HARRISBURG, Pa. – A new poll shows conservative Republican Pat Toomey virtually tied with incumbent Democratic Sen. Arlen Specter if Pennsylvania's 2010 Senate race were held today.
The statewide survey by Quinnipiac University released Wednesday showed Specter supported by 45 percent of the respondents and Toomey with 44 percent.
One out of 10 registered voters said they hadn't made up their minds.
The poll showed both Specter and Toomey far ahead of their leading rivals for the Democratic and Republican nominations in the May 2010 primaries.
The telephone poll conducted during a six-day period that ended Sunday included 1,173 voters.
The sampling error margin was plus or minus 2.9 percentage points.

CHARLOTTE, N.C. – An independent drug test on Jeremy Mayfield was negative for methamphetamines, contradicting the results of a NASCAR test taken 40 minutes earlier, the driver claimed in court documents filed Tuesday.
In response to NASCAR's claim that Mayfield again tested positive for methamphetamines on July 6, Mayfield submitted an affidavit to the U.S. District Court that said he traveled to Frye Regional Medical Center in Hickory, N.C., right after NASCAR collected a sample at his Catawba County home.
In a room he described as "very sterile," Mayfield said he emptied his pockets, washed his hands and was ushered into a bathroom, where he provided another urine sample.
Mayfield said in the court filing he received confirmation from Laboratory Corporation of America in Raleigh, N.C., that his sample was negative on July 10 — the same day NASCAR informed his counsel that its sample was positive.
He said the results of his test are "consistent with my lifestyle as I have not and do not use or abuse methamphetamines.
"It is impossible for methamphetamine to be in my body as I have never consumed that substance."
Dr. Harold Schueler of the Broward County (Fla.) Medical Examiner's Office, filed an affidavit on behalf of Mayfield that claimed the levels of methamphetamine in NASCAR's test are "astronomical" and "could be remotely accurate, unless Mr. Mayfield was deceased or a chronic abuser."
The filing also denied accusations made last week by his estranged former stepmother, who said in her own affidavit she witnessed Mayfield use methamphetamines at least 30 times and that the driver cooked it himself until the ingredients became too hard to obtain. She also said she witnessed him use the drug at Darlington Raceway in 1999.
"I deny Lisa Mayfield's allegation that I used, cooked or purchased methamphetamines," Mayfield wrote. "Lisa Mayfield's assertion that I used methamphetamine just prior to the 1999 Darlington race is a lie. I finished second in the 1999 Darlington race."
There were two races at Darlington in 1999, and Mayfield finished second and third. Lisa Mayfield's affidavit, submitted last week by NASCAR, did not specify before which race she witnessed him using drugs.
Mayfield was suspended May 9 for failing a random drug test taken eight days earlier for what NASCAR has said was a positive test for methamphetamines. The driver sued, and a federal judge issued an injunction July 1 that lifted his suspension based on the argument that NASCAR's testing system is flawed.
NASCAR asked U.S. District Court Judge Graham Mullen last week to reverse the injunction based on new evidence — the failed July 6 test and Lisa Mayfield's sworn testimony.
Mayfield's attorneys on Tuesday argued in their response that the July 6 test results — positive or negative — should not be taken into consideration because the case is about a failed May 1 test.
"This Court's preliminary injunction lifted a suspension for a drug test performed on May 1, 2009, the questionable circumstances surrounding which necessarily remain unchanged," they wrote.
Mayfield also disputed NASCAR's chronology of the July 6 testing sequence, in which the sanctioning body claims he delayed giving a sample for more than seven hours.
Although Mayfield attorney John Buric has said Mayfield submitted to an independent test during that seven-hour span, the only test results mentioned in Tuesday's filing are of the 9 p.m. trip to Frye Medical Center.
Buric did not immediately respond to a call and an e-mail from The Associated Press.
Mayfield said in his affidavit that he was at a lab waiting to be tested around 5 p.m. when NASCAR ordered him home to meet their collectors. His affidavit makes no mention of him actually giving a sample — which Buric has said the driver was doing during the time NASCAR could not locate him for its own test.

The stock market managed to extend its weeklong rally even as it struggled with more worries about the banking industry. Major market indexes seesawed through much of Tuesday's trading and ended with gains of less than 1 percent. Better-than-expected results from companies including Caterpillar Inc. spurred shares generally higher, although financial shares slid on reports of losses at several regional banks.
The Dow Jones industrial average rose 67.79, or 0.8 percent, to 8,915.94.
The Standard & Poor's 500 index rose 3.45, or 0.4 percent, to 954.58.
The Nasdaq composite index rose 6.91, or 0.4 percent, to 1,916.20.
For the week:
The Dow is up 172.00, or 2 percent.
The S&P is up 14.20, or 1.5 percent.
The Nasdaq is up 29.59, or 1.6 percent.
For the year:
The Dow is up 139.55, or 1.6 percent.
The S&P is up 51.33, or 5.7 percent.
The Nasdaq is up 339.17, or 21.5 percent.

MUMBAI, India – The lone surviving gunman in the Mumbai attacks said Wednesday that he is ready to go to the gallows and wants no mercy from the court for his role in one of India's worst terrorist acts, which left 166 people dead.
"Whatever I have done, I have done in this world. It would be better to be punished in this world. It would be better than God's punishment. That's why I have pleaded guilty," Ajmal Kasab, a Pakistani, told the court.
Kasab unexpectedly confessed Monday to taking part in the three-day attack that began Nov. 26, leaving a trail of carnage across downtown Mumbai, India's financial and entertainment capital.
"If I am hanged for this, I am not bothered. I don't want any mercy from the court. I understand the implications of my accepting the crime," he said.
Kasab, 21, was responding to accusations by Chief Prosecutor Ujjwal Nikam that the Pakistani national was trying to minimize his role in the attack to avoid the death penalty and protect his alleged co-conspirators in Pakistan. Nikam told the court that parts of his confession were inconsistent with evidence.
Judge M.L. Tahiliyani has yet to accept the confession, which has complicated the already onerous task of defending a man whose photograph showing him striding through Mumbai's main train station with a gun has become an emblem of the terrifying three days.
The confession, which describes in detail his links with a shadowy but well-organized group in Pakistan, also bolsters Indian accusations that Islamabad is not doing enough to clamp down on terrorist groups.
Kasab said he was not tortured or coerced into making the confession. "If somebody thinks that I have confessed the crime to escape the death penalty, he should take it out of his mind," he said.
In his confession, Kasab spoke of the killings by some of the other gunmen who came with him from Pakistan on a boat and the role their handlers played in instigating them to carry out the attack with provocative videos.
After landing in Mumbai, the 10 gunmen split up into pairs and fanned out to carry out the killings at a railway station, a hospital, a Jewish center and two five-star hotels.
Kasab's confession goes into detail about the shootings by his partner, Abu Ismail, at the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus railway station, where more than 50 people were killed, and at the Cama hospital.
The pair later hijacked a Skoda car, which was stopped by police. In the resulting shootout, Kasab was injured and captured while Abu Ismail was killed. The other eight gunmen were also killed during the course of the siege.
Nikam urged the court not to rush to issue a judgment based only on Kasab's confession, saying only parts of it that are consistent with the prosecution's evidence should be accepted.
"The rest of the things that he has said are so many total lies," he told reporters later.
Nikam said the court should also allow the prosecution to finish presenting its case so it can expose inconsistencies in Kasab's confession.
The Mumbai siege severely strained relations between India and Pakistan and slowed a peace process between the nuclear-armed rivals.
Pakistan is trying five alleged members of Lashkar-e-Taiba, the group India says masterminded the attack. The five have denied allegations that they played a role in the Mumbai attack.
In his confession, Kasab said one of those men — Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi — saw him and the other attackers off on their suicide mission.

Kasab initially pleaded not guilty to 86 charges including murder and waging war against India, which is punishable by death. He said he made the abrupt about-face because the Pakistani government acknowledged he was Pakistani and began legal proceedings against the alleged masterminds of the Mumbai attack.

Two Indians, Fahim Ansari and Ahmed Sabauddin, also are on trial for allegedly providing maps that helped in the attack.

___

Associated Press writer Rajesh Shah contributed to this report.

WASHINGTON (AFP) –
US President Barack Obama holds a primetime news conference Wednesday to tout the health care reform he promised during his campaign for the White House, as new polls reveal his popularity is waning.

Six months after his January inauguration attracted record crowds and television audiences, Obama's approval rating has dropped nine points to 55 percent, a USA Today/Gallup poll found this week, as his disapproval rating jumped 16 points to 41 percent.

Critically for the high-stakes efforts over health care reform -- on which Obama is pushing for immediate legislative action -- the poll found the US public disapprove of his health care policy by 50 percent to 44 percent.

Obama's handling of the economy appears to be key in his fading popularity, as Americans have become more pessimistic about how long it will take the economic downturn to end.

Health care reform however, when coupled with mounting deficits from efforts to battle the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930s and ever-rising unemployment, looks set to be Obama's biggest test yet.

He has invested much personally in the campaign, a cornerstone of his 2008 White House race that saw him defeat Republican rival John McCain to become the country's first African-American president.

But his far-reaching plans to afford health insurance for all Americans have left many worrying who will end up footing the bill.

During the press conference, only the fourth in primetime since his presidency began, Obama hopes to sway not only the public on radical reform but also many players within his own Democratic party, who are yet to be won over.

When Obama in February unveiled massive plans to stimulate the world's largest economy and create or save some three million jobs within two years, he was met by a wave of skepticism among Republican critics who accused him of aggravating the deficit, burdening generations to come with a huge debt.

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs meanwhile admitted Tuesday that due to the recession-mired economy, with its smaller tax base, the government's budget challenges "have only become greater."

As such, it is more than anything else the final cost that may eventually scupper plans for the health care system -- one of the most expensive and least performing among the world's industrialized nations.

But Obama is determined to get his message across, and has fought back hard to keep it on track.

"Just the other day, one Republican senator said -- and I'm quoting him now -- 'If we're able to stop Obama on this, it will be his Waterloo. It will break him,'" Obama said on Monday.

"This isn't about me. This isn't about politics. This is about a health care system that is breaking America's families, breaking America's businesses, and breaking America's economy."

In an opinion column in the Wall Street Journal, first published online late Tuesday, Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal -- a potential Republican candidate to challenge Obama in years to come -- slammed the president for his efforts.

The "Democrats' reforms are designed to push an ever-increasing number of Americans into a government-run health care plan," Jindal wrote, saying authorities would compete "unfairly in the marketplace until private plans are driven out of business."

The result, Jindal warned, would be higher costs for all Americans accompanied by an inevitable fall in health care quality.

JAKARTA, Indonesia – Gunmen opened fire Wednesday on buses carrying employees of U.S. mining company Freeport in Indonesia's impoverished Papua province, killing two people in the latest attack on the world's largest gold mine, witnesses and the state news agency said.
The state news agency Antara reported two dead, but it did not identify the victims or say if they were shot.
An Associated Press reporter was told by a policeman who witnessed the shooting that a police vehicle escorting the convoy flipped. He declined to be named because he was not authorized to talk to the media.
Several injured officers were taken to a local clinic, the AP reporter said, one of them in critical condition. Two body bags were later seen being removed. The police officer did not think any Freeport employees had been hurt.
Since July 11, at least a dozen people have been killed or wounded in ambushes along a road leading to the mine, prompting a massive security operation in the militarized zone that is off limits to foreign journalists.
Freeport declined comment, referring inquiries to police who did not return phone calls.
Arizona-based Freeport has been targeted with arson, roadside bombs and blockades since production began in the 1970s during the U.S.-backed Suharto dictatorship.
Freeport CEO Richard Adkerson said Tuesday that 15 arrests had been made in connection with the shootings in which a Freeport guard, an Australian mining expert and a policeman died. He said six people had been charged, including a man who apparently acknowledged being a sniper.
"We have been assured from the highest levels of government in Indonesia they are committed to provide safety for our people and for our operations," Adkerson said in a conference call detailing their latest earnings.
Freeport staff were ordered to stop traveling the road last week, and hundreds have been unable to return to work. The buses were turned back when the firing began, Antara reported.
A PT Freeport spokesman in Indonesia, Mindo Pangaribuan, said early Wednesday morning that "secure transportations have been arranged to transport personnel and deliver supplies."
Papua is home to a four-decade-old, low-level insurgency against the government, and members of the Free Papua Movement — who see Freeport as a symbol of outside rule — were initially blamed by authorities for the latest violence.
Some analysts, however, believe the shootings resulted from a rivalry between the police and military over multimillion dollar illegal gold mining or protection businesses at the mine. Others blame criminal gangs.
The shootings were the worst violence at Freeport since the killing of three schoolteachers, including two Americans, in August 2002 that sparked widespread protests by locals who feel they are not benefiting from the depletion of Papua's natural resources.
Freeport employs about 20,000 people in Papua, where it has extracted billions of dollars worth of gold and copper and still has some of the largest reserves in the world. Freeport is one of the top taxpayers to the Indonesian government, which is also a minority stake holder.
Papua, a desperately poor mountain province, lies on the western half of New Guinea island, some 2,100 miles (3,400 kilometers) east of the capital, Jakarta.

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. – A Florida woman has been sentenced to 14 months of house arrest for leaving two grandchildren alone in a parked car while she went to play the slots.
A Broward County judge also gave the 54-year-old woman three years' probation Monday.
Authorities say the woman left the children in a car parked outside a Hallandale Beach casino in August 2008. The windows were down, but the air-conditioning was off.
A witness saw the 2-year-old girl and 14-year-old boy in the car and told the casino's security.
The prosecutor tells the South Florida Sun Sentinel that the woman had pleaded guilty to charges including felony child abuse and misdemeanor contributing to the delinquency of a minor.
___
Information from: South Florida Sun Sentinel, http://www.sunsentinel.com

Any risk that can be quantified can potentially be insured. Specific kinds of risk that may give rise to claims are known as "perils". An insurance policy will set out in detail which perils are covered by the policy and which are not.

The types of risk that a captive can underwrite for their parents include property damage, public and products liability, professional indemnity, employee benefits, employers liability, motor and medical aid expenses. The captive's exposure to such risks may be limited by the use of reinsurance.

Georgia Health Insurance

WASHINGTON – House Democrats want to give doctors a $245 billion sweetener that helps ensure their critical support for a health care overhaul bill. Next up: Trying to explain how they could do it without breaking President Barack Obama's promise that health legislation won't increase the federal deficit.
Obama reiterated the pledge in a "CBS Evening News" interview Tuesday, saying: "It's got to be deficit neutral. It can't add to our deficits."
So what of the Congressional Budget Office's conclusion that the House bill does add to the deficit?
Democrats and the Obama administration argue that the $245 billion included for doctors — the approximate 10-year cost of adjusting Medicare reimbursement rates so physicians don't face big annual pay cuts — does not have to be counted in the overall cost of the health care bill.
Their only-in-Washington reasoning is that they already decided to exempt it from congressional "pay-as-you-go" rules that require new programs to be paid for. In other words, it doesn't have to be paid for because they decided it doesn't have to be paid for.
The administration also says that since Obama already included the so-called "doc fix" in his 10-year budget proposal, it doesn't have to be counted again in the health overhaul bill.
"It so happens they added that to this piece of legislation, but that's sort of already baked into our fiscal trajectory," White House budget director Peter Orszag said last weekend on "Fox News Sunday."
"We're looking at what's happening with regard to new policy," Orszag added. "And with regard to new policy, this is deficit neutral over the first decade."
Old policy or new, no one disputes that the "doc fix" does in fact add to the deficit. And the administration's position carried no weight with the CBO when it released its analysis of the House Democrats' bill.
The CBO, Congress' nonpartisan budget scorekeeper, said Friday that enacting the legislation "would result in a net increase to the federal budget deficit of $239 billion over the 2010-2019 period." The increase is mostly because of Democrats' failure to pay for the "doc fix," but CBO didn't even bother to entertain the notion that its cost should be excluded.
The response from House Democrats? A slough of triumphant press releases claiming — misleadingly — that CBO's estimates backed up their claims that their bill was deficit neutral.
The issue is providing ammunition for Republicans, who are accusing Obama of breaking his deficit-neutrality promise. And health experts scoff at the Democrats' fuzzy math.
"Of course it adds to the deficit," said Alex Vachon, a health policy analyst. But at the same time, Vachon and others give the Obama administration and congressional Democrats some credit for attempting to permanently fix the doctor payment issue.
Since its enactment in 1997 the so-called "sustainable growth rate" mechanism, which uses a complex formula to establishes annual target costs for physicians' services under Medicare, has not kept up with actual costs.
That's required Congress to step in almost annually with one-year fixes to prevent doctors from facing ever-bigger potential cuts in payment rates. The cut that loomed for doctors in 2010 was 21 percent. Without a permanent redo of the payment formula Congress would presumably have had to continue to do one-year fixes, something that would also have cost money and that doctors hated because of the uncertainty involved.
The "doc fix" has been a top priority for the American Medical Association, which cited its inclusion as a key reason in its endorsement of the House Democrats' sweeping health care bill.
In the Senate, Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., who is presiding over negotiations aimed at a bipartisan agreement on health care, said the issue of paying for the "doc fix" has not yet come up in the talks.
Robert Laszewski, a former insurance company executive who's now a consultant to industry, contended doctors were "paid off" to support the House bill.

"The AMA would not have endorsed the House bill without the doc fix," Laszewski said. "The fact that the CBO has said the doc fix would add hundreds of billions of dollars to the cost of the bill makes clear how much it is worth to the docs."

Asked to comment, the AMA provided a written statement from the group's president, Dr. James Rohack: "Expansion of health care coverage, elimination of denials for pre-existing conditions and repeal of the flawed Medicare physician payment formula are all reasons the AMA supports the House bill."

___

AP Special Correspondent David Espo contributed to this report.

Peshawar and Mardan, Pakistan –
For the millions of displaced Pakistanis trying to gauge whether to head home, the messages Thursday were deeply mixed.
In the morning, unknown assailants murdered a United Nations employee and a guard at a refugee camp in Peshawar. But at the same time, dozens of buses packed with refugees and loaded up with suitcases, electric fans, and government rations of flour and sugar left from another camp an hour away in Mardan. The passengers were not dissuaded by a nearby bomb blast the day before at a police checkpoint.
For the more than 2 million people displaced from northwestern Swat and Buner districts, pressure is coming at them from all sides. Government officials are urging many to return home since the military ended its three-month-long offensive against the Taliban in the area, and the scorching sun radiates the same message day in and day out to those stuck in tents. But suspected Taliban militants appear to be sending opposite signals with guns and bombs.
"This [violence] might be an attempt to frighten the people from returning to their respective districts," says Manzir Javed, administrator for the Sheikh Shahzad camp in Mardan. "But I don't think people are so worried about it."
More than 2,100 of the camp's 9,000 people have already left voluntarily over the past three days, he says. But some of those remaining appear deeply conflicted about whether it's safe or not.
"We want to leave, but first we are watching when the curfew will be lifted," says Naik Amal, a refugee from Kamba, a town in Swat near the main city of Mingora.
Refugees fear militants and militaryOnly a rotating fan breaks the stifling heat and swarms of flies in his humble tent, shared by his family of four. His elderly mother, Zairat Jan, has further concerns: "There is no electricity in Kamba, no water in Kamba, what will we do after reaching there?"
He and others in the camp from his village have already called by cellphone those who returned on the buses this morning. The report back: Security isn't as fragile as before, but the curfew continues.
"We are afraid of the curfew because we cannot go outside and do work," says Subhan ud-Din, another man who fled Kamba. In May, he says, he witnessed two villagers go outside to work after curfew, only to be shot in the head by the military. The lifting of the curfew, therefore, signals to these villagers that they are safe from both the militants and the military.
Not all of Swat ready for returneesThe government is only allowing internally displaced people (IDPs) to return to areas that are secure with functional police stations, says Jamal Nasir, the special home secretary for North West Frontier Province. The IDPs are only allowed to return to Swat in convoys of buses, and foreign journalists have been turned back from the borders.
"We are sending [IDPs] in batches home because our roads and infrastructure are very weak," says Dr. Nasir. Underscoring that point, a member of parliament from Swat was also in his office asking for help restoring electricity and water services.
Mingora has power and water, but the once-thriving city of 700,000 people remains virtually empty with roughly 5,000 people, says Hamidullah Khan, a reporter based there for the Pakistani daily newspaper Dawn. The majority of houses in the city remain intact, but some suffered damage in house-to-house fighting between the Taliban and the military.
"When [the IDPs] get inside their houses, they will be stuck inside, because the shops are closed," says Mr. Khan.
To offset such hardships, say officials at the Mardan camp, the government is issuing returnees a month of rations and ATM cards with $300 – a significant amount of money here. Those whose homes are destroyed will be accommodated in new tent cities and eventually given compensation, says Nasir.
Violence at home – and in campsBut the biggest question mark remains whether the region is really pacified enough for civilians. Security forces killed more than 20 militants in Swat over the past several days. Khan in Mingora says the region still teems with soldiers, with checkpoints on the main road every 500 meters.
Yet, violence has come also to the camps that are supposed to serve as refuges. Four or five unidentified gunmen opened fire on Zill-e Usman, a field officer with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, at the Katcha Gari camp. He and a camp guard died, and another UN staff member was injured. His death marked the third UNHCR staff member to be killed in Pakistan in the past six months.
"There is no justification for attacks on humanitarian workers dedicated to the protection and care of the most vulnerable people," said António Guterres, the UNHCR chief.

LOS ANGELES – Mischa (MEE'-shah) Barton remains hospitalized, two days after Los Angeles police say they escorted her from her home with an undisclosed medical problem.
Her publicist, Craig Schneider, says in a statement that the 23-year-old actress remains in the hospital under doctor's orders.
Police say they removed Barton from her home on Wednesday afternoon for a medical problem. The department will not say what it was.
Schneider's statement also does not address Barton's condition.
The actress rose to fame as a star on Fox's teen drama "The O.C." She was arrested in December 2007 and later pleaded no contest to a drunken driving charge.

THURSDAY, July 9 (HealthDay News) -- A defective gene
significantly increases the likelihood of developing such allergic
disorders as eczema and asthma, Scottish researchers report.

Reviewing the findings of 24 studies, researchers from the University
of Edinburgh concluded that mutations of the filaggrin gene -- which is
thought to help maintain an effective skin barrier against the
environment -- significantly increase the risk for developing allergic
sensitization, atopic eczema, allergic rhinitis and asthma in people with
eczema.

The link between atopic eczema and filaggrin gene mutations appeared to
be particularly strong, the study found.

"These findings provide strong supporting evidence that, at least in a
subset of those with allergic problems, the filaggrin gene defect may be
the fundamental predisposing factor not only for the development of eczema
but also for initial sensitization and progression of allergic disease,"
the study authors wrote. "Our findings suggest that filaggrin is a robust
biomarker for allergic conditions."

They called for further research to investigate whether filaggrin can
be used to identify people at high risk for allergic conditions. Restoring
skin barrier function early in life in people with filaggrin defects might
help prevent the development of allergic sensitization and stop the
development and progression of allergic disorders, the researchers
suggested.

The study was to be published online July 10 in BMJ.

In an accompanying editorial, Hugo Van Bever, a professor of pediatric
allergy and immunology at National University Singapore, and his
colleagues described the finding as an important advance in understanding
the genetic basis of allergic disease.

The next step is to determine whether it's possible to distinguish
different genotypes of allergy, which could provide a breakthrough in the
prevention, diagnosis and treatment of allergies in children, they
said.

More information

The American Academy of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology has more about
allergies.

A basket is a container which is traditionally constructed from stiff fibres, often made of willow. . The top is either left open or the basket may be fitted with a lid.

By extension the term gift can refer to anything that makes the other happier or less sad, especially as a favour, including forgiveness and kindness.

Gift Baskets

Live food is commonly used as feed for a variety of species of exotic pets and zoo animals, ranging from alligators to various snakes, frogs and lizards, but also including other, non-reptile, non-amphibian carnivores and omnivores (for instance, skunks, which are omnivorous mammals, can be technically be fed a limited amount of live food, though this is not known to be a common practice). Common live food ranges from crickets (used as an inexpensive form of feed for carnivorous and omnivorous reptiles such as bearded dragons and commonly available in pet stores for this reason), waxworms, mealworms and to a lesser extent cockroaches and locusts, to small birds and mammals such as mice or chickens.

They can be purchased at most pet stores and bait shops. They are also available via mail order and via internet suppliers (by the thousand). Mealworms are typically sold in a container with bran or oatmeal for food. When rearing mealworms, commercial growers incorporate a juvenile hormone into the feeding process to keep the mealworm in the larval stage and achieve an abnormal length of 2 cm or greater.

Mealworms

In Orthodox theology the baptismal robe symbolizes the "Garments of Light" (i.e., the fullness of Divine grace) with which Adam and Eve were clothed in the Garden of Eden before the Fall of Man. Baptism is believed to cleanse the believer of all the sinful defilements both of original sin and personal sins and the white garment is symbolic of this. During the ektenia (litany) before baptism, the deacon prays "That he (she) may preserve this (her) baptismal garment and the earnest of the Spirit pure and undefiled unto the dead Day of Christ our God...", referring not so much to the material garment as to the spiritual cleansing it represents.

He then sprinkles the newly-baptized with water and washes all of the places the chrism was applied, and performs the tonsure.

Christening Gift