Fine Jewelery

On her blog last week, the Oscar-winning actress Gwyneth Paltrow revealed that she "had the beginning stages if osteopenia" and has been advised to increase her vitamin D levels as a result. "My levels turned out to be the lowest they had ever seen," she claimed. "I went on prescription-strength levels and was told to spend a bit of time in the sun." It's a curious bit of advice; after all, the need to avoid exposure to ultraviolet rays is perhaps the most ubiquitous health message after that of not smoking. In fact, a moderate amount of sun-exposure can do a world of good – as Paltrow now knows only to well.

Rather than being a "disease" or "condition", osteopenia refers to a range of bone densities that are below average, but not as low as in osteoporosis, to which it's frequently seen as a likely precursor. A range of factors may lie behind the diagnosis; since our bones' renewal and repair slows with age, both conditions are most common in post-menopausal women and in elderly men with low levels of testosterone. In the UK, one in two women and one in five men over the age of 50 will break a bone mainly as a result of osteoporosis.

But the possibility of weak bones is by no means limited to the over-50s. So what can be done to prevent it? Genetic predisposition plays a significant role in determining who will have low bone density, as do lifestyle factors: heavy drinking, smoking and caffeine consumption are all best avoided. Low body weight, low-calcium diets or a history of eating disorders can contribute, too – as can excessive exercise and, more commonly, a sedentary lifestyle.
Much has been made of the link with low vitamin D after Paltrow's diagnosis – and, while not necessarily the overriding cause behind osteoporosis, it is, says Thomson, a common problem: "Vitamin D is a very important player and, yes, we get it from the sun. It's a very difficult message as we don't want to encourage people to get outside and fry, but 20 minutes on the hands and face in the summer months is a good thing."

Inevitably, living in cold climes, British women struggle with this more often that their southern-hemisphere counterparts: "In certain latitudes exposure is a lot more difficult. Whether that has a knock-on effect on osteopenia and osteoporosis has yet to be shown, but having the correct Vitamin D levels is definitely important."

Although it's advisable to adopt early avoidance techniques, specialists don't generally recommend bone density testing until later in life, since most medical treatments aren't licensed below certain ages. In Paltrow's case, her bone-scan followed surgery that she was undergoing at the time.

Once diagnosed, osteopenia is unlikely to be treated with drugs. Instead patients are advised to stick to a balanced diet and engage in regular weight-bearing exercises such as running, aerobics, skipping. All these are excellent preventive measures, too. If the condition progresses to full-blown osteoporosis, a range of treatments become available. Hormone replacement therapy used to be the favoured method, but in recent years there's been a shift towards phosphonate-based drugs.

drive from www.independent.co.uk

Allegations of fraud by charities will no longer be automatically investigated by the Charity Commission if the Government pushes ahead with funding cuts of up to 30 per cent, the head of the organisation warns today.
Andrew Hind, its chief executive, told The Independent that the commission would no longer be able to investigate all allegations of wrongdoing if funding fell by the anticipated 25 to 30 per cent in October's spending review.
Mr Hind, who steps down this week, said this would corrode the public's trust in charities and could stop them making donations.
He said: "Obviously none of us know the outcome of the spending review but we'd probably be right to have serious concerns about where we might be heading.
"There has been talk about spending cuts across the public sector of between 20 and 35 per cent. That would obviously be of serious concern. A lot of the things we have been trying to do would be at risk in a world where we had 25 to 30 per cent less funding."
In its submission to the Government ahead of the review, the commission has warned of the damage the sector would suffer if severe cuts were made.
Mr Hind said: "Concerns about fraudulent expenses claims or money not being used for its intended purpose – at the moment, these are zero-tolerance issues for us because they threaten the public confidence in charities in that local community so we would investigate.
"If we have 30 per cent less funding then... the probability would be that we could not possibly engage with every complaint. My fear would be if that led to a series of incidents where a series of local communities began to lose faith that the money they have given to charity would be used in the right way.
Mr Hind argues that the commission has already seen its funding cut by 16 per cent in real terms since 2005-06, has reduced staff numbers by 30 per cent and will shed another 60 posts by the end of the financial year.
He also warned that many charities could close following public-service cuts. Many charities now derive much of their income from contracts to deliver services for central and local government, which could be lost because of the cuts.
Some charities have told the commission they were in a "double bind" where public donations were down but demand for their services, such as housing, relationship counselling and debt-advice charities, were up.
Other charities that work overseas said they were in a "triple bind", with the pound's falling value also affecting what their donations could buy.
Mr Hind called for a public debate on the way the commission is funded, saying that it was time to consider whether charities should pay towards the cost of their regulator in the same way that banks and broadcasters do.
The commission argues that its running costs are very small in comparison to the size of the sector – there is £52bn of income in the sector and for every £1,000 of that income the commission costs only 58 pence. If this cost were to be passed on to charities, it would mean that charities with an income of £10,000 – half those on the register – would pay £5.80 a year.
Mr Hind acknowledged that the idea would outrage many who would see it as a "tax on charities". He leaves the Charity Commission this week after six years in the role and nearly 30 years in the sector.

drive from www.independent.co.uk

Investigators at Folsom State Prison in California are trying to piece together the series of events that led guards to use semi-automatic weapons to fire on a crowd of unruly inmates, leaving seven men needing hospital treatment for their injuries.

Two hundred prisoners began what a spokesman called a "major riot" in the main exercise yard of the prison, where Johnny Cash played a famous concert in 1968, around 7.30pm on Friday. Fifty officers spent half an hour unsuccessfully trying to contain the violence, firing tear gas and rubber bullets, before they began using live rounds.

"We tried to control the situation with chemical agents dispersed over the crowd," said Folsom's Lt Anthony Gentile. "We fired several rounds of rubber bullets and that didn't stop them from fighting."

The riot ended shortly after guards opened up with mini-14 rifles. None of the injured prisoners are in a life-threatening condition, and no officers were hurt during the incident.

The prison is likely to remain on "lock-down" for several weeks, with inmates largely confined to their cells and prevented from receiving visitors, while investigators work out what caused the riot.

"At this point we have reviewed some of our surveillance tapes and all we've been able to gather is it just erupted all at once," added Lt Gentile. "It started at the handball court and just gradually migrated to several areas of the main yard."

Friday's events were the latest in a series of incidents which have shed a harsh light on conditions at Folsom, a medium-security facility built in 1880, where between 15 and 20 assaults are being reported each week. In November, eight people were injured when another riot, on that occasion involving 120 inmates, broke out in the dining hall.

The institution, roughly 20 miles from Sacramento, owes its fame to Cash, who wrote his song "Folsom Prison Blues" in 1955. Thirteen years later, he erected a makeshift stage in the cafeteria to perform for inmates, in a concert portrayed in the Oscar-winning film Walk the Line. He also recorded an album there.

At the time, Folsom was considered a model facility, and received visitors from across the world hoping to learn from its rehabilitation programmes.

Today, it suffers from chronic over-crowding – 3,540 inmates are held in cells originally designed for 1,800 – and almost all of its education and training courses have been scrapped due to budget cuts.

The prison today is rife with drug and gang activity, inmates are segregated by race, and it was recently described by Lt Gentile as "a pressure cooker". Where Folsom once boasted the best reoffending rates in America, it now has one of the worst: only one in 10 inmates receives any sort of education or training, and 75 per cent return to jail within a year of their release.

In that respect, its condition mirrors that of California's wider prison system, which has for years been in a state of crisis. A series of tough-on-crime laws endorsed by voters mean that even minor crimes attract punitive sentences. A "three strikes" rule passed in 1994 means that third time convictions for offences like shoplifting can result in life imprisonment.

drive from www.independent.co.uk

Primary school pupils in England are missing more lessons without their teachers' permission than a year ago, figures published today show.

Just over 24,200 pupils in primary schools skipped classes without permission on a typical day in the spring term of this year, an analysis of figures from the Department for Education reveals. This compares to almost 21,900 pupils in the spring term of last year.

The government calculates authorised and unauthorised school absence rates by the number of half-days missed.

Some 0.74% of half days were missed within the spring term of this year without teachers' permission, compared to 0.67% of half days in the spring term of last year.

However, unauthorised absence rates among pupils in secondary schools has fallen. This spring term, 44,977 pupils missed classes without permission on an average day, compared to 46,139 last spring term. Some 1.56% of half days were missed without permission this year, compared to 1.59% last spring term.

This equates to almost 69,000 primary and secondary pupils in England missing classes without permission each day.

An increasing number of children are missing lessons because of family holidays taken during term time, the statistics show. Children missed around 1.4 million school days this spring due to holidays – a quarter of these days were not approved by teachers.

Overall absence fell to 5.92% of half days for the spring term, from 6.18% in the spring term of last year. This equates to 364,349 pupils off on a typical day this spring term, compared to 381,534 last spring term.

The schools minister, Nick Gibb, said the level of absenteeism in schools was "still too high". "It's crucial that children are not missing out on valuable lessons that could leave them vulnerable to falling behind. We are putting in place a series of measures to raise standards of behaviour, to put headteachers and teachers back in control of the classroom, and to ensure classrooms are safe and calm places where children can learn."

drive from www.guardian.co.uk

Airy, open-plan living spaces tend to dominate the modern home, but there are some situations when big social layouts become more of a bane than a boon. Lesley and Brian Knox discovered this when their teenage daughter Ella and her friends began to outnumber and out-decibel them in their Edinburgh mews house.

"When they came round to watch TV or play music, it just didn't work. It was too noisy," says Lesley, an investment company manager.

The Knoxes' compact home offered little opportunity to provide additional space for Ella and her pals to hang out. Then a much meatier proposition presented itself.

"There was a silversmith's studio across the lane, which the owner subsequently vacated. And when I saw a For Rent sign appear, I thought, 'That's just what I need – a large room opposite for Ella and her friends," Lesley says. "So we rented it, painted it and, a few months later, the new owner then decided to sell it. This was a killer, as we had occupied it just long enough to realise it was a great place to have. So, although we hadn't intended to, we ended up buying the studio and the cellar below, which belonged to a neighbouring property."

Lesley's idea was to combine the ground-floor studio and basement to create, in essence, a small house, and more specifically living quarters for Ella, 16. "We wanted an architect who would be interested in doing something fun and challenging." And this is what the Knoxes got when they asked architect Wil Tunnell to take on the redesign.

"The vaulted cellar was disconnected to the ground floor above, and that was a conundrum," Tunnell says. "Our proposal involved cutting into the vaults in order to create two bedrooms and bathroom in the basement. We were keen to retain the vaults, as they have real value and beauty, and we wanted to celebrate the cellar's nature as a subterranean space."

drive from guardian.co.uk

The shootout left four people dead, but that was just the beginning. As dust began to settle on a ranch in north-eastern Mexico, thought to have been owned by one of the world's most powerful drug cartels, the battle-hardened Marines stumbled upon their first decomposing corpse.

Minutes later, they found a second, then a third. By the time troops had finished searching the remote property, roughly 90 miles from the US border, a total of 72 contorted bodies had been laid out in rows beneath the summer sunshine. The 54 men and 18 women had all been recently murdered.

A lone wounded survivor, who was left for dead but later stumbled upon a military checkpoint, told local newspapers yesterday that he and the victims were illegal migrants from Central America trying to make their way to the US. They had been taken hostage by the Zetas, a gang of drug-runners who have recently taken to kidnapping and human trafficking. The Ecuadorian man said his group was taken to a ranch by gunmen and shot after they refused to pay ransoms.
The discovery on Tuesday afternoon marked a new low in a brutal conflict that has taken the lives of an estimated 28,000 Mexicans since the President, Felipe Calderon, declared "war" on the nation's wealthy and extraordinarily well-armed drug cartels in 2007.

Troops originally raided the ranch near San Fernando, in the Gulf coast state of Tamaulipas, after a man with gunshot wounds approached a military checkpoint and said he had been attacked by a narcotics gang. Naval helicopters were dispatched to the ranch but, as they approached, several gunmen opened fire with automatic weapons and tried to flee in a convoy of vehicles. In the ensuing shootout, a Marine and three suspected cartel members were killed.

At the ranch, the Marines seized 21 assault rifles, shotguns and rifles, with 6,000 ammunition rounds. Then they discovered what a spokesman called "the lifeless bodies of 72 people". It was not clear whether the victims were separately, or in a single massacre.

Mass graves are becoming an increasingly common by-product of the wave of drug-related violence sweeping the country. In May, 55 bodies were pulled from abandoned mine near Taxco, just south of Mexico City. Last month, 51 more were unearthed from a field next to a rubbish tip near the northern city of Monterrey.

They provide stark reminders of the growing cheapness of life in a conflict that is constantly plumbing new depths of barbarity. Over the weekend, four decapitated bodies, their genitals and index fingers cut off, were hung upside down from a bridge just outside the nation's capital. Two more were dumped nearby on Tuesday.

"The federal government categorically condemns the barbarous acts committed by criminal organisations," the Navy said of the latest atrocity. "Society should condemn these acts, which illustrate the absolute necessity to continue fighting crime with all rigour."

Tamaulipas, on the north-eastern tip of Mexico bordering Texas, provides a stark illustration of the problems facing the forces of law and order across the country, as they attempt to crack down on gangs smuggling cocaine from South and Central America, where it is produced, to the US, where most of it is consumed.

drive from www.independent.co.uk

Like many readers, I suspect, I travelled to Mediterranean parts this summer, finding myself yet again in a food market staring wistfully at the baskets full of spiky green globe artichokes. While locals cheerfully stuffed two or three in their bags, as naturally as an English person might purchase a potato or some broccoli, I was left once again to wonder at the mysteries of this giant edible thistle, a foodstuff exported around the world by the French, Italians and Spanish, but only taking very shallow root in Anglo-Saxon lands.

"They look labour intensive and we're not good at that," says food writer Simon Hopkinson. "Generally on the Continent they're sold with their stalk on and everything, so somebody will look at that and say 'Well, what do we do with that?' I knew what I do what to do from when I was about 15 through going to France with my parents."

Hopkinson is in a small minority of Britons in this respect; the preparation, cooking and eating of the Cynara scolymus remains as mysterious to most of us as the roots of its Latin name. It is one of those culinary rites of passage, like shucking your first oyster, and one that I have personally put off until middle age. I even grow the things on my allotment, but when it comes to harvesting I'm left in the same state of funk as when I visit a Mediterranean food market. The thing looks such a brute.

The late Christopher Lloyd, recalling guests at his home, Great Dixter in East Sussex, once wrote: "There are stuffier adults who are nervous of and unfamiliar with artichokes but don't like to admit it. They pretend they are a lot of fuss about nothing." And history is littered with artichoke-phobes, including Pliny the Elder, who described the vegetable as "one of the earth's monstrosities", and the German poet Goethe, who noted during his travels in Italy that "The peasants eat thistles ... a practice I could never adopt."

Perhaps part of our native unfamiliarity with the foodstuff is related to a decline in the number of restaurants offering it in its most familiar guise – plainly boiled and served as "artichoke vinaigrette". "When I first came to London," says Simon Hopkinson, "you could go to restaurants which had much simpler menus where it would just say 'artichoke vinaigrette'. You would order that and do all the laborious – actually it's not laborious because it's lovely – picking off the leaves and dipping them in a large pot of vinaigrette. There's a place down in Bayswater, a restaurant called Hereford Road, just off Westbourne Grove, and it almost always has artichoke vinaigrette on the menu. "

Indeed Tom Pemberton, chef-patron of Hereford Road, who talked me through the process of preparing and cooking artichoke vinaigrette (see below), says that the dish is in great demand. "We have a large front window here and we tend to put the artichokes there to keep them at room temperature, rather than in the kitchen downstairs," he says. "People walk past, see them and then come in having not booked because of the artichokes in the window. We didn't do it as an advertising thing – it was totally coincidental."

drive from www.independent.co.uk

English teams continue to dominate the Champions League in financial terms even if they failed on the pitch, figures released today by UEFA have revealed.

Despite not progressing beyond the quarter-finals, Manchester United, Chelsea, Arsenal and Liverpool earned a combined total of 140million euros (£114.6million) from television and prize money alone from last season's tournament.

That figure reflects the high value of the new ITV and Sky broadcasting deals for the competition and is comfortably higher that the 116m euros (£95m) earned by the four Italian teams including champions Inter Milan, and the 105m euros (£86m) by the four Spanish teams in the competition.

Inter Milan were the top individual earners with 48.7m euros (£39.8m) followed by Manchester United with 45.8m euros (£37.4m). Arsenal, who also made the quarter-finals, earned £27.3m with Chelsea making £26.3m and Liverpool £23.6m.

The figures reflect a 25% increase in the value of the broadcast deals being paid by ITV and Sky for the television rights for the 2009-12 period and apart from Chelsea, each English club enjoyed an average 10-15% rise compared to the previous season despite having a less successful Champions League.

The figures also highlight the discrepancy with sums earned from the new Europa League, even though that competition has been boosted by central marketing of TV and sponsorship rights.

Beaten finalists Fulham earned 10m euros, or £8.1m, while Everton's income was £2.8m, and Liverpool earned £2.3m after dropping down from the Champions League for the knock-out phase.

The disparity is even sharper in Scotland where Rangers earned 17.1m euros (£14m) for their part in the Champions League, almost ten times as much as Celtic's £1.5m for their Europa League run.

drive from www.independent.co.uk