help them chart a path to college."

Admissions representatives from more than 120 colleges will be standing by, ready to chat live online with students and their families in English and Spanish. Online video programming, with the ability for online attendees to get live answers to their questions via chat, includes:

THURSDAY OCTOBER 11, 2012 (All Times Eastern)

12 PM, Welcome Address Fernando Reimers, Program Chair, Ford Foundation Professor of International Education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education

The rest is here:
UPDATE -- Univision Delivers Free Online College Fair With More Than 120 Participating Colleges