News lifestyle 2008-08-07 Andanh.com

Fall for the falls Thu, 07 Aug 2008 01:55 EDT

CORBIN . It all started with my quest for the moonbow, that rare phenomenon that can be seen only on a clear night under a full moon.

There have been reports of moonbows, the nocturnal .equivalents of rainbows, at .California's Yosemite National Park, at Waimea in Hawaii, and in New Zealand, but there are only two places in the world where scientists say moonbows occur regularly during the full moon.

Somehow, it seemed wrong that I had seen the moonbow at Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe in southern Africa, but not the one at Cumberland Falls State Resort Park in southern Kentucky, a two-hour drive from Lexington. I decided that a visit to the resort park was in order.

Just southwest of Corbin, in the middle of the Daniel Boone National Forest, Cumberland Falls is one of the commonwealth's 17 state resort parks, and it offers not just an opportunity to see the moonbow (if you plan your visit accordingly and weather conditions are right), but a host of recreational activities, should you happen to be there when the moon is waxing or waning.

Fraud alleged at 3 L.A. hospitals Thu, 07 Aug 2008 01:55 EDT

LOS ANGELES . A hospital's top executive was arrested Wednesday as federal agents raided three medical centers while investigating an alleged scheme to recruit homeless people as phony patients and bill government programs for millions of dollars in unnecessary health services, authorities said.

A lawsuit filed Wednesday by the city said the hospitals used homeless people as .human pawns..

More charges are expected, a federal prosecutor said.

The hospitals in Los Angeles and Orange counties submitted phony Medicare and Medi-Cal bills for hundreds, perhaps thousands, of homeless patients . including drug addicts and the mentally ill . recruited from downtown's Skid Row, authorities alleged.

A hermit crab can be a pet for decades Thu, 07 Aug 2008 01:55 EDT

It's a summer tradition in many beach and boardwalk towns: you buy the kids a hermit crab in a brightly painted shell, take it home, and then, usually, it dies.

But for Carol Ormes, it turned out to be a bit more of a commitment.

Ormes got Jonathan Living.ston Crab on the way home from the beach, and his friend Crab Kate a short time later at a mall. They now live with Ormes at a retirement community in Fort Myers, Fla., and are about to turn 32 years old.

Ormes is a bit of a .local celebrity, although not .everyone is clear on the source of her fame: At a restaurant recently, .someone asked, .How are your snails?'.

Guru in a muumuu Wed, 06 Aug 2008 07:40 EDT

When English teacher Risha .Mullins showed her students a photo of her mother, her sister and herself wearing colorful, loose-fitting dresses called muumuus, she had no idea she was starting a reading revolution at Montgomery County High School.

.They said I looked .godawful,' but some of the girls asked if they could wear muumuus on Fridays during class,. Mullins says.

The practice of wearing muumuus at MCHS on Fridays began in .Mullins' sophomore accelerated English class late in the 2007 fall semester. When the class ended after Christmas break, some of her students wanted to maintain a relationship with the popular teacher and asked if they could form a club that would meet on club days during school hours and occasionally after school.

At the first meeting in January, 15 girls showed up and wore muumuus.

"I'm now reading a story on microblogs' Thu, 07 Aug 2008 01:55 EDT

In cyberspace, no status update is too small to share with friends, family and strangers, including this:

In Franklin, Tenn., an office worker reports that he just shuffled over from his desk to the couch. A biker in Orange, Calif., is headed to Starbucks. Elsewhere in California, someone just got coffee up his nose.

You might think no one would care . but on the Internet .someone might.

Thanks to .microblogging,. the slightest bits of detritus from people's lives are steadily flowing into the maw of the Internet, enabling a new wave of communication where no detail is too mundane or brief to share.

Chinese Dir