(NAPSI)—When it seems like the weight of the world is on your shoulders, the answer may bemore weight...in a special weighted blanket, that is.

(BPT) - The top home decor trends for 2013 are already emerging, and homeowners seeking a fresh look will find a lot to love. Not only can these looks be accomplished in minimal time – they’re budget friendly and easy enough for DIYers to finish in a weekend or less.

(BPT) - A breast cancer diagnosis at any stage can be devastating. However, women with advanced breast cancer are also faced with the overwhelming reality that they must begin additional therapy, or that they will receive treatment for the remainder of their lives. There are an estimated 150,000 women in the United States living with stage IV metastatic breast cancer. Stage III locally advanced breast cancer and stage IV metastatic breast cancer – collectively referred to as advanced breast cancer - are the most progressed forms of the illness.

The New York State Pavilion’s rotunda received an unwelcome addition over the last month: graffiti riddling its crumbling, red-and-white interior walls.

Over a dozen “tags” now line the World’s Fair landmark’s interior ring, with bubble letters in various shades set at 6- to 10-foot intervals. The adjacent towers that supported what is left of the “Tent of Tomorrow” also have sporadic scrawls.

You can enjoy the rich, natural beauty and timeless appeal of stone or slate flooring anywhere in your home. The inspiring looks and touchable textures of stone and slate are actually available in an affordable, comfortable-to-walk-on, easy-care floor. The look is so natural, so real that it’ll take more than a first or second glance to reveal that these luxurious floors are, in fact, premium vinyl tile.

Italy has a spellbinding effect on travelers; they fall in love quickly and deeply with the landscapes, the food and the culture. While that can happen virtually anywhere you go in Italy, the ultimate experience comes with traveling around the country, taking in its surprising diversity and depth. If you’re eager to travel Italy, there are five key places that should be on your itinerary.

A sly disposition matched with hubris; mixing talk of nuclear energy technology with stop and frisk. Councilman Dan Halloran (R-Whitestone) is the sort of guy who can arrest your attention by crossing oceans of topics, and he wants to take that ubiquity to Congress in a run for the open 6th Congressional seat.

To say Halloran’s reputation precedes him is an understatement. The councilman has had public run-ins with every major power broker at the City level and a whole host of agency and community figureheads who have managed to draw his ire. He brings the same principled hubris to his Congressional candidacy. Halloran is a bit more casual about it.

Kitchen renovations are expensive, obviously, but that doesn’t mean that one’s kitchen has to remain a dull workspace for home cooking. A very popular way to give a kick of color and personality to a kitchen is installing a new kitchen backsplash with some personally chosen tiles. And whether you currently have a backsplash or merely painted drywall in your kitchen, the job is, as it turns out, relatively easy from a DIY standpoint, though removing old backsplash can get a bit messy to say the least.

An official with the state Department of Transportation said Friday that the agency remains committed to working with Briarwood residents as long as work on the Van Wyck Expressway requires disruptions on Queens Boulevard.

The widening of the Van Wyck is the first and southernmost stage of a multiyear project to modernize the Kew Gardens Interchange, where the Van Wyck, Grand Central Parkway, Union Turnpike Queens Boulevard and Jackie Robinson Parkway all converge.

Damage to tiles is often done with the most minor and ignorable of actions: Erosion from constant wear, scrapes from furniture and other harsh edges, dirt rubbed and ground in, dropped items both weighty and sharp, and certain chemical cleaners. Naturally, replacing damaged tiles is something that comes up frequently, especially in kitchen floors and bathrooms. You’ll need the following items:

Maneuvering around hundreds of fans waving red, white and blue campaign signs, Assemblyman Hakeem Jeffries (D-Brooklyn) made his way through a sea of volunteers, politicians and press on Tuesday night and declared victory over Councilman Charles Barron (D-Brooklyn) in the Democratic primary race for the new 8th Congressional District, which includes parts of South Queens.

Maneuvering around hundreds of fans waving red, white and blue campaign signs, Assemblyman Hakeem Jeffries (D-Brooklyn) made his way through a sea of volunteers, politicians and press on Tuesday night and declared victory over Councilman Charles Barron (D-Brooklyn) in the Democratic primary race for the new 8th Congressional District, which includes parts of South Queens.

Dear Editor:

“Bills would boost Asian voter help” by Michael Gannon, concerning state Assemblyman David Weprin along with state Senator Toby Stavisky supporting a bill to put Bengali, Punjabi and Hindi on ballots and election material, is disappointing.

Weprin’s grandparents or great-grandparents emigrated to America just like mine. They quickly learned to assimilate by learning English, became American citizens and began participating in our electoral process. This is what has previously united the various immigrant groups to make our nation great.

There are more than 150 immigrant groups in the gorgeous mosaic of New York City. Do Weprin and Stavisky propose that we discriminate against more than 140 of them by not providing them election materials in their native language as well? Can you imagine the chaos and cost to taxpayers for printing ballots — along with hiring language interpreters at all polling places — for every ethnic group? This proposal is nothing more than politics as usual, an attempt to curry favor.

Why don’t lawmakers promote English speaking classes for a new generation of immigrants? That is the best way to assist our new neighbors and help them participate in the election process, rather than continuing promoting tribal politics.

Installing tiles is something that needs to be planned out carefully on various levels. One has to pick out color and design, consider how it will look in the designated area, make decisions as to what the rest of the kitchen will look like and then, inevitably, there is the task of actually putting down the base, the mesh, the tiles and the grout. Nothing can really be left to chance or ignored.

New York City’s 30th Council District doesn’t have the huge racial and ethnic mix of Flushing or Jackson Heights.

But cast a vote or take a position on a major issue and folks from Maspeth to Richmond Hill have no difficulty convincing Councilwoman Elizabeth Crowley that there is a mosaic of public opinions.

Borough President Helen Marshall’s State of the Borough speech contained goals made and those yet to be achieved in areas of education, healthcare and a score of quality of life issues — and a 180-degree reversal from the previous week on the viability of a convention center at Willets Point.

Speaking before several hundred Tuesday at Colden Auditorium at Queens College, Marshall talked at length about massive housing projects, healthcare facilities, roads and other infrastructure that she said will benefit Queens for generations.

Introduced by Borough President Helen Marshall as the “King of Queens,” Gov. Cuomo played up his roots when he came to the borough on Thursday to push his agenda that includes building the nation’s largest convention center at Aqueduct and overhauling the state’s education system.

“I am a Queens boy, through and through,” Cuomo, who grew up in Holliswood, told the packed auditorium in Queens College’s LeFrak Concert Hall in Flushing. “My first apartment was in Sunnyside. Queens is everything in one borough, all flavors; the entire mosaic of this country is in Queens.”

Introduced by Borough President Helen Marshall as the “King of Queens,” Gov. Cuomo played up his roots when he came to the borough on Thursday to push his agenda that includes building the nation’s largest convention center at Aqueduct and overhauling the state’s education system.

Like many New Yorkers, I had seen an occasional tattoo while growing up and wondered about the origin of the art, but not until performing medical service in the military did I see tattoos through a professional eye. When servicemen came into the Dermatology Clinic for examinations, I’d ask them about their tattoos. Mother, God and Country dominated the imagery for GI’s at that time. Their tattoos were a subject of conversation rather than the reason for an office visit. Then, when patients from tropical stations began presenting a variety of uncomfortable reactions in their tattoos — which various treatments did not help — I began searching to find the cause and cure for the 27 soldiers, sailors and marines who were affected.

This study took three years of research. Simply stated, commercial yellow pigment, when mixed with red, triggers allergic reactions in some tattoos exposed to sunlight. One solution for the servicemen’s troublesome tattoos was to use a physical sun block. The late, great comedian Henny Youngman might have joked: If your tattoo itches in the sunshine when your shirt’s off —don’t take your shirt off! But wearing a shirt at the beach defeats the purpose of showing off tattoos, just like using the thick white sun barrier, that life guards apply to their noses, would if you covered tattoos with it.

The Jamaica Muslim Center is always buzzing with activity on Fridays, with residents streaming into the institution on 168th Street dressed in their best prayer attire for Islam’s holy day — but last week, the human logjam outside the mosque’s door formed for a different reason.

More than 75 people crowded at the entrance to the mosque to memorialize those who died in the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, denounce that day’s violence and remind their neighbors that Islam and terrorism are not synonymous.

Whether New York City, and especially Queens, is best described as a traditional American melting pot of different ethnicities or former Mayor Dinkins’ “gorgeous mosaic,” tensions between different groups lie just beneath the surface. And sometimes it seems they’re ready to boil over.

One place where the divisions can be felt is in Flushing, where many longtime residents, mostly of European descent, are feeling like strangers in their own neighborhoods because of the rapidly increasing Asian population. They feel the pressure most concretely when shopping, seeing one store after another advertising who knows what — because their signs are in Chinese or Korean characters only.

   A sea of students, teachers, legislators and residents flooded Bryant High School’s auditorium last week to protest potential plans to close the school or replace those in leadership positions after the state placed it on a list of low-achieving institutions.

   A sea of students, teachers, legislators and residents flooded Bryant High School’s auditorium last week to protest potential plans to close the school or replace those in leadership positions after the state placed it on a list of low-achieving institutions.

What do you get when you take a group of seemingly disparate individuals, representing various neighborhoods throughout Queens, whose ages span several generations and whose interests are just as wide, and bring them together to share the one thing they have in common: a desire to use their artistic talents in innovative ways to shed light on the diversity of the community in which they live?

It is said that a person’s home is his or her castle, and helping customers make their living space more beautiful is the goal of Ronni and Meir Newman, the owners of Sinks & Stones kitchen, bathroom and tile store.