#Family Ophthalmologist in Houston

[fallingblueroses]

Part 6 of the Panic! story.

TW: suicide attempt.

***

Luck was with Kathy, and after leaving William with Geoff's parents she managed to get a flight out of Orlando with only an hour of waiting. Even with a layover in Houston, she got to New Orleans in about five hours, then rented a car and let Google Maps guide her to the hospital Geoff was in. She went up to the ER's reception desk and asked where Geoff was, and her heart sank when she was directed to the critical care unit.

She gasped and put a hand to her mouth when she saw him laying in the bed covered in bandages and tubes. She took the few steps across the tiny room to his side and glanced up at the monitor. His pulse and blood pressure were high, but she supposed that was to be expected.

Not knowing what else to do she sat in the chair and put a hand on his upper arm. "Geoff?" She asked softly. "Geoff, can you hear me?"

No response. He must be asleep, she thought. She stayed quiet to let him rest. Eventually someone came in to check his vitals and Kathy demanded to talk to someone who could explain his condition to her. Another nurse came in a short time later, and Kathy listened carefully as the nurse told her about how Geoff had been dropped off in a horse trailer. He had several broken ribs and a collapsed lung, and they had put in a chest tube to drain the air out of the cavity and were giving him oxygen to help reinflate the lung. If it didn't reinflate on its own he'd need surgery to fix it. His eyes had suffered flash burns and his eardrums had ruptured. He had second-degree burns on his hands and forearms, and all of it was complicated by the delay in care, dehydration, and an infection that Geoff had picked up from God knew what was in that horse trailer.

Kathy swallowed as the nurse finished her explanation. "Is...is he going to get his sight and hearing back?"

"An ophthalmologist and ENT will examine him in the morning," the nurse said. "We'll know more then."

Kathy nodded and looked back at Geoff. "...Thank you." What else was there to say?

"Let us know if you need anything," the nurse said, then left. Kathy had to fight back tears. Losing her hearing had been bad enough; she couldn't imagine losing her sight too. She'd be terrified if she were in Geoff's position right now. Did he even know he was safe and getting help, or did he think he was still Tony's prisoner? How was she going to communicate with him when he woke up?

Kathy took a deep breath and forced herself to calm down. She'd find a way. Geoff had stayed with her every step of the way when she'd lost her hearing and she wouldn't let him down now. She pulled out her phone and sent text messages to VoicePlay and Geoff's parents telling them she'd arrived safely and about his condition. Once she'd done that she stared at her phone, then gave in to her rage and called Tony.

She was honestly surprised when he actually answered. "Kathy?"

"You bastard." Kathy felt the tears come as she struggled to keep her voice down. "You...you...asshole."

He was silent for a few seconds. "Is Geoff still alive?"

"Barely, no thanks to you! Are you happy now? Is this what you wanted?"

"No, I--"

"You what? What were you planning on doing when you ran away with him? Did you think you'd hide him somewhere and he'd be oh so grateful to you for sparing his life that he'd be your little pet or something? Or was he just going to be your barganing chip when the police caught up to you?"

"Kathy--"

"Shut up!" She swallowed and forced herself to speak quietly. "No one forced you to leave VoicePlay and you know that. It was just an excuse you used to torture them. Well, I hope you're happy with what you've done. But you didn't win, Tony. Geoff won." She laughed softly. "Geoff won. They were found. They're alive and safe and with their families and they'll recover from what you did. All you've managed to do is make yourself an outcast. A criminal. What do you have to say for yourself now?"

Tony sighed. "Kathy...tell Geoff I'm sorry."

Her fury only got hotter with that. "If you're so sorry, go to the police and turn yourself in. Face the consequences of what you did like a man." She paused. "Or save everyone some time and pain and just blow your brains out." She hung up, rested her head on Geoff's bed, and let all the sobs she'd been holding back come out.

After a long time she heard a gentle male voice. "Ma'am?" She looked up to see a tech standing next to a cart with a computer on it. "...Are you all right?"

"I will be."

"Would you like some water?"

"Please." He left and came back a couple of minutes later with a glass of ice water. She thanked him and sipped it gratefully as the tech checked Geoff's monitor, typed into his computer, and left.

Once the water was gone she laid her throbbing head on the bed and rested. The rest of her felt oddly empty and light, like a burst balloon. She found herself falling asleep, and decided not to fight it.

***

Tony sighed as he hung up and set his phone aside. He was laying on his side on a hotel bed, waiting for the latest dose of pills to kick in so he could sleep.

"Well I suppose you didn't expect her to thank you for dropping him off."

Tony groaned at the sound of his double's voice and covered his head with a pillow. "Let me sleep."

It sounded like his double was laying right next to him, at his back. "You're not going to do it, right? Turn yourself in, I mean. Imagine the charges against you. Five counts of kidnapping, and one of those going over state lines." His voice was light and mocking. "Five counts of attempted murder. I wonder what the charge would be if Geoff doesn't pull through? Third-degree murder? Negligent homicide?"

Tony didn't answer, and the double went on. "Destruction of property for what you did at PattyCake. Grand theft auto for the truck and trailer you rented and didn't return. Let's see...what else...oh yeah. Possession of drugs for those pills. Did you ever find out what they were? Maybe even distribution if there's any left in Geoff's system when they draw his blood. A good prosecutor could probably think of a half dozen other charges." The voice moved to in front of him. "If you get caught you're cooked, Wakim. You're done."

Tony moved the pillow to see his double kneeling on the floor, his face inches from Tony's. "And imagine what jail and prison are going to be like. No one's going to give a shit about how bad your headaches are in there. You might be able to get some kind of drugs smuggled in to help if you can pay for them. But where are you going to get the money? You've burned all your bridges. You're alone." Tony and his double stared at each other, and the double slowly smiled. "Then again, you might be able to work something out. A trade, let's say. You're a pretty good-looking guy." The double grinned. "The other inmates are going to have fun with you."

Tony swung a pillow at his double. It passed completely through him, and he didn't even so much as blink in response. "...Of course, there is that other way out Kathy mentioned." They continued to stare at each other as the double kept talking. "You don't have a gun, but you do have those pills. How many are left in the bottle? Twenty? Twenty-five? That would do it, surely."

A cold feeling crept through Tony's chest. The double sat on the bed next to him and put an almost-comforting hand on his arm. His voice became soothing, calming. "They want revenge. You'll be going out on your terms, denying them their pound of flesh. Imagine how they would rage...and imagine how it would be, just going to sleep and never waking up. An escape from the pain. A release. How peaceful."

The double fell silent finally and allowed Tony to consider his words. Tony looked off into the distance for a long time and tried to sort out his jumbled thoughts. One finally rose above the rest: He's right. I might as well....

He got up, picked the bottle up from the stand he'd set it on, and got a cup of water from the sink. He stood by the sink and swallowed the pills a few at a time as he and his double stared each other down. Once the bottle was empty, Tony laid back down and closed his eyes as he waited for sleep to take him.

He heard his double's voice one last time, right on the edge of sleep. "Goodbye, Wakim."

Relief flowed through him as he drifted off. If nothing else, he'd finally be rid of his double.

[decafdoodlez]

what kinda vn would rory be in? like would there be other routes? and characters? if your comfortable sharing. hes very cute

Hi! Thank you for asking, and for thinking Rory is cute, I’ll be sure to draw more of him very soon! 🫶

Rory would be in a Yandere/Psychological/Thriller horrorsim. :) I’ve been very inspired by BTD/TPoF, so I would like to tell my own story in that genre with my own characters.

There would be 2 other routes besides Rory to choose from with multiple endings. I’ll add some general details about characters below.

Characters/Routes:

Rory 🗡️🐛

Profile:

Name: Rory Shay Flynn

Gender: Male

Age: 28 (Feb 28th | Pisces)

Height 5’9”

MBTI: INFP

Occupation: Singer/Rhythm guitarist in punk band

Where you will meet him: At a concert, he’ll be performing and you’ll catch his eye in the crowd.

Personality/Traits (Positive and Negative):

Sweet/chivalrous (think southern gentleman :3c)

Comforting/smooth talker/says all the right things

Antsy/Anxious (especially during drug withdrawals)

Obsessive

Impulsive (especially during drug withdrawals)

Manipulative

Inflated ego

Codependent

Misc. Notes/Trivia:

The city he was born in was inspired by Corpus Christi, TX.

Rory likes football, his favorite team is the Dallas Cowboys.

Aside from his more alternative tastes, Rory also enjoys country music.

Rory was raised by his grandparents from age 10 to 18.

Rory grew up fishing and fixing cars with his grandfather.

Rory loves bugs and insects, his favorite insect is the centipede.

Rory is culturally Irish on his father’s side.

Rory is addicted to opioids. (pill form)

Rory’s mother was addicted to heroin.

Rory lives in a loft style apartment downtown in the city he lives in.

It is rumored that Rory has taken home multiple groupies/concert goers, and they were never seen or heard from again.

Rory has an affinity for firearms and owns a handgun.

Just for fun! Animal associated with Rory: Opossum (or possibly raccoon)

Izzy 🎮🎧

(Yet to be drawn/shown)

Profile:

Name: Isobel Elise Guthrie

Gender: Female

Age: 25 (August 3rd | Leo)

Height: 5’2”

MBTI: ENFP

Occupation: Streamer

Where you will meet her: At an arcade and crane game venue similar to Round-One.

Personality/Traits (Positive and Negative):

Outgoing

Warm and inviting

Competitive

Cocky

Perfectionist

Has a warped sense of right and wrong

Demanding/commanding

Impatient

Hot-tempered

Misc. Notes/Trivia:

The city Izzy is from was inspired by Houston, TX.

The football team Izzy roots for is The Texans.

Izzy came from a middle class family that mysteriously died when their house caught fire. She was the sole survivor.

Izzy was adopted by a family of rich ranchers at age 6.

Izzy “inherited” their estate/land.

Izzy is skilled at skeet shooting and knows her way around a gun.

Izzy’s adopted dad, Kenneth, taught her how to shoot.

Izzy’s adopted family, aside from her Father, were not too fond of her.

Izzy had an office job before becoming an online content creator.

Izzy lives on a secluded ranch outside the big city.

Izzy is skilled at almost any game put in front of her.

Izzy’s favorite video game is Call of Duty.

Penn 👁️📚

(Yet to be drawn/shown)

Profile:

Name: Dr. Penniel Evan Park

Gender: Male

Age: 33 (January 1st | Capricorn)

Height: 6’2”

MBTI: INTJ

Occupation: Ophthalmologist/Eye Surgeon

Where you will meet him: You’ll bump into him at a bookstore/cafe.

Personality/Traits (Positive and Negative):

Booksmart

Calm

Charming

Arrogant

Narcissistic

Has a god-complex

Unfeeling

Cruel

Misc. Notes/Trivia:

The city Penn is from was inspired by Dallas, TX.

Penn roots for the Dallas cowboys, but could care less about football.

He is the only character of the 3 to not have a southern accent.

Penn has a slight South Korean accent.

Penn works as an eye surgeon at his own practice.

Penn grew up in a cult.

Penn’s parents basically worshiped the ground he walked on.

Penn was in the black market organ trade when he was in med school.

Penn has extensive knowledge on eyes and has been experimenting on performing eye transplants, something that is not quite possible yet.

Penn has his own surgical studio (warehouse space) that he rents out on the down low to do his experiments.

Penn lives in a luxury apartment.

Currently, Rory is the one of the three that I’ve written the most about, but I will get to the others soon!

Thank you for your question! :D

[pupilaeyecare-blog]

Pupila Eye Care provides quality Optometrist services in Houston. We are proud to offer comprehensive best eye care services and eyewear for the whole family. Our Top Rated Eye Doctors and experienced Optometrists are here to assist you.

[tinyshe]

[remember to save and share as this information is being suppressed and censored]

Awareness Foundation COVID-19 Roundtable

Story at-a-glance

The Awareness Foundation COVID-19 Roundtable is a sign of wakefulness and hope during times of censorship and suppression

It includes honest opinions and expertise from 14 high-profile doctors, including myself, with a focus on the potential dangers being posed by the experimental mass COVID-19 vaccination campaign

Experts discuss how COVID-19 vaccines may cause a coming tsunami of hospitalization and deaths, along with debilitating chronic disease, early signs of which are already appearing

All agree that there’s enough evidence to halt the global COVID-19 vaccination campaign, either for everyone or — particularly — for those to whom the vaccines pose the greatest risks with little to no benefit, namely children and young people, pregnant women and those who have already recovered from COVID-19

In this time of extreme censorship and suppression of scientific debate, The Awareness Foundation COVID-19 Roundtable,1 hosted by Katherine Macbean of the Awareness Foundation, is a sign of wakefulness and hope. It includes honest opinions and expertise from 14 high-profile doctors, including myself, with a focus on the potential dangers being posed by the experimental mass COVID-19 vaccination campaign.

Each has faced censorship when speaking out, and though there are some differing viewpoints, all agree that there’s enough evidence to halt the global COVID-19 vaccination campaign, either for everyone or — particularly — for those to whom the vaccines pose the greatest risks with little to no benefit. This includes children and young people, pregnant women and those who have already recovered from COVID-19.

I highly recommend setting aside two hours to watch this roundtable discussion in full — it’s a rarity in the present day to hear such candor and open debate. However, I’ve also compiled some of the highlights below, which include warnings about the dangers these experimental vaccines may pose to society.

A Tsunami of Chronic Disease and Death

Will COVID-19 vaccines cause a coming tsunami of hospitalization and deaths, along with debilitating chronic disease? One expert on the panel, Dr. Peter McCullough, an internist, cardiologist, epidemiologist and full professor of medicine at Texas A&M College of Medicine in Dallas with a master's degree in public health, said he’s focused more on the short-term adverse effects from the shot. These nonfatal injuries fall into four major categories:

Neurologic

Immunologic

Hematologic

Cardiac

“What I'm seeing is just the late emergence of various neurologic syndromes. And it probably depends on where the seeding occurs of, uh, of, you know, the uptake of the genetic material in the brain or support cells in the brain, but there's a whole variety of cerebral, cerebellar, even peripheral nervous system abnormalities,” McCullough said, adding:2

“I've seen it in my clinic and they seem to be emerging three, four or five, six months later after vaccination … So I'm getting increasingly alarmed here that this is not just a simple one- or two-day problem. And so there's great concern, particularly in younger kids that over a course of three or six or nine months, they'll end up with heart failure or cardiac death.

… What I see is, potentially from these signals, not mass death, but just a large number of Americans and people around the world with a new chronic disease of some sort of neurodegenerative disease or cardiac disease. The patients that I'm aware of, these problems seem to be quite disabling.”

Another panel member, Dr. Vladimir Zelenko, who has treated thousands of COVID-19 patients using hydroxychloroquine (HCQ), azithromycin and zinc sulfate,3 with great success, has a different take. He believes there is a very distinct possibility that everyone who receives the COVID jab may die from complications in the next two to three years:4

“I'm just going to give you the perspective of a clinician who deals with people that are dying … 4 million dead people can testify to the unique clinical syndrome to put them there. Basically, a natural animal virus was changed to infect humans, and then its lethality was augmented to cause blood clots and lung damage.

And in concept here, we're dealing with a Hitler/Stalin type of mentality with weapons of mass destruction and the way to win this war — and it's very winnable — is in the following manner. It's a narrative war. So we need to spread the following two ideas … Don't give into the fear and choose to destroy yourself, No. 1. No. 2, treat your problem early. If these two ideas could penetrate the fixed calls of humanity, then it's really the end of this crisis.”

Dr. Tess Lawrie, whose company The Evidence-Based Medicine Consultancy has worked with the World Health Organization, agreed that the vaccines are unsafe for children and adults alike:5

“They're actually not safe for anybody, and it's clear. The databases are screaming. The databases are early warning systems, and the databases around the world are screaming that we are facing a tsunami of chronic disease.”

Inflammatory Disorders, Cancer Markers on the Rise

Dr. Richard Urso, an ophthalmologist in Houston, Texas, is also concerned:6

“Early on, we were seeing things, mostly thrombotic, but later, as we get into two and three months [after vaccination], we’re seeing a lot of inflammatory issues. I’ve had a host of people with inflammatory ocular disorders, as well as having orbital inflammatory diseases.

I typically don’t see this rash number of people. For people who don’t know, my clinical practice is probably one of the largest in the United States, if not the largest, and we get a tremendous number, in volume, of patients who come through our office. And I’m seeing late inflammatory disease, and it responds quite well to inflammatory medicines.”

Some have brushed off the notion that the virus could be a bioweapon because it didn’t cause sudden, mass deaths. But this is a misconception. A successful bioweapon can be something that causes long-term, progressive, chronic-type diseases, noted Dr. Richard Fleming, a physicist, nuclear cardiologist and attorney.

In 1994, Fleming introduced the theory of inflammation and vascular disease, which explains why these inflammable thrombotic diseases, and the causes, including viruses like SARS-CoV-2, produce disease states like COVID-19.

“As I laid out in the theory in 1994,” Fleming said, “you're going to see an inflammable thrombotic response. That’s the primary thing that people are noticing, be that heart disease or retinol disease.” The other factor is a prion component of this virus, “which is also a chronic smoldering disease.” Fleming noted:7

“If you're going to actually develop something that's going to have a massive effect on your ‘enemy,’ your goal isn't to kill the enemy any more than it was the goal of the United States in Vietnam to kill the enemy.

The goal was to maim the enemy so that more of the enemy would be taken off the field. What we've seen is something that's been implemented that is an ideal by a weapon designed to demoralize and to feed people the enemy, and to cause a slow smoldering process.”

Fleming cited data from Pfizer that showed in the 12 to 14 days following the second injection of the Pfizer mRNA vaccine, elderly individuals had a 2.6-fold increase in symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease. “This is an inflammable thrombotic process affecting every organ system and prion diseases that not only affect the brain, but also affect the heart and other vital organs of the body.”8

Dr. Ryan Cole, a Mayo Clinic-trained, triple-boarded pathologist, also said that he’s seeing potential cancer-causing changes, including decreases in receptors that keep cancer in check, and other adverse events post-vaccine:9

“I’m seeing countless adverse reactions … it's really post-vaccine immunodeficiency syndrome … I'm seeing a marked increase in herpetic family viruses, human papilloma viruses in the post-vaccinated. I'm seeing a marked uptick in a laboratory setting from what I see year over year of an increase of usually quiescent diseases.

In addition to that — and correlation is not causation — but in the last six months I have seen — you know, I read a fair amount of women's health biopsies — about a 10- to 20-fold increase of uterine cancer compared to what I see on an annual basis. Now we know that the CD8 cells are one of our T-cells to keep our cancers in check.

I am seeing early signals … what I'm seeing is an early signal in the laboratory setting that post-vaccinated patients are having diseases that we normally don't see at rates that are already early considerably alarming.”

Do the Vaccinated Pose a Risk to the Unvaccinated?

Sherri Tenpenny has heard thousands of anecdotal reports that something is being transmitted from the vaccinated to the unvaccinated:10

“We're injecting a synthetically made messenger RNA and strips of synthetically made double-stranded DNA by different mechanisms, and if that transmission goes to the other person, they don't get COVID, they don't get COVID symptoms that we typically recognize as COVID. They get bleeding, they get blood clots, they get headaches, they get heart disease, they get all of these different things.”

Dr. Robert Malone, the inventor of the mRNA and DNA vaccine core platform technology,11 doesn’t agree that anything is being “passed” from vaccinated people to others, adding that while it may be possible for mRNA to be shed through breast milk to nursing infants, possibly causing gastrointestinal symptoms, anything else is just speculation.

Others suggest it could be more of a hormonal or pheromonal issue than some type of “shedding,” which may help explain why women are also reporting abnormalities with their menstrual cycles following vaccination. Dr. Lee Merritt, an orthopedic and spinal surgeon, brought up a 2015 report by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, which looked at “shedding” in mRNA vaccines, which they call gene therapies.12 She explained:13

“They talk about, they're very concerned about the shedding — and they do call it shedding, whether that's technically correct … And they tell you in this thing who to protect, they tell you to protect neonates, immunocompromised people and elderly with bad immune systems.

They also say, we don't know what's being shed. They say it could be genetic material. It could be activated viruses and it could be a recombinant product. This is what's in the FDA data.”

Immediately Halt the Vaccine Program

All of the experts agreed that evidence suggests the mass COVID-19 vaccination program should be halted. “There is enough evidence now just from the European Medicines Agency alone, 1.7 million in reported adverse events and 17,000 deaths that the four clinical trials should be stopped,” said Dolores Cahill, a professor at the school of medicine at the University College Dublin.

“They are detailed in the classifications, cardiac related immune, uh neuropathological and fertility associated.

So I think we all have duties as doctors and scientists to say, if something is causing more harm than good, which this clearly is, we should, I think, unify and called for a stop to the clinical trials worldwide, and also that any individual prime ministers and regulators that continue the trial would have to be liable for any adverse events.”

Malone believes that the vaccines have merit for certain populations, namely the elderly, but is advocating for prohibition on vaccination for infants and newborns, through young adults up to ages 30 to 35. “And specifically,” he said, “I'm trying to stop this crazy effort to force universities and schools to have universal vaccination.” In addition, he added:

“We can argue about risk-benefit for elderly, but the risk-benefit ratio for newborns through young adults is explicitly clear. It is upside down. It's not subtle there. You're going to kill more. And, and personally, I also feel that we can dig in really hard on the reproductive health in pregnancy, in women, that there just aren't data to support the use of this product because of the potential female reproductive health consequences.”

Dr. Urso added the other significant population that has far more to risk than gain from vaccination: the COVID-recovered. “The immune status should be more important than the vaccination status,” he said.

“So I think there's three groups that are easily winnable arguments [to avoid vaccination]: pregnant women, the young and … the COVID recovered … I mean, that's a, that's a lousy thing to do to get all these people that are COVID recovered, good immune status and give them a vaccination for something they don't need.”

How to End Fear and Optimize Your Immune System

The roundtable participants are planning to continue their discussion offline to formally request an end to mass COVID-19 vaccination for the mentioned groups as well as create a statement to end government interference with the practice of medicine. Many physicians have had their hands tied when it comes to prescribing early treatments for COVID-19, like ivermectin. As Fleming noted:

“… The reason why people die with COVID is because they're not receiving treatment, so I would argue that we need to make certain that people, the physicians, are allowed to treat without government interference and that we put a hold on the dissemination of the vaccines at this point in time, until we can further investigate them safely.”

Dr. Sam White, whose reputation has been under attack since he released a video on social media detailing his concerns about the suppression of the science around therapeutics in the U.K., added:

“We could end the fear overnight by allowing access to therapeutics and changing the mainstream media narrative that there's no need for masks. There's no need for lock downs. This is more treatable than flu, as far as I'm concerned, we're just not allowed to do any treatment. If the public knew that it changes the narrative overnight.”

While we work on changing the narrative, or at least opening up discussions of science outside of the narrative, it’s always a good idea to optimize your immune system.

Toward this end, I recommend optimizing your vitamin D levels to 60 to 80 nanograms per milliliter and improving your metabolic flexibility so your body can seamlessly transition between burning fats and glucose as your primary fuel. One way to do this is to condense your eating window to about six to eight hours a day.

Even without changing your calories, this can make a profound difference, but from a perspective of choosing the right foods, one of the most important strategies that I’ve learned over my four decades of studying this is to avoid processed foods, nearly all of which are loaded with vegetable, or seed, oils.

These oils have a high content of linoleic acid, which contributes to mitochondrial instability and increases susceptibility to oxidative stress. This, in turn, increases immune dysfunction and mitochondrial dysfunction. These are simple strategies I recommend, as they're useful to improve your overall health and resiliency to fight any infection.

As mentioned, I highly recommend listening to the discussion in full to get all of the details that weren’t included here. At the next meeting, the group plans to discuss how to move forward to challenge the narrative in greater detail, including fighting back against the organizations, such as the Wellcome Trust and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, that are heavily investing in this.

[webtoallblog-blog]

Pupila Eye Care provides quality Optometrist services in Houston. We are proud to offer comprehensive best eye care services and eyewear for the whole family. Our Top Rated Eye Doctors and experienced Optometrists are here to assist you.

[wsmith215]

Texas begins to reopen after Covid-19 quarantine – but political controversy and health risks await

Photograph: Callaghan O’Hare/Reuters

Tim Handren, the chief executive of Santikos Entertainment, a small cinema chain in San Antonio, admits his business is not essential. But while the giants of the industry keep their screens closed, he has taken a different approach.

Related: Trump charges Obama with ‘biggest political crime in American history’

Since last weekend, three of nine Santikos cinemas have reopened to the public, among the first in America to do so during the coronavirus pandemic.

“Take your mask off and relax,” Handren said in a recorded message to customers. “Breathe in some great buttery popcorn smells, watch a great movie, and just enjoy some time with your family.”

The reopening is among the starker examples in Texas, where one of the quickest and most expansive efforts to reignite the economy has drawn significant controversy.

On the one hand, some civil liberty advocates have argued that their right to drink at bars, have their hair cut and dine at restaurants has been curtailed. On the other, many public health experts warn thousands will become infected as the state reopens.

Handren, who is also the mayor of the small town of Boerne, said that although his cinemas would keep patrons 6ft apart and offer a reduced menu there remained debate in the community about whether the shutdown had been necessary at all.

“Unfortunately, I still interact with people that believe Covid-19 is a hoax concocted by the media after all this time. That’s the extreme on that side of the equation … ‘We should have never shut down’. Even the lieutenant governor said that. And then there are others who want to hunker down and hibernate for the next six months. I’ve had to, as a mayor, balance health and economics.”

Abbott, a Republican, last week ended a stay-at-home order and allowed businesses including barber shops and retail outlets to open. The move followed decisions in other southern states including Florida and Georgia, and earned praise from Donald Trump.

Story continues

The president told reporters: “Texas is opening up and a lot of places are opening up. And we want to do it, and I’m not sure that we even have a choice. I think we have to do it. You know, this country can’t stay closed and locked down for years.”

In private, Abbott has acknowledged that his decision to reopen is likely to cause an increase in coronavirus cases. Leaked audio obtained by the Daily Beast captured comments during a private call with state lawmakers.

Abbott, who has sought to downplay the increased risk to the public, said: “The more that you have people out there, the greater the possibility is for transmission. The goal never has been to get transmission down to zero.”

Infectious disease experts predict the average daily Covid-19 positive test rate in Texas could rise from 1,053 at the beginning of May to up to 1,800 by June.

As of this weekend, Texas had an estimated 16,670 active cases and 1,049 deaths. With the occasional dip, the number of cases continues to rise even while testing lags behind other states.

Greg Abbott with Trump at the White House on Thursday. Photograph: Doug Mills/EPA

Harris county, which includes Houston, has 157 coronavirus cases per 100,000 people – 31% higher than the state average. Last month, officials said African Americans accounted for two-thirds of Covid-19 deaths in the city despite making up only 22.5% of the population.

Harris county judge Lina Hidalgo, a Democrat, has attempted to enforce a mandatory mask order. Abbott has publicly criticized her.

Dr Andrew Miller, a pediatric ophthalmologist in Harris county, reopened his clinic last week with social distancing in place. He told the Guardian that even after his decision to reopen, because of the pressing needs of patients, he was experiencing significant anger from those who refuse to wear masks.

He said: “We’ve had some pushback from families because we won’t let them in without a mask. They’ve been ugly to the staff. While I respect their civil liberties, I am entitled to not see them.”

Last week, Abbott took power away from officials who arrest Texans for certain Covid-19 violations. The move was prompted by a conservative backlash against the arrest of a salon owner in Dallas – another hotspot – who opened up against local rules. In an act that exacerbated the divisions on the case, Texas senator Ted Cruz appeared at the salon to receive a haircut from the recently released owner.

Houston lies in a sprawling industrial region with more than 500 petrochemical facilities, a busy shipping channel, large highways and commercial railroads, and one of the highest densities of polluting industries in the country, if not the world.

Air quality, specifically particulate matter, which increases the risk of multiple lung and heart conditions also associated with Covid-19 complications, has been worse in some parts of the city despite the lockdown, leading environmentalists to criticise the decision to reopen so quickly.

“It’s a blind, uninformed decision based on optimism that everything will be better, even though the evidence points to the contrary,” said Elena Craft, senior director at the Environmental Defence Fund (EDF), which coordinates a local project tracking air quality.

The meatpacking industry is also linked to several emerging hotspots in the Texas panhandle, a semi-rural region of 26 northern counties where Trump won 79.9% of the vote in 2016 and the Republican party dominates every level of government.

Moore county has the highest infection rate in Texas. Its death rate is 28 per 100,000 people, almost 10 times higher than Harris county and the state average.

Moore, where around 55% of residents identify as Latino or Hispanic, is home to the massive Brazilian-owned JSB meatpacking plant, which employs mostly Hispanic and migrant workers, many bussed in on company shuttles from towns including Amarillo. Nationwide, industrial meat plants have emerged as incubators for coronavirus spread.

Amarillo, the region’s largest city, situated across Potter and Randall counties, had 1,304 cases as of last Wednesday, including at least 18 deaths. The infection rate is rapidly rising. Potter county has the second worst rate in Texas, with infections doubling every seven or eight days.

Related: Boris Johnson’s lockdown release leaves UK divided

Just to the south, in the city of Odessa, a group of armed militia men were arrested last week as they protested alongside bar owner Gabrielle Ellison, who attempted to reopen in violation of an executive order which mandates bars should remain closed.

The six men were members of a militia named Open Texas, which according to reports has operated across the state, offering armed support to business owners.

Ellison, who was also arrested, told local news from jail: “I think some rights were taken away from us, which one of them was like a right to survive. We have to survive and I think those rights were stripped from us.”

• This story was amended on 11 May to more fully reflect the quotation from Tim Handren, the mayor of Boerne.

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[optometrist0]

Affordable Eye Exam

Contents

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She said insurance plans are required under the Affordable Care Act to cover the eye exams for children, and any copays or other minor costs to families are worth the result: “You are honestly talking about changing a child’s life.”

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from http://bestoptometrists.net/affordable-eye-exam-7/

[newstfionline]

Meet El Salvador’s growing middle class: Deportees from the U.S.

Kate Linthicum, Los Angeles Times, Feb. 27, 2017

The smell of slow-cooked Texas barbecue wafted over the outskirts of San Salvador as Jose Reyes cracked open another beer. It was Super Bowl Sunday, and Reyes had gathered with several dozen friends in a parking lot outside a stadium where the game would be screened. Dressed in baggy NFL and college jerseys, they traded jokes in English between bites of pulled pork and hamburgers.

Reyes was deported from the United States in 2001 after serving a prison sentence for wounding two people in a shooting in Houston when he was 17. His mother had brought him to the U.S. as a baby, and when he stepped off an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in El Salvador, he had no recollection of the country of his birth.

Now he is 39 and thriving as a manager at an English-language call center that takes questions from AT&T customers in the United States. He and his friends, other U.S. deportees also working in call centers, earn well over El Salvador’s minimum wage.

Among the Central Americans caught in a decades-long cycle of migration and deportation, Reyes is one of the more fortunate ones.

The U.S. deported 2.5 million immigrants under then-President Obama, more than any previous administration. Roughly 150,000 of those were returned to El Salvador at a time when surging violence there and elsewhere in Central America was driving more migrants into the United States illegally.

Breaking from the long-standing policy of targeting immigrants convicted of serious crimes and turning a blind eye to most of the rest, the Trump administration announced this week that all 11 million people living illegally in the U.S. are potentially subject to deportation. It also said more immigrants may be deported without a hearing or review.

That means a whole new generation of deportees could soon be returning to countries that have long struggled to absorb them. An estimated 700,000 people from El Salvador alone are living in the U.S. illegally.

Each person picked up in the U.S. and delivered back will have to forge a new life, sometimes in an unfamiliar homeland. Some will make new beginnings. Others will struggle to find work or become new soldiers--or victims--in a gangland underworld.

Immigration has been a fact of life in El Salvador since the 1980s, when millions fled a violent civil war that pitted leftist guerrillas against the U.S.-backed military government.

Deportation has been a fact of life since the 1990s, when many Salvadorans, especially those who had become involved with U.S. street gangs, started to be sent home.

The gangster culture some had adopted in Los Angeles and elsewhere returned with them, and soon a different war took hold, this one involving rival gangs and police.

The violence, along with extreme poverty, has prompted new waves of migrants to leave the country. More than 400,000 people were detained at the U.S. border in the last fiscal year, a majority of them from Central America.

Many believe El Salvador is unprepared for what could be a massive influx of deportees.

“They are not ready at all,” said Salvador Carrillo, who is a deportee and is working with others to create programs to help new arrivals get jobs and government services.

“This is what the government should be doing, not us,” Carrillo said. “We came back and found a country under stress. The whole situation is very precarious here, and it’s going to get worse.”

Jeannette Aguilar, who runs a public polling center at Central American University in San Salvador, said the growing number of call centers that employ English-speaking deportees there isn’t a long-term solution.

“We have a country that is already not able to absorb its labor force,” Aguilar said. “And we have an economy that depends fundamentally on remittances from the United States.”

Others have a more optimistic view. Pablo Alvarado, a U.S. citizen who fled El Salvador during the civil war and leads the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, a U.S. immigrant rights group, is working to create employment training centers for returnees, who he believes have much to offer El Salvador.

“I think migrants are the answer,” he said.

A record 2.5 million immigrants were deported during President Obama’s eight years in office, including around 150,000 to tiny El Salvador, a country with fewer residents than Los Angeles County. The number of deportees may grow--and quickly--under President Trump, whose administration has indicated that it will break with Obama’s policy and no longer limit deportations to those convicted of criminal offenses.

Juan Villegas went to the U.S. to be with his mother--and came home several years ago covered with gang tattoos.

A member of the 18th Street gang in the Los Angeles area, Villegas quickly fell in with members of his gang living in El Salvador.

His body tells the story of the violence he has faced since his return: scars on his arms and torso from being shot on two occasions by rival gang members. Deportation has meant a return to street life and a fight to stay alive. “It’s worse every day,” he said.

Most afternoons, Villegas stops by a bakery staffed by recovering drug addicts and buys dozens of boxes of fresh pastries. Then he walks the streets, selling them for a small profit.

He chooses his route carefully. “There are places where I can’t walk,” he explained.

Villegas said he was approached on the street about his gang affiliation as soon as he returned to El Salvador. “They see you’re tattooed and have a bald head and say, ‘Where are you from?’” he said.

Many calls centers won’t hire people with prominent tattoos, like the ones that creep from his forearms down to his hands. “Who’s gonna give me a job?” he said.

Currently, he is preoccupied with his teenage daughter, conceived in El Salvador after he was deported on an earlier occasion. He said she is using drugs.

He wishes he could raise her in the U.S., he said, where he has a young son.

“To be a kid here is to be cursed,” he said. “Their life is not normal.”

Every Friday, Maggie Moran takes a bus to the airport in San Salvador to greet dozens of deportees arriving from the United States.

“Don’t think this is the end,” she tells them in English, pressing pamphlets for her church into their hands. “There’s more to life than just being in the States.”

It’s a lesson Moran, 45, learned after her deportation three years ago. In Oregon, she smoked and sold methamphetamine, lost custody of her kids and bounced in and out of jail. Back in her native El Salvador, which she fled when she was 14 after her father was killed in the civil war, she has found a second chance.

“I was going to die,” she said. “God knew what he was doing when I was deported.”

Not that things haven’t been hard. Moran, with her wavy, bottle-blond hair, has been harassed on the street by gang members and by police who ask whether she has gang ties. Like other deportees, she has found that the government has few services to help her.

But with the assistance of a U.S.-based Christian missionary, Moran found a job as a supervisor at a home for single mothers and their children. She also recently started at a call center.

After getting off work, Moran makes lunch for the children and reads them books as they doze off into naps.

She’s grateful for the chance to exercise her maternal instincts after missing out on years with her own children, who are U.S. citizens living in Oregon. Now, she speaks to them in video chats.

Mayra Machado, 31, landed in San Salvador last month. She didn’t have a Salvadoran passport and didn’t even know her native country’s telephone code.

Machado, who speaks English with a folksy Southern accent, has three young children in Fayetteville, Ark., who are U.S. citizens. She still hasn’t told them she isn’t coming back.

In the U.S., Machado made good money as an ophthalmologist’s assistant and ferried her kids between school and extracurricular activities in a BMW. She spent a year in immigration detention and was eventually deported after a routine traffic stop revealed felony convictions for forging a check years ago.

With no close relatives remaining in El Salvador, Machado asked to stay with family friends in Usulutan, a largely rural province lined with sugar cane fields that is home to a large “free trade zone,” where international companies lured by tax breaks can hire low-wage workers to assemble products.

It is one of the most dangerous areas of the country, with rival gangs vying for territory. At night, it’s common to hear gunshots.

The first time Machado ventured out, a gang member sidled up and asked her about the small crown tattooed on her shoulder. It was a Juicy Couture logo--a remnant of her days in the U.S.--but the gang member thought it might be a sign she belonged to a rival gang.

Afraid to walk alone, Machado now spends her days inside the family’s dark house, swatting away mosquitoes. She doesn’t know what to do next.

“I feel overwhelmed with reality,” she said, crying on a recent muggy afternoon. “Not being able to go out, how can I even start to build a life here?”

For Reyes and his friends, game day tailgating is a part of preserving their adopted American traditions in a country where the word futbol is universally understood to mean soccer.

As the Super Bowl party wore on, they began reminiscing about the past.

“My whole world was there,” Reyes said. “My first language was English.”

“I dream in English,” said his friend, Walter Lopez, 38.

As the sun set, they filed into the stadium to load up on fried pork skins and get settled in the bleachers before kickoff. When the first notes of “The Star-Spangled Banner” sounded, Reyes and the other deportees rose to their feet. It was the national anthem they knew best.

[pupilaeyecare-blog]

Why eye checkup is important:

1. To make sure that you get good eye care to prevent future problems

2. It will help your children to get proper medical attention if they face early eye problems

3. To prevent kids from nearsightedness which is growing faster than ever as many kids are getting nearsighted at a very early age.

4. Early detection and prevention is possible

5. The eye can also help to detect other body diseases.

6. Future blindness can be prevented

7. Eyesight can be controlled from increasing

8. Cataract surgery can be prevented

[lovehardenemycollector]

Greg Abbott has allowed businesses, stores and barber shops to open their doors even as the risk of increased cases remains highTim Handren, the chief executive of Santikos Entertainment, a small cinema chain in San Antonio, admits his business is not essential. But while the giants of the industry keep their screens closed, he has taken a different approach.Since last weekend, three of nine Santikos cinemas have reopened to the public, among the first in America to do so during the coronavirus pandemic.“Take your mask off and relax,” Handren said in a recorded message to customers. “Breathe in some great buttery popcorn smells, watch a great movie, and just enjoy some time with your family.”The reopening is among the starker examples in Texas, where one of the quickest and most expansive efforts to reignite the economy has drawn significant controversy.On the one hand, some civil liberty advocates have argued that their right to drink at bars, have their hair cut and dine at restaurants has been curtailed. On the other, many public health experts warn thousands will become infected as the state reopens.Handren, who is also the mayor of the small town of Boerne, said that although his cinemas would keep patrons 6ft apart and offer a reduced menu there remained debate in the community about whether the shutdown had been necessary at all.“Unfortunately, I still interact with people that believe Covid-19 is a hoax concocted by the media after all this time. That’s the extreme on that side of the equation … ‘We should have never shut down’. Even the lieutenant governor said that. And then there are others who want to hunker down and hibernate for the next six months. I’ve had to, as a mayor, balance health and economics.”Abbott, a Republican, last week ended a stay-at-home order and allowed businesses including barber shops and retail outlets to open. The move followed decisions in other southern states including Florida and Georgia, and earned praise from Donald Trump.The president told reporters: “Texas is opening up and a lot of places are opening up. And we want to do it, and I’m not sure that we even have a choice. I think we have to do it. You know, this country can’t stay closed and locked down for years.”In private, Abbott has acknowledged that his decision to reopen is likely to cause an increase in coronavirus cases. Leaked audio obtained by the Daily Beast captured comments during a private call with state lawmakers.Abbott, who has sought to downplay the increased risk to the public, said: “The more that you have people out there, the greater the possibility is for transmission. The goal never has been to get transmission down to zero.”Infectious disease experts predict the average daily Covid-19 positive test rate in Texas could rise from 1,053 at the beginning of May to up to 1,800 by June.As of this weekend, Texas had an estimated 16,670 active cases and 1,049 deaths. With the occasional dip, the number of cases continues to rise even while testing lags behind other states.Harris county, which includes Houston, has 157 coronavirus cases per 100,000 people – 31% higher than the state average. Last month, officials said African Americans accounted for two-thirds of Covid-19 deaths in the city despite making up only 22.5% of the population.Harris county judge Lina Hidalgo, a Democrat, has attempted to enforce a mandatory mask order. Abbott has publicly criticized her.Dr Andrew Miller, a pediatric ophthalmologist in Harris county, reopened his clinic last week with social distancing in place. He told the Guardian that even after his decision to reopen, because of the pressing needs of patients, he was experiencing significant anger from those who refuse to wear masks.He said: “We’ve had some pushback from families because we won’t let them in without a mask. They’ve been ugly to the staff. While I respect their civil liberties, I am entitled to not see them.”Last week, Abbott took power away from officials who arrest Texans for certain Covid-19 violations. The move was prompted by a conservative backlash against the arrest of a salon owner in Dallas – another hotspot – who opened up against local rules. In an act that exacerbated the divisions on the case, Texas senator Ted Cruz appeared at the salon to receive a haircut from the recently released owner.Houston lies in a sprawling industrial region with more than 500 petrochemical facilities, a busy shipping channel, large highways and commercial railroads, and one of the highest densities of polluting industries in the country, if not the world.Air quality, specifically particulate matter, which increases the risk of multiple lung and heart conditions also associated with Covid-19 complications, has been worse in some parts of the city despite the lockdown, leading environmentalists to criticise the decision to reopen so quickly.“It’s a blind, uninformed decision based on optimism that everything will be better, even though the evidence points to the contrary,” said Elena Craft, senior director at the Environmental Defence Fund (EDF), which coordinates a local project tracking air quality.The meatpacking industry is also linked to several emerging hotspots in the Texas panhandle, a semi-rural region of 26 northern counties where Trump won 79.9% of the vote in 2016 and the Republican party dominates every level of government.Moore county has the highest infection rate in Texas. Its death rate is 28 per 100,000 people, almost 10 times higher than Harris county and the state average.Moore, where around 55% of residents identify as Latino or Hispanic, is home to the massive Brazilian-owned JSB meatpacking plant, which employs mostly Hispanic and migrant workers, many bussed in on company shuttles from towns including Amarillo. Nationwide, industrial meat plants have emerged as incubators for coronavirus spread.Amarillo, the region’s largest city, situated across Potter and Randall counties, had 1,304 cases as of last Wednesday, including at least 18 deaths. The infection rate is rapidly rising. Potter county has the second worst rate in Texas, with infections doubling every seven or eight days.Just to the south, in the city of Odessa, a group of armed militia men were arrested last week as they protested alongside bar owner Gabrielle Ellison, who attempted to reopen in violation of an executive order which mandates bars should remain closed.The six men were members of a militia named Open Texas, which according to reports has operated across the state, offering armed support to business owners.Ellison, who was also arrested, told local news from jail: “I think some rights were taken away from us, which one of them was like a right to survive. We have to survive and I think those rights were stripped from us.”• This story was amended on 11 May to more fully reflect the quotation from Tim Handren, the mayor of Boerne.

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/2LkSDRK

[cvrnewsdirectindia]

This smartphone app can diagnose eye cancer in kids | Lifestyle Health

Houston: Scientists have developed a new smartphone app that parents can use to scan family photographs to detect early signs of various eye diseases in their children such as retinoblastoma – a rare and aggressive form of eye cancer.

The study, published in the journal Science Advances, noted that the app named CRADLE – ComputeR Assisted Detector LEukocoia – searched for traces of abnormal reflections from the retina called leukocoria (white eye) which is a primary symptom of many eye diseases including retinoblastoma.

The researchers from Baylor University in the US found the app to be an effective tool to screen for clinical leukocoria, enabling parents to efficiently screen their children more often as they grew up.

Using the app, the researchers analysed more than 50,000 photographs of children taken prior to their diagnosis, and those diagnosed with eye disorders, CRADLE was able to detect leukocoria for 80 per cent of them.

The study noted that the app detected leukocoria in photos that were taken on average of 1.3 years before the children got their clinical diagnosis.

According to the study’s first author Micheal Munson of Baylor University, general physical exams are successful in diagnosing for retinoblastoma via the detection of leukocoria in only 8 per cent of the cases.

However, Munson added that CRADLE’s sensitivity for children of age two years and younger surpassed 80 per cent — the threshold regarded by ophthalmologists as the ”gold standard” of sensitivity for similar devices.

According to the researchers, the CRADLE app was more effective because of the breadth and frequency of sample it can analyse such as everyday family photos.

There is a variety of opportunities for light to reflect off the ocular lesions regardless of its location in the eye, given the number of photos family and friends take in a range of environments, the researchers said.

“We wanted to be able to detect all hues and intensities of leukocoria. As a parent of a child with retinoblastoma, I am especially interested in detecting the traces of leukocoria that appear as a ‘gray’ pupil and are difficult to detect with the naked eye,” said Bryan F Shaw, co-author of the study from Baylor University.

The app’s algorithm, the researchers said, had become more sophisticated with improvements in its ability to detect even slight instances of leukocoria.

The study noted that the app could also detect leukocoria associated with other more common eye diseases and also some rare ones.

“So far, parents and some doctors, have used it to detect cataract, myelin retinal nerve fiber layer, refractive error, Coats’ disease, and of course retinoblastoma,” Shaw said.

from CVR News Direct https://cvrnewsdirect.com/this-smartphone-app-can-diagnose-eye-cancer-in-kids-lifestyle-health/

[zanypeaceland]

Guide For Finding An Eyelid Surgery Specialist

By Maria Kennedy

Eye surgery or blepharoplasty is complex procedure so you would want to be operated by a surgeon that is highly qualified to perform such procedure. Now and then, more and more surgeons are joining the list. When the many options to choose from, picking can be overwhelming for you. In order to find the best eyelid surgery Houston surgeon, here are the important factors that you have to keep in mind. Ask suggestions. Ask your friends and family who have had such surgery if who did it for them and have them tell you about their experience. Even if the cosmetic procedure done to them is different, there is a big chance that the one who did it is also an eyelid specialist. You may also ask from those who works in healthcare. Ask for recommendations. You should start by making a list of your potential surgeons. Talk to your family members, friends, and colleagues and ask them for recommendations. If you were not given any referrals, you can search for them through healthcare websites and third party sites which list down and comments about them. Check their capabilities. You have to guarantee that they are truly met all requirements to do the methodology. Keep an eye for some medical terms like restorative and stylish specialists in light of the fact that these titles will recommend that they can just play out a noninvasive method, not a procedure. They have to be American Board certified. Complications can occur when it is performed by someone who is not a pro yet. Complications for this are related to your vision. This is why you need to make sure that the doctor has extensive experience when it comes to performing such surgery and is someone who knows how to correct and prevent vision problems. An ophthalmologist that performs such is your best option. Schedule a consultation. After checking their qualifications, it is time for you to see if he or she is really a good fit. Prepare the consultation in advance by creating a list of all the questions you would like to ask. During the consultation, you may ask them for samples of their previous works. Most of them usually carries a portfolio which consists of their previous works. You must be able to determine the costs and benefits as well. Insurance does not typically cover cosmetic procedures. But this might be covered since this is considered as necessary medically. Contact your insurance company will help you understand what will be covered. Talk with the doctor about the costs, which includes doctor, facility, and anesthesia fees. Examine their office and their staff. During the consultation which will be located at their office, take the time to look around. Their office must not look ignored and neglected while their operating rooms has to sterile and is looking pristine. Observe how their staffs communicate with their customers and if they are calm. Schedule an interview. After narrowing down your list, call their offices and ask for an appointment to meet up and interview them. Doing this will allow you to feel the doctor and see if you can be comfortable with them. Prepare your questions in advance. Some questions to ask are how many surgeries have they performed already, what is the usual results after, and many more.

About the Author:

Get a summary of the things to consider before scheduling eyelid surgery Houston area and more information about an experienced surgeon at http://bit.ly/2QevWi4 now.

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[qqmpam7022950-blog]

Locate A Dental expert In Pennsylvania.

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[optometrist0]

Affordable Eye Exam

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from http://bestoptometrists.net/affordable-eye-exam-4/

[ronaldmrashid]

Reasons Not To Do A 1031 Exchange To Save On Taxes

If you read about the 1031 exchange, you’ll immediately think it’s the greatest thing on earth for real estate investors. What’s not to like about paying zero capital gains tax after the sale of a property? The government already taxes real estate investors through an annual property tax and a transfer tax upon sale. Having to pay capital gains tax on the way out can be very painful, especially since prices have surged to all-time highs in many areas of the country.

But I don’t mind paying taxes. After all, taxes help keep our country running. I just mind paying an amount much greater than 30% on gains or income earned. In other words, after you start making over $300,000 as a single person or $500,000 as a couple, based on our current tax rules, it doesn’t make sense to kill yourself at work to make much more.

Making more than $300,000/$500,000 won’t increase happiness because you can buy pretty much anything you want at this level. And since you’re no longer gaining more happiness, you’ll start losing happiness once the government starts siphoning a larger percentage each minute you spend away from your family chasing the all mighty dollar. Trust me, there are plenty of miserable couples making $500,000 a year.

For those on the fence about conducting a 1031 exchange, here are some reasons for not proceeding.

What Is A 1031 Exchange

A 1031 Exchange allows an investor to “defer” paying capital gains taxes on an investment property when it is sold, as long as another “like-kind property” is purchased with the profit gained by the sale of the first property.

To do a 1031 exchange effectively, you must exchange one property for another property of similar value. Further, the purchase price and the new loan amount has to be the same or higher on the replacement property.

In my case, I had to find a single family or multi-unit property worth at least $2,740,000. I could find a property worth less than $2,740,000, but then I’d have to pay the capital gains tax on the difference in sale price and purchase price of the new property known as “boot.”

The property owner has 45 calendar days, post-closing of the first property, to identify up to three potential properties of like-kind. After the properties are identified, the investor has 180 days to make the purchase and initiate the exchange OR by the due date of the income tax return with extension, whichever is earlier.

Finally, you’ve got to pay a Qualified Intermediary anywhere from $1,000 – $3,000 to hold your proceeds (you never get to see or touch the proceeds from your home sale) to conduct the exchange. If you are unable to identify and buy a new property, you lose that money and all that time.

Main Reasons Not To Do A 1031 Exchange

* You don’t mind paying taxes

* You haven’t found the right property

* You want to reduce exposure to real estate

* You want to simplify your life

For a guy who wanted to de-risk and simplify life, trading one expensive SF property for another expensive SF property just to save on taxes wouldn’t achieve my goals. I felt a little like I escaped death, having gone through the financial crisis with a huge mortgage, and coming out unscathed. Further, I’m focused on freeing up as much time as possible to take care of my family.

With an equally expensive San Francisco property out of consideration, I looked at Honolulu property, where we’re considering moving back once our son is eligible for kindergarten in 2022. Given Honolulu is cheaper than San Francisco, we’d end up buying an even larger property to manage than the one we have in San Francisco. Or, we could buy our retirement dream home near the beach, but it would have to be rented out for at least one year, if not two years for it to be considered rental property by the IRS.

Dream property in Kailua, Oahu, but this one costs over $15M

Finally, I asked RealtyShares whether they had any properties on their platform eligible for a 1031 Exchange. At the time my house was to close, they said they didn’t, but that something was in the works. About a month after my transaction closed, they sent me an e-mail saying they had launched their first 1031-eligible property, a 272 unit multi-family project looking to raise $4,500,000 in Houston, Texas with an 8-year holding period, and a 13% target IRR.

I’m fine with an 8-year holding period (longer the better so I don’t have to think about redeploying capital and paying taxes), but with $2,740,000 million to put to work, I would take up more than 50% of the deal size. I don’t recommend anybody account for greater than 10% of any deal due to concentration risk. Further, think about how stressed I would be before, during, and after Hurricane Harvey hit.

As I thought about this close call, I realized the primary purpose of de-risking and simplifying life is to minimize stress. Up until my son was born, almost all the stress I had was dealing with maintenance issues and tenants.

I already got rid of work stress in 2012 by negotiating a severance. I got rid of money stress by hitting a net worth target and reaching a passive income goal. Online work is not that stressful because writing comes easy to me and there are only a few truly thoughtless people who like to say unthoughtful things.

From a financial perspective, although the gross gain from selling my rental home was ~$1.22M and ~$1.8M hit my bank account after years of paying down the mortgage, the taxable gain is much less due to the $250K/$500K tax-free gain exclusion, selling expenses, and home remodeling expenses.

For example, theoretically, I could pay no capital gains tax if I spent $600,000 remodeling the house and $150,000 selling my house because when you add the $500K tax-free exclusion, the total is $1,250,000, or more than the gross profit I received.

In this example, the negative of not paying taxes means the gains weren’t much greater than the tax-free gain exclusion amounts. But at the end of the day, I’m left with $1.8M in the bank versus $305,000 when I first put the 20% downpayment in 2005.

I’ve set aside $150,000 for capital gains tax (federal + state) next year, but hope the actual tax bill after deducting all my home remodeling and selling expenses will be much less.

Focus On What’s Most Important

For all of you considering doing a 1031 exchange, consider these thoughts:

1) If you cannot find the right property to reinvest the proceeds, don’t do a 1031 exchange. It would be foolish to try and save on taxes, but then lose principle value because you bought the wrong property at the wrong time in the cycle. You might feel a lot of pressure to identify three properties to purchase in 45 days and pay a bad price because you’ve got to close within 180 days.

2) Don’t let your tax bill dictate your decisions. A large tax bill is usually great because it means you made an even greater profit. I remember plenty of folks during the 2000 dotcom bust who refused to sell their stock after they exercised their options because they didn’t want to pay any taxes. But when their stock eventually went to zero, not only were they left with nothing, they also had to pay a huge tax bill!

3) Focus on lifestyle first, money second. Your real estate investments should serve you, not the other way around. Even if we found our dream home in Honolulu, we wouldn’t move because we don’t want to leave our lifestyle in San Francisco just yet. We just finished completely remodeling our house. We have our doctors we’ve trusted for years and a pediatrician and ophthalmologist we like for our son. We’ve got a set of friends we enjoy hanging with. And we’ve also scoped out and applied to several pre-schools too.

4) Will you really be able to hold on forever? A 1031 Exchange allows you to delay paying your taxes. It doesn’t eliminate your capital gains tax. Only if you never sell your 1031 exchanged property or keep on doing a 1031 exchange, will you never incur a tax liability. You can pass on your property to your children who get to step-up the value to current market value so they never have to pay taxes on your property either. It’s only after your assets exceed the estate tax limit ($5.49M individual, double for a couple) do your heirs need to pay ~40% tax on anything over. The median holding period for property in America is between 7 – 8 years.

5) Do you really need the rental income? A 1031 exchange is exclusively for rental properties, not primary residences. Therefore, the primary reason to own rental property is for income. Income streams can change over time, as they have for us. I thought we would need the rental income forever because we never wanted to go back to work. Little did we know that during the three years we tried renting out the house, our online income grew to the point where we definitely don’t need rental property anymore. Even if our online income was slashed by 80%, we still wouldn’t need any portion of our rental income in our passive income portfolio.

The decline in SF rent in June 2017 when I tried to rent out my house is finally showing up in the data in October 2017.

A Simpler Life Feels Great

In a perfect world, I would have 1031 exchanged all the proceeds into a diversified private real estate fund that returned at least 10% a year forever, guaranteed. Alas, I was unable to find such an opportunity. I’ve already redeployed over half the proceeds in 100% passive investments. The remaining proceeds will more than likely stay liquid in order to finally buy that dream home in Hawaii one day.

Readers, have you ever done a 1031 exchange? How did you decide which property to invest in? Did you set up a 1031 Exchange and end up not following through? If so, why not? 

The post Reasons Not To Do A 1031 Exchange To Save On Taxes appeared first on Financial Samurai.

from https://www.financialsamurai.com/reasons-not-to-do-a-1031-exchange-to-save-on-taxes/

[pupilaeyecare-blog]

There are various factors that will have an effect on eyes in general, like age, etc. In an eye checkup, the following are considered:

● History of the patient regarding eye problems

● Near and distance vision examination

● Examination of the retina and cataract test.