Last week I made the appointment and was given a fantastic facial by this mom. I didn't tip her afterward because I wasn't sure how to handle a gift like this.

Was I right in not tipping her? Since this was a gift from her, I'm hoping I didn't insult her by not offering one. If I was wrong, I'd like to go back and give her the tip she would have earned. -- WONDERING TEACHER IN CALIFORNIA

DEAR TEACHER: Because the gift certificate came from the person who delivered the service to you, you did not insult her by not offering a gratuity. (In fact, had you offered one for her gift, it might have been taken the wrong way.) If the facialist who performed the service had been someone other than the mother, a tip would have been in order, but not in a case like this.

The proper way to convey your gratitude for her fantastic facial would be to write a short note telling her what a treat it was and how much you enjoyed her gift.

DEAR ABBY: My 14-year-old granddaughter, "Grace," has confided to me that she's smoking pot and drinking. When I asked her why, she said she does it to make herself feel better. I told her she has a serious problem, and something has to be done.

Grace doesn't want to tell her parents and, frankly, I think they would just yell and scream and not understand what's really going on. At this point, I don't know what to do. The person who's supplying my granddaughter is someone who is always around. I refuse to have that other girl in my home, but I can't tell Grace's parents why. What should I do? -- IN A FIX IN CALIFORNIA

DEAR IN A FIX: You're correct that this is serious, and something does have to be done. Alcohol and weed are not the solutions to your granddaughter's problem. Self-medicating won't fix what's wrong and could make her problems worse.

Grace needs to be evaluated and diagnosed by a physician. The way to ensure that it happens is to talk to her parents about the fact that you're worried about her. If you make clear that Grace is getting stoned to "feel better" and not partying, they may be less inclined to react with anger.

DEAR ABBY: My 25-year-old grandson has a problem, and we don't know where to turn.

Through student loans he has managed to get degrees in chemical engineering and biology with good grades. The problem is, he can't interview. He freezes up and is afraid to face the interviewer. This means he is unemployable.

He has no assets or income and lives with his parents. His father is disabled and hasn't worked in years. Can you recommend any organizations, doctors or medications that can help him? -- HOPEFUL IN MICHIGAN

DEAR HOPEFUL: Your grandson needs to discuss his problem with a psychotherapist who can help him overcome his disabling insecurity and perhaps prescribe a medication for his anxiety. There is a cure for his problem, and this is the quickest way to find it.

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.

JERSEY CITY, New Jersey (Reuters) - Jordan Spieth is soaking up the atmosphere at scenic Liberty National for the start of the FedExCup playoffs, but the 20-year-old will be all business by Thursday's first round of the lucrative series.

"I haven't been to New York City since I was probably 10 years old, so I don't remember it much," the American told reporters on Tuesday.

"Just being in the area is really special, seeing the Statue of Liberty (from) the golf course and the course in general, there's not a blade of grass out of place.

"I'm just extremely kind of honored to be here. Starting the year, I had no idea that this would be a potential opportunity for me, and I'm happy to be in the top10 starting the FedExCup playoffs and control my own destiny from here."

The Texan leads a group of young guns into the playoff series which pays the overall winner a $10 million prize.

Spieth, who last month at age 19 became the youngest winner of a PGA Tour event in 82 years, lost a chance to notch a second tour win in a Wyndham Championship playoff on Sunday against another up-and-comer, 23-year-old compatriot Patrick Reed.

"It's pretty wild," Spieth said about a season that started with him playing on sponsors' invites and blossomed into seven top-10s from 19 starts and $2.6 million in earnings.

Spieth's giant step in 2013 has put him into the company of FedEx points leader Tiger Woods and this year's majors winners Phil Mickelson (British Open), Justin Rose (U.S. Open) and Adam Scott (Masters) among the leading contenders.

Four years ago, when The Barclays was last played at Liberty National, Spieth was winning the U.S. Junior Amateur about 40 miles away at Trump National in Bedminster, New Jersey.

"At the beginning of (each) year, I've had a goal to achieve, to reach that new, higher level," said Spieth, who won his maiden PGA Tour title at the John Deere Classic.

"So far each year, I've been on track, and this year, maybe skipped a few steps. I don't really think of my age as my age. When you're out here, everyone's your peer. New goals come up each day that I'm trying to reach out and accomplish."

LATEST GOAL

His latest goal will be to win the first step in the four-event FedExCup series at Liberty National, a reclaimed landfill that affords spectacular views of Lady Liberty and the lower Manhattan skyline.

Spieth said he and other young players - including 2013 winners Russell Henley (Sony Open), Derek Ernst (Wells Fargo), Harris English (St. Jude Classic) and Reed - were well prepared.

"The game's getting younger. There's just more better, younger players. You have to step up your game just to compete against kids your own age," he said.

"You see teenagers now consistently making cuts on the PGA Tour when they get starts, and that I think just has to do with the fact that the AJGA (American Junior Golf Association) now is playing golf courses set up like PGA Tour events.

"The other players are getting better and better, and same at the college level, that's just a step up."

Spieth, who left U.S. national college champions Texas to try his hand on the tour, said he greatly admires what Woods has accomplished but is not cowed by the numbers.

The confident American stands 78 career wins behind 37-year-old Woods, who has won five times on the PGA Tour this year.

"It is extremely hard to fathom 78 times, but I'm going to strive for it," Spieth said.

When asked what he thought about a possible eventual Tiger target of 100 career PGA wins, Spieth said: "He's separating himself as No. 1 in the world right now again, just like he was when I was growing up, and that's something that me personally and everybody else...is striving to close the gap, and surpass.

"Everyone wants to be the best player in the world. If that means you've got to win 101 times, that means you're going to try."

(Reporting by Larry Fine; Editing by Mark Lamport-Stokes)

SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Malaysian entrepreneur Matt Chandran wants to revive the moribund post-mortem by replacing the scalpel with a scanner and the autopsy slab with a touchscreen computer.

He believes his so-called digital autopsy could largely displace the centuries-old traditional knife-bound one, speeding up investigations, reducing the stress on grieving families and placating religious sensibilities.

He is confident there's money in what he calls his Autopsy as a Service, and hopes to launch the first of at least 18 digital autopsy facilities in Britain in October, working closely with local authorities.

Around 70 million people die each year, says Chandran, and around a tenth of those deaths are medico-legal cases that require an autopsy. "That's a huge number, so we're of the view that this is a major line of services that is shaping up around the world," he said in an interview.

The poor common perception of autopsies has undermined their commercial appeal. "Unfortunately, because the process of the post-mortem is seen as gruesome, one tends to ignore that," says Chandran.

Humans have been cutting each other open for at least 3,000 years to learn more about death, but the autopsy has never been widely embraced outside TV crime dramas. Surgeons in 18th century Britain, for example, robbed graves for corpses to dissect, some even commissioning murders when supplies dried up.

By the 1950s, the autopsy was at its zenith, with pathologists performing post-mortems on more than 60 percent of those who died in the United States and Europe - helping uncover more than 80 major, and perhaps thousands of minor, medical conditions.

But the number of autopsies has fallen steadily: Today, fewer than 20 percent of deaths in Britain are followed by autopsy, and most of these are ordered by coroners in cases where the cause of death is unclear or disputed.

The fall has been blamed on a growing distaste for a procedure regarded by some as crude and outdated - a feeling fanned by the public discovery in Britain in 1999 that medical institutions had been retaining organs and tissue after post-mortems for decades.

DIGITAL MAKEOVER

Chandran, 45, wants to change all this by simply connecting his company iGene's 3D imaging software to any standard medical CT or MRI scanner. An expert can then inspect the virtual cadaver in 3D, removing layers of cloth, skin and bone with a mouse or by gestures on a tabletop touchscreen.

The advantages, Chandran says, are considerable.

The digital evidence remains intact and can be reviewed; experts can more easily spot and identify fracture, foreign objects such as bullets, and the tips of knife wounds; and grieving families can swiftly learn how their loved ones died and without having to cut open the body.

iGene isn't the first to run a scanner over a corpse. Radiology has been used on skulls for 30 years, and Israel first introduced the concept of a virtual autopsy in 1994. The U.S. military started conducting CT scans of all soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan in 2004 in addition to traditional autopsies.

The results have been encouraging. Researchers from University College London concluded that in fetuses and individuals aged 16 and younger, a minimally invasive autopsy incorporating an MRI scan identified the same cause of death as 90 percent of traditional autopsies.

COMMERCIALISE

But iGene is, Chandran says, the first to package the process and offer it commercially as a suite of services that stretches from the moment of death to the delivery of a post-mortem report.

His company provides a software suite that uses existing medical scanners from the likes of Siemens, General Electric, Toshiba and Philips. These form the heart of iGene's digital autopsy facilities which the company plans to build close to UK mortuaries. The first will open in October in the northern English city of Sheffield.

A spokesperson for Sheffield City Council confirmed it was working with iGene on such a centre, but declined to give details.

Chandran says his company will spend around $77 million to build and run the facilities and will make its money from those cases where a coroner demands a post-mortem. About 200,000 deaths require autopsies each year in Britain, he said.

Next of kin will be given the option of a classical autopsy, paid for by the state, or a digital autopsy, costing about 500 pounds ($780) and paid for by the family.

SKEPTICS

Not everyone believes the digital autopsy is ready for prime time. Some question whether it can spot some diseases. And even a pioneer like Guy Rutty, chief forensic pathologist at the University of Leicester and the first to use CT images as evidence in a criminal trial, says that while demand may be growing there are limits to what a digital autopsy can do - particularly determining where and in some cases when a patient died.

"There are centers providing such services, but others have been more cautious and are still at a research stage," he said in an email interview.

Chandran and his team are undeterred. They say the digital autopsy facility combines with other non-invasive diagnostic tools such as angiography and toxicology.

Pramod Bagali, chief operations officer of iGene's parent company InfoValley, says the system is "a complementary method, not a complete replacement" to traditional autopsies, but could handle 70 percent of routine cases. The others could be done digitally to start with and then a decision could be made about whether to open up the body. "It's not replacing one flawed system with another," he says.

Crucially, iGene offers a business model that overcomes concerns that scanning corpses is expensive, says Chandran. He estimates his UK operation will be profitable within three years. But that, he says, is just the start. By then, he says, he hopes to have built at least 10 more facilities in his native Malaysia, with interest also from the Middle East, Latin America and elsewhere in Asia.

"The potential for this is global," said Mark Rozario, CEO of Agensi Inovasi Malaysia, a government body which this year bought a 20 percent stake in iGene for $21.5 million.

SUPPORTERS

Chandran and his supporters see this as the beginning of his innovation, not the end of it. The digital autopsy facilities are nodes in a broader ecosystem Chandran likens to Apple Inc's iTunes.

Michael Thali, a Swiss academic who has been promoting a "virtual autopsy" for more than a decade, said he tried and failed to get the scanner makers interested in developing such services. Now an adviser to iGene, Thali says this leaves open the field to other companies to deliver improvements in the chain of examination.

"The future will be for smaller companies who are bringing a service for this niche," he says. "The most important thing is that you have a real chain based on IT."

This is some way off - and may never happen.

Milos Todorovic, lead analyst at Lux Research and a specialist in medical innovation, says that while iGene's approach is intriguing, it faces hurdles - not least the fact that the company is starting from scratch in an expensive business. "A lot of things would have to fall into place for them to be able to succeed with something like this," he said.

That isn't stopping Chandran from dreaming big - including the idea of scanning the living as part of any regular medical checkup.

"Just like a birth certificate starts with the birth of a baby, the end of a person's life will end with a report in which the 3D body of a person is captured," he said. "In that way we can archive every person born on this planet."

(Editing by Ian Geoghegan)

The Spaniard's comments came the day after the club's director of communications Alan Myers branded the bids for Belgium midfielder Marouane Fellaini and England defender Leighton Baines as "derisory and insulting".

"It's been well documented what happened with the transfer speculation, that's been dealt with and it was all a little bit of a waste of time - time I don't want the players to waste," Martinez told Everton Television.

He questioned whether the transfer window should even still be open when the season was underway, echoing the views of Newcastle United manager Alan Pardew who on Monday was angry about the timing of an approach by Arsenal for midfielder Yohan Cabaye.

"I'm not a big believer in having the window open while the games are starting," Martinez said. "I think the start of the season was important for us at Norwich (a 2-2 draw) and I won't come out now and carry on talking about the speculation.

"When there is something to tell our fans we will do that - they'll be the first ones to know if there are any players coming in or any players going out.

"But I don't believe in getting involved in the transfer window when the games are underway and we are in a very, very important moment of our season," said Martinez.

"We're trying to find our feet, we've got a good start under our belts, we've got real competition for places and we've got the visit of West Brom at the weekend."

According to media reports United, now managed by former Everton boss David Moyes, offered a total of 28 million pounds for Fellaini and Baines.

United, who began their title defence with a 4-1 win at Swansea City on Saturday, are yet to make a significant transfer-window signing with their public pursuit of Barcelona's Cesc Fabregas so far coming to nothing.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The tug-of-war between five teams to sign Dwight Howard finally ended on Friday when the seven-time All-Star center confirmed he would leave the Los Angeles Lakers to join the Houston Rockets.

"I've decided to become a member of the Houston Rockets," Howard, who is expected to sign with the Rockets on July 10 when the NBA's free-agent signing period begins, said in a statement.

"I feel it's the best place for me and I am excited about joining the Rockets and I'm looking forward to a great season. I want to thank the fans in Los Angeles and wish them the best."

The Lakers earlier confirmed they had lost the battle to retain the 27-year-old, who moved to Los Angeles from the Orlando Magic in a blockbuster 12-player trade in August 2012.

"We have been informed of Dwight's decision to not return to the Lakers. Naturally we're disappointed," Lakers general manager Mitch Kupchak said in a statement.

"To Dwight, we thank him for his time and consideration, and for his efforts with us last season. We wish him the best of luck on the remainder of his NBA career."

SUBSTANTIAL PAYCUT

Free agent Howard, who had also been courted by the Dallas Mavericks, the Atlanta Hawks and Golden State Warriors, favored a move to Houston despite the prospect of a substantial paycut.

He would have been eligible to sign for five years and $118 million with Los Angeles or four years and $88 million with any other team.

Howard had also informed the Mavericks, the Hawks and the Warriors earlier on Friday that he would not be signing with any of them.

A three-time NBA defensive player of the year, popularly known as 'Superman' for his athletic prowess, Howard consulted all five teams earlier this week.

The Lakers met with Howard on Tuesday and their pitch focused on how they would be able to embellish his brand off the court while returning on-court greatness to a franchise that has piled up 16 NBA championship titles.

Lakers All-Star Kobe Bryant, a five-time NBA champion, played a key role in the woo-ing.

However, Bryant and Howard did not always see eye-to-eye last season under the guidance of coach Mike D'Antoni, and the Lakers were eliminated from the first round of the playoffs.

The prospect of being the kingpin on an ambitious Rockets team which also includes James Harden, Chandler Parsons, Jeremy Lin and promising center Omer Asik was always likely to be an alluring one for Howard.

His arrival in Houston makes the Rockets genuine contenders for the Western Conference championship.

(Editing by Ian Ransom)

ISON, which almost immediately after its discovery last September was branded as a "" candidate, now seems in jeopardy of completely disintegrating before skimming just 724,000 miles (1.16 million kilometers) above the surface of the sun on Thanksgiving Day (Nov. 28).

Since early June, ISON has been unobservable because of its close proximity to the sun in our sky. The comet is now slowly moving out of the bright solar glare and is becoming better placed for viewing in the morning, low in the eastern sky just before sunrise. []

When thevanished a couple of months ago, it had brightened very little if at all since the beginning of 2013. Astronomers had hoped that, while masked by the light of the sun, ISON would begin brightening at a more robust pace as it drew nearer to our star.

Unfortunately, that has not happened.

Early on Monday (Aug. 12), Arizona amateur astronomer Bruce Gary became the first person to pick upsince it disappeared in early June. By stacking images acquired by an 11-inch telescope pointing just 6 degrees above the eastern dawn horizon, he succeeded in recording a fuzzy patch of light with a short tail at the comet's predicted position among stars that are as faint as magnitude 16.

Measuring the image, Gary a retired radio astronomer and atmospheric scientist came up with a total magnitude of 14.3 0.2. That is at least two magnitudes fainter than most predictions, and more than a thousand times fainter than the dimmest star that can be perceived with the unaided eye.

Sunday, August 18

Belenenses 0 Rio Ave 3

Maritimo 2 Benfica 1

Gil Vicente 2 Academica 0

Sporting 5 Arouca 1

Vitoria Setubal 1 Porto 3

Saturday, August 17

Estoril 3 Nacional Madeira 1

Vitoria Guimaraes 2 SC Olhanense 0

Friday, August 16

FC Pacos de Ferreira 0 Braga 2

Standings P W D L F A Pts

1 Sporting 1 1 0 0 5 1 3

2 Rio Ave 1 1 0 0 3 0 3

-------------------------

3 Porto 1 1 0 0 3 1 3

3 Estoril 1 1 0 0 3 1 3

-------------------------

5 Gil Vicente 1 1 0 0 2 0 3

5 Braga 1 1 0 0 2 0 3

5 Vitoria Guimaraes 1 1 0 0 2 0 3

-------------------------

8 Maritimo 1 1 0 0 2 1 3

9 Benfica 1 0 0 1 1 2 0

10 Nacional Madeira 1 0 0 1 1 3 0

10 Vitoria Setubal 1 0 0 1 1 3 0

12 Academica 1 0 0 1 0 2 0

12 FC Pacos de Ferreira 1 0 0 1 0 2 0

12 SC Olhanense 1 0 0 1 0 2 0

-------------------------

15 Belenenses 1 0 0 1 0 3 0

-------------------------

16 Arouca 1 0 0 1 1 5 0

1-2: Champions League / EC I

3-4: Champions League preliminary round

5-7: Europa League

15: Relegation play-off

16: Relegation

The move will bring the U.S. Open into line with Wimbledon and the Australian Open which both have retractable roofs on their centre courts. The French Open has announced plans to cover its main court.

Two new stadiums will be also be added as part of a $550 million overhaul of the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in Flushing Meadows, New York, a project which should be completed by 2018.

"In order to have spectacular facilities we want to make sure we have the excitement and the energy that New York deserves and the world comes to see," Dave Haggerty, the USTA's chairman of the board, said at a news conference.

"Our strategic mission, when completed, will have a couple of new stadiums, a better fan experience, we will have wider walkways so that people can get around and, yes, as you have heard, there will be a roof on Arthur Ashe Stadium.

"In addition Louis Armstrong (Stadium) will have a roof as well."

The Arthur Ashe Stadium roof, teflon-coated and translucent in appearance, will measure 200,000 square feet and organizers hope to have it installed "at the earliest for the 2016 U.S. Open and most likely by the 2017 U.S. Open".

A new 8,000-seat Grandstand Stadium court will be constructed in time for 2015 followed by a 15,000-seat Louis Armstrong Stadium court to be opened before the 2018 edition.

"We recognize there are many known, and certainly many unknown, hurdles we will have to confront to meet this schedule," said USTA executive director Gordon Smith. "We are ready for the challenge and hope we can achieve it."

MURRAY'S WELCOME

Andy Murray, the U.S. Open champion who is competing this week at the Western and Southern Open in Cincinnati, welcomed the news.

"For TV and stuff it's fantastic," he told reporters. "Always good that you know matches are going to get finished ... rain delays and stuff, it used to be part of it, whereas now that's kind of going away gradually.

"I don't particularly like going from indoors to outdoors to indoors but it's good for TV."

Bad weather has wrought havoc with the U.S. Open schedule in recent years with the men's final, including last year's epic between Murray and Novak Djokovic, being pushed back from Sunday to Monday for the past five years.

Despite frequent calls for a roof, the USTA last year ruled out including one as part of the redevelopment, citing logistical issues.

Opened in 1997, Arthur Ashe Stadium has a 22,500 capacity, making it by far the largest tennis arena in the world but some, such as four-times U.S. Open champion John McEnroe, argued a smaller venue with a roof would have made more sense.

The scale of the arena has been one of the main logistical challenges that has emerged from feasibility studies with the USTA previously saying a roof would be "technically complex and financially challenging".

This year's U.S. Open, which starts on August 26, has a Monday finish included as the official final day for the first time.

The switch to a scheduled Monday finish, unique among the four grand slam events, has been criticized by the men's governing body, the ATP.

(Reporting by Mark Lamport-Stokes in Los Angeles; Editing by Tony Jimenez)

[More from BGR: ]

On the surface, Facebook provides an invaluable resource for fulfilling the basic human need for social connection, social psychologist Ethan Kross told The Telegraph.But rather than enhance well-being, we found that Facebook use predicts the opposite result it undermines it. In other words, the more people used Facebook, the more miserable they grew.

[More from BGR: ]

While scientific,the study was not an extensive one only 82 young adults were observed by Kross and his team while research was being conducted. A link to the full study can be found below.

This article was

The National Association of Realtors said Tuesday that sales reached 4.65 million last year. That's up 9.2 percent from 2011 and the most since 2007. Sales are still below the roughly 5.5 million that are consistent with a healthy market.

Sales dipped in December to a pace of 4.94 million, down from 4.99 million in November. November's figure was revised lower, but was still the highest in three years.

The supply of available homes is shrinking as sales rise. That's pushing up prices. The inventory of homes for sale dropped to 1.82 million in December, the lowest in 12 years.

Still, the housing market is recovering and most analysts expect that should continue this year.

Steady hiring, record-low mortgage rates and a tight supply of new and previously occupied homes available for sale have helped boost sales and prices in most markets.

A measure of U.S. home prices rose 7.4 percent annually in November, real estate data provider CoreLogic said last week.That's the biggest annual increase since 2006, when the housing bubble began to burst. CoreLogic forecasts that home prices will rise 6 percent nationally this year.

Rising demand for homes has persuaded builders to step up construction, which adds to economic growth and hiring.

U.S. builders started work on homes in December at the fastest pace in 4 years, the government said last week. And builders finished 2012 as their best year for residential construction since the early stages of the housing crisis.

The gains in home building helped boost construction hiring in December by 30,000 jobs the most in 15 months.