LOS ANGELES (Variety.com) - SELLER: Reese Witherspoon LOCATION: Los Angeles, CA PRICE: $3,550,000 SIZE: .66 acre (with 3,053 square foot fixer upper)

YOUR MAMA'S NOTES: Reese Witherspoon and her Hollywood power player husband Jim Toth have been on a serious real estate tear the last few years, buying and selling a series of multi-million properties a clip that's lickety-split even amongst notoriously real estate fickle rich and famous.

In November 2012 she/they sold a multi-acre residential parcel in L.A.'s rustic-luxe Mandeville Canyon area to big-time movie producers Kathleen Kennedy and Frank Marshall for $7.5 million. She bought the 2.53-acre property 2010 from whackadoodle action flick actor Steven Seagal for $6.9 and the Kennedy-Marshalls, in case any of y'all might be curious, quickly flipped the property for $7.535 million.

In late 2013 Miz Witherspoon sold a picturesque and picture perfect country compound in Ojai, CA, for $4.983 million to an as-yet unrevealed buyer -- she paid $5.8 million for the 7-ish acre spread in 2008 -- and six or so month later semi-quietly made her long time home in a discreet gated enclave in L.A.'s Brentwood area available for $10.5 million as well as an adjacent parcel for another $3.5 million.

Digital listings show the main portion of the estate encompasses two parcels that include a five-bedroom and 5.5-bathroom Spanish/Mediterranean-style mini-manse is currently in escrow and about to be sold to an unknown buyer for an unknown amount. (Anyone who knows the story should be sure to give Your Mama a digital jingle. Anyhoo....) Miz Witherspoon recently had the Vogue people over to her house for one of their fab 73 Questions interviews during which she roams the property, bounces on a sunken trampoline in the backyard, says she host pool parties every weekend and says she'd love to have all the female senators over for lasagna and snow-cones in the formal dining room.

The third parcel, as was first revealed by the long-legged gal at Trulia Luxe, was sold earlier this month for $3.55 million to a corporate entity that Your Mama would bet the farm is controlled by a high-end developer. The Witherspoon-Toths picked up the adjoining property in December 2012 for exactly $3,000,000 from the estate of Mark Harmon's mother, Elyse Knox, a former fashion designer and model turned actress and painter. We really don't know what the Witherspoon-Toth's original plan was for the property -- A tennis court, maybe? A guest house, perhaps? -- but at the time they bought it had an existing fixer upper residence of just over 3,000 square feet, extensive red brick terraces, lush gardens a swimming pool and a separate art studio/guest house.

Even though she has long-owned a mini-mansion in a gated neighborhood in Nashville, TN, in July (2014) the couple shelled out $1.95 million for 6.51-acre estate with a stately if down-on-her-heels, 1930s-era fixer-upper plus a much more modern (and architecturally prosaic) guest house next to the swimming pool. Property gossips went hog-wild just a few weeks later when it was revealed the couple's multi-year search for new mansion to call home in Los Angeles ended with the $12.705 million off-market acquisition of a not yet completed, Ken Unger-designed spec-built mansion designed in the low-key but decidedly swish -- not to mention celeb-saturated -- Riviera area of Pacific Palisades.

Given the couple's near ceaseless merry-go-round property portfolio, this gossip can't help wonder just how long before the they come down another case of The Celebrity Real Estate Fickle and decide they don't really want the new mansion in Pacific Palisades. Any of the children want to take bets?

Listing photos: Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices

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Reese Witherspoon Sheds Brentwood Compound

Jon Ostendorff, jostendo@gannett.com 2:28 p.m. EDT September 29, 2014

Mission Health System is expanding in Haywood County.(Photo: Special to the Citizen-Times, Special to the Citizen-Times)

ASHEVILLE Mission Health System has cut 130 jobs but the layoffs come under a reorganization that will ultimately add more workers, CEO Ron Paulus said.

The company next year will end up with an increase of 147 jobs to handle growth in outpatient services, he said.

We are reshaping our organization to meet the needs of our community in the future and there will be more caregivers at Mission next year than there are here today, he said.

The company will also raise prices for some laboratory services under the plan.

The not-for-profit started reorganizing months ago with the goal of cutting $42 million in costs year-over-year and growing revenue by $10 million. That goal increased by $4.2 million this summer to cover additional staff for mental health services.

The company operates six hospitals in Western North Carolina and ambulatory care offices with about 10,000 employees. The company expects $1.5 billion in gross revenue next year.

Like other health systems nationwide, it is struggling with declining state and federal reimbursement rates.

Mission also wanted to give its employees a raise next year.

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Mission Health sheds 130 jobs

NEW YORK (AP) - A federal immigration judge says his priority when dealing with traumatized children facing deportation is to create a kinder, gentler courtroom.

New Yorks assistant chief immigrant judge, Robert Weisel, told a City Council hearing Monday that he takes off his black robes and speaks to young children from the bench in a more casual tone.

Our objective is to lower the level of anxiety, lower the level of fear, because after all, when you see someone in a black robe, its very scary, the judge said.

Weisel testified before the councils Committee on Immigration, which is assessing the needs of children smuggled into the United States from Central America. The cases of more than 1,100 of them are pending before New York City immigration judges. Some face deportation.

Almost $2 million was recently allocated to cover the childrens legal expenses - $1 million from the city and $900,000 in private funds.

New York is the nations second leading state - after Texas - in receiving these children, some as young as 5.

Officials say many of them appear in court for the first time with no legal representation.

A coalition of not-for-profit groups preparing attorneys for the task include the New York Law School-based Safe Passage Project, which has trained nearly 800 lawyers in the past few months to work with the often anxious, vulnerable young refugees appearing alone before judges in a daily docket processing the cases.

The question we face now is how will we treat these children relocating to New York state? asks project founder and law professor Lenni Benson, who urges legislators to provide additional social workers and educators to integrate the youths into American society.

Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito said at Mondays hearing that on a recent visit to a courtroom, she was distressed to see traumatized children standing before a judge without a lawyer.

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NY judge sheds black robes for kids facing court

By Clayton L. Thyne and Howard Sanborn September 29 at 3:30 PM

Joshua Tucker: As part of our continuing collaboration with political science journals, the following is a guest post by political scientists Howard SanbornandClayton L. Thynebased on research that is forthcomingin the October issue of the British Journal of Political Science. In conjunction with this post on The Monkey Cage, the article will be available ungated (for free) for the next 30 days.

*****

This past weekend, the world was startled by images, caught in real time, of a Hong Kong in crisis. Police, protected by armor and gas masks, pushed forward into the throngs of students and pro-democracy supporters, through a choking fog of tear gas. Protesters, in large part students and other young people, stood firm with hands raised clutching cellphones, umbrellas (to protect from smoke and debris overhead) and cameras.

Students have played key roles in the various movements over the past century to check the power of abusive or unresponsive governments. Numerous scholars have detailed the decisive actions taken by students in different parts of the world. Over the past few years, we have seen students take the lead in protests against authoritarian regimes, be it in Tunisia, Egypt or, indeed, China.

Educational philosophers like John Dewey and Jurgen Habermas linked the provision of education across wide swaths of the population to the development of the values necessary to support democratic society. Dewey believed that students learned from their experiences; they could properly assess preferences based on their interests and develop, through repeated interactions, tolerance for the preferences of others. Habermas argued that the university had as much a responsibility to inculcate the cultural values of society as it did to provide students with the tools necessary for their careers. In addition, college students gained a political consciousness, aware of the outside world and their effect upon it.

If students, imbued with this political consciousness, played important roles in social movements that challenged institutions and authorities, what effect might this mean for the authoritarian regimes that go to great lengths to provide education to their citizens? In our piece from the October issue of the British Journal of Political Science, we find that the increased enrollment of students at the primary and university levels produces a greater chance that an authoritarian regime will transition to democracy. Put another way the more students that are educated under an authoritarian regime, the more likely it is that the regime will transition to democracy.

If it is the case that educated citizens living in these authoritarian systems agitate for regime change, one may ask: Why would a dictator ever provide more education to his citizens when this investment could lead to his eventual overthrow? Tunisia proves an effective illustration of this conundrum. Habib Borguiba, who took control of Tunisia after its independence from France in 1957, embarked on a program of liberal economic reforms to spur investment and instill a common, secular, Tunisian identity. These efforts led to a dramatic rise in the literacy rate and educational attainment, and a World Bank report from 2001 notes the widespread distribution of education to more people across the country.

As much as these reforms were successes of political will, they were also the seeds sewn for future unrest. Education to produce critical and productive workers is successful inasmuch as there are jobs for them upon graduation. Fairer provision of schooling to both men and women, as well as expansive connections to foreign cultures through the forces of globalization, instills post-modern values but also arms even more of the population with the tools and evidence to articulate high expectations for government.

It was, in part, this confluence of factors that undermined the authoritarian regime of Borguibas successor, Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali, in 2011. Indeed, in our study, we find the authoritarian regimes that make efforts to provide education, equally, to men and women and permit those connections to the outside world see their chances of transitioning to democracy rapidly increase. We also find that economic conditions, to no ones surprise, have an effect on these chances, too; authoritarian countries are largely immune to the democratizing pressures of education so long as the economy is healthy. When the economy takes a downturn, a sign that opportunities for graduates have fallen, the number of enrolled students is a strong predictor of the fall of the authoritarian regime and a movement to democracy.

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Monkey Cage: Educating those who will overthrow you

Documentary sheds light on depression and anxiety
A documentary is in the works to honor former Ishpeming football player Daniel Olson; it #39;s called Do It For Daniel Facebook | http://www.facebook.com/uppermi...

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New Leonardo restoration sheds light on young artist
If there is any mind an art restorer would die to be able to get into, it would be the mind of Leonardo da Vinci. That was the unique opportunity that restor...

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Tye Angland is hoping a week of sweat can create further spring Group One opportunities beyond a lightweight Epsom Handicap mount on Saturday.

Angland has taken the Epsom ride on Star Rolling, a Victorian-trained miler who has 53kg in the $500,000 race.

Given he has ridden around 55kg since returning from Hong Kong a few months ago, Angland is preparing for a week of diet and exercise to make Star Rolling's weight.

"It's not going to be easy. It's going to be a long week," Angland said.

"But it's about trying to push myself and seeing how low (in weight) I can get if something pops up in the big races coming up."

Trained by Peter Morgan and Craig Widdison, Star Rolling has been campaigning in Melbourne weight-for-age races, winning the PB Lawrence Stakes before finishing midfield in the Dato Tan Chin Nam Stakes and the Underwood Stakes.

Apprentice Winona Costin is waiting for trainer David Payne to make a decision on Honorius to find out if she will have her first Epsom ride.

"Because he's got a light weight and I've ridden him before there's a chance I could be on him if he runs," Costin said.

Costin's most recent ride on Honorius resulted in a close fifth to Entirely Platinum at Rosehill last month.

She also rode the five-year-old when he last figured in the placings before a spell.

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Angland sheds the kilos for Epsom ride

Gillie Da Kid Sheds Light on Debut Album "Giladelphia"
Gillie Da Kid speaks on his new mixtape King of Philly 3 ...He touches on all the major Features on it including The Game , Jadakiss and Waka Flocka he also lets us know his Album Giladelphia...

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Gillie Da Kid Sheds Light on Debut Album "Giladelphia" - Video

UD Law Professor Sheds Light on Grand Jury P
DAYTON -- The nine-person grand jury heard all the evidence in deadly police shooting at the Beavercreek Walmart and ruled "no true bill" Wednesday. That means they concluded the evidence did...

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San Franciscos newest maritime structure shows how the citys relationship to the working waterfront has changed and what the concept of our working waterfront has come to mean.

Its the James R. Herman Cruise Terminal at Pier 27, a crisply detailed shed of corrugated aluminum thats 40 feet tall and 504 feet long. The specifications are tailored to the needs of a leisure industry whose ships are exponentially larger than the new structure, with an interior that can moonlight as a flexible venue for private events.

The glassy wall doesnt line up with the Embarcadero, as is the case with the historic pier structures to the north and south. Instead, it sits behind a 2.3-acre raised plaza with grass and benches intended as a respite for passersby who know the northeast waterfront not as a clamorous industrial zone, but as a viewsome promenade.

But if the $100 million structure that officially opened Thursday will be a monochromatic backdrop more than a destination, its also a stylish if austere work of functional architecture.

No obvious flourish

The design is by KMD Architects and Pfau Long Architecture, two local firms that arent prone to flamboyance, especially with a budget nowhere near as lavish as it sounds. Except for the gently angled canopy that faces into the triangular pier protection from the elements and a visual transition from closed structure to open space theres no obvious flourish at all.

Ive already heard from readers put off by the restraint who would prefer something supposedly iconic. In fact, this is a service building for the real icons, cruise liners such as the 3,080-passenger Crown Princess that docked Monday a balconied white tub with the nose of a dolphin and the dimensions of a container ship, 952 feet long and 195 feet high.

At its most basic level, this terminal serves to funnel passengers on and off ship with a minimum of fuss, under security procedures just a notch below the ones in airports.

Travelers enter a tall, airy foyer in the northwest corner of the structure where the lone decorative feature is an art installation that honors the buildings namesake, a former president of the International Longshoremens and Warehousemens Union and a longtime member of the San Francisco Port Commission before his death in 1998. Up a set of escalators awaits the line of metal detectors. Beyond that is a spacious waiting room with a close-up view of the floating village entered on a second-level gangway that can rise or fall 10 feet to respond to tides and remain fully accessible to people with walkers or in wheelchairs.

The eastern half of the second floor is walled off from the waiting area thats where passengers go from the ship through customs, then descend to pick up their luggage and pass through another security checkpoint before exploring San Francisco. Both the waiting and customs areas have no fixed seating or counters, so that the spaces can be used for private events such as dinners and small conferences when cruise ships are absent.

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Monochromatic terminal sheds any pretense about Pier 27 role