The researchers studied interviews done for the National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions with LGB individuals in 2001-2002 and 2004-2005. The participants lived in states where there is at least one law that bans same-sex marriage following the 2004-2005 elections.

The number of lesbians, gays and bisexuals who suffered generalized anxiety disorders, mood disorders and alcohol use disorders was far greater after the constitutional amendments were instituted. The increase in general anxiety disorder sufferers even reached more than 200 percent.

According to Deborah Hasin, an epidemiologist from Columbia University and the New York State Psychiatric Institute, the new study gives light to the effects of discrimination in the legislative branch of the government on the well-being and mental health of LGB people.

In the study, institutional discrimination was defined as “societal-level conditions that limit the opportunities and access to resources by socially disadvantaged groups.”

The findings are published online and in print for the March issue of the American Journal of Public Health.

Internet service providers reported on Tuesday that Troyak, the ISP linked to the Zeus botnet, has been taken down. However, by Wednesday, it has found its way to reconnect again to hacked computers.

In an e-mail, Roman Starchenko, spokesman for Troyak, said that the ISP is definitely working again and they just had to fix an administrative error to become stable again.

According to security experts, Troyak went back online after it peered with another Internet service provider called Ya.

Troyal is associated with 68 Zeus botnet command-and-control servers which can communicate with new instructions to infected computers.

Experts however, dispute that they have found a way to isolate the ISP from the rest of the Internet world by severing its peering with upstream providers.

According to the researchers involved in the situation, the person or group directly responsible for taking down Troyak wants to remain unnamed.

Zeus is a botnet kit utilized by a growing number of hackers and cybercriminals. To date, researchers have detected 249 Zeus command-and-control servers.

Another botnet-related ISP named Group 3 was also taken down on Wednesday but has stayed offline so far.

The next move by experts is to try to cut Troyak’s ties with its new service provider. They think its either Nassist, another ISP, or Hurricane Electric, an upstream provider.

A similar situation happened in November 2008 when ISP McColo was taken down taking with it almost half of the world’s spam. It slowly regained its connection, however, during the next few days.

Haim, who was born in Canada was known for his multiple collaborations with Corey Feldman, was pronounced dead Wednesday at the Providence Saint Joseph Medical Center.

According to Sergeant Frank Albarren of the North Hollywood Station of the Los Angeles Police Department, the actor’s death was apparently caused by an overdose of an unknown medication.

Haim was suffering from flu-like symptoms, assistant chief of the coroner’s office Ed Winter said. Her mother, who was living with him, was said to have found him distressed and called paramedics who rushed him to the hospital early in the morning hours.

Winter added that coroners found prescription drugs in Haim’s apartment but nothing that was illegal.

His first big break was the 1986 film “Lucas” where he received the main role and was alongside Charlie Sheen and Winona Ryder. His biggest hit, however, came with “Lost Boys” where he starred with Jason Patric, Kiefer Sutherland and Feldman who would later star again with him in “License to Drive.”

Haim and Feldman were dubbed as “The Two Coreys” and they tried to make a comeback in 2006 with a reality television series named after their tandem’s moniker.

The actor suffered from drug abuse during the early years of his career which he talked openly while promoting his reality show. He said he was already clean and sober at that time.

Bank of America, however, offered a rather different twist for its depositors to abide the new rules: If there is not enough money on the account, then the debit card transaction will not go through.

If the customer wants to withdraw money from the ATM which is more than what he has, he will be notified first that he will be charged $35 for the overdraft fee if he wishes to continue.

According to Susan Faulkner, senior vice president for consumer banking of Bank of America, most overdraft transactions stem from debit card purchases which the customers are often unaware of.

Unlike in an ATM where the bank can notify the customer about impending fees, it would not be able to do so if the customer is already at the register so the transaction will just be rejected.

Banking analysts Greg McBride said that while customers are willing to pay overdraft fees for mortgage and insurance payments, they would often refuse paying extra fees for a cup of coffee.

Bank of America will roll out this new policy for new accounts on June 19 and for existing accounts sometime in August. Currently, overdraft fees are charged when the account goes more than $10 below zero.

Data show that overdraft contribute to more than $1.77 billion in annual revenue for the whole banking industry. The new rules are expected to have a significant effect on this figure.

Faulkner was not able to give an estimate as to how Bank of America benefited from such fees.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. says that about 41 percent of that number is from debit card transactions, 8 percent comes from ATM withdrawals and the rest from checks and online bill pays.

The FDIC also said that only 14 percent of customers are responsible for 93 percent of the fees. This shows that it was always the same people who keep on overdrawing their account.

But some analysts believe that banks might turn into other products such as free checking that are not included in the new rules to get around the new fees scheme.

The bottom line is if the banks are not able to charge fees on one product anymore, the other product offered for free may already be charged in the future.

But the South Korean company launched Wednesday (Korea time) a new smartphone that uses the Android operating system of Google showing the market that it can make a good competition.

LG plans to challenge the global dominance of Nokia, RIM and Apple in the smartphone market by offering a line-up of 20 models this year, half of which will be based on the popular Android OS.

The South Korean firm wants to have a bigger share of the pie and hopes to have a double-digit share by 2012. The three top companies currently control almost 75 percent of the booming smartphone market.

The new model LG-KH5200 will be available through KT, the country’s second largest mobile carrier. It will compete against MOTOROI, a Motorola smartphone that also uses the Android OS and that was launched through SK, South Korea’s top carrier, earlier this year.

The world’s second largest mobile phone manufacturer, Samsung Electronics, also plans to release Android phones this month.

LG and Samsung have both been struggling to increase their share of the lucrative smartphone industry. LG even registered a near-zero profit during the fourth quarter of 2009.

The LG-KH5200 will have a 3-inch full touch screen, 5-megapixel camera and a slider qwerty keyboard. It will be sold in an introductory price of 650,000 won ($573).

To be able to reach its goal of 10 percent of the global smartphone market, LG hopes to sell 140 million units this year, up from 117 million last year.

The “Give a Day, Get a Disney Day” program is rewarding people who do volunteer work certified by volunteers clearinghouse HandsOn Networks one-day ticket to either Disneyland in Anaheim, California or Walt Disney World in Florida.

The program was announced in the fall of last year but the signing up for volunteer work was started in January 1.

According to Tom Staggs, chairman of Walt Disney Parks and Resorts, the “Give a Day, Get A Disney Day” program exceeded their expectations when the number of volunteers reached its cap at 1 million earlier that they had hoped.

Registration for the free tickets has already been closed, but certified volunteers still have until December 15 of this year to redeem their free tickets. Blackout dates are occasionally applied.

Tasks given to volunteers included cleanup of beaches in San Juan, Puerto Rico and construction of affordable houses in Pittsburgh.

Nam Dang, a researcher from the University of Florida, along with his colleagues in Japan studied the cancer-fighting properties of papaya against tumors in the breast, lung, liver, pancreas and the cervix.

The researchers introduced extract from dried papaya leaves to cancer cells. They noticed stronger effects when they introduced larger doses of the papaya leaf tea.

The group found out that the extract from the papaya amplifies the production of Th1-type cytokines which are crucial in controlling the immune system.

The new study’s finding is helpful in devising new treatment methods in combating cancer by using the immune system.

Papaya has long been used by indigenous people in Asia and Australia as herbal medicine for various ailments. The study only confirmed this ancient medical belief.

Another good news in the study is that the papaya extract was found to have no effect on healthy and normal cells which can avoid side effects during cancer treatments.

In the study, Dang and the other scientists introduced papaya leaf extract of four different strengths to 10 different kinds of cancer cell cultures. In all cultures exposed to the extract, tumor growth slowed down.

Dang and one of his colleagues have already applied to patent for papaya extract distillation through the University of Tokyo.

The study was published on the February issue of the Journal of Ethnopharmacology released on Tuesday by the University of Florida.

Bruce Davis, executive director of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, said that it was not an easy decision for the committee in charge of the segment to have Fawcett omitted and that he was not surprised that her family and fans were upset.

In a statement released Tuesday, the publicist of Fawcett’s family said that they were “bereft with this exclusion of such an international icon who inspired so many for so many reasons.”

Davis and the members of the committee made the final decision of omitting Fawcett as well as another actor Gene Barry from the list of people to pay tribute to because they thought the late actors have done more work on television and they would be appropriately honored during the Emmy Awards.

The executive director added that they had to give way for a large number of screenwriters who died this year and they were only given a short time for the segment.

Davis was asked why Michael Jackson was included in the tribute when the actors were not. He answered that Jackson recently appeared in “This Is It”, a highly successful theatrical film. Fawcett and Jackson died on the same day.

The department lifted a ban on exports of software and Internet services so that Cuban, Iranian and Sudanese people can “exercise their most basic rights,” said Deputy Treasury Secretary Neal Wolin.

The move was requested by the Department of State to “ensure that individuals in these countries can exercise their universal right to free speech and information to the greatest extent possible.”

Wolin cited the recent protests in Iran where demonstrators and activists used the social networking site Twitter when the government shut down all communication lines to the outside world.

Wolin also added that other types of sanctions will continue to be enforced to pressure the government of Iran to take responsibility for its international obligations.

The three countries have different forms of control over Internet access among its citizens and it was still not clear how the move of the Treasury Department can impact them.

US-based Internet companies have some of their services, like Google’s Gmail, already used in countries affected by US sanctions. Most of the services, however, are inaccessible as mandated by US laws.

US State Secretary Hillary Clinton has condemned “electronic barriers” and called on other countries to have give their people the rightful access to the Internet.

The United States has imposed economic embargo on Cuba since 1962 as a move against the regime of Fidel Castro.

The US also banned any trade with Iran since 1997 and has even called for tougher sanctions on Monday as a campaign against the country’s nuclear program.

Sudan is on the list of countries with US economic sanctions because it is alleged that its government supports Islamic militants and its failure to resolve the situation in the war-torn Darfur.

In 2006, the domain name was reportedly sold for $14 million. A lending firm in New Jersey backed that purchase. However, according to legal notices, DOM Partners LLC will foreclose the online property and will be due to auction on March 18 at Windels Marx Lane and Mittendorf LLP, a law firm in New York.

The bidding will start at $1 million for the Internet property that endured multiple lawsuits in the past as well as two books.

Online entrepreneurs are often the ones targeted by these auctions of simple domain names. In 2008, bids for www.pizza.com went way above $2.5million.

If sex is indeed a sellable online commodity, then sex.com may be the domain name with the greatest value in the world. According to a book, The Sex.com Chronicles by Charles Carreon, there was a time when the website was making a minimum of $15,000 per day.

Gary Kremen, chief executive of Grant Media and founder of Match.com, registered the sex.com domain name in 1994. In January 2006, Escom LLC was able to acquire the domain name from him.

A statement in 2006 announced that the sale was “believed to be among the most significant domain sale transactions in history.” No exact figure of the deal was disclosed but reports surfaced that it was about $14 million.

According to Scott Matthew, attorney for DOM, the lender’s loan to Escom has been in default for more than a year and DOM is just exercising its right under the security agreement.

Escom and sex.com did not issue any immediate statement about the upcoming auction.

However, one auctioneer, Richard Maltz of Maltz Auctions who will run the sale, said Monday that the interests for the auction are mounting.