A 12-year-old sports fanatic has died in Illinois after being hit in the neck by a baseball while warming up for a game this week.

Eric Lederman, a sixth-grader from Oswego, Ill., roughly 50 miles southwest of Chicago, was hospitalized after being hit while throwing a ball with a teammate Wednesday night before a league game in Wheaton, the Chicago Tribune reported.

He died Thursday night, leaving his local community in shock.

"He was an inspiration to his teammates, coaches and baseball family," Brian Zacker, the coach of Eric's baseball team, told the newspaper. "He played with an infectious smile and played the game with tremendous passion and heart."

Oswego Softball and Baseball Association executive director John Thorson told the Chicago Sun-Times that officials were working on plans to set up a memorial for the Lederman family.

"I've played baseball many years and in college and I've never seen anything like this," he said.

A dozen Secret Service personnel providing security for President Barack Obama at an international summit in Cartagena, Colombia, have been relieved of duty because of allegations of misconduct.

The Associated Press said it received an anonymous tip that the misconduct involved prostitutes in Cartagena, site of the Summit of the Americas. A Secret Service spokesman did not dispute the allegation.

The Washington Post reported that Jon Adler, president of the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association, told the newspaper the accusations relate to at least one officer having involvement with prostitutes in Cartagena.


A U.S. official, who was not authorized to speak publicly on the matter and requested anonymity, put the number of personnel at 12, the AP reported.

Leftists protest Obama visit with bombs?

Adler told the Post that the entire unit was recalled for the investigation. He later told the AP he had no specific knowledge of any wrongdoing.

The incident threatened to overshadow Obama's economic and trade agenda at the summit and embarrass the U.S. The White House had no comment.

Secret Service spokesman Ed Donovan would not confirm that prostitution was involved, saying only that there had been "allegations of misconduct" made against Secret Service personnel in the Colombian port city hosting Obama and more than 30 world leaders.

“The Secret Service takes all allegations of misconduct seriously,” Donovan told the Post.

Colombia president to Obama: Don't ignore your neighbors

Donovan said the allegations of misconduct were related to activity before the president's arrival on Friday night.

Obama was attending a leaders' dinner Friday night at Cartagena's historic Spanish fortress.

The personnel involved had been sent back to their permanent place of duty and were being replaced by other agency officers, Donovan said. The matter was turned over to the agency's Office of Professional Responsibility, which handles the agency's internal affairs.

"These personnel changes will not affect the comprehensive security plan that has been prepared in advance of the president's trip," Donovan said.

We did not really see this coming. Rakhi Sawant, who usually carries an 'I-don’t-give-a-damn attitude' on her sleeves, has become quite emotional about a particular topic now. But still the item queen has not shied away from being outspoken about it. She was supposed to perform with the ‘Koleveri Di’ sensation, Dhanush, recently but he reportedly ditched her at the last moment. And hence, Rakhi was left terribly miffed and resultantly said that she was heartbroken and felt humiliated due to the same.

Rakhi Sawant, who is the original tantrum queen of the industry, is known to say it as it is. She was visibly emotional about something recently, and when the media asked about it, she revealed that she was very disappointed due to Dhanush’s gesture. Dhanush, who found instant fame courtesy his track ‘Kolaveri DI’, was scheduled to perform on the song on stage with Rakhi, but he cancelled his appearance at the last moment. Rakhi, on the other hand, was all prepared and ready to go. She was left in the cold and lashed out by saying that he treated her as an untouchable.

This Connecticut-sized nation, sticking out like a loose tooth in the Persian Gulf, is one of the most obese nations in the world, with residents fatter, on average, than even those of the United States, which often takes the cake in such competitions.

According to recent studies, roughly half of adults and a third of children in Qatar are obese, and almost 17 percent of the native population suffers from diabetes. By comparison, about a third of Americans are obese, and eight percent are diabetic. Qatar also has very high rates of birth defects and genetic disorders -- problems that, along with the prevalence of obesity (PDF) and diabetes, have worsened in recent decades, according to local and international health experts.

So what's going wrong in little Qatar?

To misappropriate a well-worn phrase: It's the economy, stupid. In September, Qatar officially became the richest nation in the world, as measured by per capita gross domestic product. It also recently became the world's biggest exporter of natural gas, and earned the title of fastest growing economy in the world. By international development standards, all this growth has happened virtually overnight, making Qataris' lifestyles much more unhealthy, and at the same time leading many to hang on resolutely to what's left of their fleeting tribal traditions -- practices that include inter-marriage between close family members and cousins.

"They're concentrating the gene pool, and at the same time, they're facing rapid affluence," said Sharoud Al-Jundi Matthis, the program manager at the Qatar Diabetes Association, a government funded health center in Doha, the capital. As a result of these factors, Qataris are becoming obese, passing on genetic disorders at an alarming rate, and getting diabetes much more often than others around the world. They're also getting diabetes a decade younger than the average age of onset, which is pushing up rates of related illnesses and complications, like hypertension, blindness, partial paralysis, heart disease, and loss of productivity. "It's a very, very serious problem facing the future of Qatar," Matthis said.

Over the course of two generations, most native Qataris, who number only 250,000 in a nation of 1.7 million, and enjoy the benefits of a robust welfare state, went from living modest, tribal lifestyles in the Arabian desert, to living in air-conditioned villas with maids, nannies, gardeners, and cooks. Doha has mushroomed from a mere blip of beige buildings on a scorched spit of sand in the mid '90s, to a glistening glass metropolis populated by luxury hotels, fleets of shiny new Land Rovers, and fast food joints, where the young people huddle after school, sheltered from the famous Arabian heat, with temperatures hovering above 105 from late spring to late fall.

Controversial spiritual guru Nirmal Baba has broken his silence. Reacting to several media reports doing the rounds on his income and raising doubts over alleged ability to perform miracles, Nirmal Baba told a TV Channel in an interview that he had never claimed to be a miracle worker.
Nirmal Baba said that he was just an ordinary person who had been 'blessed' by God.
'I am against all forms of superstition. People follow and believe in me because I tell my followers not to believe in any form of superstition', Nirmal Baba said.
Nirmal Baba said that he was fortunate to have been 'blessed' with the ability to help people, and it was because of this that thousands believed in him.
Nirmal Baba also hit out at his brother-in-law Inder Singh Namdharee, saying he was spreading false information about him.
Nirmaljeet Singh Narula aka Nirmal Baba accepted that he did indeed start his career as a brick kiln owner. Unable to give any convincing answer as to why he was allegedly able to spiritually help people, Nirmal Baba only claimed to have been 'lucky to have been blessed with special powers'.
Nirmal Baba also refuted allegations that he paid people to pose bogus questions at his samagams and prayer meetings.
Nirmal Baba also refuted allegations that he was making exorbitant amounts of money by making people pay to ask him questions for Rs 2000, he said that all that money was used to pay off expenses and was not done out of a profit motive.
Nirmal Baba conceded however that Nirmal Durbar had a turnover of Rs 235 crores.

Bharti Airtel launched 4G LTE (4’th Generation Long Term Evolution) network in India, starting from Kolkata. They have released the data plans, tariff details, required devices like USB modem or Indoor Wireless Gateway etc.

According to the Airtel 4G webpage, the company is going to offer 40Mbps download speed to its customer as 4G LTE-TD (Time Division LTE) technology is capable of offering up to 100 Mbps download speed and 40Mbps upload speed. But the question is whether customer will get this much download speed on their 4G devices while surfing the web? Answer is very straight, No

4G LTE is already available in different parts of world like United States, UK etc. And if you go by the experience of People already using 4G network on their devices, you would find that they actually never get a speed near to even 20 Mbps.

Here is a video demo showing Verizon 4G LTE network speed (download and upload). We should expect the same from Airtel 4G LTE as well.

Apart from the above mentioned factors, the distance between your device and the mobile tower does also play an important role. In case of LTE, a single tower may cover area around 100 KM but of course the coverage and signal strength will diminish in metros and cities where you find lot many distractions in between.

Trinamool Congress leader Kabir Suman has expressed shock at the actions of West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and said that she has changed after becoming the Chief Minister. Talking to CNN-IBN, Suman said, "I'm quite surprised, I'm amazed myself. The government of West Bengal is suffering from paranoia and a persecution mania. The moment she became the Chief Minister of Bengal, it seems that she is scared and afraid when she has no reason to be so."

Suman said Mamata would have gone against these actions, had she been in the Opposition. "Had someone else done this and she been the opposition leader, she would have opposed every step at every second, like the removal of Damayanti Sen. But the moment she becomes a ruler, I don't know how it's a total turnaround," Suman said.

Suman's strong reaction comes after a host of controversial actions taken by the Mamata Banerjee government. It comes close on the heels of a Jadavpur University professor and his neighbour being arrested for sharing a satirical anti-Mamata cartoon with others through the university e-mail system. They were later granted bail.

Academician Sunanda Sanyal also reacted strongly, saying, "Mamata shouldn't have been so touchy, if touchy people are declined to dictatorship it becomes difficult." "Actually, this is a change for the worse. Because, Mamata Banerjee is the head of the party, it should be blamed on her," Sanyal said."

Not just that, the West Bengal Police is now also probing a complaint of defamation against social networking sites, including Facebook. The complainant alleges malicious campaigning against Mamata Banerjee on social networking sites.

An artist in Denver has turned an infamous 2005 mug shot of George Zimmerman into a piece of pop art.

Andy Bell, 31, used 12,250 Skittles to create a 3-by-4-foot portrait of Zimmerman, who was charged with second-degree murder on Wednesday in the shooting death of Trayvon Martin.

Skittles have become a small but indelible part of the shooting. Martin, 17, was returning to his father's house in Sanford, Fla., after buying iced tea and Skittles at a convenience store. It was then that Zimmerman, a volunteer neighborhood watchman, began following the teen, which later led to a confrontation and the fatal shooting.

Bell told the Denver Post that he started the piece, called "Fear Itself," after initially hearing about the killing. "I wanted to do all I could to raise awareness about the case," he said. In recent weeks, of course, the case has received no shortage of national attention.

The artist says he mapped the candy design in Photoshop before having his wife and friends assist him in gluing the hard, fruity candy onto plywood. "It became family puzzle night," he told the Post.

The work, is being featured at the RedLine Gallery in Denver, Colo. Despite the ominous look of the artwork, Bell tells the Post that he has sympathy for Zimmerman, and that he's not rushing to judgment on the case. Meanwhile, the gallery's executive director, PJ D'Amico, marveled at the creation, saying it's a "crazy, terribly beautiful piece," that is "profound beyond measure."

The Associated Press points out that Skittles joins a list of other snack foods that got sucked into less-than-favorable stories. Twinkies, Kool-Aid, and Doritos all have had to deal with becoming parts of controversies that weighed on their brand names.

Katherine Sredl, an assistant professor of marketing at the University of Notre Dame's Mendoza College of Business, told the AP that companies should keep a healthy distance from the controversies.

It's the Americas' largest reunion. Happening every three years, the Summit of the Americas brings together the heads-of-state of the region to talk about pressing concerns. Over the weekend in Cartagena, Colombia, the theme will be "Connecting the Americas: Partners for Prosperity," but some of the liveliest debates are likely to focus on discussions around decriminalization of personal drug use. Proponents of the plan suggest it will decrease the high levels of violence in some of the countries in the region.

A lot of important issues didn't make the agenda. This is reasonable. It is a two-day summit to address the most-pressing concerns of the region in a room filled with dozens of presidents and prime ministers. Can you imagine? Reaching even small conclusions is surely a challenge. But, in a year in which violence in the region will be at the top of all discussions, it's telling that once again another type of violence that may affect as much as 25 percent of the population hasn't made the cut.

Gender-based violence plagues countries in the region, including Colombia, the host, as well as the United States, which plans to send almost 700 people in its delegation. This type of violence even permeates the communities in and around the conference center where the summit will be held. Several weeks ago, I was in Cartagena speaking with women who have suffered unspeakable acts of violence mere miles from where the region's heads of state will gather in lavish style.

While the violence against women and girls in their homes does not on its face seem to have the same destabilizing effect on democracies, it would be wrong for governments to think it's not an issue worthy of discussion at these types of high-level regional gatherings.

The World Bank has found that gender-based violence has a negative economic impact on countries in the region, limiting women's contributions to social and economic development. The result can be a massive drain on economies in the Americas. The World Health Organization, summarizing various studies, found that violence against women and girls accounts for a 1.6 percent loss of GDP in Nicaragua and a 2 percent loss in Chile. It costs the U.S. almost $13 billion annually.

Other studies have found that gender-based violence is a major cause of ill health among women and girls, from complications during pregnancy to depression to physical disability. This health impact acts, according to the World Bank, as "an impediment to the accumulation of human capital." In other words, it prevents many women and girls in the Americas from investing in their own development, through education or other means, preventing them from better participating in the economy. The take away: gender-based violence prevents some poor women in the Americas from lifting themselves out of poverty.