A preview of the measures provided by administration officials Tuesday includes increasing criminal sentences for those convicted of tax-related identity theft and creating new civil penalties for those who file fraudulent returns.

The IRS would be able to assess a $5,000 civil penalty for each incidence of identity theft.

Under the plan, the government would also limit access to Social Security Administration files on deceased individuals that have been used by those seeking fraudulent refunds. Instead, the files that the SSA compiles would be available immediately only to those who legitimately need the information for fraud prevention purposes. All other users would have to wait three years for access.

The proposal would also revise the W-2 form that employers must provide the IRS so that it includes an "identifying number" for each employee rather than the employee's Social Security number.

As of the end of 2012 the IRS had more than 3,000 employees working on identity theft issues, more than double from the previous year.

The tax agency says that in 2012 it prevented $20 billion in fraudulent returns, including those related to identity theft, compared to $14 billion the previous year.It says that it stopped 5 million suspicious returns in 2012, up from 3 million in 2011.

The couple believes it's unlikely there ever will be a full answer explaining why a man gunned down 26 people inside the Newtown, Conn., school last year. But they feel more research into brain health and how a propensity for violence is manifested could help prevent future tragedies.

"When we started reaching out to scientists to talk about the underpinnings of violence and how this particular factor played a role in what happened to us, there is some, but no real, research going on this field," Hensel said.

On Monday, they announced a scientific advisory board for the Avielle Foundation, which was established with the goal of reducing violence. While some other victims' families have immersed themselves in the push for tighter gun restrictions, Avielle Richman's parents see the foundation named for their curly-haired daughter as their response to a tragedy that has launched advocacy work on many fronts, including school safety and mental illness.

The Dec. 14 massacre was carried out by 20-year-old Adam Lanza, who killed 20 first-graders and six educators inside the school with a military-style semi-automatic rifle before committing suicide. The isolated, socially awkward Lanza played first-person shooter video games in a weapon-filled house where he lived with his mother, according to search warrants released last month, but authorities have not described a possible motive or released details of any medical condition that might shed light on his actions.

Avielle, a girl who loved horses, Harry Potter and the color red, had moved to Connecticut with her family about two years before the shooting. Her father kept a blog called "Avielle's Adventures," telling friends about a trip to a Thanksgiving Day parade, her 6th birthday at a horse stable, a road trip to Iowa.

Jeremy Richman is a researcher at the pharmaceutical company Boehringer Ingelheim. Hensel, his wife, is a medical writer with her own company. The foundation is a way for them to harness their training and skills and to channel their grief.

"I think the best way to help from a tragedy such as this is by action where your strengths lie," Hensel said. "This is our motivation now. We will never stop being parents to Avielle."

The Avielle foundation, funded through donations and grants, aims to raise $5 million this year and begin reviewing its first grant applications later this year.

One member of the foundation's advisory board, Terrie E. Moffitt, said science on the origins of violence has been neglected by federal agencies that provide research grants.

"Families of individuals with autism, ADHD, learning problems or schizophrenia demand that funding agencies support research into these disorders," said Moffitt, a neuroscience professor at Duke University and at the Institute of Psychiatry, King's College London. "Families of violent individuals don't."

The other members of the board announced Monday are R. John Krystal, chair of the psychiatry department at the Yale University School of Medicine, and James Blair, chief of the unit on affective cognitive neuroscience at the National Institute of Mental Health.

The Avielle Foundation says it hopes to remove stigmas for people seeking mental health aid, develop the concept of a "brain health check-up," and identify behavioral and biochemical diagnostics for detection of people at risk of violent behaviors.

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Followingfrom analytics services, Google has  that its services have been inaccessible since just before 3 p.m. Eastern. Just look at the complete Google drop-off starting at that time:

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When the Internet disappeared for two whole days in the fall, the Syrian regime blamed "terrorists" for cutting underground cables and causing the outage. That scenario, , is highly unlikely. And while Assad and his military apparatus haven't said anything about this latest outage,  made clear that November's shutdown "was seen as an attempt to stymie rebel moves as militias try to co-ordinate an assault on Damascus."

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Obviously, things have been on edge in Syria these past few weeks, with reports of chemical weapons attacks and reported Israeli airstrikes reverberating around the world and . President Obamathat there are no "easy answers" for his next steps in the region, but after weeks of setbacks for opposition forces, there may at some point be an answer for this latest Internet outage: Assad wanted to cripple organizing capabilities for those looking to topple him.

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Importantly, it's only the servers within Syria that aren't working, according to  from Umbrella Security Labs:

Currently both TLD (top-level domain) servers for Syria, ns1.tld.sy and ns2.tld.sy are unreachable. The remaining two nameservers sy.cctld.authdns.ripe.net. and pch.anycast.tld.sy. are reachable since they are not within Syria.

Umbrella Security Labs, however, cannot confirm the reason for tonight's darkness over Syria's Internet: "Although we can’t yet comment on what caused this outage, past incidents were linked to both government-ordered shutdowns and damage to the infrastructure, which included fiber cuts and power outages."

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - Actor and activist Ian Somerhalder has joined the advisory board of interactive news website, RYOT, the actor's charity announced Tuesday.

RYOT, a media outlet encouraging readers to "become the news," bridges the gap between learning about things happening in the world and actually making a difference in it.

Each news story on the site is paired with a "RYOT note" explaining the social value of the story, while suggesting a charity or organization dedicated to a related cause.

If RYOT readers do not wish to give the organizations financial support, the site encourages them to simply stay informed, or better yet, volunteer their time to the charity.

"We started the Ian Somerhalder Foundation (ISF) because we didn't like the feeling of helplessness that came with environmental catastrophes such as the BP oil spill," Somerhalder said in a statement. "The news media serves a very useful purpose in communicating things that are happening in the world around us, but traditionally it doesn't allow the opportunity for people to really get involved and generate positive change. That's what is so appealing to me about RYOT. Every story gives you the option to get involved, to give, to reach down inside yourself and find what touches your heart and to react right that very second."

"RYOT is a disruptive, young news source that combines news with action. Ian is an inspiration to us, the way he uses his voice to continually push forward important social issues," RYOT's co-founder, Bryn Mooser, said. "He's bringing young people back to the news. Old news has made us depressed for so long, with RYOT we want to empower readers with every story. By taking action you can become part of the solution."

The first time I went to pick up Angela, the new girlfriend hinted strongly that I should also take Madison. I didn't like it, but I took her. Abby, Madison is the meanest, rudest child I have ever met. She called my dad ugly, my daughter ugly and my house "stinky." I saw her push Angela down and laugh. Then she tried to smother my granddaughter by sitting on her head on the couch. The last time I brought Angela home, Madison told me that everything I bought for Angela I had to buy for her, too.

I don't want to take Madison anymore. It has been difficult losing my daughter, seeing her replaced with a new girlfriend and now being expected to include an unpleasant "step-granddaughter" in everything. But if I don't take her, I'm afraid they won't let me visit Angela. Do you have any advice? -- ANGIE'S GRAM IN MISSOURI

DEAR GRAM: If you haven't already spoken to Reed and the girl's mother about her behavior, you should. Madison may act out because she's jealous of Angela and, among other things, she needs to learn better manners before she's included in any more visits. If she had pulled the shenanigans with me that she has with you, I would have taken her home immediately.

This is not to say that Madison should be permanently excluded, but you should have time with your granddaughter one-on-one. The same is true for Madison and her grandparents. You are not a built-in baby sitter, which appears to be how you have been made to feel, but nothing will change until you broach the subject.

DEAR ABBY: I feel fortunate to find myself with the love of my life at 24. "Josh" is charming, intelligent, a hard worker and a wonderful partner. I know we can achieve all the things we hope for. We have discussed where we stand on issues such as children, family, finances, living arrangements, etc. We are mostly compatible, and where there is tension, we work it through and compromise.

We are clearly headed toward engagement. He has picked out a ring and I want it badly, but I am hesitant. I am afraid I won't give him what he deserves.

I dated a man in college for three years. We talked about our future, made plans, and then I changed my mind. The pain I caused was terrible. I still regret hurting him, although I don't regret leaving. I'm afraid I will do it again. I'm so anxious I sometimes think I should bail now and cut his losses just in case. I don't think I will, but who can see the future?

My mother says I have always been obsessed with making the right choice. Am I being foolish and letting my anxieties run away with me? -- SUSAN IN CONNECTICUT

DEAR SUSAN: There are better ways to cope with your anxiety than "throwing the baby out with the bathwater." You are not the same person you were in college. You have grown and are obviously more aware of the consequences of your actions.

Because you are anxious about making a commitment to "the love or your life" -- someone with whom you have many things in common -- it's time to schedule an appointment with a licensed counselor to discuss it. It will be time and money well spent.

Dear Abby is written by Abigail Van Buren, also known as Jeanne Phillips, and was founded by her mother, Pauline Phillips. Write Dear Abby ator P.O. Box 69440, Los Angeles, CA 90069.

To order "How to Write Letters for All Occasions," send your name and mailing address, plus check or money order for $7 (U.S. funds) to: Dear Abby -- Letter Booklet, P.O. Box 447, Mount Morris, IL 61054-0447. Shipping and handling are included in the price.

Some parents have said that Haights provaccination message has no place at preschool, that its disrespectful and patronizing, that the decision to vaccinate a child is nobody elses business. One mother got so emotional that she broke out in hives. But Haight thinks a conversation is critical, and the latest research published in the journal Pediatrics backs her up.

Im just trying to let people know that if you dont vaccinate your children, it might affect other childrens health, says Haight. It directly affects a community of young children. How do we not talk about this?

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With so much confusing and even misleading information about vaccine safety available on the Internet, its no surprise that parents are influenced by their friends attitudes when it comes to immunizing their kids.

In the study, researchers surveyed 196 parents of children 18 months or younger in King County Haights stomping ground which has a vaccination rate thats typically below the national average and has been gripped by a , along with areas in Vermont, Wisconsin and Minnesota. Among the parents in the study, 126 followed the nationally recommended childhood-vaccinationfrom the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The 70 other parents forged their own paths: 28 delayed vaccines, 37 partially vaccinated and five didnt vaccinate at all.

At least 95% of parents in both groups indicated that they had consulted their people network for insight into making vaccination decisions. Parents reported they paid the most attention to their spouse or partners opinion. Pediatricians were next in line, followed by friends and relatives. (Interestingly, 10% of parents who followed CDC guidelines the conformers and 12% of parents who didnt the nonconformers failed to list doctors among the top five people in their network.) Heres why thats important: 72% of nonconformers friends and relatives advised them to disregard CDC recommendations compared with just 13% of conformers friends and family members. In other words, says study author Emily Brunson, changing parents attitudes about vaccines may be a matter of influencing the people who are influencing parents in the first place.

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The significance of naysayers parents networks blew any other variable out of the water, says Brunson, who conducted the research as an anthropology graduate student at the University of Washington. It was more important in terms of predicting what parents decide to do than any other factor, including parents own opinions.

The effect was overwhelming, particularly for parents whose network mostly recommended not following immunization guidelines; they were more than 1,500 times more likely to not adhere to the CDCs vaccination schedules for their children than other parents. Even parents whose networks were more compliant about following immunization schedules (comprising 26% to 50% of people who advised against the guidelines) were 31 times more likely to not vaccinate as recommended. Parents people networks matter a ton, says Brunson, now an assistant professor of anthropology at Texas State University. Having those conversations with your sister, with your parent, with your friends matter a lot more than we thought.

Parents who didnt follow vaccination advice were also more likely to have extensive source networks troves of books, websites and magazine articles they turned to for vaccine-related information. On average, 59% of nonconformers sources many of which persist in promoting a widely recommend ignoring CDC guidelines compared with 20% of conformers sources.

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Although the proportion of zero dosers otherwise known as antivaxers has stayed stable at less than 2%, the number of moms and dads who dont trust that vaccines will do what experts say they will is growing. In the U.S., where parents havent seen firsthand the deadly consequences of vaccine-preventable diseases, pediatricians are frustrated about spending more and more time defending the importance of immunization. What used to be a staple of childhood health is now viewed with at least some skepticism by most parents, including the highly educated. Theyre cherry-picking which vaccines they find acceptable or joining the ranks of the delayers, the 12% of parents who , spacing out shots for years, which experts argue only extends the time their kids are susceptible to disease or capable of passing it on to others. A recentshowed that multiple vaccinations on a single day, which worried some parents, dont pose a hazard to young children; in fact, older vaccines exposed toddlers to more antigens than newly formulated ones do. There isnt a lot of trust, says pediatrician Wendy Sue Swanson, who was inspired by the growing number of hesitant parents to start blogging about vaccines as . Theyve all heard the story that Jenny McCarthy told: the day her kid got the MMR shot, the light went out of his eyes.

The findings highlight a potentially new strategy that public-health officials should consider when getting out the message that childhood immunizations are important for childrens health. It may be time, they say, to extend their reach beyond doctors and start paying attention to other people who influence parents vaccination decisions, namely friends and family whom moms and dads list as part of their social network. If we want to improve vaccination rates, communication needs to be directed to the public at large, says Brunson.

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Thats the objective of , the grassroots campaign that recruited Haight as a provaccine crusader. The program is testing the theory behind Brunsons research, that parents can be instrumental in molding how other parents think about vaccines. At seven pilot sites in western Washington two child-care centers, three preschools and two elementary schools 13 parent advocates are being trained and supported to start a conversation about vaccination that has historically been dominated by vocal naysayers. When youre following the status quo in this case, adhering to the CDCs recommended guidelines you tend not to get fired up and speak out.

Later this month, some of the parents will host a health fair at a bowling alley featuring yoga, talks about fire safety and a spin-the-wheel trivia game about vaccine-preventable diseases. This is about shifting a social norm and elevating the voice of the majority of parents who do immunize, says Ginny Heller, the immunization program manager at WithinReach, the Washington state nonprofit behind Immunity Community.

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Its a work in progress, with lots of cues and miscues. Emotions run high when parents believe others are examining their choices. One mother at Haights preschool threatened to withdraw her child; another said that hot topics such as vaccination and circumcision shouldnt be discussed at school. They feel theyre being judged, says Haight.

But preliminary data on Immunity Communitys effectiveness look promising: last year, one Montessori-preschool pilot site raised its immunization rate from 60% to 80%. The CDC is keeping tabs on the results and could bring it to other states as a potential national model, albeit one rooted at the local level. For people to be passionate and credible and persuasive about this, they have to be local community members, says Kris Sheedy of the CDCs immunization-services division. We know that birds of a feather flock together, so its a good thing to make vaccinating parents more visible.

The bones, all from not-yet-hatched embryonic dinosaurs, are among the oldestever found. What's more, the embryo fossils came from separate nests and the dino embryos were at different stages of development when they died two discoveries that will enable researchers to study how dinosaurs developed before hatching.

"It tells us quite a bit about early embryonic stages and changes that occur in the embryonic life of these animals something we haven't really seen before," said study researcher Robert Reisz, a paleontologist at the University of Toronto.

In addition to discovering evidence of in-egg kicking, the researchers found that the embryos, which probably belonged to the long-necked Lufengosaurus, grew faster than the embryos of any birds or mammals alive today. []

Tiny-bone find

Timothy Huang, a chemist at National Chung Hsing University in Taiwan and an amateur archaeologist, discovered the embryonic bones about three years ago in Yunnan Province, China. The bone bed has an area of about 3 square feet (1 square meter) and a thickness of about 4 to 8 inches (10 to 20 centimeters). In this small patch, the researchers eventually uncovered more than 200 itsy-bitsy bones.

A geological analysis of the spot revealed that slow flooding probably smothered the eggs, which seem to have been laid in a colonial nesting site. After the flood, the embryos and eggs rotted and fell apart, leaving a mound of disarticulated bones. The bones date to the Lower Jurassic period, or between 199.6 million and 175.6 million years ago. That makes them just as ancient as the , which were discovered at a nesting site of long-necked Massospondylus dinosaurs in South Africa.

It was a boon for science that the dino embryos had fallen apart, instead of fossilizing inside their eggs, Reisz told LiveScience.

"People are extremely possessive and fond of their embryos imagine us asking them to take pieces out and do the sections on them and cut them, and essentially do damage to them," he said. "These bones are completely disarticulated, and we have a lot of them so it's not unreasonable to be able to take a few and cut them, and see what their internal anatomy is like."

How baby dinos grew

The bone bed contained spinal bones, limb bones, shoulder blades and even a few fragments of skull, but Reisz and his team focused their analysis on the most prevalent and best-preserved bones: femurs, or thigh bones. These little leg bones ranged from 0.5 to 0.9 inches (12 to 22 millimeters) in length, shorter than matchsticks.

The bones were porous, filled with cavities that would have once allowed blood to flow to the growing tissue. The size of the cavities is determined by how fast the animal grows which made researchers realize these embryos

"They grow very fast faster than we expected, and faster than most other dinosaurs that have been studied this way," Reisz said.

The fast growth rate makes sense, given that Lufengosaurus grew to 20 feet (6 meters) in length.

The researchers also found an asymmetrical thickening in the femurs associated with muscle action on the bone. The finding suggests thewere kicking and twitching inside their eggs.

The team also discovered evidence of organic material probably collagen, part of the connective tissue that forms ligaments and tendons. If the material isn't too deteriorated, it could be compared to collagen in living animals, thus providing a new way to look at relationships between modern creatures and the extinct dinosaurs, Reisz said.

"We're setting a new benchmark as to what can be done in dinosaur embryology," Reisz said. He and his colleagues report their findings Thursday (April 11) in the journal Nature. An upcoming goal, Reisz said, is to give the embryos their first dental exam.

"One of the things we may try in the near future is to look at the embryonic teeth themselves," he said. "They're very cool."

Follow Stephanie Pappas on and . Follow us , & . Original article on LiveScience.com.

LONDON (Reuters) - AstraZeneca's sales fell by a bigger-than-expected 13 percent in the first quarter as patent expiries took a heavy toll, underscoring the turnaround challenge facing Britain's second-largest drugmaker.

Much of the damage was caused by loss of exclusivity on antipsychotic medicine Seroquel and heart drug Atacand in many markets.

But the company's top-selling cholesterol fighter Crestor was also hit by generic competition in Canada, pricing pressure in Australia and worse-than-expected sales in the United States.

The poor performance suggests new Chief Executive Pascal Soriot has his work cut out to reverse the fortunes of the struggling drugmaker, despite some tentative signs of improvement in a few growth areas.

Demand for Brilinta - a new heart drug for which AstraZeneca has high hopes - picked up modestly to $51 million from $38 million in the last quarter of 2012.

Emerging markets were also a relative bright spot, with sales up 9 percent at constant currencies, largely driven by a 21 percent increase in China. Sales of a number of diabetes products, however, were lower than analysts had hoped.

"While it may be premature to judge the performance of Astra's growth platforms at this early juncture, some investors may be disappointed," said Berenberg analyst Alistair Campbell.

AstraZeneca reiterated its expectation for a mid-to-high single digit percentage fall in revenue this year, with earnings declining significantly more due to increased operating costs.

Sales in the quarter of $6.39 billion generated "core" pre-tax profit, which excludes certain items, down 25 percent at $2.23 billion and earnings down the same amount at $1.41 a share, the company said on Thursday.

Analysts had, on average, forecast sales of $6.51 billion and earnings of $1.31, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

The beat on earnings reflected a lower-than-expected tax rate and lighter-than-anticipated expenditure, although with the full-year outlook unchanged this phasing impact is not likely to affect full-year earnings forecasts.

Shares in the group fell 2.6 percent by 0930 GMT.

In addition to the weak sales picture, there was also uncertainty over a new U.S.-led inquiry into manufacturing standards at a site in northern England.

BRILINTA INVESTMENT

Chief Financial Officer Simon Lowth said AstraZeneca's strategy was on track, in terms of investing for future growth, with a lot more effort being put behind the promotion of Brilinta in the U.S. market in particular.

"We expect to see the (Brilinta) trajectory really start to steepen and accelerate on the back of those investments towards the back-end of this year," he told reporters in a conference call.

CEO Soriot, who joined from Roche last October, set out a far-reaching plan last month to return the group to growth by axing one in 10 jobs and reorganising its drug research operations.

His plan promises no quick fixes, although he aims to double the number of drugs in late-stage development by 2016 and he says he will scour the industry for bolt-on acquisitions with which to replenish the company's medicine cabinet.

Soriot has said on several occasions that he would prefer a series of smaller "bolt-on" deals rather than a large, transformational transaction.

Whether Soriot will deliver in the long term remains to be seen - but his arrival at the group has not been cheap, leading to complaints from some shareholders about his pay package.

A group representing local pension funds in Britain is recommending that its members vote against Soriot's pay at the company's annual meeting later on Thursday.

AstraZeneca shares trade at a discount to other large pharma companies, at less than 10 times this year's expected earnings compared with close to 15 for GlaxoSmithKline and Novartis.

That reflects analyst forecasts of sliding sales and profits for several years, with its two top drugs - Nexium for stomach acid and Crestor - facing loss of U.S. patent protection in 2014 and 2016, respectively.

With cash flows set to decline, rating agencies have recently become more gloomy on AstraZeneca, with Moody's this month downgrading its credit rating for the company and Standard & Poor's cutting its outlook to negative.

(Editing by Jane Merriman and Helen Massy-Beresford)

The technology’s main goal is to enhance the patient care and family experience, including enabling real-time feedback from the patients and families to health care professionals through the GetWellNetwork IPC system. Before the hospital installed GetWell Town, response time from staff was limited to sharing verbal feedback and requests. Today this IPC technology allows patients and their parents to ask questions, provide input and become more involved in the rehabilitation program through engaging videos and written information. GetWell Town also enables Children’s Specialized Hospital to provide better service and address issues in real time across the many hospital departments.These collective features improve patient satisfaction, care and compliance with discharge instructions, while also lowering the cost per patient and improving response time to patient issues.

“GetWellNetwork has already streamlined communication between the Children’s Specialized Hospital teams and our patients. Empowering both parties with 24-7 access to information has improved the overall patient experience,” said Phil Salerno, president and chief development officer of Children’s Specialized Hospital Foundation. “Every child, family member and staff member has been positively impacted by L’Oréal USA’s generous donation; our patients and families are happier and more comfortable with access to technology and entertainment, and our clinical team is thrilled the family has immediate access to educational materials and can identify and solve challenges quicker than we have seen before.”

PSE&G Children’s Specialized Hospital is the only pediatric rehabilitation hospital in the country to provide this advanced IPC system and has been able to do this through its partnership with L’Oréal USA. The annual L’Oréal USA “Fore the Children” charity golf event in September raised $550,000 and supported a large portion of the cost of the GetWellNetwork interactive patient care program. The GetWellNetwork solution is deployed in over 25 of the top children's hospitals in the country.

The first and only interactive patient care system specifically developed for pediatric patients and their families, GetWell Town is an effective way for hospitals to engage with children and their families throughout their hospital stay. It offers a personalized experience where patients and their families will interact with a computer program tailored to the patient’s age, care and condition for a personalized experience. Each patient has access to games, movies, music, condition-specific educational videos, the Internet, email, hospital dining and general information about Children’s Specialized Hospital.

L’Oréal USA is a long-time supporter of Children’s Specialized Hospital. To date, L’Oréal USA has raised $2 million through its annual charity event. The proceeds have been used to renovate therapy rooms, create a family resource center, honor employees and support additional events since 2008. In addition to the annual charity gold event, L’Oréal employees volunteer at a number of Children’s Specialized Hospital-run events year-round.

“Many L’Oréal USA employees have developed a deep rooted commitment to the welfare of Children’s Specialized Hospital,” says Morris Lenczicki, Vice President of Industrial Systems Applications at L’Oréal USA. “Over the years of supporting the hospital, we have learned that many of our employees and partners are amongst the thousands of families that have been and will be positively impacted by CSH.”

About Children’s Specialized Hospital

Children’s Specialized Hospital is the preeminent provider of rehabilitation services for children with special needs. The hospital serves children affected by brain injury, spinal cord injury, premature birth, autism, developmental delays, and life-changing illnesses. Children’s Specialized Hospital has ten sites in New Jersey and treats 20,000 children each year, making it the largest pediatric rehabilitation system of its kind in the nation. Services include outpatient services, acute rehabilitation, and long-term care through its sites in Bayonne, Clifton, Egg Harbor Township, Mountainside, Toms River, Fanwood, Hamilton, New Brunswick and Roselle Park as well as outreach programs in many communities.Children's Specialized Hospital is an affiliate member of the Robert Wood Johnson Health System and a proud member of the Children's Miracle Network Hospitals. Children’s Specialized Hospital Foundation supports the programs and services of the hospital. The Foundation is ranked among the top six pediatric hospital foundations in the country. To help, or find more information: visit ; find us on Facebook - , or follow us on Twitter .

About L’Oréal USA

L'Oréal USA, headquartered in New York City, is the #1 wholly-owned subsidiary of L'Oréal SA, the world’s leading beauty company. In addition to corporate headquarters in New York, L'Oréal USA has Research and Innovation and Manufacturing and Distribution facilities across seven other states including New Jersey, Kentucky, Arkansas, Illinois, Ohio, Texas and Washington. For more information on our brands visit .Follow us on Facebook at L'Oreal USA - Corporate Facebook Page and Twitter @LOrealUSACorp.

About GetWellNetwork

GetWellNetwork, Inc.® provides patient engagement solutions that help health care providers engage, educate and empower patients along the care continuum.Our patient-centered platform, delivered across multiple technology platforms including mobile devices, computers and televisions, enables providers to implement a revolutionary care delivery model called Interactive Patient Care™ to improve performance and patient outcomes.The company further extends the value of existing IT investments by integrating seamlessly with electronic medical record and patient portal applications. More information about GetWellNetwork can be found at .

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Rebecca MazzarellaChildrens Specialized Hospital908-447-8126

Sunday's vote is also an important milestone in Paraguay's attempt to regain the international acceptance it lost when neighboring nations objected to the fast-track removal of President Fernando Lugo. The expedited impeachment of Lugo last year conformed to Paraguay's constitution but was criticized by its neighbors as an "institutional coup" that threatened democracies around the region.

Regional blocs such as Mercosur suspended Paraguay's membership following Lugo's ouster, but all signs indicate that Paraguay's neighbors will re-engage the country after the election to replace Federico Franco, who served out Lugo's term and is not eligible to seek a new one.

Most polls indicate that tobacco magnate and soccer executive Horacio Cartes of the Colorado Party, which held power for 61 years before losing to Lugo at the polls, will win handily over his chief rival, Sen. Efrain Alegre of Franco's Liberal Party.

A handful of candidates trail them, including Anibal Carrillo of the leftist Guasu Front coalition led by Lugo, who is seeking to return to politics as a senator.

A presidential candidate can be declared winner with a plurality, and there is no runoff.

Some likened the vote to the 2009 presidential election in Honduras that gave other nations reason to re-embrace the Central American country five months after President Manuel Zelaya was grabbed by soldiers while still in his pajamas and flown to Costa Rica.

"The election in Honduras ultimately was important," said Gregory Weeks, a political scientist specializing in Latin America at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. "It was contested and there might have been controversy, but what it did was it got the country sufficiently past the crisis to allow it to be accepted by all the rest of the region again."

Whoever wins in Paraguay will have to deal with problems that have been endemic for decades in this landlocked nation of about 6.2 million people, most notably the yawning gulf between the haves and have-nots.

Paraguay is South America's No. 3 producer of soy, corn and sunflower, but about 1 percent of the population controls 77 percent of the arable land. More than half of the people live in poverty, according to U.N. statistics. Paraguay's census bureau puts the poverty figure lower, at around 39 percent.

Both leading candidates have said they will try to change that.

"I have a project to modernize the country with infrastructure works and especially to give work to the people," Alegre said in a recent interview with The Associated Press.

Cartes declined an interview request but said in a debate that foreign investment for job creation would be a key part of his anti-poverty platform.

Cartes also touched off controversy on the campaign trail by comparing gays to "monkeys." He told Chaco Boreal radio this week that he opposes gay marriage because of his Roman Catholic faith, and joked that if his son ever told him he wanted to wed another man, he would shoot himself in the private parts.

Alegre has also said he is against gay marriage.

The impoverished majority had high hopes that Lugo, a bearded, sandal-wearing former "bishop of the poor," might ease their pain when they put him into office in 2008, but he was unable to make much headway against opposition in Congress and elsewhere in government.

"Once in power, Lugo gave positions at ministries to progressive or leftist parties," analyst Alfredo Boccia said. "But that ... was just about participation and not about power, because the conservative interests like the big soy and cattle ranches, and the thousands of landless farmers, remain intact."

A deadly clash over land ultimately led to Lugo's downfall, with opponents and former allies alike quickly voting to oust him last June for "poor job performance" after a Senate trial lasting a few hours.

With the Colorado party, which was allied with Stroessner, once again ascendant, Weeks said Paraguay's power class is looking to shore up its tight control.

"It was very clear that Paraguay's brush with a leftist president shook up the establishment to a point where it's trying to regain equilibrium," Weeks said. "I think you're seeing elites kind of coming back together to prevent that from happening again."

The new president takes office Aug. 15.

___

Orsi reported from Havana. Follow him on Twitter at www.twitter.com/Peter_Orsi