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After three armed home invasions and a car theft, police in Greenfield, MN finally found and arrested the man responsible, who was hiding in a shed.

According to NBC affiliate TMJ 4, the unidentified man first broke into a home in the 440 block of South 50th Street, threatened the homeowner with a gun, and stole a car, which he crashed into a tree a short distance away.

“He had the gun in his hand. As he turned and changed directions, that’s when I saw the gun,” said a neighbor who witnessed incident told TMJ 4. “[He said to me] ‘get back in the house.'”

After crashing the vehicle, the perpetrator fled the scene and broke into another home in the 4300 block of South 47th Street, where he attempted a car jacking. He then broke into yet another home before hiding from police in a shed.

A shed is usually a one-story structure in a garden or on a property for the purpose of hobbying or storing bulky items, but they could actually end up serving as a refuge for fleeing criminals.

The incident in Greenfield isn’t the only recent case of an armed criminal using a shed as a hiding place from the police. According to the Ledger-Enquirer, two men were arrested after a home invasion and burglary in Columbus, OH.

Two men, William Benny Ewing, 42, and Keenen Markie Coty, 22, entered the home of Charlene Tolbert around 6:30 am. One pointed at her with a gun and motioned for her to lay on the floor.

“I figured he wanted me to get down,” Tolbert told The Ledger-Enquirer.

Tolbert was later found still on the floor, bound with zip ties, and a coat thrown over her head. Tolbert’s son, who arrived to pick her up that morning struggled with the men before they fled the home. Ewing was found in another home, but Coty was hiding in a shed in the backyard on the property.

Both men face an array of charges: aggravated assault, burglary, home invasion, kidnapping, false imprisonment, and others.

Winter is in full swing, with many parts of the country experiencing frigid temperatures, snow, and ice. Despite the cold, however, there are plenty of steps that homeowners can take to prepare their homes for the worst of the winter season — even starting right now.

Part of staying warm in the winter has to do with the house itself. When evaluating a home’s winter preparedness, it’s best to think from top to bottom — the roof all the way to the basement.

The first step is checking the insulation in the attic. Because heat loss can occur if a roof isn’t properly insulated, homeowners should make sure they are using the minimum R-value insulation for their climate (e.g. R-49 in Northern states).

Windows should be next on the checklist. Although they can provide daylight, ventilation, and heat from the sun, they can also let heat out during the winter and potentially raise a heating bill by as much as 10% to 25%.

There are a few options that homeowners can use to combat this heat loss. One would be to install new windows entirely, but another may involve glass replacement instead.

Most high-efficiency windows are at least double paned and have what is known as low emissivity, or low-e. This advanced window coating helps homes retain their heat in the cold months and keep it out in the summer, and it can also protect carpets and furniture from discoloration due to ultraviolet sunlight.

If replacing the windows or window glass isn’t an option, homeowners can also use a window-insulating kit. These kits contain a clear plastic film that can help reduce drafts and save energy.

Homeowners should also check the seals around windows and other “gaps” in the home, such as those around pipes, wires, TV cables and bathroom and dryer vents. These can easily be filled with a foam sealant spray.

Finally, it may be necessary for some homeowners to take a look at their furnaces. Getting an inspection on an HVAC unit is a must, especially if that furnace is more than a few years old.

Now may also be the perfect time to upgrade to an Energy Star model, which will not only help save money on a heating bill but also gives homeowners a tax advantage backed by a government program, too.

Taking care of the furnace by changing the filters regularly will let homeowners get the most out of their heating. When the furnace is in good working order, most homeowners won’t need to blast the heat to stay warm.

While home, most people can get away with setting the temperature at 68 degrees. Lowering that temperature while sleeping or away from home will save on a heating bill; this can be done manually or by using a programmable thermostat that will turn the heat down automatically when it’s not needed.

Taking these simple steps to prepare for winter will ensure a lower heating bill and more comfort during the coldest months of the year.

A new federal study has revealed that electronic cigarette use — commonly called vaping — is increasing among children and teens. The implications of the results are being met with mixed reactions among experts.

While e-cigarette use has increased, however, daily cigarette smoking has decreased among all school grades when compared to five years ago. The report found that the number of eighth graders smoking decreased from 2.7% to 1.4%; for 10th graders, the number fell from 6.3% to 3.2%.

High school seniors saw some of the most dramatic decreases in that time, from 11.2% smoking daily five years ago to 8.5% last year — and now down to 6.7% this year.

But one set of numbers is going up: the percentage of teens who have tried e-cigarettes.

The same survey discovered that 17% of high school seniors used an e-cigarette in the last month; only 13.6% have smoked a tobacco cigarette.

Meanwhile, 16% of 10th graders reported using e-cigs while only 7% smoked cigarettes in the last month, and while just 4% of eighth graders had smoked a cigarette, more than double (8.7%) had used an e-cig in that same time.

Although e-cigs were technically invented in the 1960s, they didn’t become popular until about a decade ago. And that popularity, which took off in 2007, coincides with the gradual decreases in smoking among both teens and adults.

Their usage among former smokers has risen by the millions in recent years, but vaping has also caught on among the under-18 set, too, despite e-cigarette sales to minors being illegal in most states.

But the health effects of vaping are still widely debated. In a chicken vs. egg-style debate, the Journal of the American Medical Association has argued that even though smoking is often replaced by vaping, some who try vaping first could begin using tobacco later. Earlier this year, the organization claimed that “e-cigarette use is aggravating rather than ameliorating the tobacco epidemic among youths.”

Lloyd D. Johnston, Ph.D., from the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan, commented that the data from the study is concerning. “It would be a tragedy if this product undid some of the great progress made to date in reducing cigarette smoking by teens,” he said in the original study.

But from an economic standpoint, Tim Worstall, writing for Forbes, said that vaping is “the most successful smoking cessation project any one has as yet invented,” with no other product halving teen smoking rates in just five years. This, he said, “means that we really shouldn’t be putting roadblocks in front of further adoption of the technology.”

For many veterans who return home with life-altering injuries and disabilities, the idea of completing a home remodeling project is out of the question.

That’s why charities, donors and organizations across the country are helping veterans remodel their homes this holiday season.

One of these veterans is Army Ranger Cory Remsburg, who was injured by a roadside bomb while serving in Afghanistan in 2009 and is now partially paralyzed. The nonprofit Lead The Way Fund, along with NFL player Jared Allen’s Homes For Wounded Warriors charity, is installing a number of features in Remsburg’s home to make it more suited to his unique needs.

According to AZCentral.com, Remsburg’s remodeled home will have features like a wheel-in pool, a spa and an in-house gym that will allow Remsburg to continue his rehabilitation in the comfort of his own home. Remsburg’s caretaker will also be able to live in a separate guesthouse the charities are building on the property.

James Island, SC, resident Scott Petrie is another veteran whose home will get an upgrade for the holidays. After a life-changing injury that left him with permanent nerve damage, Petrie is unable to repair or remodel his home on his own, according to a Mt. Pleasant News 2 article.

Operation Homefront, an organization that works to help wounded veterans and their families, will be providing $70,000 and $80,000 worth of home repair and remodeling work for Petrie and his family — for no charge.

Planned upgrades include a hardwood floor replacement, which will add to the home’s aesthetic appeal as well as its property value, along with a newly paved driveway that is easier for Petrie to walk on. News 2 reports that Operation Homefront will also be installing new cabinets, landscape and deck work, new carpets, converting the garage into a ground-floor master suite and more.

Petrie and Remsburg are just two of the many former military members who will receive a holiday gift that makes living with their injuries easier and more convenient this holiday season. Across the country, countless veterans will be able to live more independently and be more at-ease in their own homes — a Christmas gift that keeps on giving.

Wisconsin’s open enrollment program violates federal disability laws, alleges a lawsuit filed last week in the Madison U.S. District Court.

Three families of children with special needs are arguing that it is unconstitutional for the program, which permits parents to enroll children in schools located outside their home districts, to allow school districts to reject students with disabilities. The lawsuit is being brought by the conservative Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty against the Department of Public Instruction, State Superintendent Tony Evers and three separate school districts.

“There’s an additional set of limitations imposed on families of children with special needs that’s interfering with their ability to exercise the freedom of choice available to everybody else,” Rick Esenberg, WILL president, told Watchdog in a Nov. 24 article.

The lawsuit also states that it is discriminatory for schools to be allowed to set quotas of how many disabled and non-disabled students to accept each year, violating the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Legal History

The law, which was intended to give parents greater control over educational choices for their children, was passed in 2011 by the Republican-controlled state legislature and approved by Gov. Scott Walker. It first came into effect in 2012.

The families for whom WILL is filing the lawsuit have indicated three desired outcomes: that the law be ruled unconstitutional, that schools be blocked from enforcing discriminatory measures and that damages be paid in an unspecified amount.

Disabilities range widely, and the families bringing the lawsuits are referred to only by their initials because the students in question are minors. In adults, lower back pain is actually the leading cause of disability, and the American Chiropractic Association estimates that 31 million Americans suffer from this debilitating pain at any given time.

But it seems clear that the concern over the open enrollment law is directed at learning, as well as physical, disabilities.

Financial Concerns

The rationale behind the law’s treatment of special needs students is that accepting them could cause an “undue financial burden” for some districts.

But according to Esenberg, “There should never be any undue financial burden the way the system works.” This is because any district that incurs additional expense in educating a student is supposed to be able to get those funds from the student’s home district.

But 42% of special education students who attempted to transfer into new districts in the 2012-13 open enrollment period were rejected, the most common reason given by districts being the “undue financial burden” loophole.

School officials have declined to comment on the lawsuit, but have argued that proposed budgetary changes submitted in early November would alleviate concerns over funding, leading to more options for special needs students and their families.

Esenberg said the goal is simply “to come to a resolution where these families have the same freedoms that everyone else has to try to move their children to a public school [that] will better serve their needs.”

Once upon a time, caffeine was just another ingredient in coffee, and being allowed to have a cup after dinner was a privilege and a bit of an adolescent milestone. But if recent news reports are any indication, America’s caffeine consumption isn’t just becoming popular with younger kids and teens — it’s turning into a trend that’s actually very, very dangerous.

Recent reports by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) have noted that pure caffeine powder is becoming one of the top methods of caffeine consumption, and that this powder is dangerous enough to lead to death.

The FDA released a consumer warning in July 2014 warning about the dangers of caffeine powder, following the deaths of 18-year-old Logan Stiner in May and 24-year-old Wade Sweatt in June, both of whom consumed fatal amounts of caffeine powder.

In its powdered form, caffeine is incredibly potent, and can lead to a variety of side effects, which may even be fatal. The powder is fairly easy to buy online, and like many drugs sold on the web through “online pharmacies,” it isn’t approved — or even regulated — by the FDA. Nevertheless, as the Wall Street Journal notes, powdered caffeine is still legal, and is even sold on Amazon for about $10 per 8 oz. of powder.

As Robert Herriman explains in a Global Dispatch article, just one teaspoon of caffeine powder is equal to about 25 cups of coffee. Whereas an extra espresso shot or two might give someone the jitters and a pounding heartbeat, ingesting too much pure caffeine can produce heart palpitations, seizures, vomiting, diarrhea, disorientation, and possibly even death.

In light of this year’s fatalities, the FDA has renewed its efforts to educate the public about the dangers of this drug. At the beginning of December, a health advocacy group petitioned the FDA to ban sales of pure caffeine; just recently, the Director of the FDA’s Center for Food Safety wrote a blog post on the agency’s website giving even greater insight into the dangers of the substance.

Even though these caffeine-related deaths occurred months ago, and even though it’s disconcerting to some that the FDA hasn’t moved faster on this issue, it’s certainly a good sign that the public is starting to listen to the FDA’s warnings.

Flu season has been well under way in the U.S. for a couple months now, but according to recent reports from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), this year’s flu strain is a little bit different — and a little more dangerous — than strains in previous years.

The flu tends to be a bit unpredictable from year to year, and because so many patients only have minor symptoms when they catch the virus, many instances of infection go unreported, thus making it difficult for researchers to know just how dangerous it is each year. In fact, experts note that anywhere from 5-20% of Americans could come down with the flu each year, meaning that anywhere between 3,000 and 49,000 Americans are infected annually.

Now that the 2014-2015 flu season is in full swing, researchers have been able to get a better idea of just how serious it will be. The Washington Post recently reported that this season’s flu strain has claimed five young victims already and has put an unusually large number of patients in the hospital.

The Post also notes that two particular anti-viral medicines in flu vaccines — oseltamivir (Tamiflu) and zanamivir (Relenza) — are expected to be particularly important in combating the flu this year.

But as CDC Director Thomas Frieden has noted, only about one in every six Americans has received a vaccine this year, and experts are more than a little worried about that statistic.

Certain groups of people are more likely to get the flu than others, including children, the elderly, and pregnant women. In past years when vaccines have been scarce, these groups were targeted first to receive vaccines. But now that plenty of vaccines are available, and they’re more affordable than ever before, medical experts are worried that Americans aren’t taking the flu seriously enough.

As USA Today reporter Liz Szabo notes, flu vaccines don’t necessarily prevent the flu, but they do give immune systems an extra boost, and they make the symptoms milder and shorter in the event a person does contract the virus.

Perhaps, however, so much uncertainty regarding the effectiveness of vaccines is enough to convince people outside of the extra-vulnerable age groups that they can fight the virus well enough on their own. Unfortunately, researchers will probably only be able to answer this question for certain after this flu season has ended — and if this year’s strain is as dangerous as predicted, that might be too late for too many Americans.

Since June, global oil prices have fallen an incredible 40%.

Much of this can be attributed to the U.S. oil industry, which has ramped up crude oil production since 2008 and poured an extra four million barrels into the global oil supply, Bloomberg reported in a December 3 article. In addition, OPEC has largely decided to not cut production, meaning the world now has much more oil on hand than it actually needs.

Another reason for this decline in global demand is the worldwide push toward cleaner, greener energy. According toBloomberg, green energy will receive nearly 60% of the predicted $5 trillion that will be invested in building new power plants throughout the next 10 years. Major economic powers like the U.S., China and the European Union are all pushing for more austere restrictions on greenhouse gases to help stimulate the shift toward renewable energy sources like solar and wind power.

But while lower oil prices could spell trouble for oil companies and countries whose economies largely depend upon oil drilling, it’s good news for homeowners when the price of oil and natural gas determines how much they’ll pay to heat their homes this winter. That’s because heating and cooling make up more than 50% of the average home’s energy costs.

In fact, the New Yorker reports that these falling prices could put $75 billion dollars back into Americans’ wallets and even add 0.4 points to the U.S. GDP in 2015. This seemingly small GDP growth would be the first time the U.S. economy has grown by more than 3% since 2005.

All these facts don’t even take into account the fact that gas prices will be cheaper, as well. For the average American, the fall in crude oil prices around the world is something to be very happy about.

It’s great news for the environment, as well — with energy developers headed toward the $250 billion mark for this year’s spending on wind, solar, geothermal power and more, the increasingly rapid adoption of green energy should help slow down climate change and reduce the amount of pollution entering ecosystems everywhere.