The $2.4 billion Revel, being counted on to help turn around Atlantic City’s five-year losing streak, is holding its grand opening — highlighted by four concerts by Beyonce, her first performances since having a baby in January.

“Rehearsal is over,” said CEO Kevin DeSanctis. “Now is when we need to generate revenue and do all the things we need to do to be successful.”

Hotel rooms that had been dark are now furnished and ready to rent. Restaurants that were still not quite ready now are.

Revel expects more than 100,000 people to come through its doors Friday through Monday. Many of those who had already done so, during a preview period that began with the casino’s opening April 2, came away impressed.

“It’s awesome, it’s gorgeous,” said Kristen Romano, 22, of Point Pleasant Beach, who was playing a “Sex And The City” slot machine this week. “Every time I see something here, I want to take it home with me.”

Revel is marketing itself as a lifestyle resort, a vacation and meeting mecca that just happens to offer casino gambling as well. It’s in keeping with the new thinking in Atlantic City, the nation’s second-largest gambling market that has taken a pounding over the last five years from the recession and a slew of new casinos popping up all around it in neighboring states.

Gambling revenue has fallen from $5.2 billion in 2006 to $3.3 billion last year. Given that, Atlantic City is trying to remake itself into a place where gourmet restaurants, top-name concerts, spas and luxurious hotel rooms are just as important as slot machines and cards.

Revel also has to kick its finances into high gear. It won $13.4 million from gamblers in April, ranking it 8th out of Atlantic City’s 12 casinos.

DeSanctis said those numbers were compiled when Revel was much more focused on making sure systems, equipment and policies worked well. About 1,200 hotel rooms will be open as of the holiday weekend. When fully open later this year, it will have just under 1,900 rooms.

Revel also is Atlantic City’s only smoke-free casino resort; the other 11 allow smoking on 25 percent of the casino floor.

It also embraces the ocean rather than turning its back on it the way many of its competitors do. It makes more use of sunlight and sweeping views of the beach and ocean than the other eight Boardwalk casinos, which were designed to keep gamblers fixated on, well, gambling. Thoughts of wandering outside to smell the salt air were left to those whose money was gone.

But at Revel, you can see the ocean from at least part of the casino floor, a no-no in other places.

It has 2,450 slot machines and 160 table games. But gambling is only part of the business plan; Revel also has a luxurious spa, 14 restaurants, 10 pools, and a theater with 5,050 seats that has already hosted Maroon Five and The Black Keys. Upcoming shows include Kid Rock, Seal and Barry Manilow.

The project had to overcome a slew of difficulties to make it to the grand opening. It ran out of money halfway through before new financing could be found; state tax assistance helped push it across the finish line.

Three key executives working on the project died in a Minnesota plane crash in July 2008; a worker pouring concrete was struck by lightning and killed last September.

The casino also drew criticism for its policy, unique in Atlantic City, of limiting many customer service jobs to terms of four to six years, after which workers will have to re-apply. DeSanctis said the rule is to prevent workers from becoming apathetic and indifferent to the needs of Revel’s guests.

And unions have sparred with it for years. The Teamsters, the United Auto Workers, and Local 54 of the Unite HERE union have started a unionization drive at Revel, whose dealers, hotel workers, beverage servers and others are not represented by a union.

The AFL-CIO in New Jersey and Pennsylvania has called on the casino to let its workers decide as easily as possible whether to be represented by a union.

This edition of TeenTech weekly rounds up Generation Y and student news that you may have missed. This week we’ve read about social upheaval online, students threatening President Obama on Facebook, and how expensive university can be.

1.) Meet the tireless entrepreneur who squatted at AOL. (CNet)

For two months last fall, 19 year-old Eric Simons secretly took up residence inside the Internet giant’s Palo Alto, Calif., campus, eating free food, enjoying gym access, and building a startup in the process.

2.) Definition of progress for Gen Y drives innovation. (Business 2 Community)

Will the Fortune 500 exist ten years from now? According to a 2012 study by Millennial Branding (conducted on Facebook), a projected 40% of the companies now listed on this esteemed roster probably will not be around by 2025. In a survey of over four million Facebook users, only 7% of respondents indicated that they are currently working for a Fortune 500 company.

3.) Former student ordered to pay $675,000 for sharing 30 songs.

A former Boston University student who was ordered to pay $675,000 for illegally downloading and sharing 30 songs on the Internet in 2005 has insisted he will fight the penalty, even after the

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Agudath Israel has been heavily criticized by outsiders over requirements that its members report claims of child abuse directly to their rabbis, who will then be the ones to determine whether or not to pass that information to the police. The group’s executive vice president, Rabbi David Zwiebel, reiterated that rule this week, despite a recent high-profile investigation in The New York Times by Sharon Otterman and Ray Rivera accusing the ultra-Orthodox community of shielding its own members from criminal prosecution of abuse claims.

RELATED: The Case for Naming Strauss-Kahn’s Accuser

The camera program was pushed for the Midwood section of Brooklyn after Read More from the Article Source: Full Article

The study, released Thursday, said about 630,000 uninsured veterans would likely qualify for Medicaid, the state-federal health insurance program for the poor, which would be expanded under the law. In addition, 520,000 uninsured vets could qualify for subsidized health coverage in new marketplaces, or insurance exchanges.

“It is striking how many of the uninsured veterans would qualify for Medicaid under the ACA,” said co-author Genevieve Kenney, senior fellow for the non-partisan Urban Institute.

One in 10 of the nation’s 12.5 million non-elderly veterans report not having health insurance coverage and not using the Veterans Affairs health system, the study reported.

There are about 1.3 million uninsured veterans nationwide. Another 900,000 veterans use VA care, but have no other health insurance coverage. An additional 900,000 adults and children in veterans’ families are uninsured.

Uninsured rates among veterans vary around the country. Four states have uninsured rates below 6 percent—Massachusetts, Hawaii, Vermont, and North Dakota. Meanwhile, four states—Louisiana, Oregon, Idaho, and Montana—have uninsured rates above 14 percent.

The study, funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, said the uninsurance rate of veterans is lower than among the nonelderly population as a whole (10.5 percent compared with 17.9 percent).  Nonetheless, 41 percent of uninsured veterans report having unmet medical needs, while nearly 34 percent say they have delayed care due to cost.

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on Friday, May 25th, 2012 at 6:00 am.

MLive.comThe number of lawsuits filed for student loan recovery is far larger on the east side of the state of Michigan than in West Michigan.

GRAND RAPIDS, MI — If you’ve defaulted on your student loans, you’re far less likely to wind up in front of a judge if you live in West Michigan as opposed to the east side of the state.

Data collected by Syracuse University’s Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, or TRAC, show a sharp difference in the number of lawsuits filed for student loan recovery in Michigan’s two U.S. District Courts – the western and eastern districts.

Between 2007 and 2012, 85 lawsuits were filed in the western district, according to TRAC.

By comparison, there were a whopping 2,784 lawsuits filed to collect student debt during the same period in the eastern district, TRAC data shows.

The reason, in part, boils down to this: the eastern district is one of 19 U.S. district courts nationwide where private attorneys are contracted to collect defaulted student loans.

“This is where you had private lawyers initiating these lawsuits instead of the regular department of justice offices,” said Heather

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Laura Johnson has “swapped university accommodation for prison accommodation”

A millionaire’s daughter who drove looters around London during the 2011 riots has been jailed for two years.

Laura Johnson, 20, of Orpington, south-east London, had denied charges of burglary and handling stolen goods, claiming she was acting under duress.

But the judge at Inner London Crown Court said she played “a pivotal role” in law-breaking on 8 August.

She was convicted of taking goods from a Comet store and handling a stolen television from a Currys outlet.

Johnson was joined in the dock by a teenage boy, who had previously admitted burglary by stealing alcohol and cigarettes from a BP garage in Charlton, south-east London.

He can now be named as Christopher Edwards, 17, after the judge lifted an order banning his identification.

Edwards was sentenced to 12 months at a young offenders’ institution.

‘Went willingly’

Passing sentence, Judge Patricia Lees observed that Johnson’s reaction to the arrival of the police was to put her foot on the accelerator of her car – despite an officer standing in front of it.

Edwards was sentenced to a year in a young offenders’ institution

She told Johnson and Edwards: “Your actions added to the overall lawlessness that threatened to overwhelm the forces of law and order.

“You both come from loving and supportive homes – of neither of you could it be said that your parents have not provided every advantage they could for you.

“You both revealed your weaker side to your characters in taking advantage of an escalating situation because you thought you could get away with it and would not be caught.”

Turning to Johnson, she said: “You were pivotal to this planned criminal enterprise.

“You went out willingly that night knowing what you were about to get involved in.”

Bandanas and balaclavas

Jurors were told that Johnson drove several looters around various shops during the height of the riots.

Continue reading the main story

“Start Quote

This was completely out of character”

End Quote
Martin McCartney
Defence counsel

Her passengers jumped from the car wearing hooded tops, bandanas and balaclavas and loaded it with stolen electronic goods.

Johnson – who is reading English and Italian at Exeter University – is a former grammar school pupil who reportedly achieved four A*s and nine As at GCSE.

She is the daughter of wealthy couple Robert and Lindsay Johnson, who own direct marketing business Avongate Ltd.

In mitigation, her barrister Martin McCartney said she was a bright, intelligent, articulate young woman who was then at a very low ebb and argued she was unlikely to offend again.

‘Emotional turmoil’

He said: “At the time of the offence, placing what she did against the background of who she is, this was completely out of character.

“It is not beyond the realms of reason that the way she acted might have been affected by the emotional turmoil she was in.”

Johnson will serve half of her two-year sentence in prison, minus 144 days, due to time spent under a qualifying curfew.

Her defence had been to claim she acted under duress because she was afraid of her passengers.

A University of Exeter spokeswoman said: “The University of Exeter is aware of the sentence that has been given to Laura Johnson.

“We will now consider the outcome in order to determine the best way forward with regards to Laura’s studies at the university.”

Det Sgt Mark Gilchrist, of the Metropolitan Police, said: “We would like to thank all members of the public that have provided us with vital information, which, as in the case of Laura Johnson, has formed part of the prosecution.”

More than 55,000 people are thought to die worldwide from rabies each year

A woman with rabies twice visited an accident and emergency unit in Kent before she was diagnosed and admitted to a London hospital.

She went to Darent Valley Hospital in Dartford before she was admitted to the Hospital for Tropical Diseases.

The trust said the UK was rabies-free and staff would be unlikely to consider rabies unless a patient reported wild animal contact in an at-risk country.

Doctors responded to information given by the patient at the time, it added.

The woman, who has not been identified and is still receiving treatment, had been bitten by a dog in south Asia.

In a statement, the Kent NHS trust said some hospital staff members were being vaccinated against the potentially fatal disease.

Hospital probe

It said: “Although there are no cases of rabies being passed by human-to-human contact, the five members of staff that came into close contact with the patient are being vaccinated as a precautionary measure.”

The trust also said an investigation had begun into the circumstances around the patient’s attendance at the emergency department.

It said it was also working closely with the Health Protection Agency (HPA).

Rabies is usually transferred through saliva from the bite of an infected animal, with dogs being the most common transmitter of rabies to humans.

More than 55,000 people are thought to die from rabies each year, with most cases occurring in south and south-east Asia.

Professor David Brown, a rabies expert at the HPA, said only four cases of human rabies acquired from dogs, all from abroad, had been identified in the UK since 2000.

Catholic attorney Victoria Reggie Kennedy gave the keynote speech at Friday’s graduation ceremony. She also urged graduates to make progress by finding common ground with people as she said her late husband did.

Kennedy had been scheduled to deliver this year’s commencement speech at Anna Maria College in Paxton. But the Catholic college rescinded the invitation under pressure from a bishop who objected to Kennedy’s public support for abortion rights and gay marriage.

Seven protesters picketed outside, carrying signs saying: “BC Honors Abortion Defender.”

School officials say they weren’t conferring an honorary degree on Kennedy, whom they say is committed to social justice.

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The man was caught in possession of secret documents, the Vatican said, but it would not confirm the suspect’s identity, age, or when he had been arrested.

But informed sources said the man was Paolo Gabriele, 46, who had been working as a butler in the papal apartments since 2006. One source said the pope was “saddened and shocked” by this “painful case.”

“The inquiry carried out by Vatican police… allowed them to identify someone in possession of confidential documents. This person is currently being questioned,” Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi told journalists.

Il Foglio newspaper and ANSA news agency named the detained man as Gabriele, a member of the small team which works daily in Pope Benedict XVI‘s apartments.

The Italian daily said he is likely to be used by the Vatican as “a handy scapegoat” for several others suspected of being involved in leaking documents, some of which ended up in a new book on the tiny state published a week ago.

Gianluigi Nuzzi’s “His Holiness” reproduces dozens of

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