The statue of John McDouall Stuart in Alice Springs is being turned around to avoid traffic accidents.

Foreign tourists' unfamiliarity with Australian road rules has led to the repositioning of a statue of controversial 19th century explorer John McDouall Stuart in downtown Alice Springs.

The Alice Springs Town Council said it had identified a problem with the placement of the Stuart statue on the hospital lawn after visitors from overseas were seen standing in the middle of a busy intersection to get a photo of the landmark.

A council spokesman told the ABC that stepping on the road was more dangerous to tourists from Europe and North America, as cars in their home countries travelled on the opposite side of the road.

That meant they did not instinctively look in the correct direction for oncoming traffic when moving to a position to take photographs.

Rex Neindorf, who runs the Alice Springs Reptile Centre immediately across the road from the statue, said he had seen many close encounters between pedestrians and cars.

"There was a traffic island in the middle of the road kids were starting from the traffic island, running across the road and up the plinth of the statue, which was causing a number of issues," Mr Neindorf said.

He said it was common to see tourists wander onto the road to take a photo.

"Or they were stopping halfway across the road, taking a photo, almost oblivious of cars, and that was still happening, even with the fence up, so I think this is the right decision," he said.

"It's probably in the right area, but in the wrong place, and in fact it probably should have been placed further into the park."

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Position of Alice Springs statue repositioned to improve safety for foreign tourists

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Wendy Levine and her cousin started a national beauty nonprofit in a California garage in 2008. They stockpiled donated Chanel lipsticks and Murad face creams in places where one would expect to find cars and lawn equipment -- and they dropped them into "bags of beauty" that then made their way to patients all over the country.

Levine, who graduated from Duke in 1995 with a degree in history and later became a lawyer, says she was the last person anyone would have expected to co-found the beauty non-profit known as the Beauty Bus Foundation.

"I dont even wear makeup," Levine said. "But Beauty Bus is about a lot more than just the treatments we provide. It's about providing dignity for people who are dying. It's about providing respite for caregivers. It's about creating volunteers who are more understanding of people with disabilities and people who are sick and really breaking down barriers and creating a more compassionate society. Those are all the reasons I went to law school."

Levine and her cousin Alicia Marantz Liotta launched the Beauty Bus Foundation after Levine's sister Melissa Marantz Nealy died at 28 from adegenerative neuromuscular disease.

When Melissa became homebound due to the disease, Liotta scheduled hairstylists and makeup artists to visit Melissa. Those experiences changed Melissas affect -- giving her happiness and even hope in the midst of great pain. Similarly, Levine says the Beauty Bus Foundation helps patients recover their self-image and their sense of dignity in the midst of illnesses that threaten to rob them of both.

The Beauty Bus Foundation provides in-home beauty treatments and grooming services for patients and their caregivers in the Los Angeles area, sets up "pop-up" salons at non-profits and hospitals and has sent bags filled with pampering products (known as "bags of beauty") to more than 15,000 patients and their caregivers across the country to date. Beauty Bus serves women, men and children -- with their youngest client three years old all the way to 101.

"We make them specific to the people we are sending them to," Levine said. So if it's someone going through cancer treatment, we won't include hair products. If they are finishing cancer treatment, then well include hair regrowth products."

The Beauty Bus Foundation doesn't actually have a bus, and it currently provides in-home services and pop-up salons in the Los Angeles-area only. But putting beauty on the move is part of the foundation's vision. Levine says she hopes to begin Beauty Bus salons in hospitals across the country.

At a small gathering of potential Beauty Bus investors in Chapel Hill last spring, Paula Cook '95, a former classmate of Levine's, said the Beauty Bus mission resonated with her. About two years ago she battled an intestinal illness that shrunk her body weight to 100 pounds and caused her hair to start falling out. She didn't want to go out in public. One day she visited a hairstylist in an effort to feel better about her changing appearance.

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Beauty Bus

Caroly Shumway knows living in the midst of greens isn't always so green.

From fertilizers for the lawn to defective septic systems, suburban life has various sources of bacteria and nutrients that can run into nearby rivers to pollute them, according to Shumway, executive director of Merrimack River Watershed Council.

The council is trying to keep these pollutants from going into the Merrimack River after the federal government awarded $300,000 in grant for the nonprofit agency to work on the initiative. The organization's goal is to plant more trees along some tributaries of the Merrimack and create larger natural buffers for the river that supplies drinking water to 600,000 residents in Massachusetts and New Hampshire.

"This will help clean up the water before it gets to Lowell" and other developed areas, Shumway said.

U.S. Forest Service/Northeast Area State and Private Forestry recently awarded the Merrimack River Watershed Council with a three-year grant called "Expanding Riparian forest buffers in threatened urban and suburban watersheds: A precision storm water approach."

The funding will help the Lawrence-based organization identify three smaller watersheds within the Merrimack River watershed in Massachusetts and another three in New Hampshire where expansion of protection buffers through tree and shrub plantings would make the greatest impact for the water quality of the river.

The MRWC will be working the state Department of Conservation and Recreation, the Nashua River Watershed Association and the University of New Hampshire Cooperative Extension, Shumway said.

The council has already selected five smaller watersheds as potential project sites in Massachusetts. They include three in the Nashua River -- two of which are near the Squannacook River -- one in the Assabet River in the Concord area and Powwow River in the Amesbury area. The Council will eventually choose three of these five sub-watersheds for the project.

The project is important because the U.S. Forest Service identified the Merrimack as one of the most "threatened" rivers in the country in its report in 2010, Shumway said. In that report, the Merrimack ranked first among rivers in the eastern part of the U.S. in terms of the amount of private forested land that will be lost over the next two decades. Over the past years, old mill cities like Lowell installed more storm-water-only sewer pipes to prevent overflow from wastewater treatment plants during heavy rainfalls has helped improve the water quality in the Merrimack. But increasing buffers upstream to filter out pathogens and nutrients is also important, Shumway said.

Shumway said every dollar invested in land preservation for the protection of drinking-water sources translates into $27 savings on the cost of water treatment.

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Trees will help clean Merrimack

The answer by private Little Rock lawyers Jason Owens and Michael Rainwater for County Judge Mickey Pendergrass and other defendants throws the kitchen sink at the lawsuit. Their arguments:

The Humanist Association has no standing. The display doesn't belong to the county (it's erected each year by lawyer Rick Spencer, but the county owns the land on which it stands). The humanists waited too late, until the 2014 holiday season had begun, to request a display of their own "to create disorder." (Not a lot of prep would have been necessary to put up a banner.) Religious displays are allowed constitutionally so long as a reasonable (their emphasis)observer would conclude it was not meant to promote religion. The county passed a resolution meant to put a larger gloss on the event and leased the land so it would not be public land for purposes of the display. (Could they not also lease a square foot or so to the Humanists and similarly adopt a resolution touting a "legacy of freedom" in permitting such a display?) The county has a legitimate secular interest in having the holiday display, to encourage visitors to town to spend money.

Finally, says Baxter County, try again next year. The message, however, seems to hint that the Humanists will be denied and face having to go to court again, perhaps in hope of getting equal treatment under the U.S. Constitution by 2016. Said the answer:

In other words, Baxter County plans massive resistance, at whatever legal cost, to adding a very modest alternative message to a holiday display currently limited to a single religion. OK, it's true. A Santa and Christmas tree have been thrown in to secularize the display a touch.

I still believe odds are strong for an outcome like that ordered by federal Judge Susan Webber Wright, a stalwart Republican, in the case of the attempt by the state to allow only a privately owned Nativity on a patch of state Capitol ground while denying a winter solstice display by free thinkers. The battle for a Christian monopoly Capitol holiday displays was lost.

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Baxter County fights lawsuit over exclusion of humanists from courthouse Christmas display

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CALDWELL Installing solar panels at the Caldwell Wastewater Treatment Plant is becoming a likely option after the governing body received a proposal from PSE&G to complete the project.

Presidentof the Caldwell Environmental Commission Ann Marchioni, presented the idea of installing solar panels at the plant to the council in 2013 and the governing body has been working to make the idea a reality since, according to Marchioni.

The proposal from PSE&G, which was discussed during the Tuesday, Jan. 20 council meeting, outlines the borough would receive four and one-half cents per kilowatt, which is the equivalent of $9,470 per year, according to Borough Administrator Paul Carelli.

Councilman Kris Brown, who formerly served on the Environmental Commission and now serves as the liaison, noted that the payment to Caldwell from PSE&G would increase 2.5 percent annually.

The proposal is for the period of 20 years, according to Marchioni.

PSE&G would install, run and maintain to the solar panels, as well as reach out to West Caldwell for its approval before moving forward.

Although Caldwell owns the Wastewater Treatment Plant, it is located on Pine Tree Place in West Caldwell and would need that towns approval.

Councilman John Cascarano said the situation seems like a win-win, but questioned if there were any comparable situations.

Borough Attorney Greg Mascera said this was the only proposal that they received and he was not familiar with similar situations.

Marchioni stated that Caldwell was getting a really good deal through this proposal.

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Caldwell explores solar panels at sewer plant

Authorities say a Smyrna man threw lawn furniture, plates and other glassware from a second story balcony at officers as they tried to arrest him.

A warrant issued by Cobb County Magistrate Court states Joseph Munoz threw the items from the balcony as officers tried to arrest him at his residence on Cobb Parkway on January 17.

According to the warrant, an officer says Munoz refused multiple commands to come out from his home and to stop throwing objects from his balcony.

The warrant states officers made their way into his home and Munoz continued to refuse repeated order to stop throwing objects at them.

The warrant states officers had to place Munoz back in handcuffs as he was undergoing medical treatment at the Kennestone Hospital.

Police allege Munoz tried to bribe them at the hospital so they would let him go.

According to the warrant, Munoz told one of the arresting officers, I will give you all the money in my account if you let me go.

The warrant also states Munoz admitted to having two partially smoked marijuana cigarettes at his residence.

Munoz has been charged with possession of less than one ounce of marijuana, obstruction/hindering law enforcement, reckless conduct and bribery.

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Report: Cobb County man hurls lawn furniture at police during arrest

Published: Friday, January 23, 2015 at 6:01 a.m. Last Modified: Friday, January 23, 2015 at 12:08 a.m.

The Assisi Bridge House is a halfway home for men 18 and older. Some are there by choice, but most of the clients are court-ordered. Daniel Sugasti, 36, who has been recovering from a heroin addiction at the Bridge House for four weeks, said it was the right option for him.

Drug Court wanted me to come back to New Orleans. I said, 'Maybe that's not the best idea,' he said. I've been to six programs in my life. I don't know what it is about this one, but I feel a lot more comfortable.

Clients stay for four to six months, getting individualized rehabilitation involving medical care, mental health treatment and counseling. They participate in group and one-on-one therapy. Loved ones can visit on scheduled days, and the facility hosts family fun days in the spring and fall.

'We're building something'

Though not affiliated with Narcotics Anonymous or Alcoholics Anonymous, the Bridge House supports the 12-step program, Associate Director Monique Albarado said. Once a month, counselors and other residents evaluate the guys in 12 areas, including leadership, social interaction and emotions. They point out both successes and room for improvement.

How many situations do you have somebody say, 'I was really angry with the way you just talked to me'? Albarado said. We get really honest here. They're learning things about themselves that nobody's ever brought to their attention before.

A small percentage of clients don't seem to want to recover and will fight the treatment, counselor Billy Degeyter said, but most are genuinely trying to start a new life.

I'm willing to help someone who's willing to help themselves, he said. For them to successfully achieve abstinence, three or four attempts at treatment is the average.

Albarado said the staff tracks clients' success rates, checking to see if they're still sober a year later. Nearly all find work after the program, and 70 percent typically remain clean after a year.

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Assisi Bridge House helps men recover from addiction