LONDON — Should your baby be fed according to a schedule or on demand? A new study suggests that demand-feeding is associated with higher IQ scores, but a casual link can not be decided so far.

Researchers at the University of Essex and University of Oxford reported that they investigated data of more than 10,000 children born in the early 1990s in the Bristol area in Britain.

The IQ scores of eight-year-old children who had been demand-fed as babies were between four and five points higher than the scores of schedule-fed children, says the study published in the European Journal of Public Health.

This difference is also evident in the results of tests at ages five, seven, 11 and 14 when the children were in school.

Lead researcher Maria Iacovou, at University of Essex, said: “The difference between schedule and demand-fed children is found both in breastfed and in bottle-fed babies.”

“To give a sense of the kind of difference that four or five higher IQ points might make, in a class of 30 children, for example, a child who is right in the middle of the class, ranked at 15th, might be, with an improvement of four or five IQ points, ranked higher, at about 11th or 12th in the class.”

However, she stressed that at this stage, it should be very cautious about claiming a casual link between feeding patterns and IQ.

“This is the first and only study of its kind, and further research is needed before we can say categorically that how you feed your baby has a long-term impact on his or her IQ and academic attainment, and before we can say definitively what the mechanisms are by which this relationship comes about,” she added. (Xinhua)

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NEW STUDY: MISSISSIPPI HIGH SCHOOL GRADUATION PERCENTAGE RATE INCREASED FROM 2002 TO 2009; NATIONALLY, DROPOUTS REMAIN TOO HIGH

ATT’S ‘SOCIALLY INNOVATIVE’ APPROACH AIMS TO INCREASE HIGH SCHOOL GRADUATES, BOOST WORKPLACE READINESS

JACKSON, Miss., March 19, 2012 /PRNewswire/ – As access to skilled workers becomes increasingly vital to the U.S. economy, ATT* is launching a quarter-billion-dollar campaign to help more students graduate from high school ready for careers and college, and to ensure the country is better prepared to meet global competition.

According to a March 19, 2012 report by Civic Enterprises, the Everyone Graduates Center, America’s Promise Alliance and the Alliance for Excellent Education, Mississippi has seen a 0.8 percentage increase in 2009 graduation rates, compared with data from 2002.

ATT Aspire, already among the most significant U.S. corporate educational initiatives with more than $100 million invested since 2008, will tackle high school success and college/career readiness for students at risk of dropping out of high school through a much larger, “socially innovative” approach. Social innovation goes beyond traditional philanthropy – which typically involves only charitable giving – to also engage people and technology to bring different approaches, new solutions and added resources to challenging social problems.  The Aspire effort already has impacted more than one million U.S. high school students, helping them prepare for success in the workplace and college.  

“It will take all of us working together and supporting the hard work of the education community to continue to improve graduation rates and preparedness for college and future careers,” said Mayo Flynt, ATT Mississippi President. “Businesses in Mississippi have an enormous stake in the success of our students and it is time to commit more innovation and resources to the task.”

The greatly expanded effort centers on a new, $250 million financial commitment planned over 5 years.  ATT Aspire will build on that commitment by using technology to connect with students in new and more effective ways, such as with interactive gamification, Web-based content and social media. The company will also tap the innovation engine of the ATT Foundry to look for fresh or atypical approaches to educational obstacles.  Finally, ATT Aspire will capitalize on the power of personal connections in the form of mentoring, internships and other voluntary efforts that involve many of ATT’s approximately 260,000 employees.

• Between now and April 18, 2012, ATT is also encouraging Mississippi organizations to submit applications to pre-qualify for funding through the Local High School Impact Initiative Requests for Proposals (RFPs). ATT is most interested in funding local programs that have strong, evidence-based practices grounded in the What Works Clearinghouse Dropout Prevention: A Practice Guide and data-driven outcomes demonstrated to improve high school graduation rates. More information on the RFP process is available at www.att.com/education-news (click on the “Aspire Local Impact RFP” option).

“ATT Aspire works toward an America where every student graduates high school equipped with the knowledge and skills to strengthen the nation’s workforce,” ATT Chairman and CEO Randall Stephenson said while announcing the extended commitment during a keynote address at the second annual Building a Grad Nation Summit. The Washington, D.C., event convened by America’s Promise Alliance (http://www.americaspromise.org/), Civic Enterprises (http://www.civicenterprises.net/home.html), The Everyone Graduates Center at Johns Hopkins University (www.every1graduates.org/), and the Alliance for Excellent Education (http://www.all4ed.org/) brings together nearly 1,200 U.S. leaders to discuss progress and challenges in ending the high school dropout crisis.

Lacking a high school degree is a serious issue in the United States, where one in four students – more than 1 million each year – drops out, according to a March 19, 2012, report by Civic Enterprises, the Everyone Graduates Center, America’s Promise Alliance and the Alliance for Excellent Education. ATT is the lead sponsor of this report. Education experts believe that the lack of a high school degree significantly worsens job prospects in a rapidly changing, increasingly sophisticated job market.

And, if dropouts find jobs, they earn less. On average, a high school dropout earns 25 percent less during the course of his or her lifetime compared with a high school graduate and 57 percent less than a college graduate with a bachelor’s degree.[1]

The situation poses a serious risk to American competitiveness as corporations struggle to find talent, especially in the math and sciences fields. The dropout rate, along with inadequate training and education, is keeping many high-paying Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) jobs from being filled. And the situation is expected to worsen as STEM jobs grow a projected 17 percent by 2018. Workers in these positions typically earn 26 percent more than those in non-STEM positions.[2]

Although the problem is serious, there are signs of progress according to the report issued today:

• The high school graduation rate increased by 3.5 percentage points nationally from 2001 to 2009.
• In 2001, the rate was 72.0 percent; by 2009, it had risen to 75.5 percent. From 2002 to 2009, six states experienced large gains in their graduation rates; 14 states made moderate gains; and four states made modest gains (Note: 2002 was the first year that state data became available.)
• And the number of “dropout factory” high schools (a high school where 12th-grade enrollment is 60 percent or less than the 9th-grade enrollment three years previously) dropped from 2,007 to 1,550 from 2002 to 2010 – a 23 percent decrease.

The new and expanded ATT commitment builds on the work ATT Aspire has completed in the last four years. ATT and the ATT Foundation have invested more than $100 million in Aspire since 2008 – and more than $923 million since 1984 in education. The Mississippi Aspire investment has amounted to more than $1.2 million since 2008. Organizations that have benefited include the Mississippi Center for Education Innovation, Jackson State University, Rust College, and many others.  

 ATT Aspire will build on that success by focusing on:

• Technology
  • Collaborating with innovators, educators and other companies at the ATT Foundry (www.att.com/foundry) to blaze new ground in developing solutions to improve education. For example, the company will sponsor challenges or contests for mobile application developers to create cutting-edge solutions to complex problems in our educational system. A June “hackathon” in Palo Alto, Calif., is the first scheduled education/technology development event.
  • Expanding strategic alliances with organizations that specialize in developing and marketing new interactive learning tools which better engage today’s students.
    • Incorporating gamification, the Internet, video and social media into educational programs.
    • Enabling students in underserved communities to explore careers before graduation through internships in areas related to 21st-century skills.
    • Collaborating on a new initiative with GameDesk (http://www.gamedesk.org/), pioneers in game-based and digital learning, combining entertainment with high-quality educational content aimed at equalizing education for all students.

• People
  • Because ATT employees have asked for more opportunities to engage with students and contribute to their success, ATT will launch the Aspire Mentoring Academy later this year. The academy will enable employees to help students at risk of dropping out of school succeed in the classroom and in life.
    • Building on the success of ATT’s first Job Shadow initiative (http://www.att.com/gen/corporate-citizenship?pid=11547) with Junior Achievement (http://www.ja.org/), the next evolution for Job Shadow will create a program in which employee-student teams learn work/life skills, explore real business problems and form lasting relationships. The initial Job Shadow initiative already has involved 100,000 U.S. students, including 498 in Mississippi.
    • ATT employees will provide skills-based mentoring, which pairs them with students based on shared interests to encourage and support career path development.
  • Inspiring more ATT customers, companies and stakeholders to step up to the challenge of addressing the education crisis.

• Communities
  • Deepening the financial commitment to local education-focused groups that deliver results.
    • Especially groups that embrace social innovation, focus on 21st-century skills, or focus on STEM disciplines for students in underserved communities.
  • Making local contributions to community organizations that specialize in helping students and improving the quality of education.

Cautionary Language Concerning Forward-Looking Statements
Information set forth in this news release contains financial estimates and other forward-looking statements that are subject to risks and uncertainties, and actual results may differ materially. A discussion of factors that may affect future results is contained in ATT’s filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. ATT disclaims any obligation to update or revise statements contained in this news release based on new information or otherwise.

*ATT products and services are provided or offered by subsidiaries and affiliates of ATT Inc. under the ATT brand and not by ATT Inc.

About ATT
ATT Inc. (NYSE: T) is a premier communications holding company and one of the most honored companies in the world. Its subsidiaries and affiliates – ATT operating companies – are the providers of ATT services in the United States and around the world. With a powerful array of network resources that includes the nation’s fastest mobile broadband network, ATT is a leading provider of wireless, Wi-Fi, high speed Internet, voice and cloud-based services. A leader in mobile broadband and emerging 4G capabilities, ATT also offers the best wireless coverage worldwide of any U.S. carrier, offering the most wireless phones that work in the most countries. It also offers advanced TV services under the ATT U-verse® and ATT |DIRECTV brands. The company’s suite of IP-based business communications services is one of the most advanced in the world. In domestic markets, ATT Advertising Solutions and ATT Interactive are known for their leadership in local search and advertising. 

Additional information about ATT Inc. and the products and services provided by ATT subsidiaries and affiliates is available at http://www.att.com. This ATT news release and other announcements are available at http://www.att.com/newsroom and as part of an RSS feed at www.att.com/rss. Or follow our news on Twitter at @ATT.

About Philanthropy at ATT
ATT Inc. (NYSE: T) is committed to advancing education, strengthening communities and improving lives. Through its philanthropic initiatives and working with other organizations, ATT has a long history of supporting projects that create learning opportunities; promote academic and economic achievement; and address community needs. In 2011, more than $115 million was contributed through corporate-, employee- and ATT Foundation-giving programs.

[1] “The College Payoff,” Georgetown University Center on Education and Workforce [August 2011]

[2] “STEM: Good Jobs Now and for the Future,” U.S. Department of Commerce Economics and Statistics Administration [July 2011]

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Haute Mommies Bella Babies a Bricks and Mortar maternity baby boutique located in the clear lake area of Houston, TX launches eCommerce shopping experience.

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HOUSTON, March 19, 2012 /PRNewswire-iReach/ — Haute Mommies Bella Babies announces today that it has officially launched its web store at http://hmandbb.com.  Web store co-owners Darcy Santala and Brendan Malloy are “Excited to offer unique maternity and baby clothing, gifts, accessories and gear to the world at large via the ecommerce site.”

(Photo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20120319/CG71478)

Haute Mommies and Bella Babies opened its doors in late November of 2011 and is the vision come to life of Darcy Santala, a former consultant with PricewaterhouseCoopers, who frustrated with the lack of unique maternity and baby options in her area opened the store following the birth of her youngest daughter.  Darcy sighted that she “particularly struggled with finding comfortable, attractive, and work appropriate maternity options during her pregnancies and has sought to fill the gap in available options with stylish clothing that any expecting mom would be thrilled to wear.”

The items available on the web shop are items directly out of the store’s bricks and mortar boutique located in the Clear Lake area of Houston, Texas, and are hand-picked by owner Darcy Santala.  “We stock items that I’ve used myself and with my girls and have had great success with. It is critical to me that we provide our customers with an exceptional experience and only the highest quality goods,” said Darcy when describing her process for stocking only items that meet her high standards of quality and durability. 

As far as competing with the big box stores, Darcy commented, “At Haute Mommies and Bella Babies our customers are our number one priority; we establish lasting relationships and can provide a level of service unavailable with the big guys, we love to cater to our customers.”  All of the employees have experience with babies and are able to answer questions on everything from breastfeeding to what delivery will be like.  As an additional service to its customers, the store offers complimentary gift wrapping, nursery design services, a liberal return policy and a gift registry program all of which Darcy feels are “fundamental tenets of customer service often lost in the large store experience.” 

In addition to http://hmandbb.com, Haute Mommies and Bella Babies offers customers a bricks and mortar retail experience at 477 Bay Area Blvd, Houston, TX 77058.  The store is located in Clear Lake’s new “Baby Center,” next to Bellies and Babies Pregnancy Spa Ultrasound Clinic and Perry’s Steakhouse, with convenient Expectant Mother Parking available. 

Haute Mommies and Bella Babies and  http://hmandbb.com carry more than 50 big name maternity and baby designers, many of which the store is proud to share are made or designed right here in the United States including, Olian, Japanese Weekend, Belabumbum, Maternal America, Citizens of Humanity, Little Giraffe, Bratt Decor, Infantissima,  Jannuzzi, and many more.  The store also stocks hard to find European and Canadian Baby designers including Powell Craft, Absorba, Hatley and of course Sophie the Giraffe.

HMandBB.com services domestic and international customers, offering complimentary domestic shipping on orders over $99.  Like Haute Mommies and Bella Babies at http://www.facebook.com/HauteMommiesandBellaBabies or follow on Twitter at @HM_and_BB.

Media Contact: Darcy Santala of Haute Mommies and Bella Babies, 281-282-9979, darcy@hmandbb.com

News distributed by PR Newswire iReach: https://ireach.prnewswire.com

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LONDON, March 6, 2012 /PRNewswire/ –

On March 8^th style-passport.com celebrates its first birthday and would like to thank everyone for an incredible year.

     (Photo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20120306/517339 )

Launched one year ago on International Women’s Day, style-passport is proud to have grown into a successful and well established online destination for holiday beauty and fashion.

The site was founded by Sarah Walter, (Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, Marie Claire) and has been designed to inspire and style women for life’s best times. Based in London, style-passport operates its own photographic studio and warehouse from which items are sent out to stylish women around the globe.

With over seventy fashion and beauty brands on the site shoppers are invited to browse the site conventionally or shop directly from the online magazine putting chosen items in their ‘suitcase’ as they go. Brands from Missoni to Havaianas, Miller Harris to Carmex and IRO to Converse sit beside new artisanal finds from all over the world.

Sarah Walter comments, ‘Style-passport’s ethos is that style is not exclusively about how much money you have to spend but is about knowing what to choose and how to wear it’.

Style-passport has forged exciting partnerships to both drive brand awareness and to help travellers and holidaymakers make the right style decisions for their adventures. Key partners include The Banyan Tree, Scott Dunn, i-escape, HG2, Travesse and cazenove loyd. Thanks also go to The Club at The Ivy, Soho House, Morton’s and The Groucho for their support.

‘Its been an incredible year’ says Walter ‘remarkable team spirit, hard work and a steep learning curve are made worthwhile when we hear wonderful feedback from our customers’.

contact us at:
style-passport | chandelier building, 8 scrubs lane | london, NW106RB
call: 0844-686-0808
email: hello@style-passport.com
facebook: style – passport.com | twitter: style_passport
Company number: 07308107  |  VAT: 9977628 33

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By Maria Golovnina

LONDON |
Mon Mar 19, 2012 11:03am EDT

LONDON (Reuters) – She was supposed to be the gentler face of a would-be reformist regime. Now Asma al-Assad has become a hate figure for many.

Syria’s London-born first lady, once breathlessly described as a “rose in the desert”, is ensconced at the heart of the shadowy inner circle of President Bashar al-Assad.

As Syria slides towards civil war and foreign powers watch for cracks within the ruling clan, understanding Asma could prove vital to understanding the Assads and the future of the Syrian crisis.

A British-educated former investment banker, Asma cultivated the image of a glamorous yet serious-minded woman with strong Western-inspired values who was meant to humanize the increasingly secretive and isolated Assad family.

That image crumbled when her husband responded to an anti-government rebellion with extreme violence a year ago. Asma had clearly decided to stand by her man despite international revulsion at his actions. Assad himself says he is fighting an insurrection, involving foreign-backed “terrorists”.

Asma’s ancestral home is the city of Homs, now a symbol of the revolt which has been subjected to particularly fierce attack by her husband’s tanks to become ground zero in the year-long conflict.

With her penchant for crystal-encrusted Christian Louboutin shoes and Chanel dresses, Asma is a puzzle for many. The opposition roundly rejects suggestions that she is effectively a prisoner of conscience in the presidential palace.

“She was very much, as we would say, left wing. She (created) a very, very good impression. She seemed to be very bright, very respectful of others,” said Gaia Servadio, a writer and historian who has worked with Asma on several art projects.

“It’s a very nasty regime … Thousands of people have been killed. So it’s very difficult to say: poor woman. She certainly should have found a way to talk.”

The world was smitten by her immaculate facade. In the Western media, Asma, a 36-year-old mother of three, was described as sophisticated, elegant, confident, with a “killer IQ” and an interest in opening up Syria though art and charity.

For those who pinned their hopes on Assad as a potential reformer, his photogenic wife bolstered that image, lending a touch of glamour to his awkward public appearances.

A glowing article in Vogue magazine described her as “a rose in the desert” and her household as “wildly democratic”. A French newspaper said she was an “element of light in a country full of shadow zones”.

People were charmed by her classy demeanor, liberal views and British accent. She received the Gold Medal of the Presidency of The Italian Republic for humanitarian work in 2008 and won an honorary archaeology doctorate from La Sapienza university in Rome.

“THE REAL DICTATOR”

Yet emails published by Britain’s Guardian newspaper this month from accounts believed to belong to the family offer a different portrait, showing her as a capricious dictator’s wife spending tens of thousands of pounds on jewels, fancy furniture, and a Venetian glass vase from Harrods.

“I am the real dictator, he has no choice,” she apparently said in one of the emails in a comment about her husband.

Her London contact, a Syrian businessman, appears to send emails to her using an address he has nicknamed “Party party”.

The story of how the London-born daughter of a Sunni Muslim Syrian doctor married into Assad’s family, members of the powerful minority Alawite sect, reads like a cautionary tale.

She was born in the west London suburbs, whose sleepy streets are lined with neat houses, just like her family’s. Twelve years after she married Assad, the family home appears almost abandoned, its curtains drawn. Neighbors said her father still lives there with his wife, a former diplomat.

“We know they are there but we don’t see them,” said one neighbor, a veiled Arab woman who asked not to be named. No one answered the door bell when Reuters called at the weekend.

A Syrian dissident from Aleppo, who lives nearby and asked to be identified only by his nickname, Zayed, said most Syrians in Britain despised Asma now.

Zayed, angrily comparing Asma to Marie Antoinette or the wife of Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu, called on the Syrian leader’s wife to “make a stand for your own sake, for your own people … She never did.”

A senior member of the British Syrian Society, set up with Assad’s help to promote business ties, said he has met the first couple in London and used warm words to describe them.

“They were quite impressive to talk to. He came across as someone who wanted to listen, get ideas, get advice, open to everybody, he made it plain that he wanted Syrians abroad to help building the country again. He was welcoming and warm.”

Speaking on condition of anonymity in a gentlemen’s club in a smart London neighborhood, he added: “We all felt there was an opportunity that he, the president, representing the younger generation, could lead Syria to a new age of change.

“Perhaps he feels betrayed. Why are they (the West) ganging up on him? Now some people say, he is in full control, others say that he is not. Maybe he is shocked by the fact that … in the end they all turned against them.”

Asma’s father, Fawaz Akhras, a cardiologist and founder of the British Syrian Society, has not responded to a Reuters request for a meeting, made through an intermediary.

“WARLORDS, ONE AGAINST THE OTHER”

Known as Emma to her British friends, Asma spent the first 25 years of her life in North Acton, went to a smart London girls school, Queen’s College, and read computer science at King’s College London.

She was a rising star at JP Morgan when she met Bashar, who had studied ophthalmology in London but was sent home to be groomed for the presidency after his elder brother, Basil, died in a car crash in 1994.

“I was always very serious at work, and suddenly I started to take weekends (off), or disappear, and people just couldn’t figure it out,” she told Vogue. “What do you say – ‘I am dating the son of a president?’”

They married in 2000. What followed was a life full of glamour. They once dined with Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt in Syria. Bashar joked, according to Vogue: “Brad Pitt wanted to send his security guards here to come and get some training!”

One photograph from happier days depicts them playing with their children, toys scattered around on the carpet.

The Assad side of the clan, however, didn’t like Asma, not least because of her Sunni Muslim origins.

“Certainly the Assad family doesn’t like her, to put it mildly … She was constantly under watch, her telephone, she was very careful,” Servadio, who spent time with the family in Syria before the uprising, told Reuters in London.

“She was shouted at. How odd, frankly, (that) somebody who is meant to be the wife of the president who is an autocrat, can be shouted at in this way.” She added: “It was like a mediaeval power, warlords, one against the other.”

CHILLING GLIMPSE

Asma’s husband was elected president with 97 percent of the vote in 2000 after the death of his father, Hafez al-Assad, who had ruled Syria with an iron fist for decades.

Before the start of the 2011 uprising, there was hope Syria could change. Syrians saw his choice of wife as proof that things were about to change.

“When he came to power, people said, ‘Okay … let’s give him a chance and see what he’s going to do,’” said Ghassan Ibrahim, Global Arab Network’s London-based editor. “What happened is that he made corruption even more organized, Mafia appeared, poverty grew sharply … (But) she is standing by the criminal and she supports him.”

Emails leaked by Syria’s opposition offer a chilling glimpse into the lavish lifestyle the couple enjoyed even as Assad’s troops shelled opposition strongholds.

The tone of those emails is incongruously jokey. In one, Asma’s husband disparages his own reforms as “rubbish”. He also shares a pun playing on the words “elections” and “erections”.

Asma appears to have written in an email: “If we are strong together, we will overcome this together … I love you.”

As the revolt unfolded she gradually disappeared from public view but broke her silence in February, saying in a statement: “The president is the president of Syria, not a faction of Syrians, and the first lady supports him in that role.”

In a haunting interview with CNN, looking nervous, she once said: “We are losing time. We are working against the clock. Three thousand and three hundred people injured. More than that, 22,000 people have been displaced from their homes … This is the 21st century. Where in the world could this happen?”

She was talking in 2009 about an Israeli operation in Gaza.

“VIRTUALLY A PRISONER”

Some believe she is a propaganda tool of the Assad family, a liberal going through a moral crisis in Damascus, unable to speak up or escape.

“She is virtually a prisoner. The two of them missed their boat,” said Servadio. “I would certainly accuse him (Assad) of being a coward. … I think he is a puppet, very much used.

“For them (the family) it’s wonderful to have a scapegoat, these two people at the top who are absorbing all the hatred.”

Ibrahim disagreed. “It’s not true at all. Assad has been in power for over 12 years. He is in full control. Giving such excuses to him is unacceptable. They are like the Mafia.”

As battles raged across Syria, Asma kept spending on designer baubles from London, according to the emails.

For ordinary Syrians, Asma al-Assad is now a hate figure.

“They have stolen Syrian money. She is squandering it here in London,” said Fawaz, a man who came to an opposition fund-raising event in London wrapped in a Syrian flag.

“She and her father are accomplices to this crime. They learned nothing from the democracy here in the UK.”

(Writing By Maria Golovnina Editing by Giles Elgood)

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