Client Needs: Black female models with long neck and excellent neck definition for parts modeling assignment. Slim or athletic build preferred, but any build considered if you have a long neck.

Qualifications: African American / Black / African / Mixed Ethnicity that looks African American. Female with healthy build, athletic or tone build desired, any build acceptable with long neck and definition.

Interested applicants are encouraged to submit for an audition online at http://join.ftcpublications.com/invited/auditions/

FTC Publications has competitive benefits, all travel is paid in advance by client, meal stipend and all expenses paid by client where applicable. Model pays no fees. Equal Opportunity Employer.

FTC Publications, Inc. Talent Operations Division provides casting, modeling, advertising, and marketing solutions to businesses, designers, and manufacturers looking to push their product, service, TV Show, or other presentation to the public. Solutions include but are not limited to:

• Fashion Shows for marketing a design or line
• Commercial Advertisements and placement
• Broadcast, Showcase, and Festival services
• Press Conference and Spokesperson Services
• Special Marketing
• Product Distribution with Advertising
• Software packaging, advertising, and distribution
• Music distribution and marketing (Music must be complete, music studio services not provided)

FTC Publications, Inc. recruits and manages on staff models, photographers, and artists to bring your product or service to the market.

Models are paid for their assignments.  Pay day is every other Friday with pay being deposited into a MasterCard payroll card which can be used at thousands of ATMs worldwide or any location that accepts MasterCard.  Models can also transfer their pay to a checking, savings, or the employee credit union account.  Unlike paper checks, Direct Deposit is fast, safe, and reliable.

Based on the type of job worked, a model could also be paid royalties or points in addition to the job’s basic pay.  In general jobs pay one or more of the following:

• Pay per actual job or session, where one gets paid one flat rate for an assignment.
• Hourly, where models are paid by the hour for a job.
• Points or Royalty, where models are paid a percentage of sales of a job.
• Or, a combination of one or more of the above.

FTC Publications, Inc. is an equal opportunity employer, has been in business since 1988 and has 53 locations around the world. Corporate headquarters are in Atlanta, Ga at 1230 Peachtree Street NE Atlanta, GA 30309.

Follow on Twitter for real-time casting announcements at @ftcpublications.com

Syracuse, NY, United States (AHN Sports) – Though they are required to have more patience and be more cunning than their prey, turkey hunters are getting frustrated with the quiet conditions at this spring’s turkey hunting season in Central New York.

Hunters across the state and beyond have been complaining about this spring hunt where there are not many birds being spotted unlike in the past.

Also, the cautious birds are responding less to calls.

According to turkey experts, the mild winter could have contributed to the slight change in the behaviour of the birds.

In the past, turkeys come out in open fields in large flocks across Central New York during the cold months in order to feed.

“This winter, they didn’t have to come out in the fields to feed,” Lance Clark, a senior wildlife biologist at the state Department of Environmental Conservation’s Cortland office, said via Syracuse.com. “They stayed in the woods where they found food and there was more (protection) from predators.”

According to Clarke, the birds, this year, have broken up into smaller flocks earlier than usual. They also have remained in the woods most of the time even with arrival of spring and the longer days, which also signals the breeding season.

Meanwhile, the success of each spring’s breeding determines the turkey population, according to experts.

The wet and cold weather factor heavily in the rise of mortality rate among poults, or baby turkeys, as seen in the past several years.

The number of local bird are reportedly slightly down.

Wild turkeys, unlike their domestic counterparts, are agile fliers despite their weight. They are also very cunning and will take off at the slightest sign of danger.

These birds get more cautious when leaves come out on trees at one point of the season, which occurred earlier this year. Instinctively, turkeys stop gobbling due to their perceive exposure to danger.

Spring hunting, which target gobblers, or male turkey, coincides with the wild turkey mating season. It is when male turkeys can be called into gun range with “yelp” calls, or the imitation of the sounds of a hen.

The spring turkey season in this state opened May 1 and will close May 31. This year, only one male bird may be taken per day.

The limit has been pegged at two per season.

Schistosomiasis is a parasitic disease caused by a flatworm that enters the skin and is found in infected water. Snails – common in Lake Volta – often act as an intermediary host for the worms before they get into humans, where they eat away at the internal organs. The symptoms include fever and passing blood in urine and feces, and are often detected very late. Bilharzia can stunt children’s growth and affect their cognitive development.

Classified as a neglected tropical disease by the World Health Organization, some 200 million people across Africa, Asia and South America are thought to be infected, but less than 15 percent are being treated, according to Lester Chitsulo, a research scientist in the Neglected Tropical Diseases department of the World Health Organization (WHO).

WHO is trying to help governments put in place more effective prevention programs by training community health workers like Mawuli, pushing hygiene and public health awareness, and negotiating drug donations with major suppliers.

Around the lake many people are unaware of the disease or its symptoms, said MoM’s other co-founder, Jonathan Porter. Many men see having blood their urine as a sign of virility he said, but doctors say it is a sign that the disease has eaten its way through the lower intestine.

Each week MoM air-drops leaflets in four languages over villages – particularly schools, so teachers can explain the contents – to inform people about how they can catch, prevent, and treat the illness.

Air drops are considered the most effective way of reaching the hundreds of isolated communities around the lake, where many are three hours from a hard-surfaced road, said Porter.

Progress

Ghana has made progress in controlling bilharzia with its national prevention program, run in partnership with USAID, WHO and NGOs. In 2008 it treated 300,000 children, which escalated to 1.7 million in 2010.

Efforts to control bilharzia are also picking up globally. According to WHO, some 12.4 million people were treated for the disease in 2006, and this rose to 33.5 million in 2010.

Drug manufacturer Merck pledged in 2000 to produce 20 million Praziquantel tablets – the drug most commonly used to treat bilharzia – over the next decade, and in 2012 to increase output to 250 million.

Some national programs have seen dramatic results. China, Cambodia, Egypt, Uganda and Burkina Faso have all pushed health education and access to Praziquantel, making the disease almost non-existent, WHO said.

International efforts to combat neglected tropical diseases are also picking up steam, with governments, the World Bank, major drug companies and international NGOs signing the London Declaration on Neglected Tropical Diseases in January 2012, in which signatories pledged to bring bilharzia and 10 other neglected tropical diseases under control by 2020.

But many sub-Saharan African nations are lagging behind – just 21 out of 40 affected countries have prevention programs, and in Nigeria, Ethiopia and the Democratic Republic of Congo the lack of assistance means sufferers will be treated only if an NGO or UN agency is there to do so.

Health experts told IRIN that the roadmap in the London declaration will be only achieved with far more concerted efforts at the national level.

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- Provided by Integrated Regional Information Networks.

New York, N.Y., United States (4E) – Moody’s Investor Service downgraded the debt rating of 26 Italian banks Monday amid worries about a double dip recession.

The move means Moody’s now ranks Italy’s banks lower than most of their Western European peers.

Italy’s banks have been struggling from the effects of a weak economy and government austerity measures.

Moody’s noted that support from the European Central Bank lowered the default risk of many of the banks.

The ratings agency lowered its long-term debt and deposit rating by one notch each for 10 banks, by two notches for eight banks, by three notches for six banks and by four notches for two banks.

Moody’s also downgraded the short-term rating on 21 banks by one or two notches, which resulted in long-term rating downgrades.

The firm maintains a negative outlook for all 26 banks.

Moody’s said that Italy relapsed into recession early this year and there are no clear signs of a recovery.

Government austerity measures and other reforms are weighing on Italy’s economy, which could result in further loan delinquencies, in particular among corporate and small business borrowers.

New York, NY, United States (4E) – With its highly anticipated IPO just a few days away, Facebook has raised the target price range for its initial public offering to $34 to $38 a share, up from the original $28 to $35 range set by the social network giant earlier this month.

Facebook executives and a plethora of underwriters have spent the past two weeks on a road show talking up potential investors and determining the demand for the company’s stock.

One investor told CNN Money that investor response has been “nothing short of pandemonium.”

If Facebook, which will trade under the symbol “FB,” does price at the high end of the amended range, the company’s valuation would be roughly $81.2 billion on its debut.

The new range is not binding and could rise even further.

The company expects to set its final price Thursday evening and to start trading Friday.

Morgan City, LA, United States (4E) – Mitchell Guist, one of the stars of the reality TV show “Swamp People” died Monday on the Louisiana bayou after he fell on a boat.

Guist was aboard a boat near Belle River Landing in the southern part of the state when he appeared to have a seizure, according to Assumption Parish Sheriff Mike Waguespack, citing a statement from an unidentified man who was with Guist. Guist then fell on the boat.

The man took Guist back to the landing, where he called emergency workers and began CPR. Guist was transported to the Teche Regional Medical Center in Morgan City, where he was pronounced dead.

In a statement, the History Channel said, “We are extremely saddened to report that our friend and beloved member of the ‘Swamp People’ family Mitchell Guist has passed away earlier today. Mitchell passed on the swamp, doing what he loved. We appreciate your respect for the Guist family’s privacy and hope you join us in sending out thoughts and prayers to his brother, Glenn, and the rest of the Guist Family.

“Swamp Family” is a popular History Channel TV series that chronicles the lives of alligators hunters in Louisiana.

Guist would have celebrated his 48th birthday in four days.

Our editors tried their hand at it to see what would happen.  First we attempted to join Twitter Advertising as a “Big Business” with the required $30,000 minimum investment.  The process went through without a hitch with the sales team sending us an agreement to sign and full disclosure.  Our team then decided before signing the agreement we would simply request information on Twitter Advertising for small business.  Sudden silence.

We encouraged other businesses to try their hands at Twitter Small business making sure they were American Express Merchants and/or business card members, again no response after the initial Direct Messages from the American Express Open Small Business Twitter Account.

We then decided to contact our “Big Business” sales team and inform them we were interested in the small business offering, after all we qualify because the sales team literally contacted us daily to sign the $30,000 contract, so becoming a small business advertiser should be no problem, right?- Wrong.

We were then told that the Twitter for Small Business is being rolled out on an invitation only limited basis with no other information available.  It started to seem that they were no longer interested since the $30,000 was not forthcoming.

Conclusion: It is difficult to come to a firm conclusion other than to say that the Small Business Advertising for Twitter does not seem to be a completed program and that a lot of the discussion is hidden and reserved for just a few businesses that meet a criteria that Twitter does not seem willing to disclose.  We did notice that Twitter is more than willing to sell their $30,000 package but is not willing to sell their other programs to us or our test cases.  Perhaps in a few more months they will be more forthcoming with their program, but by that time the buzz will probably wear off.  Twitter may have missed a huge opportunity by becoming over selective for something as basic as small business advertising.

In the meantime small businesses can advertise outside of Twitter on pamphlets and/or outside websites which has proven very effective as an alternative.

You’re not alone.Tens of millions of adults under 65- both those with insurance and those without — saw their access to health care dramatically worsen over the past decade, according to a study released Monday.

The findings suggest more privately insured Americans are delaying treatment due to rising out-of-pocket costs, while safety net programs for the poor and uninsured are failing to keep up with demand for care, say Urban Institute researchers who wrote the report.

Overall, the study published in the journal Health Affairs found one in five American adults under 65 had an “unmet medical need” because of costs in 2010, compared to one in eight in 2000. They also had a harder time accessing dental care, according to the analysis based on data from annual federal surveys of adults.

“For decades, Americans have been facing costs rising well above wage levels,” said Lynn Quincy, senior policy analyst for Consumers Union, a nonpartisan group. “These are real families. … It’s very concerning.”

President Barack Obama’s health law, which will expand health coverage to 30 million people starting in 2014, won’t necessarily solve all those access problems, the study says. That’s because the law, which is under review by the Supreme Court, may not alter the trend toward private insurance policies with larger deductibles and higher co-payments or address some of the barriers within public coverage. While the law does increase payments temporarily to primary care doctors who see people covered by Medicaid, it will not force more doctors into the program, or require states to provide dental coverage to adults.

Quincy noted the law does offer several new strategies such as new payment methods to control rising costs—which could help improve access, but there’s no guarantee they will work.

The study underscores what’s at stake in the law’s coverage expansion: People with private or public health insurance have significantly better access to care than the uninsured. If the law is overturned or scaled back, “we would be likely to see further deterioration in access to care for all adults — uninsured and insured alike,” it concludes.

‘Unmet Needs’ Increase For Privately Insured

The percent of adults with private insurance who reported an “unmet medical need” doubled to 10 percent from 2000 to 2010, while those who delayed seeking care due to cost rose from 4 percent to 7 percent in the same period, according to the study.

Genevieve Kenney, lead author and senior fellow at the Urban Institute, speculated that higher cost sharing and deductibles that shift more of the cost onto individuals could be driving those changes.

Several studies have found that privately insured Americans are spending a higher proportion of their income on health services, said Peter Cunningham, senior fellow at the nonpartisan Center for Studying Health System Change.

One analysis by the consulting firm Milliman showed health costs for an American family of four have more than doubled since 2002.

“As employers shift more costs onto workers, that is something we are going to continue to see,” Cunningham said.

For insured Americans, a shortage of doctors in some parts of the country was a factor, but not as important as cost, he said.

An increasing number of consumers are also facing delays finding a primary care doctor when they are sick because physicians leave less room on their schedules for walk-ins, said Arthur Kellermann, director of the research firm Rand Health. To make more money, physicians prefer to fill their days with quick turnaround type patients, such as those with chronic illnesses that need regular monitoring, he said.

‘Stressed And Worried’

Poor and uninsured adults had greater difficulties not just with health care costs, but finding doctors who would see them.

About one third of 41 million uninsured adults delayed getting care due to costs in 2010, compared to 25 percent in 2000, the study found. Nearly half the uninsured said they had an unmet medical need in 2010, up from 33 percent in 2000.

Marla Madden, 54, of Boca Raton, Fl., has gone without a Pap test to check for cervical cancer for more than a decade. She’s also years overdue for an MRI to check on her epilepsy and scoliosis.

Uninsured since her divorce in 2002, Madden said she can’t afford the tests. “You do feel a little bit helpless,” she said, adding that she’s recently gotten care through Project Access, in which doctors volunteer their time to treat those without coverage.

The uninsured who had a “usual source of care,” such as a family doctor or community health center, fell to 38 percent in 2010 from 44 percent in 2000. The finding was startling given the billions of additional federal funding to community health centers over the past decade, Cunningham said.

Toni Wolf, 45, of Roanoke, Va., says she’s put off going to the doctor for the past year, even though she has diabetes and suffers from a lung disorder that causes her to be short of breath. “It makes me feel very stressed and worried,” said Wolfe, who works as a teacher at a day care center but can’t afford the employee coverage it offers. She also recently got care through Project Access.

The study found that among adults getting care through public programs (more than two-thirds were enrolled in Medicaid, the state-federal insurance program for the poor) 26 percent said they had an unmet medical need in 2010, up from 20 percent in 2000. About’ percent experienced delays getting care due to non-cost factors in 2010, up from- percent in 2000. Nearly one in four people in public programs in 2010 had an unmet dental need, up from 15 percent in 2000.

The problems indicate that too few providers are taking Medicaid and an increasing number of states are dropping dental coverage — which is an optional benefit, Kenney said.

The American Medical Association, which has backed Obama’s health law, said the study findings were not surprising. “The ability for patients to access medical care is fundamental to the success of our health care system, since without timely health care access the uninsured live sicker and die younger,” said Dr. Peter W. Carmel, association president.

Rand’s Kellermann noted that even as the nation’s total health care bill doubled in the past decade to $2.6 trillion, many Americans had difficulty getting treated.

“We’re paying more and more and getting less and less,” he said.

Asked if there was any good news in her report, Kenney said that in contrast to adults, millions more children gained access to care in the past decade, likely due to the availability of public coverage for children through Medicaid and CHIP. The study found the percent of children who had been to a doctor in the past year rose to 92 percent in 2010, from 89 percent in 2000.

- Provided by Kaiser Health News.

Bangkok, Thailand (AHN) – Three men installing a billboard advertisement in Thailand’s tallest building fell to their death from the 69th floor on Monday after a cable of the platform they were standing on snapped and caused it to split.

Two other workers managed to grab a handhold on the platform and hanged for half an hour before they were rescued. They were treated in a hospital for minor injuries.

The bodies of the dead victims were found in different terraces of the 89-storey or 944 feet high Baiyoke Tower II in Ratchathewi district of Bangkok.

One body was found on the 36th floor, another beside the swimming pool in the 20th floor and the third was outside the mini-golf driving range on the 18th floor.

A forensic team is in the accident site to find out the cause of the cable snap.

Detroit, MI, United States (AHN) – Chrysler is recalling some 119,000 Chrysler 300 and Dodge Charger sedans due to a problem that could cause the anti-lock brakes and electronic stability control systems to malfunction.

A problem with the anti-lock system could cause vehicles to lock up during hard breaking, resulting in a possible loss of control, skidding and longer stopping distances.

A problem with the electronic stability control system could cause skidding during sharp turns.

The problems were discovered on Dodge Charger police cars. It was originally believed that the problems were limited to police models, but further research showed other cars were also affected.

Owners are being asked to bring their cars to a Chrysler deal to have the faulty fuse, that can overheat in the recalled vehicles, replaced.

The fuse for the computer controller that operates the anti-lock and stability control safety features will be mounted in a different location inside the car where it will not be subject to extreme temperatures.

No accidents or injures have been reported as a result of the problem, Chrysler reported.