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PJV QUICKIE: A classic, sigh-worthy story no Romance reader should miss.

Title: The Wedding (Laird’s Fiancees #2)Author: Julie Garwood

Lady Brenna is travelling from her home in England to marry the laird McNair.  Her father arranged this marriage, and although she’s never met this laird, she won’t disobey her father.  As she travels through the highlands, her party is overcome by Scottish savages, who quickly subdue her soldiers and steal her.   Brenna doesn’t realize she’s already met one of the savages…when she was a child she asked him to marry her.

Connor MacAlister is laird of his clan and has spent his life trying to find proof that his bitter enemy laird McNair killed Connor’s father.  Stealing McNair’s bride is Connor’s last insult before their feuding comes to an end as decreed by the ranking laird.  Connor is pleased the young girl covered in mud and hiding a pig has grown into such a beautiful woman, as he plans to keep her, even though he made a pledge to his dying father to never fall in love.

I needed a “comfort read” and decided to re-read The Wedding for the umpteenth time. something about Ms. Garwood’s writing immediately pulls me from my day-to-day worries and into the highlands of 12th century Scotland.  I’ve only been reading romance for a few years, but The Wedding is what I imagine ‘old school’ romance novels are like.

This second book in the Laird’s Fiancees series is such a great story!  (Sadly, there are only two books at this point.)  I love Connor – smart, loyal, stubborn (and grumpy), a fierce warrior yet tender towards Brenna.  And Brenna – what a firecracker!  She’s innocent but brave, earnest, full of life and tries (and manages) to make everyone around her happy.

The romance between Brenna and Connor flows through the story as he falls in love with Brenna and fights it all the way.  Brenna charms not only Connor but his soldiers as well.  Of course, any good romance story needs conflict, and part of that comes in the form of Connor’s step-mother, Euphemia – what a horrible woman!

Julie Garwood writes characters you care about right from the start, and your heart feels their joys and fears as you read their story.  A sweet romance, funny dialogue, and a hero and heroine who both manage to make you want to laugh and groan at the same time, The Wedding has a firm place on my ‘keeper shelf’.

My only complaint is that the story ends with the perfect set-up for a story featuring Brenna’s sister, Faith, and one of Connor’s men, Quinlan.  Please, Ms. Garwood, write their story!!!

Recommendations:

Fans of historical romance or Highlander romance.  If you haven’t tried historical romance, The Wedding (or the previous book, The Bride) is the perfect book to start with.

Like This, like That:

Claiming the Highlander by Kinley MacGregor (Sherrilyn Kenyon)

In Bed With a Highlander by Maya Banks

As a champion of legislation to modernize outdated health care practices, Rep. Doyle Heffley (R-Carbon) today applauded the state’s announcement to increase state Medicaid recipients’ access to specialist care by expanding coverage of telemedicine consultations.

“Telehealth provides cost-savings benefits to individual patients, family members and health care providers,” said Heffley. “By expanding access to telehealth services, a greater percentage of the underserved across Pennsylvania will be able to access technological advances that promise better and more comprehensive delivery of health care.”

Telehealth services are the use of telecommunications technologies and electronic information to support long-distance clinical health care, professional health-related education, public health, and health administration. Heffley’s telehealth legislation, House Bill 1939, would allow all Medicaid providers who use telehealth to be reimbursed for their services.

The bill awaits consideration in the House Health Committee.

The state Department of Public Welfare began providing reimbursement coverage for consultations performed using telecommunication technology related to high-risk obstetrical services and psychopharmacology on Dec. 1, 2007. under the department’s original policy, the telemedicine consultation is provided to the medical assistance recipient during the course of an office visit involving the recipient’s primary care provider who may be a physician, certified nurse practitioner or certified nurse midwife using telecommunication technology that includes video conferencing and telephone.

Several changes to the agency’s coverage of telemedicine recently went into effect, including:

* Allowing all physician specialists who are enrolled in the program to provide outpatient consultations to medical assistance recipients using interactive telecommunication technology.

* Revising the type of telecommunication technology that may be used to provide a telemedicine consultation to require, at a minimum, interactive audio and video equipment, to allow two-way, real-time interactive communication between the patient and the physician at the distant site.

* Removing the requirement for telemedicine consultations to be performed during an office visit with the referring provider present, and will allow the recipient to access the consultation at an enrolled office site, the originating site, of the referring provider as well as other participating physicians, certified registered nurse practitioners or certified nurse midwives.

For a full list of the department’s changes, visit its website at dpw.state.pa.us.

Kim Sargent, vice president of patient care services at Saint Luke’s Miners Memorial Hospital, said telemedicine redefines how health care is delivered to patients, especially those who are unable to travel to larger medical centers. “Telemedicine links our patients to St. Luke’s University Network, ultimately giving the patient the expertise in specialized care that is needed,” said Sargent. Similarly,

Joe Guardiani, director of fund development and government relations at Blue Mountain Health system, said relaxing the reimbursement process for telehealth services will make telehealth services more accessible to the most vulnerable populations across the Carbon County community and entire state.

“Our telemedicine project with Lehigh Valley Hospital has netted us some terrific outcomes to date,” added Guardiani. “Since our collaboration with the telehealth project at Lehigh Valley, we are able to provide highly skilled infectious disease consults and treatment for our patients, which eliminates the need for a transfer to a more costly tertiary center and most importantly allowed the patient to remain in their own community.”

For instance, Guardiani said, since the hospital’s joint venture began in February 2011, 108 patients were able to remain in Blue Mountain’s Gnaden Huetten and/or Palmerton hospitals for treatment, and nine patients were transferred. before the telehealth services, those patients would have been transferred to different hospitals.

“Efficiency in patient access, as demonstrated through telehealth services, not only helps promote wellness, but it can also assist in making the whole system work in a more cost-effective, proficient manner,” said Heffley.

For more legislative information, or to watch his Legislative Report on telehealth services, visit his website at RepHeffley.com.

Vegetarian and vegan cooking has come an awfully long way over the past 20+ years. Thanks to the internet, we've been able to integrate the best vegetarian dishes from the whole wide world into our everyday lives, opening up a vast menu …
Mary Makes Dinner

even at online dating sites, like the one that runs this office, TamilMatrimony.com, inter-caste dating is very rare. (Photo by Patrick Cox.

For many residents of India, caste is an important factor in daily life. It's so pervasive that when selecting a mate, even using an online dating website, many people wouldn't imagine considering someone from a different caste.

Editor’s Note: This is one part of a series of stories from PRI’s the World examining global issues of class. For more stories on this topic, visit TheWorld.org.

Off a busy street in downtown Chennai, there’s a small store belonging to TamilMatrimony.com, an Indian company that promises to help you find your spouse online.

The store is meant to draw in Indians who don’t use or can’t afford computers. Clients sign up in person and take home print-outs of the profiles they’re interested in. find a good match, and they can set up a meeting.

The founder of Tamil Matrimony, Murugavel Janakiraman, said it’s easy.

“they discuss. Then they like. Then they get married,” he said.

See more photos from India at TheWorld.org.

Janakiraman operates a range of localized marriage sites across India, including Gujurati Matrimony and Punjabi Matrimony. in all, the businessman claims about 20 million Indians are currently using his services.

“the future of the country depends on its citizens,” he said. “Good citizens come out of good parenting. Good parenting comes out of good marriage.”

And so, he argued, his ‘Matrimony’ sites are creating a healthy future for the whole country.

The model is familiar to anyone who’s been online dating in the United States: you make a series of selections to narrow down your search. the Indian matrimony sites offer countless drop-down menus covering things like eating habits, religion, income and caste.

At the Tamil Matrimony store in Chennai, a young woman named Darshani looked over profiles of men, accompanied by her mother. they were searching for the right ‘alliance,’ as they say in India.

“Based on my mother’s gut feel,” Darshani said, “an alliance will be set within three months.”

Darshani is a 24-year-old computer engineer; she’s also got an MBA. in other words, she’s the epitome of India’s young, and growing, professional class. in the store, a ‘relationship manager’ named Abishek Kapoor was on hand to help out.

“Definitely she’s looking for somebody who’s equivalent or higher than what she is,” he said. “A person who’s well-settled, a person who’s earning well so she can feel secure.”

Darshani and her mother also specified that her future husband should be a meat-eater, that he should share her religion and that he should be of the same caste.

“they belong to a particular community, so they feel that going to another community will not match their values and culture,” Kapoor said.

Darshani herself said she would prefer an inter-caste marriage, but her family would not allow it. That’s typical, said Kapoor: families want the same caste.

“they don’t want differences, because in India it’s a very diverse [country]. So each and every community has their way of doing things,” he said.

Their way of doing things. That’s the argument for same-caste marriage that Janakirama makes too. It’s about removing friction in a relationship, simply reducing the chances of two people having uncomfortable differences of opinion. Caste as an indicator of commonality in terms of things such as food, tradition or culture.

Others, though, suggest that these caste lines might actually mean deprivation or a hindrance to professional advancement.

Janakirama disagrees.

“No, I think that [there’s] nothing wrong as long as people are understanding that caste is only about the culture,” he said. A “way of doing things.”

Caste, said Janakiraman, is not about social status any more. but that take on the system is a privilege of the few. in fact, the higher up India’s social ladder you go, the easier it is to pick and choose which aspects of caste matter to you. in fact, at the very top of the ladder you find a group that’s now able to leave caste behind altogether: the new super-rich, India’s millionaires. People, in fact, like Janakiraman himself.

“For those people it really doesn’t matter,” he said, “because for them they’re not really defined or bothered with their social circle, because for the rich and affluent, it’s a social circle … a caste by itself.”

India’s rich and affluent as a caste – and a class – by itself. For those people, it doesn’t matter how high or low a caste they were born into: money trumps everything.

But for others, and for the modern India that sites like TamilMatrimony.com are claiming to build, caste remains a fundamental force.

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“PRI's “The World” is a one-hour, weekday radio news magazine offering a mix of news, features, interviews, and music from around the globe. “The World” is a co-production of the BBC World Service, PRI and WGBH Boston. more about The World.

Kirsten Dunst, Karolina Kurkova, Erin Wasson and Naomi Watts at Cannes Film Festival 2012.

(Credit:CBS/Getty Images)

(CBS/AP) The actresses at Cannes are putting on quite the fashion show at this year’s 65th annual Cannes Film Festival.

Pictures: Fashion at Cannes Film festivalPictures: Cannes Film Festival 2012

Berenice Marlohe, the newest Bond girl, has been making the red carpet look like a day at the beach. one day it was a gold lame gown by Emilio Pucci with a black lace insert on the halter top; on another it was a black lace Roberto Cavalli with a deep V-neck complemented by a chainlike Swarovski crystal necklace.

Also getting a lot of attention is Naomi Watts, who has shown a deep closet full of custom-made looks: a Marchesa gown in champagne with feathers and embroidery, a blush-colored Calvin Klein gown with spaghetti straps, a sleeveless cocktail dress with a gray iridescent top and ostrich-feather skirt from Gucci, and a floral-print, sequin-dotted Cavalli with a gold-detailed black blazer.

The Marchesa gown had custom-dyed, hand-stitched feather flowers “cascade down the dress to create an airy and ethereal effect,” said designer Georgina Chapman.

Kirsten Dunst had a very feminine moment in a demure, white dress by Dolce & Gabbana. She wore her hair swept in an updo decorated with flowers.

for the nighttime screening of her new film “On the Road,” Dunst was in fuchsia Dior.

Many runway models are part of Cannes’ fashion show, too, among them Karolina Kurkova in a paillette-covered, V-neck halter by Cavalli with a mermaid hem and long, dangling ruby-and-diamond earrings by Bulgari, and Erin Wasson in a multi-colored beaded-fringe gown by Oscar de la Renta. Irina Shayk wore a cream-and-silver sequined Cavalli minidress with a fringed hemline.

Some fashion statements are coming from the men, especially with their shoes. Brad Pitt paired white lace-ups with his khaki Gucci suit, and Ewan McGregor wore spectator brogues with his navy Marni striped jacket and trousers.

(WTNH) –For more than a month the Connecticut Children’s Medical Center hasn’t accepted Anthem Blue Cross-Blue Shield insurance. Eighteen-month-old premature born twins Madeline and Brady O’Connell rely on their health insurance to cover continuous checkups. Brady is waiting to undergo a test that he needs.

Brady underwent surgery last year. He requires good health insurance because of the checkups he will need in the future. “He’s had hydrocephalus for over a year now and had multiple surgeries last year which we were under Anthem and the coverage was very good. However he needs precautionary checkups, including an MRI,” said Brady’s mother Sarah O’Connell.   Sarah and Tim O’Connell canceled an MRI for Brady after they were notified their health insurer, Anthem Blue Cross-Blue Shield would no longer cover Connecticut Children’s Medical Center. “If something happens, he has a shunt installed in his head and it has a failure rate of about 50 percent with the first two years, so in any moment, it could clog, it could malfunction,” said Tim. “Their doctors and all their staff are amazing, so we really don’t want to go anywhere else but I think if it happened in a moment’s notice, we’d have to,” said Sarah. a reimbursement rate from Anthem for hospital services is 28 percent below the national average according to the CEO of Connecticut Children’s Medical Center Marty Gavin.   “I am confident it will be resolved.  it is in the best interest for the children, Connecticut Children’s Medical Center and Anthem,” said Gavin.   Aetna, United Healthcare and ConnectiCare recently signed on with new contracts. Meanwhile families like the O’Connells are caught in the middle, as the stress piles up. “It’s tough having a child who may have surgery in the future, but now to deal with the financial issues, it adds another layer, it adds more worry, it adds more stress,” said Tim.     Anthem issued the following statement which read in part “committed to working to ensure a smooth transition for their  members that they have until June 1, to submit transition forms to continue care if they are undergoing active treatment.”

THREE men allegedly took part in a street brawl just hours after leaving a relative's 70th birthday party in Burton, a court heard. CCTV cameras filmed the fracas in new Street at 3.15am as two groups of men clashed after leaving a town centre …
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Burton Mail

Two of the government’s flagship academy schools are facing legal challenges for refusing to admit children with statements of special needs.

In one case involving Mossbourne academy in Hackney, east London, which has been celebrated for its academic record, the school refused to admit an 11-year-old boy with cerebral palsy, arguing it would compromise other children’s education and it already has a higher than average number of pupils with special needs. The London Oratory, a Catholic school in Fulham which became an academy last year, is also facing a special needs legal challenge.

The cases suggest academies may not have the same legal obligations to children with special needs as maintained schools. while parents of children with special needs have the right to appeal against a decision at any other school, lawyers are concerned that academies can turn them away with no recourse. The legal cases could have widespread implications as more than half of secondaries in England are now academies.

There are up to 30 cases of children with special needs who have been refused an academy place, according to Ipsea, the special needs advice service. eight involve Mossbourne which was one of the first academies and has won praise from both Labour and the Tories for its pupils’ achievement. After last year’s A-level results,seven pupils from the school won places at Cambridge.

The Learning Trust, which manages education in Hackney, refused to name Mossbourne in the boy’s statement, the document setting out a child’s needs and the help they should receive, including the name of the school they will attend. such statements are given to children with the most severe special needs and 2.7% of schoolchildren in England have them.

While he is academically gifted – he already has GCSE Maths A* – his condition can make him unsteady on his feet. it also affects his ability at practical tasks such as using a ruler.

The boy’s mother, Sarah Creighton, said: “We said, ‘In what way can you possibly say [he] is going to interfere with the other children’s education?’ He’s top of the year in all his subjects, he’s got GCSE Maths A* already, he’s won the pan-Hackney debating challenge two years running, he’s a prefect and a reading mentor at his school. obviously, I’m his mother, and I’m very, very proud of him. But I think I’m justifiably very proud of him.”

The family’s lawyers say Mossbourne has refused to accept that the Sspecial educational needs tribunal – a court which hears school place appeals by parents of children with such needs– should hear the case. they say the school claimed it was not governed by legislation for state schools but only by its funding agreement with the education secretary.

The Learning Trust applied successfully to have the case struck out but the family has lodged an appeal to a higher court.

Elaine Maxwell, a partner at Maxwell Gillott solicitors, for the family, said: “The academy may have good grounds for refusing to take a particular child in an individual case, … but that should be an argument they make before a tribunal – they shouldn’t have it struck out before they get there.

“When you get a school saying it’s full, that’s not an end to it. The child or his parents should be able to say: does our disadvantage outweigh the disadvantage to other children? There’s a balancing act that has to be struck.”

She added: “How are academies accountable? This has been inherent in academies from the beginning. If academies aren’t bound by SEN provisions and the tribunal system, then the parents of a child with a statement have fewer rights than anyone else.”

Mossbourne told the family their son’s admission “would be incompatible with the efficient education of other pupils at the academy”. A local authority can legally decline to name a school in a statement if the child’s presence would have a negative impact on the education of existing pupils. This could mean, for example, reducing the level of pastoral care available to other children.

The academy said nearly 1,600 children applied for 200 places in its September 2012 intake. of those, 53 have statements. of the 53, 28 named Mossbourne as their first preference. Nationally, 21% of schoolchildren have some form of special needs but at Mossbourne the proportion in each year is 26%-28%.

The boy’s family argue that his statement comes with funds that would help the school to provide for him.

Creighton said: “Part of me feels that this seems so blatantly wrong: that a school can say, ‘These regulations set up to protect disabled people don’t apply to us, so we don’t have to live by them.’ That seems so wrong, that anyone would be able to do that.”

A spokesman for the Learning Trust said: “As a matter of policy we do not comment on cases of this nature. Depending on the terms of the funding agreement between an academy and the secretary of state, the academy may not have to admit a child even if the school is named in the child’s statement.”

The London Oratory case concerns an 11-year-old boy from Croydon. The school declined to be named in his statement, arguing too that it would compromise the “efficient education of other children.”

Chris Barnett, lawyer for the family concerned and head of the education and disability law department at Levenes solicitors, said: “If it hadn’t been an academy, the authority would have named it [in the statement]. Croydon’s position seems to be that it doesn’t accept the arguments the school has put forward, but they still won’t name it. it seems to me that the LA [local authority] doesn’t quite know how to deal with it because it’s an academy.”

A tribunal hearing in the London Oratory case is due next month.

Alastair Cook and Ian Bell restored order in a century stand which guided England to a five-wicket win over West Indies in the first Investec Test.

The threat of Kemar Roach (three for 60) continued to sow doubts about the superiority of the world number one team on the final morning at Lord’s.

But, after England had stumbled to 57 for four – in pursuit of 191 to go 1-0 up with two to play – Cook did not panic as he took England to the brink of victory before falling for 79.

Back-to-form Bell (63 not out) completed his second half-century of the match to help seal the outcome by mid-afternoon after Cook cut Darren Sammy straight to gully to go with only two more runs needed. Roach landed an early blow with the wicket of Jonathan Trott, and Shannon Gabriel also soon eliminated Kevin Pietersen.

The clouds, which have persisted almost throughout this match, were again present as Cook and Trott set out to calm home nerves against Roach and Fidel Edwards with a ball just four overs old.

But Trott got no further than the sixth over of the day, and only his second delivery from Roach.

He edged the first low through the slips for four; then Roach got the second to move off the pitch up the slope again, and resulted in a neat catch by Sammy away to his left at second slip.

West Indies therefore got their wish – an early look at the dangerous Pietersen with the ball still new.

Pietersen responded with a busy approach, and in under four overs he and Cook had gone past 50 from 29 for three.

But the introduction of debutant fast bowler Gabriel brought a last transient twist in the tale.

Pietersen had clubbed a pull for four to midwicket from the third ball of Gabriel’s first over. once again, though, a boundary was instantly followed by a wicket as Pietersen aimed for a repeat to a ball which was slightly less short and took an under-edge for caught behind.

Cook, joined by Bell, gradually found some fluency after a stodgy start on a still benign surface – and England appeared intent on keeping the scoreboard moving, even though time was not going to be an issue.

This was a world away, of course, from their unsightly collapse to 72 all out in the Abu Dhabi desert against Abdur Rehman et al in their low point of the year to date – a 72-run defeat by Pakistan in January.

But if any lesson learned there could be transferred to the home of cricket, it was the folly of allowing caution to preclude even a trickle of the runs required.

As Sammy juggled his options, to give Roach necessary rest, Cook regularly found the boundary with cuts and drives as England moved to within 60 runs of their target by lunch – thereby puncturing the tourists’ belief that they could somehow sneak an unexpected win.

Cook completed a 78-ball fifty, in the last over of the session, with a back-cut off Marlon Samuels for his eighth four.

Sammy’s decision to persevere with Samuels’ innocuous off-spin on the resumption was baffling, and did nothing to discomfort Cook or Bell – or provide much support for the returning Roach at the pavilion end.

The route was therefore cleared for an England victory, widely considered a formality before the start of this match but achieved in unpredictable fashion.

Stuart Broad’s 11-wicket haul swung the verdict, as West Indies fought back with great determination on the third and fourth days.

But, even accounting for Shivnarine Chanderpaul’s near 10-and-a-half hours of cussed batting for once-out, England were still too far ahead of the game.

(AP) — the California Assembly has passed a bill that targets insurers for investing in companies that aid Iran's nuclear weapons capabilities. the Assembly passed AB2160 on Friday on a 57-4 vote. the bill now goes to the state Senate.
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