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How to Get Free Last-Minute Shipping

First, the bad news: the cut off for free shipping on most online sites was Tuesday, Dec 18^th. But the good news – we’ve got some sneaky ways to finagle free rush shipping and a list of sites still offering free shipping guaranteed to arrive before December 25^th.

Free Rush Shipping
Some of the biggest online retailers are still offering free last minute shipping:

Barnes & Noble – free shipping on Nook HD through Dec. 22

MacMall – free 2-day shipping on orders over $ 299 and under 25lbs – through 6 p.m. PST Dec. 22.

Macy’s – free shipping on orders over $ 99. Place order 11:59 p.m. EST Dec. 20.

The Northface – free 2-day shipping on everything through 11:59 p.m. Dec. 19.

Walmart.com has extended free shipping through December 19^th on some items (check product page for eligibility)

Overstock.com – free shipping on select gifts. Place order by Dec. 22 to receive by Christmas.

Newegg Free 2-Day shipping on over 200 items

Target – free shipping on Daily Deals

Victoria’s Secret – free shipping on orders over $ 100 using code “SHIP12.” Order by 5 p.m. EST on Dec. 20.

Zappos – free shipping for all items with guaranteed Christmas delivery if ordered by 11:59 p.m. PST Dec. 22.

And the biggest of the big online retailers, Amazon, has a limited set of items available for free expedited shipping. These include jewelry, watches, clothing, video games, laptops, headphones, and kitchen items.

[Related: Great Gifts for Under $ 25]

But since many of the above deals are limited to select items, take a look at…

How to Get Free 2-Day Shipping on Just About Everything
Amazon Prime is a yearly subscription service. In exchange for a $ 79 fee, you get free 2 day shipping all year long. And yes, that also applies at Christmas (must order by 3 p.m. EST Dec. 22 to receive on time). Best deal is that you can get a free 6-month trial. a1b8f free shipping fp How to Get Free Last Minute Shipping

And here’s the real sneaky surprise: Do you have a family member who already belongs to Prime? They can nominate up to four people for the same free shipping benefits. Prime members nominate someone by going to their account, clicking “Settings” and “Manage Prime Membership.”

Also, Amazon Student is a free 6-month membership to Prime with all the benefits, providing you have an email address that ends in .edu.

But you don’t have to limit yourself to Amazon. Shoprunner.com also offers free 2-day shipping, though the membership service costs $ 8.95 a month – so not entirely free, but if you have numerous items still to buy, you could save a bundle. And Shoprunner has tons of participating online retailers like Toys R Us, Sports Authority, Claire’s, PetSmart and EMS. Say you want to buy something from PetSmart.com, if you sign in with Shoprunner, many of the items on the site will be eligible for free 2-day shipping. One more thing to try: I was able to sign up for a free 1-year membership to Shoprunner using the promo code RUNNER. The site implied I had to be an American Express member, but it never asked for my details about the credit card, and now I have a membership. Good luck.

Ship to Store
Finally, the best last-minute option for many is to ship to store. You peruse all the options from home, pay online, and then pick up your selection at your local store. Tons of big retailers offer this service, and it guarantees your item will be in stock and waiting for you at customer service. Major retailers offering free Ship to Store include:

Best Buy

Target

Toys R Us

Walmart

Sears

[Related: Best E-Reader for Under $ 100]

Brad Marshland contributed to this story.

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Sandy Hook Shootings: How to Cope

Label: Lifestyle

By Howard Breuer

12/23/2012 at 06:00 PM EST

State police personnel lead children to safety away from the Sandy Hook Elementary School

Shannon Hicks/Newtown Bee/Reuters/Landov

The Sandy Hook massacre, in which 20 innocent children and six heroic elementary school faculty members were gunned down last Friday, is particularly difficult for people – even those thousands of miles away from Newtown, Conn. – to process, according to mental health experts.

"This tragedy is so deeply affecting the national psyche, reminding us of 9/11, because of its assault on Norman Rockwell's vision of America," psychiatrist Carole Lieberman tells PEOPLE.

Friday was proclaimed a national day of mourning for those lost a week ago, with a moment of silence called for at 9:30 a.m. Eastern time, as 26 churchbells rang in Newtown and elsewhere. In addition, First Lady Michelle Obama sent an open letter of condolence to the town, saying the entire nation "is holding you in our hearts."

But how do those directly involved with the tragedy find the strength to cope?

To do that, family members who lost loved ones need immediate counseling and to maintain their normal routines. They also need to draw support from other affected families who can relate to what they're going through, says Dr. Stephanie N. Marcy, a psychologist at Children's Hospital Los Angeles.

"I think the people on the ground are feeling a sense of hopelessness because there is no way to justify what happened," Marcy says. "They need to be around other people who have experienced and understand it. If you were all involved together, you can empathize and grieve together."

In many of these families, the remaining children might have survivor's guilt, she adds.

"They rethink what they did that day and wonder if they in some way contributed to the death of a sibling, or they wonder, why did I survive?" Marcy says.

Therapists will need to explain to kids who lost a sibling that their "false belief that they should have been able to prevent it is not correct," adds Marcy.

Children at Sandy Hook may also have Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and will need therapy, Lieberman says.

What to Tell Children

And what do parents whose children were not involved in the tragedy tell their own youngsters about what happened? That, Marcy says, depends on how old they are and how much they know already.

"Kindergarteners and first graders don't need to be told about it unless you think they will hear it somewhere else. For older kids, you have to get to know what they know, answer any questions they might have, and be truthful – but don't say too much," Marcy says. "Say that a person who was having problems, that was sick, went into a school and injured some people for no particular reason. Tell them it would never happen at their school."

"Yes," she adds, "it could happen anywhere. But there's no point in letting your child think that, [because] they may be flooded with fear."

For the adults and children across the country who have been vicariously traumatized, Marcy says, "We need to regain our sense of control, because this type of event makes us feel completely helpless."

Lieberman adds that Americans "are also feeling a generalized anxiety, a fear that no place is safe anymore. They need to talk to friends and family, get involved in championing causes that make society better, to volunteer for charities, and to get psychotherapy if the sadness and anxiety persist."

Predicting who's at risk for violence isn't easy

Label: Health

CHICAGO (AP) — It happened after Columbine, Virginia Tech, Aurora, Colo., and now Sandy Hook: People figure there surely were signs of impending violence. But experts say predicting who will be the next mass shooter is virtually impossible — partly because as commonplace as these calamities seem, they are relatively rare crimes.

Still, a combination of risk factors in troubled kids or adults including drug use and easy access to guns can increase the likelihood of violence, experts say.

But warning signs "only become crystal clear in the aftermath, said James Alan Fox, a Northeastern University criminology professor who has studied and written about mass killings.

"They're yellow flags. They only become red flags once the blood is spilled," he said.

Whether 20-year-old Adam Lanza, who used his mother's guns to kill her and then 20 children and six adults at their Connecticut school, made any hints about his plans isn't publicly known.

Fox said that sometimes, in the days, weeks or months preceding their crimes, mass murderers voice threats, or hints, either verbally or in writing, things like "'don't come to school tomorrow,'" or "'they're going to be sorry for mistreating me.'" Some prepare by target practicing, and plan their clothing "as well as their arsenal." (Police said Lanza went to shooting ranges with his mother in the past but not in the last six months.)

Although words might indicate a grudge, they don't necessarily mean violence will follow. And, of course, most who threaten never act, Fox said.

Even so, experts say threats of violence from troubled teens and young adults should be taken seriously and parents should attempt to get them a mental health evaluation and treatment if needed.

"In general, the police are unlikely to be able to do anything unless and until a crime has been committed," said Dr. Paul Appelbaum, a Columbia University professor of psychiatry, medicine and law. "Calling the police to confront a troubled teen has often led to tragedy."

The American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry says violent behavior should not be dismissed as "just a phase they're going through."

In a guidelines for families, the academy lists several risk factors for violence, including:

—Previous violent or aggressive behavior

—Being a victim of physical or sexual abuse

—Guns in the home

—Use of drugs or alcohol

—Brain damage from a head injury

Those with several of these risk factors should be evaluated by a mental health expert if they also show certain behaviors, including intense anger, frequent temper outbursts, extreme irritability or impulsiveness, the academy says. They may be more likely than others to become violent, although that doesn't mean they're at risk for the kind of violence that happened in Newtown, Conn.

Lanza, the Connecticut shooter, was socially withdrawn and awkward, and has been said to have had Asperger's disorder, a mild form of autism that has no clear connection with violence.

Autism experts and advocacy groups have complained that Asperger's is being unfairly blamed for the shootings, and say people with the disorder are much more likely to be victims of bullying and violence by others.

According to a research review published this year in Annals of General Psychiatry, most people with Asperger's who commit violent crimes have serious, often undiagnosed mental problems. That includes bipolar disorder, depression and personality disorders. It's not publicly known if Lanza had any of these, which in severe cases can include delusions and other psychotic symptoms.

Young adulthood is when psychotic illnesses typically emerge, and Appelbaum said there are several signs that a troubled teen or young adult might be heading in that direction: isolating themselves from friends and peers, spending long periods alone in their rooms, plummeting grades if they're still in school and expressing disturbing thoughts or fears that others are trying to hurt them.

Appelbaum said the most agonizing calls he gets are from parents whose children are descending into severe mental illness but who deny they are sick and refuse to go for treatment.

And in the case of adults, forcing them into treatment is difficult and dependent on laws that vary by state.

All states have laws that allow some form of court-ordered treatment, typically in a hospital for people considered a danger to themselves or others. Connecticut is among a handful with no option for court-ordered treatment in a less restrictive community setting, said Kristina Ragosta, an attorney with the Treatment Advocacy Center, a national group that advocates better access to mental health treatment.

Lanza's medical records haven't been publicly disclosed and authorities haven't said if it is known what type of treatment his family may have sought for him. Lanza killed himself at the school.

Jennifer Hoff of Mission Viejo, Calif. has a 19-year-old bipolar son who has had hallucinations, delusions and violent behavior for years. When he was younger and threatened to harm himself, she'd call 911 and leave the door unlocked for paramedics, who'd take him to a hospital for inpatient mental care.

Now that he's an adult, she said he has refused medication, left home, and authorities have indicated he can't be forced into treatment unless he harms himself — or commits a violent crime and is imprisoned. Hoff thinks prison is where he's headed — he's in jail, charged in an unarmed bank robbery.

___

Online:

American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry: http://www.aacap.org

___

AP Medical Writer Lindsey Tanner can be reached at http://www.twitter.com/LindseyTanner

Acton man who built 'Phonehenge West' receives 539 days in jail

Label: Business

An Acton man convicted of building-code violations who failed to repay thousands of dollars he owed Los Angeles County for demolishing the elaborate structure he dubbed "Phonehenge West" was sentenced this week to almost 18 months in jail.

The jailing of Alan Kimble Fahey marked the end of a more than 20-year saga that pitted the retired phone technician against county code enforcement officials and led him in and out of court for the last five years.

Prosecutors argued that Fahey showed a deliberate disregard for authority and had no one but himself to blame for his fate. But Fahey's supporters insisted that he was unfairly punished for what they described as a "victimless crime."

Fahey, who failed to obtain the proper building permits to construct Phonehenge, was facing six years in jail for 12 misdemeanor counts of building code violations, according to Sandi Gibbons, a spokeswoman for the L.A. County district attorney's office. But on Wednesday, L.A. County Superior Court Judge Daviann L. Mitchell sentenced Fahey to 539 days in jail.

Pleading financial hardship, Fahey had repaid only $1,250 of the $83,488 he owed the county. Mitchell questioned Fahey's inability to pay, charging that he had made false statements to the court about his financial status and had "knowingly and willfully disobeyed" the terms of his probation, Gibbons said.

Restitution to the county would now have to be resolved in civil court because the criminal case was over, Gibbons said.

Fahey's attorney, Jerry E. Lennon, said that given the nonviolent nature of his client's offense and his documented heart condition, Fahey would probably be eligible for early release.

Fahey spent about 30 years erecting Phonehenge — a 20,000-square-foot labyrinth of interconnected structures, some made from telephone poles. County code enforcement officers argued that the creation wasn't structurally sound and was a fire and earthquake risk, and therefore had to come down.

But Fahey's supporters called Phonehenge a "work of art" worthy of preservation. Many accused county officials of being too aggressive in its code enforcement and of "stifling creativity."

"It's very difficult because your chances of winning against them are very slim," said Fahey's wife, Pat. "People will look at us and say, 'I'm not going to take a chance.'"

ann.simmons@latimes.com

At Western Wall, a Divide Over Prayer Deepens

Label: World

Rina Castelnuovo for The New York Times

Members of Women of the Wall prayed this month while wearing tallits, fringed prayer shawls, and tefillin, leather prayer boxes, both of which Jewish men are told to wear.

JERUSALEM — The face-off at the security gate outside the Western Wall one Friday this month was familiar: for more than two decades, women have been making a monthly pilgrimage to pray at one of Judaism’s holiest sites in a manner traditionally preserved for men, and the police have stopped them in the name of maintaining public order.

Rina Castelnuovo for The New York Times

Bonna Devora Haberman, 52, of Women of the Wall, was confronted by the police this month after trying to bring in her prayer shawl.

But after a flurry of arrests this fall that set off an international outcry, the women arrived for December’s service to find a new protocol ordered by the ultra-Orthodox rabbi who controls the site. To prevent the women from defying a Supreme Court ruling that bars them from wearing ritual garments at the wall, they were blocked by police officers from bringing them in.

“How can you say this to me?” demanded a tearful Bonna Devora Haberman, 52, a Canadian immigrant who helped found the group Women of the Wall in 1988. “I’m a Jew. This is my state.”

The officer was unmoved. “At the Western Wall, you can’t pray with a tallit,” he said, referring to the fringed prayer shawl in Ms. Haberman’s backpack. “You can’t go in with it.”

After years of legislative and legal fights, the movement for equal access for people to pray as they wish at the site has become a rallying cause for liberal Jews in the United States and around the world, though it has long struggled to gain traction here in Israel, where the ultra-Orthodox retain great sway over public life.

This has deepened a divide between the Jewish state and the Jewish diaspora, in which some leaders have become increasingly vocal in criticizing Israel’s policies on settlements in the Palestinian territories; laws and proposals that are seen as antidemocratic or discriminatory against Arab citizens; the treatment of women; and the ultra-Orthodox control over conversion and marriage.

“When my kids start expressing frustration with Israel as a society because what they hear and see from a distance is not welcoming to them in their religious practice — that’s not good for the Jewish people, let alone for the state of Israel,” said Rabbi Steven C. Wernick, the director of the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism.

Rabbi Levi Weiman-Kelman, an American immigrant who runs Kol Haneshama, a leading Reform synagogue here, said Women of the Wall “is an issue that really brings out the gap between Israeli Jews and American Jews.”

While more than 60 percent of Jews in the United States identify with the Reform or Conservative movements, where women and men have equal standing in prayer and many feminists have adopted ritual garments, in Israel it is one in 10. Instead, about half call themselves secular, and experts say that most of those consider Orthodoxy as the true Judaism, feel alienated from holy sites like the Western Wall, and view a woman in a prayer shawl as an alien import from abroad.

(Jewish law requires only men to pray daily, and it prohibits women from dressing like men.)

“Secular Israelis do not see this as their problem; to them it’s a bunch of crazy American ladies,” said Shari Eshet, who represents the New York-based National Council of Jewish Women here. “It’s embarrassing for Israel, it’s embarrassing for Jews, and the American Jewish community is beginning to understand that it’s a slippery slope here.”

The increased agitation around the wall is part of a broader clash over Judaism and gender that has roiled Israel in recent months. Women have won lawsuits against segregation on buses and sidewalks imposed in religious neighborhoods. But a bus line recently stopped accepting advertisements with images of people after religious vandals routinely blacked out women’s faces in the name of modesty.

In January, speakers at a conference on health and Jewish law canceled their appearances because women were barred from the podium — a demand of the most Orthodox — while the chief rabbi of the air force quit after religious soldiers were not excused from events where women sang.

These controversies concern the imposition of Orthodox doctrine in secular spheres. More complicated are questions of how Judaism itself should be practiced. This spring, the Supreme Court ruled that the government must pay the salary of a Reform rabbi along with hundreds of Orthodox ones. A small group of Jerusalem restaurants has been seeking an alternative kosher certification system to the one run by the government’s rabbinical council.

“The next chapter of what it means to be a Jewish state is being defined right now,” said Elana Sztokman, the director of the Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance, who is writing a book that includes a chapter about Women of the Wall. “We have to figure out what does Israel want, what role do we really want religion to have in this state? And it’s happening on the backs of women.”

Women of the Wall began in December 1988, when tourists attending a feminist conference decided to take a Torah scroll they had brought from the United States to a prayer service at the Western Wall, a remnant of the retaining wall that surrounded the ancient Temple Mount. The group has since returned 11 times a year to pray on Rosh Hodesh, the first day of the Hebrew month, an occasion embraced by Jewish feminists.

Irit Pazner Garshowitz and Myra Noveck contributed reporting.

Facebook Poke App Is Frustrating as Hell

Label: Technology

Facebook Poke: Startup Screen

Poke, the new iPhone app from Facebook, lets you send short messages, photos and videos to friends that automatically self destruct after a few seconds. If you have the Facebook app on your phone already, logging in is effortless.

Click here to view this gallery.

[More from Mashable: 2012′s Biggest Winners and Losers]

I was never a big poker on Facebook. When I joined the social network in 2007, giving someone a “poke” was still pretty common. It was a connection that stopped short of an actual friend request, a way to test the waters of a reconnection with, say, an ex.

The new app, Facebook Poke (as it’s listed in the App Store), doesn’t have much in common with poking of old. It’s essentially a clone of other texting apps where all the messages have a built-in self-destruct. It’s ideal for clandestine activities, shall we say.

[More from Mashable: Facebook Introduces Snapchat Competitor, Poke]

Here’s how it works: Let’s say you have a sudden urge to send one of your Facebook friends a photo of a, er, cucumber. But you don’t want to just send them a cucumber pic that they could post and re-share to the world. Poke lets you send the pic, but the recipient will only have 1, 3, 5 or 10 seconds to view your majestic vegetable. And they need to press and hold the screen while viewing, or the pic goes away.

You can send photos, videos or text messages via Poke, although you can’t use it for anything too elaborate since the message content lasts 10 seconds maximum. After that, boom. The message, whatever it was, is gone forever. There isn’t even a record on the sender’s phone (although a log of who you’ve poked and who’s poked you still remains).

Poke is pretty unforgiving. The recipient must press and hold the notification to see the content. Once you touch, the countdown starts, and there’s no going back — even if you let go. Videos just stop, with no chance of re-watching. You slip, and you’re done.

I suspect Poke will engender a lot of frustration because of this limitation. You feel as if it should at least pause the countdown when you remove your finger.

The app also lets you just “poke” people — meaning send a message with no content — about the only way the app is similar to the old act of poking. Those are just simple notifications, and don’t expire.

It gets more annoying: All your poke recipients need to download the app to see them. Poking only works on mobile right now, and Facebook’s been careful to ensure notifications for incoming pokes only appear in its mobile apps.

Checking out your profile on the web won’t reveal any trace of poking. On a smartphone, a note appears that encourages pokees to download the app.

What if someone does a screengrab of your poke, turning it into something more permanent? There’s nothing you can do, but the app will inform you if someone does that, with a “flash” icon beside their name in your feed. If you see your ephemeral wild moment appear on Tumblr the next day, at least you’ll know who to blame.

Poke isn’t that intuitive. It displays some basic instructions when you first log in, but would benefit greatly from one of those tutorial overlays that have become ubiquitous among iOS apps. Also, I find it odd that your front-facing camera isn’t selected by default. But maybe my expectation for the subject material of most pokes is off the mark.

You can add text and colored line drawings to any pics you send. That’s helpful to get the attention on the thing in the photo you really want the person to look at in those three seconds of poke life.

At first I found it frustrating that Poke doesn’t let you take horizontal photos or videos. But that’s actually a good idea. If you think about it, if the only people seeing this content are people glancing at their phones for a few seconds, so vertical pics make total sense. In the time it took a person to turn their phone and the accelerometer to react, the message will probably be gone. If you want masterpieces, try Flickr.

Bottom line: Poke is an annoying app, but it probably has more to do with the nature of what it’s trying to do than any design flaws. How do you like Poke? Let us know in the comments.

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, jcsmily

This story originally published on Mashable here.

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Title Post: Facebook Poke App Is Frustrating as Hell
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Drew Barrymore: My Dogs Are So Protective of Baby Olive

Label: Lifestyle

People Pets
Only on People.com

By Julie Jordan and Amy Jamieson

12/22/2012 at 05:30 PM EST

Drew Barrymore, Will Kopelman and dog Douglas

NPG

She may have been a nervous wreck after baby Olive arrived this fall, but the Drew Barrymore could have rested easy because her dogs had everything under control.

"They're so protective of her. They're so sweet," she tells PEOPE of her pups, Douglas and shepherd mix Oliver. "And Douglas, the little blonde one, just comes and licks [Olive's] head, and it's just so goofy and silly and I always say, 'Douglas, is this your baby?' "

The first-time mom, 37, and her husband Will Kopelman were careful when it came to introducing their furbabies to the real baby.

"We brought her stuff home to them to sniff and play with," she tells PEOPLE. "I put her with them right away. I was holding her and protective but there are all these wonderful studies that kids that grow up with dogs have better immunities because of the dander and the pollen. And it's a proven fact that dogs just improve the quality of your life."

In just a few months, Douglas has assumed the role of bodyguard over 10-week-old Olive, whom Barrymore calls "Super Baby" because she sleeps and eats so well.

"He's literally sitting [and] looking out the window," she says, "in, like, a guard dog position."