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(Reuters) - Japan confronted devastation along its northeastern women shoes online coast on Saturday, with fires raging and parts of some cities under water after a massive earthquake and tsunami that likely killed at least 1,000 people. Daybreak revealed the full extent of damage from Friday's 8.9 magnitude earthquake -- the strongest in Japan since records began -- and the 10-meter high tsunami it sent surging into cities and villages, sweeping away everything in its path. "This is likely to be a humanitarian relief 2011 women shoes sale operation of epic proportions," said Japan expert Sheila Smith of the U.S.-based Council on Foreign Relations. The government warned there could be a radiation cheap shoes online leak from nuclear reactors in Fukushima whose cooling system was knocked out by the quake. Prime Minister Naoto Kan ordered an evacuation zone expanded to 10 km (6 miles) from 3 km. Some 3,000 people had earlier been evacuated.

Bronx-born Kemba Walker used a crossover jimmy choo shoes dribble and shoulder roll to shuck his defender right to the ground, then stepped back and swished the winning basket at the buzzer to power ninth-seeded UConn (24-9) past top-seeded Pitt, 76-74, and into the semifinals of the Big East Tournament. "It's special," said Walker, who was swarmed by teammates after the shot. "There is nothing like doing it in your hometown." Officials Withdraw After Missed Calls The three officials responsible for at least two blown juicy couture bags calls in the final moments of St. John's 65-63 win over Rutgers on Wednesday have voluntarily withdrawn from the rest of the Big East Tournament, conference officials announced Thursday. In a statement, Big East Commissioner John Marinatto called the decision by the officiating crew of Jim Burr, Tim Higgins and Carl Walton "in the best interests of everyone involved." The officials were not made 2011 women shoes sale available for comment. —S.H.

Prosecutors: We’ve lost leverage without death penalty In 1992, Michael Alfonso shot pregnant hair stylist Sumanear Yang in the head, then dumped her body in Silver Springs State Park near Yorkville. Nine years later, he killed the assistant manager of a Wheaton McDonald’s, repeatedly shooting her as women shoes online she lay on the pavement outside the restaurant. To Kendall County State’s Attorney Eric Weis, Alfonso was obviously the worst of the worst — a cold-blooded killer, clearly eligible for the death penalty. And Weis was ready to pursue a death penalty case when Alfonso approached prosecutors with a deal. Afraid of being sentenced to death, he’d give full, detailed confessions if prosecutors took the death penalty off the table. Yang’s family wanted the details more than death for Alfonso, so Weis accepted Alfonso’s proposal. For Weis, it was a satisfactory conclusion. Alfonso will never get out of prison and the victims’ families got the answers they wanted. Plus, the courts were spared years of trials with uncertain outcomes. To Weis, that all hinged on Alfonso’s fear of the ultimate punishment. With Gov. Pat Quinn signing legislation to abolish the death penalty Wednesday, prosecutors are wondering if they’ve lost a tool. Local state’s attorneys agreed that the death penalty shouldn’t be a bargaining chip, but they also realize defendants still see it that way. “Most people fear death more than life; and most, when facing that, will take a second look,” Weis said. Local cases affected Most immediately, Quinn’s decision means three local men on death row had their death sentences commuted to life in prison. Five other area men were convicted of murder, or facing death-penalty-eligible charges. Since the death penalty ban does not take effect until July 1, some of those men could theoretically be sentenced to death. Kane County State’s Attorney Joe McMahon wanted to talk to victims’ families before publicly announcing his plans for cases that could go to trial or sentencing before July 1. “I want them to hear from me first what our plans are,” he said. “That’s only appropriate. I don’t think it would be fair for them to read it in the newspaper.” Unanimously, local state’s attorneys condemned Quinn’s decision to abolish the death penalty 2011 women shoes sale and again clear death row. “Today is a victory for murderers across Illinois,” said DuPage County State’s Attorney Bob Berlin. “Violent offenders can now murder police officers, kill victims during forcible felonies, kill multiple victims, and kill witnesses without fear of receiving the death penalty.” Most prosecutors said there is not a process for de-certifying the cases. The cases will simply proceed with one less option in the sentencing phase. Prosecutors said the reforms involving death penalty cases over the last 10 years gave them confidence in the system. The fact that some people originally sentenced to death row had been freed showed the system works. “That’s the checks and balances working,” Weis said. “That’s why (these cases) take so long. When you have the ultimate punishment, you should have the ultimate review.” Delayed decision, action Even if they’re disappointed with Quinn’s decision, local prosecutors were happy to finally have an answer. The General Assembly passed the bill in January, but the governor took nearly two months deciding whether to veto or sign it. In the meantime, dozens of cases were caught in limbo. “That’s one of the very frustrating things about the governor’s failure to act,” McMahon said. In Kane County, an Aurora man had been found death penalty eligible. But McMahon decided to delay sentencing until after the governor acted. Jury selection began in a DuPage County death penalty case the same day the General Assembly passed the death penalty ban. Laurence Lovejoy of Naperville was facing a second trial for the murder of his stepdaughter, Waubonsie Valley High School sophomore Erin Justice. Lovejoy had previously been convicted and sentenced to death, but the verdict was overturned on appeal. This time, jurors decided Lovejoy was not eligible for death. Afterward, defense attorneys pointed out that when two juries can look at the same set of facts and come to two different death-penalty decisions, it was cause for concern. Berlin said during jury selection several people asked about the pending legislation. He wasn’t sure if that played a role in the jurors’ decision. “I don’t know how much of a factor it was,” he said. “It was certainly an issue in several jurors’ minds.” Going forward, prosecutors will now have to work in a modified system. It will likely mean that the former death penalty cases will move through the system much faster. And Will County State’s Attorney Jim Glasgow hopes the resources that had been put toward death penalty cases can be used elsewhere. “Expeditiously decertifying these death penalty cases will immediately stop the funneling of previous taxpayer dollars into the pockets of defense attorneys and channel the money instead toward services for the families of homicide victims cheap shoes online and police training,” he said.

3 Officers Are Wounded in St. Louis ST. LOUIS — Two deputy federal marshals and a St. Louis police officer were wounded in a shootout early Tuesday while trying to serve an arrest warrant at a house on the South Side. The man named in the warrant was pronounced dead at the scene. One marshal was shot in the head and was in jimmy choo shoes critical condition, William C. Sibert, the United States marshal for the Eastern District of Missouri, said at a news conference. The other was shot in the ankle and was in fair condition after surgery. The police officer sustained a graze wound to his face and neck, a Police Department spokeswoman said, and he was treated and released from a hospital. The authorities declined to name the wounded officers. “We still have family members that are trying to make their way here,” Mr. Sibert said. A spokeswoman for the Marshals Service identified the gunman as Carlos Boles, 35. The spokeswoman, Lynzey Donahue, said the warrant for Mr. Boles contained charges relating to the assault of a law enforcement officer and the possession of a controlled substance. Court documents show that Mr. Boles, whose criminal record stretches back to 1993, has pleaded guilty to five felonies. Shortly before 7 a.m., officials said, two officers from the Police Department and eight from the Marshals Service were trying to serve the warrant when they discovered several children inside the house. After escorting the children outside, the officers began searching for Mr. Boles, who officials said opened fire when they encountered him. After the shooting, the police cordoned off the area power balance black as a SWAT team cleared the rest of the house. Within minutes, a crowd had gathered in a park across the street, where people were trading rumors in a drizzling rain and venting anger over what they called a pointless police shooting. “They could have just let one of his family members go in and talk to him,” said Tony Johnson, 22. “I don’t blame anyone for the tension right now.” A man who identified himself as Mr. Boles’s brother but would not give his name said he was frustrated by the lack of information. “We don’t know what’s up,” the man said after holding back a bereaved woman. “All we know is three police were shot, and they’re pulling a body out the back.” The shooting comes amid a violent wave that has seen at least 16 federal, state and local officers killed by gunfire so far this year, a 23 percent increase over this time last year, according to the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund, a nonprofit group. That number includes the death of Derek Hotsinpiller, 24, a deputy United States marshal. He was killed last month in West Virginia while trying to serve a warrant for a man wanted on charges related to cocaine trafficking. Two other deputies were wounded in the confrontation. At the news conference, Chief Don Isom of the St. Louis Police Department said the investigation of Tuesday’s shooting was continuing and that details remained “sketchy.” “Right now,” Chief Isom said, “we’re just power balance yellow praying for the officers who are injured and hope that everything works out well.”

Wolverton: Android vs. Apple: Xoom tablet nice, but no iPad killer Motorola's Xoom is the women shoes online best non-iPad tablet so far. But it helps illustrate just how far ahead of its rivals Apple remains. Before I get into that, let me say that there's a lot to like about the Xoom, which hit store shelves late last month. It's one of the first of the new tablets to sport a screen as large as that of the iPad, but the Xoom's screen is higher resolution than the iPad's and is shaped like a high-definition television, making it ideal for displaying HD video. The Xoom -- from Motorola Mobility, the consumer electronics division that split off from Motorola in January -- is the first tablet to run the new Honeycomb flavor of Google's Android operating system, which is specifically geared for tablets. Other tablets on the market run earlier versions of Android or operating systems designed for PCs. The Xoom's software includes some other nice touches. Many of its built-in apps, such as its e-mail program and e-reader, have been designed to take advantage of its big screen. In the e-reader app, you'll see two pages at a time, and in the e-mail program, you'll see both the list of message in your inbox and the text of one message in particular. Honeycomb also includes a notification feature at the bottom of the screen that allows users to see the subject of incoming messages, adjust settings or read alerts about such things as battery life without leaving or blocking the application they're running. It's a nice addition because it's functional and unobtrusive at the same time. Like other flavors of Android, Honeycomb allows users to place small programs called widgets and other objects on one of five home screens. But on the Xoom, similar objects are grouped together. So you can place on the home screen a group of your bookmarked Web pages or your collection of e-books. To call up a particular Web page or e-book, you can flip through the stack of them on your home screen and tap on the one you want. A neat new feature in the Android marketplace allows Xoom users to buy and update apps through a computer Web browser and send them over the air to the tablet and any other Android device they own. That's a much slicker way of updating your devices with the latest apps than Apple's method, which requires users to physically connect their devices to their computers and sync them to iTunes. Like the iPad 2, the Xoom includes front- and rear-facing cameras that can be used to take pictures and videos and make video calls. And it has a battery that Motorola says will last up to 10 hours. I didn't precisely test that, but I had no complaints; in my tests. The Xoom endured several days of off-and-on use on a single charge. Despite all this, the Xoom is still a work in progress. Unlike the new iPad 2, the Xoom is supposed to be compatible with Verizon's new, high-speed LTE network. But it's not right now. Motorola promises to eventually upgrade the device for free to make it compatible, but even when the upgrade is available, users will have to ship their tablets to Motorola to get cheap shoes online it. The company won't yet say how long customers can expect to be without their Xooms during the upgrade. Another advantage of Android tablets over the iPad is that they're supposed to support Adobe's Flash software. But the Xoom didn't at launch, meaning it was no more able to pull up Flash videos or surf Flash-enabled Web sites than the iPad. Motorola does promise that it will make Flash available through a free download later this month. Similarly, unlike the iPad, the Xoom has a slot into which users can insert a MicroSD card to give it more storage space. But the slot doesn't work right now, and Motorola hasn't said when it will provide users with the software to make it functional. And there are other issues. There are very few apps that have been designed to work with Honeycomb because Google just released it. Many Android apps will work under Honeycomb, but many don't work well on it. The Twitter app, for instance, looks stretched out on the Xoom's big screen. And in the Pandora app, the album art disappears if you rotate the Xoom so that it's in portrait mode. I also found the Xoom to be surprisingly sluggish. Like the new iPad 2, the Xoom sports a dual-core processor, which should make it super speedy. But I found a noticeable lag in doing everyday things, such as rotating its screen orientation from landscape to portrait, switching between apps and even loading Web pages. And the Xoom faces other shortcomings, especially compared with the iPad. It's about $70 more expensive than Apple's comparable device. And unlike Apple, Motorola isn't offering lower-priced Xooms that have less storage space or don't include a cellular antenna. Furthermore, while Apple is now offering both AT&T and Verizon versions of the iPad, Motorola is offering only a Xoom that works with Verizon's network. I have no doubt that Motorola and Google will address many of these issues over time. And even 2011 women shoes sale in spite of them, the Xoom is a very nice device. But it's no iPad.

You'd better be On the screen before me are eight traffic lights, each representing aspects of my personal wellbeing. The bottom is a green sea of optimism – a maximum score of 100 for my power balance wholesale weight, while my lifestyle and job satisfaction ratings are both also green-lighters. So far, so good. But then, things go downhill. My sleep rating is just 47 out of 100 (that's an amber light), followed by 43, 39 and 32 for activity, stress and nutrition respectively. The worst is saved for the medical health category: a mere 28 out of 100, earning me a glaring red light with an exclamation mark in the middle. My overall health and wellbeing assessment is just 27 out of 100. By now, I'm half expecting the fire alarm to go off. Consoling nuggets of advice pop up on screen: "Is it time for a check-up with your doctor? Get in the know by making an appointment to get your blood pressure, cholesterol and blood glucose levels checked." I'm already on the phone to the GP before I've finished reading the sentence. I am testing out Vielife Online, a personal wellbeing programme used by some businesses to help their staff make healthier lifestyle choices. The term "personal wellbeing programme" may not exactly set your pulse racing, but heeding the advice of one just might. Such schemes are often regarded as company perks, designed to discourage employees from leaving and prod them gently into doing more work. However, as the population gets older, pension funds dwindle and the default retirement age is consigned to the dustbin of history, there are compelling reasons why more of us should worry about staying in working shape for longer. Even the government is getting in on the act, with plans to measure gross national wellbeing using official data. American Express's director of wellness Breckon Jones, who conducted some of the UK's largest research programmes into the benefits of wellbeing at work during his time at Unilever, thinks change is in the air. "Over the next 10 years we'll definitely see the onus on wellbeing shift towards the individual," he says. Many public sector bodies and larger private sector organisations have long seen wellbeing as a business benefit – conducting audits, psychometric testing and generally trying to fine-tune their workforces. Physical health is not just the issue, either – a 2009 study by Buck Consultants revealed stress to be the most pressing workplace health issue across most of the world (apart from in the US and Latin America where it has been replaced by lack of exercise and nutrition). Cary Cooper, professor of organisational psychology and health at Lancaster University Management School, says more people are taking an interest in nurturing their "resilience", another former HR-speak expression fast crossing into the mainstream vocabulary that he defines as "the capability to maintain high performance and positive wellbeing" in relation to work. "There are now fewer people doing more work, as private organisations downsize to keep their labour costs low," he points out. "In the public sector you can see 25% reductions in staff, but the same work is there. Workers know they are going to have much higher workloads than they did even three years ago." Dr Wolfgang Seidl, head of health management with business consulting group Mercer, says an ageing workforce will present employers and employees with huge challenges. "The abolition of the retirement age means workplaces in the future will be multi-generational," he says. "For the first time we are seeing a glimpse of workforces with four generations of workers in them. Looking after employees will be essential." Vielife is one of several wellness systems on the market that identify areas of concern in a person's lifestyle and offers practical suggestions to improve them. Initial participation is via a short, online questionnaire, with users then encouraged to re-input the data periodically to monitor their progress. At present, Vielife is only available by corporate subscription or through some health insurance providers who offer it as part of individual private medical insurance packages. "We are reviewing whether individual access is something we should offer," says Jessica Colling, its product director. While I'm sceptical about the use of online questionnaires in relation to medical health issues, its traffic light system certainly captured my attention, and spurred me to get my blood glucose and cholesterol levels checked out. Vielife's advice on other aspects of wellbeing is mostly low-key, such as switching to decaffeinated coffee in the afternoons to assist with sleep. But I do feel it could help me with nutrition, where it spots several gaps in my diet and urges me to consider upping my fruit and vegetable intake. These are just two areas where Colling says employers can work with a programme to substantially boost its effectiveness. For example, a company could set up health clinics where employees can get their blood tested, as well as provide nutritional information with canteen meals to help people make healthier eating decisions. Tracy Taggart, an assistant project engineer with public services provider Amey in Birmingham, says she has lost weight and regained energy thanks to a similar scheme operated by her employer. Taggart, 39, filled in an online health questionnaire provided by a company called Validium, Amey's employee assistance and wellbeing provider. "My initial score was on a par with what I coach outlet store online purses thought it would be, but I've seen it improve quite dramatically," she says. She did this by joining an eight-week healthy-eating programme, instigated by Amey at the start of every year. "I've lost a stone since Christmas," she says. Ben Wilmott, an employee relations adviser with the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, urges companies to take more interest in their workforce's wellbeing. "People have a huge interest in health and welcome support from employers to help them make better choices about what they eat and how they exercise," he says. "The key is, it has to be a partnership. If people feel they've helped the company shape the programme, they're much more likely to use it." In the US, where businesses have to meet spiralling healthcare costs for their employees, a wealth of research shows how wellbeing schemes can be of benefit. A recent edition of the Harvard Business Review claims the cosmetics firm Johnson & Johnson saved $250m (￡155m) on employee healthcare costs over the past decade thanks to its personal wellness programme, a return of $2.71 for every dollar spent. In the UK research has focused more on the effects on absence levels. In 2005 Vielife ran a two-year programme with Unilever and the Institute for Health and Productivity Management, where 545 workers at the household products manufacturer were given health awareness materials, then assessed against 1,000 workers who were not. The percentage of time in which the more health-aware employees were seen to be working less effectively fell from 24.5% to 18.2%. A couple of years ago, Unilever (under the auspices of Breckon Jones) ran another programme entitled Fit Business, monitoring 2,000 employees for blood pressure and body mass index, dietary advice and exercise over a year. Among the headline results, the proportion of employees with an overweight/obese or very obese BMI index fell 26% among factory workers and 9% among office staff. But while it seems wellbeing progammes can help you lose weight, does that mean they are likely to make you any more effective at your job? In fact, research into the effects of obesity on work is inconclusive, with a 2009 study from Tohoku University in Japan suggesting people who are slightly overweight in middle age are likely to live longer than those who are very thin. Others point out that a reduction in sick days offers no proof that a "healthy" worker is any better at their job than an "unhealthy" one. Then there is the impact of the recession years when, it is argued, many workers avoided taking sick days simply for fear of being made redundant. But Taggart thinks re-evaluating her health and diet regime has benefited the quality of her work: "I'm doing more exercise, so I feel more alert and I'm sleeping better," she says. "I'm getting a full night's sleep rather than catnaps, so when I get to work my head's actually working. I'm not feeling sluggish by three o'clock, which is what tended to happen when I wasn't eating a balanced diet. It has made a big difference." One interesting finding from Unilever's Fit Business project was that workers reported feeling "happier". Coupled with research by University of Warwick economists last year claiming to have found a clear link between happiness and productivity, could this be closer to the heart of the matter? As for me, a week later and my blood tests are back from the GP, all safely within the healthy ranges. I input them into Vielife and my overall rating rockets up to a much more encouraging 62 out of 100 ("Well done for taking control of your health!"), plenty of scope for improvement but with room for a little breathing space too. My personal wellness programme has strengthened my resolve to cycle into work more, but maybe now I'll give it a few Coach Wallets Outlet weeks until the weather warms up.