SIMSBURY Their devotion is unconditional and their contribution invaluable.

Thats why Simsbury Animal Control Officer Mark Rudewicz is collecting items to send military bomb dogs, who search out improvised explosive devices in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

I am always moved when I think, these dogs have probably saved countless American lives, Rudewicz said.

This is the second year Rudewicz has held the collection drive and decided to open it up to public participation after receiving such an overwhelmingly positive response from his colleagues at the Simsbury Police Department and other town employees last year. Rudewicz said he appreciates his superiors at the simsbury Police Department for approving the effort.

A lot of us in law enforcement are former military, he said.

Rudewicz has spent most of his life in uniform, and much of that time working with animals. After serving in the US Marine Corps, he worked 22 years for the Hartford Police Department, where he headed up the canine unit and was involved with the mounted patrol. After retiring from Hartford, he came to Simsbury, where he has worked with the police for six years and is active with public outreach. During the recent storm he operated an animal shelter in the basement of Simsbury High School, where about 70 pets stayed, from dogs and cats to ferrets, guinea pigs and iguanas. He so loves dogs that he sometimes teaches canine handling at the police academy, and has traveled to Alaska to volunteer with handling dogs that participate in the Iditarod dog sled race.

Rudewicz said his love of animals, and deep appreciation for the sacrifice made by American troops in harms way so far from home during the holidays, inspired him to send the care boxes as part of Operation Military Care K-9.

During the holidays it is hard, no matter where you are stationed, but I think it is even harder if youre deployed far from home, he said.

Rudewicz explained on missions, bomb dogs go in ahead of other soldiers, for example, leading Humvees and conducting sweeps. Bomb dogs are so respected that they are given one rank higher than their handler. Not long ago, Rudewicz was visited at the station by Fox, a retired US Army bomb dog who served in both Iraq and Afghanistan and has been adopted by a Simsbury family.

He is a pure German Shepard, six years old and retired at the rank of sergeant major, said Rudewicz, Continued…

• 1
• 2
• See Full Story

Tags: Items

Dec 9, 2011 

Exhibits in the murder trial of Stephen Lawrence, from south east London, were not tampered with despite one officer deliberately sabotaging his own records, a court has heard.

Forensic scientist Rosalyn Hammond told the Old Bailey that it would have been clear if any packages had been opened without permission. The jury has already been told that DC Paul Steed tampered with his own records after being thrown off the case when he was convicted of assault in Spain.

Ms Hammond said: “I’m not going to speculate on why or the motivations for anyone taking any actions but in the course of our examination of the packaging and the integrity of the packaging it would become apparent if there was any irregularity on the sealing in terms of records of what was sealed when and whether there was any unexplained entry into a bag for example.”

The forensic expert, who was involved in the cold case review of Mr Lawrence’s murder, again dismissed defence arguments that forensic evidence got on to the suspects’ clothes through contamination.

Gary Dobson, 36, and David Norris, 35, deny taking part in the gang attack in which Mr Lawrence was killed in Eltham in 1993. The prosecution argues that tiny amounts of fibres, blood and hair found on clothes seized from their homes prove they were involved in the murder of the 18-year-old student. The defence says the samples got on to the clothes through contamination during handling and storage.

In cross-examination, Timothy Roberts QC, for Dobson, asked: “We suggest to you that it’s not possible to dismiss completely the risk of transference of particulate and fibre material between these packages from such a source of abundant contamination.” She said she had “considered in great detail” that there was possible contamination and said that there was no risk.

The jury was shown photographs of the seals of exhibit packages where the Sellotape appeared to have trapped or picked up fibres and debris. These included a jacket and cardigan seized from Dobson’s house and Mr Lawrence’s cardigan, jacket, body warmer and T-shirt.

Mr Roberts also outlined a number of facts that he argued heightened the risk of contamination in this case. These were that Mr Lawrence’s clothes were heavily bloodstained and that they were cut off by medical staff, creating a “shower of fibres” over all the exhibits. Exhibits were moved several times during the 14 years between Mr Lawrence’s death and when the exhibits were taken to the LGC lab. In addition suspect and victim packages were overbagged together and adhesive seals failed with time, he said.

Stephen Batten QC, for Norris, said that there would need to be “a lot of coincidences” if hairs found on jeans seized from Norris’s house had not got there by contamination. But Ms Hammond replied: “I disagree that it’s coincidence.”

He also asked whether she attached any weight to the fact that such a small amount of forensic evidence was found on the Dobson and Norris clothing. Ms Hammond said: “Quite a large number of items were examined and were subjected to very detailed and thorough examinations and yet evidence was only found on a few of them. Despite different histories of each of these items, if contamination was a possible explanation then there may be other items where it might be more likely to have taken place.” The trial was adjourned until Monday.

Copyright © 2012 The Press Association. All rights reserved.

Tags: Items

COVINA – Ten San Gabriel Valley families were reunited with stolen belongings – including irreplaceable items such as wedding rings and family heirlooms – Wednesday as police continue their investigation into an alleged large-scale burglary ring.

Covina detectives displayed hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of goods recovered during an investigation of a group suspected in more than 20 break-ins in the San Gabriel Valley in recent months, Covina police Sgt. Gregg Peterson said.

Victims from Covina, La Verne, San Dimas and Azusa found their stolen property at the Covina Police Department, police said.

Among them were Larry and Julie Hisel of Covina, whose home was broken into on Thanksgiving Day while they were visiting family and friends out of state.

They got my wifes wedding ring, Hisel said. My wife was distraught.

Julie Hisel was overcome with emotion when she found her wedding ring among the recovered items, along with a piece of jewelry given to her by her father when she was young and other items, her husband said.

Peterson said it was gratifying to be able to return valuables, and especially the irreplaceable ones to the victims.

You cant put a price on sentimental items, he said.

Victims of four burglaries police were not even aware of showed up to claim property Wednesday, Peterson said.

The suspects are believed to have used a police radio scanner to help avoid

Tags: Items

An Altha woman was arrested after Marianna police found a marijuana smoking pipe, prescription pills and stolen items from Family Dollar during a traffic stop.

Laurie Jones was charged with retail theft, possession of drug paraphernalia and two counts of possession of a controlled substance.

Jones and her daughter were pulled over on Dec. 7 , for a damaged windshield and not wearing a seatbelt. The officer ran Jones lisence and discovered that Jones was on probation for marijuana with a special condition of submit to search.

Jones permitted the officer to search the car and several unpaid items from the Family Dollar were reportedly found. Police reported that a silver and green smoking pipe with marijuana residue in it was also found behind the center console. Inside a silver snakeskin purse, several household items were found along with a green pill bottle containing Clonazepam and Alprazolam, two Schedule 4 prescriptions.

Police say Jones daughter said the unopened items were stolen from the Family Dollar East. According to a receipt, only $16.05 worth of items were paid for. The items were collected and given back to Family Dollar East, who calculated that $110.14 worth of the items had not been paid for.

Tags: Items

Heritage Auctions utilizes the cutting-edge Dynamic Imaging platform from LiquidPixels, Inc. to manage images on the worlds most-visited auction house website.

Rochester, NY (PRWEB) December 09, 2011

LiquidPixels, Inc., preeminent provider of rich media solutions for E-Commerce, is pleased to see long-time customer Heritage Auctions in the spotlight with the premier of ABCs The Great Big American Auction (Thursday, December 8, 2011).

Assisted by the experts at Heritage Auctions, star Ty Pennington changes peoples lives by revealing the extraordinary value of what they thought were ordinary finds. The auctioned items will be available to view in exquisite detail on HA.com and on the Heritage Auctions app for iPhone and iPad – an experience enabled by LiquidPixels advanced Dynamic Imaging technology.

For over four years, every image available to members of the Heritage Auctions community has been delivered by LiquiFire, the powerful server-side image rendering engine innovated by LiquidPixels. LiquiFire enables Web users to view and manipulate incredibly high-resolution images at lightning speeds.

For auction bidders, the ability to see the finest detail of an item is crucial. To meet this need, Heritage Auctions uses product images that are thousands of pixels in dimension. Images this size would paralyze Web browsers using standard methods, says Brian Carpenter, Heritage Auctions VP of Information Technology, but LiquiFire handles them effortlessly.

About LiquidPixels, Inc.

LiquidPixels is the leading supplier of advanced Dynamic Imaging solutions. Premium brand companies utilize LiquidPixels as their Dynamic Imaging Partner for Personalized Products, customized E-Mail, Product Configurators, Interactive Zoom, Automated Imaging and Print Production. Built on open standards, LiquidPixels technology seamlessly integrates into existing Web and workflow environments, enhancing product creation and visualization while reducing production costs. LiquidPixels, Incorporated, operates facilities in New York, Massachusetts, and the Netherlands.

About Heritage Auctions

Heritage Auctions is the largest collectibles auctioneer and third largest auction house in the world. We are also the undisputed Internet leader in our field. Our 690,258 registered online bidder-members are a testament to the usefulness of our website, our reputation for professional business practices and our vast expertise in the field of art and collectibles. We give our customers unprecedented access to our services using the latest advancements in technology and by maintaining a strong presence in the collectibles community.

For more information, contact:

David Jones

VP, Sales amp; Marketing

LiquidPixels, Inc.

866-808-4937 x319

djones(at)liquidpixels(dot)com

www.liquidpixels.com

Noah Fleisher

Public Relations Director

Heritage Auctions

310-492-8613

NoahF(at)HA(dot)com

###

For the original version on PRWeb visit: www.prweb.com/releases/prweb2011/12/prweb9024579.htm

Tags: Items

Out of stock toys at Wal-Mart Stores Inc., Target Corp. and Sears Holding Corps Kmart chain are increasing rapidly. However, one store, Amazon.com Inc. remains almost fully stocked.

Wal-mart is missing thirty-four percent of the one-hundred and sixteen toys tracked as of December 7th. This is almost double the number from November of sixteen percent. At Targets website, the items were forty-six percent out of stock. At Kmarts website, the items were twenty-three percent out of stock. At Toys R Us, the items were twenty-nine percent out of stock. However, at Amazon.com the items only had two missing toys of the one-hundred and sixteen total.

Amazons advantage in keeping its goods in stock in e-commerce is that it also sells the goods of other retailers through its website. For those hot Christmas items like the LeapFrog LeapPad Explorer Learning Tablet, Amazon may eventually be the first stop for consumers this Christmas as they turn away from stores withitems that are out of stock on the Internet.

Interestingly enough, Wal-mart does not have the lowest prices as compared to Targets prices thatwere 1.4% cheaper than Wal-marts prices. Also, Amazons prices were 0.4% lower than Wal-Marts prices. Wal-mart still maintains lower pricesover Toys R Us and Kmart online.

Tags: Items

It has been a good year for many, but not all businesses.

Now the holiday season is the last big push to boost their books.

The owner of Frost River in Lincoln Park says they can barely keep the shelves stocked and have had a great year overall.

At Catherines Imports, their year has not been as strong as last year, but this month has helped boost sales.

At Electric Fetus theyve had a good year, and certain holiday products are selling well.

Black Friday, and Black Saturday, which was awesome, better than ever, and I think people are getting at it were up about eight percent for the first week of December already, said Carrie Brown of Electric Fetus.

The retailers all said they believe their stores can offer more unique holiday gifts, than larger retailers.

Some of those hot items at Frost River its carry-on bags and iPad cases.

At Catherine Imports its Troll Beads and holiday dresses, and for Electric Fetus its hats, music and goofy stocking stuffers.

For more on what Northland retailers are doing to attract holiday shoppers, watch Northland Voices with Barbara Reyelts Sunday morning at 10:00 on KDLH 3.

Posted to Web by Jena Pike
jpike@northlandsnewscenter.com

Tags: Items

We will probably get more of the things and build up a stock, said John Lindo, general manager of the Student Book Store in downtown State College. For sales, its not a huge number usually, but in the last couple of weeks its been significant.

Paterno was fired last month by the universitys board of trustees after authorities accused former assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky of molesting eight children over 15 years, with some incidents allegedly taking place in football facilities. President Graham Spanier stepped down, and administrators Tim Curley and Gary Schultz both face charges of perjury and failure to report.

Until November, Paterno enjoyed a sterling reputation in college football. That changed after a grand jury report revealed he was notified of a 2002 incident and passed it to his superiors, but never notified police.

A poll out Friday shows Paterno remains popular among many Pennsylvanians, although most agree with the schools recent decision to fire him. The Quinnipiac University survey found 52 percent of those surveyed supported Paternos dismissal and 43 percent opposed the move.

But 44 percent still have a favorable opinion of Paterno despite outrage he didnt take strong enough action after a graduate assistant came to him claiming he saw Sandusky raping a boy in a shower at the schools football facilities.

More people, 74 percent, said they approved of Spaniers departure, and 13 percent disapproved.

Pennsylvania voters have more love for the legendary football coach than for Graham Spanier, but they agree that Joe must go, Tim Malloy, a Quinnipiac pollster, said in a released statement.

JoePa items have always been a reliable seller, if never topping the Nittany Lion or Penn State logo in popularity. His departure during the Sandusky child abuse scandal has only inspired more merchandising, as clothiers flood the market with T-shirts saluting his 46-year run as Penn States head coach.

Coach Paterno, only one thing: Thank you, read one T-shirt on sale at the Student Book Store.

But his likeness extends further. Hes modeled for Stand-up Joe, a life-sized cardboard cutout that can be found in dorm rooms across Penn State. His face graces Joegies, a sandwich shop at Penn States student union.

Hes even been transformed into a limited-edition Christmas ornament at Georges Floral Boutique, a few blocks from the bookstore. Theyre the last of their kind, store owner Mitch Ballas said.

We were hoping to make more when he retired, he said, looking over the miniature Paterno. Now thats gone.

Two-thirds of those polled said they think football has too much influence at Penn State, the Quinnipiac survey found. But the same number of respondents had no problem with Penn State accepting an invitation to a postseason bowl game.

A large majority of those polled, 85 percent, said they have been closely following news about the Penn State case.

Those polled split 38-36 percent in their approval of the way Gov. Tom Corbett handled the Sandusky case. Corbett was attorney general when state investigators got the case, and some have questioned why charges were not filed earlier.

By a narrow margin, 48-42 percent, those polled say the state should not financially compensate the alleged victims if Sandusky is found guilty.

Tags: Items

Collecting is a potential investment method that can bring small or huge fortunes to investors who understand the market, China Association of Collectors chairman Luo Bojian says.

In ancient times, collecting antiques or artworks was a pastime of the elite. It wasnt until 1978, when China launched the reform and opening-up policy, that a massive collection market involving participants of all walks of life began to take shape, Luo says.

Stamps, seals, currencies, playing walnuts, rare wood furniture, old photos and CDs are increasingly popular among Chinese.

Auction companies, antique bazaars, art stores and individual trading are offering abundant opportunities to collectors. For the same reason, its hard to assess the markets scale and trade volume, he says.

Chinas economic power has been growing rapidly over the past three decades, with Chinese people spending more than ever. Favorable economic and social environments have elevated collecting and auctions, Luo explains.

Prices have also been pushed up by international and domestic buyers, as Chinese antiques and artwork have become more popular around the world, Poly International Auction Co, Ltd executive director Zhao Xu says.

Chinese antiques and art had been underestimated at auctions for quite a long time, Luo says.

Skyrocketing prices in recent years indicate the world market is reappraising their values.

But fake products have flooded the market, leaving numerous amateur collectors to suffer economic losses.

There are people who worry about investment risks and bubbles in the business.

Buyers should pay more attention to acquiring knowledge and skills, and never assume that you actually are that lucky person who has found high-value antiques at exceptional low prices, Luo says.

Amateurs should trade in accordance with their financial situations. Modern artworks, coins and stamps are often good choices for laypeople, he says.

Beijinger Nie Jianqi became addicted to collecting birdcages when he was young.

A birdcage features various forms of traditional craftsmanship, including weaving bamboo slips into the framework, making porcelain food jars and painting the roof sheathings.

The retiree displays his favorite birdcages in a giant glass-shield cabinet, and visitors flood in to view his collection.

I will never allow any of the birdcages to be taken out of my sight, Nie says.

Id like to pass them on to my son so the glamour will continue to shine.

For China Daily

(China Daily 12/10/2011 page11)

Tags: Items

The public has just one more week in which to visit the Cynthia Bickey Art Gallery on Johnstown Road to view the Handmade Holiday Fine Arts and Crafts Show now on exhibit.

The show ends Dec. 18.

Many handmade crafts such as baskets, sun catchers, bookmarks, greeting cards, shell flowers, aprons, scarves, wooden soldiers, wall hangings and a host of other crafts along with paintings by many local artists are on display.

Karen Lilly, Margie Owens, and Betty Frazier, show chairs, would like to remind the public that new items have been brought in throughout the show.

Award-winning paintings on display are: Gypsy Guitar Player by Hassan Amjad, first place; second place went to Macel Mills for Mocking Birds and third place went to Debbie Lester for The Farm.

First place craft winners were Mike and Judy McDade for their jamit baskets, Steve Cassel second for his Civil War Soldier, created from wooden thread spools; third Brenda Kincaid for her quilted and appliqud wall hanging, As My Flowers Grow.

The Cynthia Bickey Gallery is open Wednesday through Saturday from 11 am to 5 pm and Sunday from 1 to 4 pm until Dec. 18. It will then close until Feb. 3 when a Special Guest Curators Exhibit opens.

Tags: Items