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Transgender people born in New York state, with the exception of New York City, will no longer have to prove that they have had sex-reassignment surgery to change the sex marked on their birth certificate, Governor Andrew Cuomo's office said on Thursday. About 100 people a year seek to change the sex on their birth certificate in New York state, according to the office of the governor, who is a Democrat. New York City has a separate records system from the rest of the state and still requires proof of surgery for such a change. Under the policy, a transgender person will still need to provide a notarized affidavit from the doctor treating them for what the American Psychiatric Association calls gender dysphoria, previously known as gender identity disorder, in order to get their birth certificate modified. But under the policy the doctor will no longer need to affirm that their patient has had surgery, only that they are receiving "appropriate treatment." Transgende

The number of U.S. fathers staying at home nearly doubled since the late 1980s, led by a sharp rise in child care by dads, a report on Thursday showed. High joblessness during the 2007-2009 recession helped boost the number of stay-at-home dads to 2 million in 2012, up from 1.1 million in 1989, the report by the Pew Research Center said. Almost a quarter of those fathers said they were at home because they could find a job. But 21 percent were mainly staying home to care for family, a fourfold increase from 1989, the Pew report showed. Senior researcher Gretchen Livingston said the findings underscored experts' belief that gender roles between men and women were converging, with men taking on more caregiving tasks and women increasingly breadwinners. "This increase in the number and share of stay-at-home dads would certainly fit with that," she said.One sign of convergence is that the amount of time that fathers are spending with their children has tripled since the

Reclining on a beach chair outside the U.S. Supreme Court, Delaware lawyer Brian Zulberti doesn't look like a man on a do-or-die mission to transform Internet privacy. But even as he chats with passersby and taps a laptop, Zulberti, 31, is deep into a hunger strike aimed at keeping people from getting fired for what they post on social media. Zulberti, who has not eaten since Sunday, said on Thursday he would go without food until he got 90 primetime seconds on a major television network to lay out his case for wide-open social media. "Nothing less than (CNN anchors) Anderson Cooper or Wolf Blitzer, nothing less. Until I get 90 seconds of that, I die right here. This isn't a game, you know," he said.. Zulberti contends privacy is on its way out and employers need to get used to knowing everything about their workers, the good and bad. He said people should not be discriminated against because of what they post on social media, such as being fired for putting

An architect for the proposed Eisenhower Memorial in Washington pledged on Thursday to deliver a new design to District of Columbia planners at their next meeting in July after the original plan was rejected two months ago. The design turned down by the National Capital Planning Commission on April 3 was criticized as being too big and inappropriate for a site near the U.S. Capitol building. The architectural design team - headed by famed architect Frank Gehry - is working on new ideas to respond to criticisms from the planning commission, said Dan Feil, executive architect of the Dwight D. Eisenhower Memorial Commission. "They have not yet reached a consensus," he told a hearing of the planning commission. "It's a difficult thing to try to figure out." The original design for the memorial to the 34th president and World War Two general included bas relief sculptures of Eisenhower working on legislation and speaking to troops on D-Day. Between the sculptur

World leaders and veterans gather by the beaches of Normandy on Friday to mark the 70th anniversary of the Allied D-Day landings that helped turn the tables in World War Two, with host France hoping the event will bring a thaw in the class="mandelbrot_refrag"> Ukraine crisis. Wreaths, parades, parachute-landings and fireworks will be staged in honor of history's largest amphibian assault on June 6, 1944 when 160,000 U.S., British and Canadian troops waded ashore to confront Nazi Germany's forces, hastening its defeat. French President Francois Hollande will be joined at the commemorations by 17 leaders including U.S. President class="mandelbrot_refrag"> Barack Obama , Britain's David Cameron, Canada's Stephen Harper, Germany's Angela Merkel and Vladimir Putin of Russia.   true       But while the unity of allies and their bloody sacrifices will be the big theme of the D-Day remembrance, the government leaders will be sounding each o

Sao Paulo is bigger and the capital moved to Brasília 54 years ago, but Rio de Janeiro, with its white beaches, blue ocean and jungle-covered mountains, is still the place that comes to mind when people think of class="mandelbrot_refrag"> Brazil . Home to samba and Carnival, bossa nova and modern architecture, imperial palaces and shantytowns, notorious drug gangs and world-renowned telenovellas, the 448-year-old harbor city is a microcosm of Latin America's largest country. Soccer fans coming to Rio for the World Cup will be too late for the city's famed Carnival bash, but they'll also miss the energy-sapping Southern Hemisphere summer heat. Rio's legendary Maracana stadium will host seven World Cup games: class="mandelbrot_refrag"> Argentina vs Bosnia and Herzegovina; defending champion class="mandelbrot_refrag"> Spain vs Chile; Belgium vs Russia; Ecuador vs class="mandelbrot_refrag"> France , a round of

Visitors to a California university garden now have the chance to see a large, exotic plant showing off its once-in-a-century blossoming, garden officials said. The plant, a Puya raimondii also known as the Queen of the Andes, is blooming at the University of California Botanical Garden in Berkeley, California. The rare bloom usually happens only once every 80-100 years in the wild, but the university's plant is flowering just 24 years after it was planted. This will mark the second Puya blooming at the Berkeley gardens. The first, which occurred in the late 1980s, attracted thousands of visitors, a garden spokeswoman said in a statement on Tuesday. At its base, the tall, green plant looks like the head of a palm tree. At its center, a large cactus-like stalk shoots out from the fronds and is about the size and shape of a surfboard. The plant is pollinated by a variety of birds at the gardens and is expected to grow up to 30 feet (9.1 meters) tall and produce up to 30,000