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Two Dead, Dozens More Injured In Russian Passenger Jet Crash

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Ayinde O. Chase – AHN News Editor

Moscow, Russian Federation (AHN) – Two people perished and more than 80 passengers were injured when a plane made a rough emergency landing and rolled off the runway at a Moscow airport. Prior to crashing at Domodedovo airport on Saturday the plane lost three of its engines.

Dagestan Airlines flight 372 had taken off from Moscow’s Vnukovo airport 30 minutes before it tried to make the emergency landing.

Investigators say that in addition to engine failure the jets power sources and navigation equipment failed.

According to the transport Prosecutor’s Office, the Russian-built TU-154 jet was carrying 163 passengers, including seven children and nine crew members among the others.

“According to the latest information, 83 people were sent to hospitals after the Tu-154 plane accident,” a spokesperson for the Health Ministry said.

The aircraft which was headed for Russia’s North Caucasus city of Makhachkala was of the same model which crashed April in Poland. That crash claimed the life of Polish president Lech Kaczynski and more than 90 of the country’s top government officials.

Article © AHN – All Rights Reserved

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Top picks: TV series ‘Slings and Arrows’ on DVD, Charles Schultz’s ‘The Peanut Collection,’ Rock Band 3, and more

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Award-winning Canadian TV series ‘Slings and Arrows’ on DVD, ‘The Peanuts Collection: Treasures from the World’s Most Beloved Comic’ by Charles Schultz and Nat Gertler, Rock Band 3 with new features, and more recommendations.

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Philippine Education Department Pushes For 3 More Years Of Basic Schooling

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AHN News Staff

Pasig, Metro Manila, Philippines (AHN) – Philippine Education Secretary Bro. Armin Luistro is advocating for three more years of basic schooling for Filipino youth. Luistro said on Tuesday, which was World Teachers’ Day, that the department will initiate public consultations so it could implement the K + 12 basic education program.

The program would mandate a kindergarten, six years of elementary education, four years of junior high school and two years of senior high school for a student to be eligible to pursue a university degree.

However, to do that, the education department would have to work with Congress to amend the current law, the Education Act of 1982, which placed basic formal education at only 10 years.

Luistro said the public consultations would begin in the first quarter of 2011. He hoped the proposed change, geared to be in line with global standards of 12 years of basic education, would be spared partisan politics. President Benigno Aquino III initially pushed for the reform in basic education when he announced the policy change in his inaugural speech on June 30.

The proposal has been criticized by various groups. Many parents are not in favor of the proposal because of the added expenses. While public education is free, the quality is low, so many parents enroll their children in private schools, most of which increase their tuition fees yearly.

Some groups also questioned the cost of such a program to the government since the current 10-year basic education is grappling with teacher, classroom and funding shortages. According to DepEd estimates, new classrooms and seats would cost $1 billion (44 billion pesos), additional teachers $347 million (15.1 billion), textbooks $5 million (216 million) and school maintenance and operations $41.3 million (1.8 billion pesos).

Luistro claimed that graduates of the K + 12 program would be employable because the two additional years of high school would have a curriculum that would allow specialization in science and technology, music and arts, agriculture and fisheries, sports, and business and entrepreneurship.

Those who opt to pursue a college degree would be more mature to handle higher education disciplines since they would be 18 by the time they enter university, Luistro said. Under the current system, Filipinos who finish high school are 15 or 16 years old.

If the consultations show that different sectors would approve the K + 12 program, the DepEd plans to put in place the universal kindergarten program by school year 2011-2012. The junior high school program would take effect for incoming freshmen for school year 2012-2013, while the senior high school program would start by school year 2016-2017.

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Survey Shows U.S. Teens More Conscious of Safe-Sex

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Lawrence Mijares – AHN News Contributor

New York, NY, United States (AHN) – Sexually-active American teenagers were found to be more “safe-sex” conscious than baby boomers according to the largest, most comprehensive national survey of Americans’ sexual behavior since 1994.

The survey, filling 130 pages of a special issue of the Journal of Sexual Medicine , offers detailed findings on how often Americans have sex, with whom, and how they respond.

Dr. Dennis Fortenberry, a pediatrics professor who was lead author of the study’s section about teen sex, was encouraged by the new findings stating that, “There’s been a major shift among young people in the role condoms have in their sexual lives. Condoms have become normative.”

The survey also found that black and Hispanic men used condoms more than white males, suggesting to researchers that the HIV-AIDS awareness programs were now gaining ground in these communities afflicted with the disease.

It was also found that men over 50 seldom used condoms which worried researchers as this raised the risk for transmission of the disease considering that an increasing number of older adults had multiple sexual partners.

Other notable findings of the survey were that men are more likely to experience orgasm when vaginal intercourse is involved, while women are more likely to reach orgasm when they engage in variety of acts, including oral sex.

It was also observed that there was a gap in perceptions between men and women in that 85 percent of the men surveyed said their latest sexual partner had an orgasm, while only 64 percent of the women thought otherwise.

The survey also found that one-third of women experienced genital pain during their most recent sex, compared to 5 percent of men which fact deserved further research and study.

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Study: More Children Know How to Operate TV, Internet Than Can Write, Read

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Ayinde O. Chase – AHN News Editor

London, United Kingdom (AHN) – A recent British study finds that children under 10 are more likely to know how to turn on the television than write their own name or read a book.

Researchers found that three quarters of children aged between three and 10 years old can easily switch on the television and put on their favorite program. Another six in 10 can turn on a computer or laptop, while 59 percent can operate a DVD player.

Using and navigating the Internet is also a skill that more and more young people can master from a young age. However, just 63 percent knew how to write their name and only half could read a book. And only four in 10 youngsters could make their own breakfast.

Stephen Ebbett, spokesman for Protect Your Bubble, which carried out the study, said: ”No parent likes to be told what to do by their own children, but it seems this is the case when it comes to working household gadgets. Children now are surrounded by technology from the moment they learn about the things around them.”

The study of 3,000 parents also revealed that 47 per cent think their children know more about working gadgets than they do. And a third feel embarrassed that their children have better knowledge when it comes to technology.

As a sign of the technological times, the study found that four in 10 parents have even had to ask their offspring for help when it comes to working certain gadgets, with the mobile phone most likely to cause a problem for almost a quarter of people.

Another 19 percent turn to their youngster when they can’t figure out something on the computer, while 16 per cent ask the kids to get the DVD player going.

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Multiple Grants Mean More Money for Your School

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If you have a major project you need to implement at your school, you need to apply for multiple grants to make sure all your financial needs are covered.

Writing multiple grants gives you several advantages:

1) The more quality applications you submit, the more likely you are to get at least one or two funded.

2) Completing a second, third, or fourth grant application gets easier and easier because you will essentially use the same data again and again, just in slightly different forms.

3) If you have a large project with large expenses, you may have to get grant money from several sources just to cover everything.

4) Quality practice improves your application. Your second, third, and fourth applications will probably be much better than your first. You will be better able to describe your needs and be more convincing in your narrative. You have to be very careful and stay constantly on guard to get your highest quality application the first time through.

If you already have time problems, you may not have the luxury of submitting several different grant applications. However, there are many advantages to submitting multiple applications.

Below are two mistakes you might be tempted to make. Don’t do it. It is a virtual waste of time to submit the same letter to foundation after foundation. The grant reader will know exactly what you’re doing. Applications for grant funding should be individualized and personalized based on the giving patterns of the foundation and the needs of your school. A generic letter sent to multiple funding entities never works. You will always want to use the granting agency’s own application form if they have one. If not, follow their directions for applying by letter exactly and completely.

If you are seeking funds to buy particular commercial programs, never cut and paste their advertising material into your applications. They may tell their story well, but your job is to demonstrate how the commercial product fits into the overall program you are developing. Many grant readers view the use of advertising copy in a grant application as a lazy, impersonal way to get grant money. You may want to use their copy; just put it in your own words and describe how the product will be used to benefit your students.

I firmly believe that multiple grant applications are the way to go when you are seeking grant funding. The warning never to put all your eggs in one basket may be old and trite, but it applies today as well as it ever did. Multiple grant applications may mean multiple streams of money for your school.

Don Peek is an expert in school funding. He has run The School Funding Center since 2001. Its database contains over 100,000 grants available to all types of schools in the United States. Don worked in education for 20 years as a teacher, principal, and assistant superintendent before becoming the VP then the president of the training division of Renaissance Learning, developer of the Accelerated Reader.
http://www.schoolfundingcenter.info