The LAPD are hunting a real life “Jason Bourne” who gave them the slip last week. After smelling smoke, a neighbor called the fire department 11 days ago who knocked on the door and called the LAPD when the inhabitant of the apartment was unresponsive. The cops used a battering ram to break down his penthouse door and saw the suspect escape through a back window and flee through the fire escape with several duffel bags in tow. LAPD Deputy Chief Mike Downing from the counter-terrorism Bureau told the LA Times, “He escaped like Jason Bourne.”

The police found counterfeiting equipment, multiple forms of identification (including passports), weapons, ammunition, narcotics, and $15,000 worth of counterfeit bills. Things got even more interesting when detectives on-site realized the penthouse had a clear view of the U.S. Federal Reserve building across the street. For the last week, police have been searching for 33-year-old New Jersey native, Brian Alexik, though they’re not sure that’s even his real name.

If you’ve been following every new development of this real life Jason Bourne on the loose and are itching get in on the action, consider a a career in criminal justice. A criminal justice degree program can lead to an exciting career as a police officer, FBI agent, and Secret Service agent. Click here to learn more about a criminal justice career.

Lindsay Lohan recently participated in a controversial “artistic” photo shoot with Tyler Shields and Tweeted a photo of herself with a gun to her mouth this week.

Lohan could learn a thing or two about gun handling. Three safety rules about firearms include the following:

1. Always point a gun in a safe direction
2. Keep your finger off the trigger unless you’re ready to pull it
3. Always treat a gun as though it is loaded

As you may notice, Lohan’s photo shoot violates every single one of these gun handling rules.

Through a criminal justice program, you’ll learn these critical gun safety rules and more. It sure seems like Lindsay Lohan could benefit from these gun handling rules as well as a good dose of common sense…

High-speed car chases may be impressive to watch on the big screen, but they’re no pretty picture in real life. Especially since police cars always seem to be the ones that in Hollywood. There are new developments in technology that could potentially end these deadly high-speed chases.

Photo courtesy of the Arizona Department of Public Safety

The Arizona Department of Public Safety is testing a new device called the StarChase Pursuit Management Systems that shoots a small GPS dart onto a suspect’s vehicle during a car chase. Officers have the ability to adjust the aim of the device, mounted to the front of the cop car, and using a laser pointer, shoot the dart that attaches itself to the back of the fleeing suspect’s vehicle. Thanks to a battery and wireless transmitter in the dart, law enforcement can track the vehicle’s path, follow at a safe distance, dispatch officers to the vehicle’s location, and apprehend the suspect without a potentially deadly high-speed chase.

Photo courtesy of the Arizona Department of Public Safety

According to the Arizona Department of Public Safety, the StarChase Pursuit Management device has been used on stolen cars and human smuggling cases and been extremely effective. Says retired LAPD officer Lt. Raymond Foster, “Technology has enabled us to find new information and new ways of organizing information to help us solve and prevent crimes.”

With these new developments, police officers benefit from a safer work environment and a world where they still get the bad guy. If you’ve been contemplating a law enforcement criminal justice career but have been concerned about safety measures, now is the time to enroll in a criminal justice program. Just think what progress will be made by the time you graduate!

And in case you’re worrying — high-speed chases will never go out of style in the movies.

Law enforcement is a serious profession. But who says they don’t get to laugh?

(This is supposedly a true account recorded in the Police Log of Sarasota, Florida)

An elderly Florida lady did her shopping and, upon returning to her car, found four males in the act of leaving with her vehicle.

She dropped her shopping bags and drew her handgun, proceeding to scream at the top of her lungs, “I have a gun, and I know how to use it! Get out of the car!”

The four men didn’t wait for a second threat. They got out and ran like mad.

The lady, somewhat shaken, then proceeded to load her shopping bags into the back of the car and got into the driver’s seat. She was so shaken that she could not get her key into the ignition.

She tried and tried, and then she realised why. It was for the same reason she had wondered why there was a football, a Frisbee and two 12-packs of beer in the front seat.

A few minutes later, she found her own car parked four or five spaces farther down.

She loaded her bags into the car and drove to the police station to report her mistake.

The seargent to whom she told the story couldn’t stop laughing.

He pointed to the other end of the counter, where four pale men were reporting a car jacking by a mad, elderly woman described as white, less than five feet tall, glasses, curly white hair, and carrying a large handgun.

No charges were filed.

Surely you’ve heard the phrase “keeping up with the Joneses.” The Joneses are that family down the street who has it all and everyone around them is scrambling to keep up with, well, the Joneses.

In a clever new film, Demi Moore and David Duchovny play the perfect husband and perfect wife, with perfect children who have it all. They’re not only living the American dream, they’re selling it, too. The Joneses are a fake family unit of undercover salespeople — beautiful, popular, perfect, and planted in their neighborhood for the sole purpose to sell product. They own the latest and greatest gadgets and gear, and as predicted, the neighbors start going into to debt in attempts to match their lifestyle. As they say in the film, “If people want you, they’ll want what you’ve got.”

The Joneses is a brilliant example of a creative marketing concept. Since clever marketing ploys catch people’s attention and make them that much more likely to make a purchasing decision, creativity is key in the marketing industry. A marketing professional’s ability to think outside the box can be of huge benefit to their career. An online marketing degree can help you to cultivate that creative marketing knack and succeed in a marketing profession.

Go Green. Source: Green Schools Initiative

On April 22, the planet celebrates Earth Day and looks for ways to become more earth-conscious and leave a smaller carbon footprint. By searching #EarthDay on Twitter, we saw lots of creative ways people have to go green on Earth Day:

1. Watch Earth Day related movies like 2012, the 11th Hour, Pocahontas. We added Avatar, Fern Gully and An Inconvenient Truth to the list
2. Take “Power Showers” and switch off the water when your soaping/shampooing
3. Save water by showering with someone
4. Recycle old electronics and computers and even gadgets. Would you wear a recycled cassette tape necktie, or use a rubber tire laptop sleeve?
5. And our personal favorite: raise free-range children

One way you may not have considered to go green is to engage in online education. Whether you’re a student pursuing a college education, or a working professional improving your qualifications for increased opportunities, online education is a terrific solution. Not only does online education give you the freedom and flexibility to work/live/tweet, online education is another way to go green.

The commute… or lack thereof

Imagine waking up, rolling out of bed, and commuting to the living room for your Psychology 101 class. Does that sound like the type of commute you could live with? Online education allows students to further their education anywhere they have internet access. Whether that is the break room at work, the community library, or the cafe in France you landed a job at while living abroad, online education comes to you.

Energy conservation

A traditional campus, with it all its classrooms, lecture halls, labs, and offices, use electricity and energy to light, heat, and cool the premises all year round, not to mention manpower to supervise, secure, and landscape the premises. Colleges in the U.S. put $2 billion per year into energy on campus according to the EPA. Your online classroom is you and your laptop. That’s a lot of energy saved.

Save the trees

Instead of printing handouts, assignments, and projects, online education allows teachers and students to communicate through an online blackboard and via email. Assignments can be turned in through an attachment in an email, rather than a double spaced, single sided printed copy, saving paper, trees, and ink. Since 1 billion trees worth of paper are discarded every year, imagine how many trees would be saved through the paper preservation with online education.

The e-book alternative

Instead of investing hundreds of dollars each semester in textbooks you’ll only use once, e-books are a green alternative. If any new editions are released, rather than printing a whole new edition, the e-book can digitally be updated.

While Earth Day reminds us of our collective responsibility to preserve the planet, investing in an online education will help you to go green everyday.

Ash from Iceland volcano halts European travel

So far 2010 has seen serious disasters that have debilitated a nation, halted European air travel, and left a million people homeless. Here are some of the biggest natural disasters that affected the planet so far in 2010.

• 7.0 quake hits Haiti; ‘Serious loss of life expected.’ | 230,000 dead
• Chile reels from 8.8 earthquake | 700 dead
• China Earthquake: 6.9 Quake Strikes Qinghai Province | 1100 dead
• Volcanic ash from Iceland halts flights in Northern Europe | 17,000 flights canceled, tens of thousands stranded

Since the devastation of the recent awe inspiring earthquakes, people everywhere have been looking for opportunities to help. There are trained professionals who have received the necessary degrees and training who are ready to pick up the pieces after a major natural disasters and are among the first on site after disaster strikes. These everyday heroes include Emergency Management Specialists, Emergency Medical Technicians (EMT) and Paramedics, and Law Enforcement.

Emergency Management Specialist

An Emergency Management Specialist helps plan for emergencies before they happen and provide disaster relief after a natural disaster, wartime or technological disaster, or hostage situation. Should disaster strike, these professionals help to coordinate relief response in a timely manner, ensuring that the victims receive basic living essentials, such as clean water, food, housing, sanitation, and first aid.

Emergency Medical Technicians and Paramedics

Emergency Responders in Haiti. Photo c/o Margaret Aguirre, International Medical Corps.

Emergency Medical Technicians (EMTs) and Paramedics provide emergency care, and transport the injured to a medical facility to receive appropriate care. Due to their medical training, EMTs are qualified to diagnose a patient’s injuries on site, provide first aid treatment, and manage cardiac, trauma, and respiratory emergencies.

Law Enforcement

Law Enforcement play a critical role after a natural disaster in keeping order during the chaos that ensues in an emergency. Law Enforcement are charged with the responsibility to preserve life and property, a critical role in the aftermath of a natural disaster.

If you have felt a need to make a difference in the aftermath of these terrible natural disasters, consider enrolling in a program and working towards a career as an Emergency Management Specialist, EMT and Paramedic, or Law Enforcement. Your career will make a difference.

It’s 10:00 at night, that huge final you’ve been dreading is tomorrow, and you just can’t seem to summon the concentration you need to cram a few extra hours of study time to prep for it. Did you know that baroque music can help you study?

Fascinating studies on music and its effect on concentration and learning have yielded incredible results. Baroque music, typified by composers such as Mozart and Bach, is played at approximately 60 beats per minute and activates both sides of the brain, effectively increasing the listener’s learning capacity and the retention of information. Baroque music causes the heart rate slows down which relaxes the listener, enabling them to become more alert and improve concentration. The Center for New Discoveries in Learning reports that learning potential can be strengthened up to five times simply by listening to music at 60 beats per minute.

Not convinced? When Thomas Jefferson was struggling with wording for a particular section of the Declaration of Independence, he stopped to play his violin and was then able to find the appropriate words. Albert Einstein, revered as one of the brightest minds of our time, learned the violin as a child. He loved playing the violin and embraced the music of Mozart and Bach, two famous baroque composers. Einstein apparently found solutions to his equations while improvising on his violin, according to a friend of Einstein’s G.J. Withrow. How’s that for evidence about music and learning?

Fascinated about music and its learning benefits? Learn more about music by investigating music programs on My Colleges and Careers.

If you don’t own any Mozart, no worries. Thanks to the internet, baroque music can be streamed for free on Pandora Internet Radio.

And the next time you can’t think straight, turn on some baroque music and let us know how it works out.

With online masters degrees recognized as equally credible as a conventional masters degree, here are additional tangible benefits attached to choosing an online masters degree.

• Benefit of an Online Masters Degree #1: Flexibility. For busy professionals actively involved in their careers, an online masters degree allows students the flexibility of working at their own pace.
• Benefit of an Online Masters Degree #2: Go Green. Individuals pursuing an online masters degree can cut down on commuting, greenhouse gases, and paper consumption with online textbooks. This additional time and funds students save can be reallocated towards their education.
• Benefit of an Online Masters Degree #3: Accessibility. Instead of needing to be on campus, students can access their online masters degree studies anywhere they have internet access. Thanks to broadband, students can access high-speed internet while on the go, providing virtually limitless learning opportunities.
• Benefit of an Online Masters Degree #4: Freedom. Instead of being locked into a five-day-a-week school schedule, students have the freedom to study at their leisure and make time for the important things in life.
• Benefit of an Online Masters Degree #5: Safer. Remember the Virginia Tech massacre that claimed 33 lives? Students earning an online degree are out of harm’s way in the devastating event of a school shooting.

Professionals with a masters degree increase their earning potential and marketability. What are you waiting for? Start your online masters degree today!

On Saturday, a 3-year-old cat from Great Falls, Montana received the Purple Paw Award for saving the lives of her owners Trudy and Greg Guy.

In October 2007, the 6-month old kitten Schnautzie seemed aware of the dangerous gas leak and climbed on Trudy’s chest during the night, waking her up. Trudy reports, “[Schnautzie] would pat me on my nose with her foot … and then sniff the air like a dog.” Because her cat had never exhibited this type of behavior before, Trudy took notice. “It was bothering me … I knew something wasn’t right.”

As Trudy went to investigate, she heard a roaring sound in the bathroom and upon closer inspection, found that a gas pipe had broken above the shut-off valve, piping unregulated gas into the house. Responding firefighters told the Guys that had the furnace kicked on, the house could have blown up.

“The goal of the Purple Paw award is to find an animal who, in a very special way, shows the human-animal bond,” says Animal Foundation’s Sally Cerny. “There’s no more special way to show that than to save your family.” The Purple Paw was awarded at the Great Falls Animal Foundation at their annual Fur Ball on Saturday.

For animals with a sixth sense like Schnautzie, veterinarians play an important role in preserving their health and wellness. If you love animals and enjoy working with them, consider a career as a veterinarian. Save the life of an animal and you may save the lives of your fellow man.